Nintendo is going after the development team of an emulator. A legal case was filed by Nintendo yesterday, alleging that the Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, has caused damages to the company by allowing for its games to be played illegally before release. The suit also claims that the company behind the emulator, Tropic Haze LLC, makes a profit by facilitating piracy, noting that during the leak of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Yuzu's Patreon saw a large increase in users. Nintendo's legal team makes a case that Tropic Haze profits from and popularizes video game piracy.

NEW: Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu, saying their tech illegally circumvents Nintendo's software encryption and facilitates piracy.
Seeks damages for alleged violations and a shutdown of the emulator. pic.twitter.com/SGZVI6Cs0x

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) February 27, 2024

In the legal document, Nintendo refers to an emulator as, "a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games". They also assert that the Yuzu team is aware of the emulator's use in the context of piracy, and do not try to hide that aspect. In addition, Nintendo's legal team states that extracting your own keys from a Nintendo Switch console--a requirement to run any Nintendo Switch emulator--is illegal.

Source

 

[MrSandstorm]

Unfortunately, that still puts the user in violation of the DMCA. Decrypting video games for personal use is unlawful.

If it's the user who's in violation, then the lawsuit should've been thrown away before any proceedings since they're suing the wrong party

 

[Lumstar]

If it's the user who's in violation, then the lawsuit should've been thrown away before any proceedings since they're suing the wrong party

Maybe so. Enforcing the DMCA verbatim is essentially impossible. They'd be dragging millions of john Does into court for peanuts.

 

[Rudy69]

The emulation itself is fine and perfectly legal

The patreon part is the issue here. I kinda agree though.

 

[chrisrlink]

Then they should sue us, the users.

oh i'm sure I'll go down fighting (resulting in a bodybag ofc) if they dare try no sane person would say this well i'm not sane in the least

 

[Foxi4]

Maybe so. Enforcing the DMCA verbatim is essentially impossible. They'd be dragging millions of john Does into court for peanuts.

That’s a Nintendo problem, not a Yuzu problem. Protecting their intellectual property and enforcing their intellectual property rights is their responsibility, they don’t get to punish an unrelated third party.

 

[Xzi]

If they want to sue somebody for the fact that early Switch units are exploitable, it should be Nvidia. Naturally, it'd be stupid to sue them after they provided the hardware for the best-selling game console of all time, but it's for that same reason that throwing a tantrum and suing anybody else is also stupid. Good luck proving monetary damages when the system being emulated sold more than ten times as many units as your previous one.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

This is the thread where everyone pretends Yuzu isn't used for piracy

 

[Kioku]

This is the thread where everyone pretends Yuzu isn't used for piracy

Emulation? Piracy? Noooooo.... Neverrrrr

 

[Xzi]

This is the thread where everyone pretends Yuzu isn't used for piracy

It's used to play Switch games, pirated or not. If Yuzu itself has no Nintendo-licensed code attached, however, they have no grounds for a lawsuit.

 

[MikaDubbz]

If your current gaming system can be easily and near flawlessly emulated, then I totally get why they'd actually sue the makers of said emulator.

I'm not really sure logistically how it will all play out, but I totally get the move. I'm sure if the PS5 could be so well emulated right now that Sony would be going after those guys too.

 

[unpaiktable]

I guess it's a matter of whether you own your hardware (and included software) or just own the hardware and a license to use the software that comes with it in a certain way.

But why would you need an LLC (Tropic Haze) to run an open source emulator project?

 

[Spidey_BR]

If only these companies released their documentation, if not their own SDKs to the public to support game preservation after their consoles end their shelf life.

 

[LightBeam]

If they want to sue somebody for the fact that early Switch units are exploitable, it should be Nvidia.

I would even say it's their own damn fault. They wanted to cheap out. The chip wasn't new and the entry point through rcm was already known even before we knew the Switch was coming out since the chip was used in the Nvidia Shield. Just took some guess work to use it.
They can only blame themselves, but I'm glad they fumbled on that part.




Honestly, it's pretty scary how they now think they can have a ground attacking an emulator. There will be a precedent to that.
I can see Yuzu launching some kind of crowdfund campaign to fund their legal defense ? Or maybe it'll just mean that devs will have to develop emulators without patreons. That's illegal if it's not on your free time !!

 

[ZeroT21]

If they want to sue somebody for the fact that early Switch units are exploitable, it should be Nvidia. Naturally, it'd be stupid to sue them after they provided the hardware for the best-selling game console of all time, but it's for that same reason that throwing a tantrum and suing anybody else is also stupid. Good luck proving monetary damages when the system being emulated sold more than ten times as many units as your previous one.

The previous one does not exist probably according to nintendo

 

[Lumstar]

That’s a Nintendo problem, not a Yuzu problem. Protecting their intellectual property and enforcing their intellectual property rights is their responsibility, they don’t get to punish an unrelated third party.

That doesn't change the material facts of this case. If Yuzu has the ability to decrypt games, it's not adhering to the DMCA.

 

[gnmmarechal]

Ngl the way they put it is infuriating and not really correct in putting the blame on Yuzu

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

That doesn't change the material facts of this case. If Yuzu has the ability to decrypt games, it's not adhering to the DMCA.

It doesn't until you yourself provide the keys like a lot of emulators no?

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

That doesn't change the material facts of this case. If Yuzu has the ability to decrypt games, it's not adhering to the DMCA.

It doesn't until you yourself provide the keys like a lot of emulators no?

 

[17hitcombooo]

you think yuzu will suffer financially from all of the legal fees?

 

[Lumstar]

Ngl the way they put it is infuriating and not really correct in putting the blame on Yuzu

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

It doesn't until you yourself provide the keys like a lot of emulators no?

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

It doesn't until you yourself provide the keys like a lot of emulators no?

I'm not a lawyer, but the US government says the following.

https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2000/
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

 

[Foxi4]

That doesn't change the material facts of this case. If Yuzu has the ability to decrypt games, it's not adhering to the DMCA.

Maybe. Maybe not. The DMCA features an interoperability exemption. Yuzu developers are welcome to reverse-engineer methods of decrypting software and sharing those methods so long as those methods are not in and out of themselves infringing on copyright. That’s why developers insist on clean room implementation. If decryption is necessary to achieve interoperability between the program in question and another program, it is permitted.

I'm not a lawyer, but the US government says the following.

https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2000/
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
(3) The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other than this section.
(4) For purposes of this subsection, the term “interoperability” means the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged.

 

[whitesword7]

I don’t think there’s any hope this time because of 2 points:
1. allow leaked game to be played before release
2. making money from patreon

point 1 makes a big difference because other emu like rpcs3 and cemu are old and its developed long after both consoles are dead, while yuzu just straight up let you play leaked game before release.