Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu - eviltoast

Nintendo’s full case filing


https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1762576284817768457/

"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.

Notes 1 million copies of Tears of the Kingdom downloaded prior to game’s release; says Yuzu’s Patreon support doubled during that time. Basically arguing that that is proof that Yuzu’s business model helps piracy flourish."

  • kadu@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    412
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I have a .zip containing the latest early access version of Yuzu, for Windows and Linux. It includes the emulator, all required decryption keys, the latest firmware for game compatibility, a tool to automatically download mods, and a convenient guide on how to acquire ROMs.

    I will forever distribute this .zip in a non-limited download link to anyone who asks me. Forever. You can PM me today and I’ll send it, you can PM me in 5 years and I’ll send it. Please feel free to do so. It’s not illegal to share where I live, so I’ll share. But do it via PMs, as to avoid causing trouble to the community.

    Again, forever. If you’re reading this in the future, unless I’m dead (my mental health is a bit shaky), I’m sending you a fully functional Yuzu pack.

    Have a nice day.

    • scarilog@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      47
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Hang in there, friend, there any many more Nintendo games coming that we must enjoy through piracy to stick it to Nintendo, don’t leave just yet.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      10 months ago

      Please on me this, and stay strong with the mental health. Seeking help is important and recognising you need it is the first step.

      • kadu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        10 months ago

        YuzuModDownloader will detect games in your library, check the built in repositories, download the mods and apply them automatically. Do keep in mind it enables all mods by default, so make sure to go to the game’s settings and disable the ones you don’t need.

        • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          Are these mods to improve things like stability and performance? I’ve found I can only use Yuzu to test out games because it’s impossible to put any real time into them due to crashes.

          • kadu@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            10 months ago

            Some allow you to enable better graphics than the native version, some can downgrade graphics to improve performance. Some remove framerate limits. Some are cheats, with infinite health and similar. It varies a lot, really.

            For example, with Tears of the Kingdom on a Steam Deck there are mods to make the game run at 16:10, with better performance, and better frame pacing at 30 FPS. If you’re running it on a PC, there are 60 FPS mods with improved draw distances and shadow resolution.

    • blurryeyes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      I had no interest on playing switch games, but I do have a problem with authority overstepping. I’ll help you stick it to the man and evangelize more people on the ways of the Corsair. Pm’ed

    • lamermann @lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      Hey man, hope your mental health improves. I’m not quite safe for myself without my anti depressants so I know how that goes.

      Keep your chin up.

    • Polysics@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      If you send me this (I pm’ed ya) I will be happy to keep this torch aflame as well.

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Pmed and also dropping in the comments for mental health solidarity. Here for you friendo ❤️

    • Alborlin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      Hello, I would be greatful if I can do what you said I can do.

      I strongly hope and wish you feel better.

      • kadu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        10 months ago

        Sorry, didn’t mean to create this impression. You’re correct - there are mirrors of the official GitHub, other sites hosting it, pre-built binaries being shared on Internet Archive and Discord. You can find Yuzu, and you can probably do so from websites you already know and trust. The keys and firmware are a bit harder for newcomers (which is why I include them in the pack), Google is filled with junk when you search for those, but if you’re already a member of certain communities or have a hacked Switch, you can obtain those easily too.

        But I do keep this updated pack that I use when a friend needs it or I happen to format a new PC. It’s already clean, already features the keys and firmware, and I know I can trust it (I built it after all hehe) so I might as well share. Maybe in the future Yuzu links will be harder to find or filled with crapware, mine will not. Maybe Yuzu will win the court case and be distributed on Steam… That’s great! I’ll probably still keep my pack, you never know with these things.

        I basically share everything I have, if somebody wants it. Rarely is my copy the only one or somehow special. I believe the single “rare to find” digital piece of media I own is an .iso backup of a brazilian CD-ROM child’s game. But seriously, I don’t attribute much thought to rarity or importance or my name when sharing these things, I just want people who want Yuzu to have Yuzu.

        • LucidNightmare@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Hey, Kadu! I was having the hardest time trying to find your comment on multiple apps after seeing it on the web version of Voyager. Now, after finding you, I can’t even DM you on any of the three that I use so I am resorting to commenting here in the hopes you’ll be able to see me and hopefully DM me the link for your zip! If you do see this, thank you so freaking much, and I and many other really appreciate you doing this solid! 😁

  • CALIGVLA@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    202
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    10 months ago

    God I hate Nintendo, I hate them so goddamn much it’s impossible to find words to express myself.

    • wintermutehal@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      52
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      There are so many things that add up over time. I wouldn’t say I hate them just yet, but I‘be stopped buying their products. The way they go about their business just rubs me the wrong way. If the only way to try to communicate that is disengaging from any of their offerings, be it games or the new switch. Yea, I’m out.

    • Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      41
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      I feel the same. They are really disgusting , greedy and shitty company. I would not spend a single cent on their products.

      • Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Coz they’re assholes.

        sues emulator-devs - but puts old roms onto their own products (mini nintendo etc. contained roms that “pirates” had distributed online for years)

        never lowers the prices of their games

        sues everyone left and right - like Palworld-developers

        They issue takedowns on youtube channels for including nintendo game-music or gameplay

        and probably more reasons

      • Bone@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        23
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        This is an excellent comment! All these haters up in here but seldom few list why. I think it’s because their arguments wouldn’t hold up, so they don’t voice them. Just pure rage (useless)

        • Zoot@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Funny how OP just explained above you, and id wager a good chunk of us feel the way he does. The real question is, why would you condone their actions?

          • Bone@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            18
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            I don’t condone anything necessary. What I do do is I buy their games, play them on their systems, and have fun. I see you guys in here talking about pirating their games, not having fun, and not buying shit. What, I should condone that?! Get out of here.

            • Zoot@reddthat.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              16
              ·
              10 months ago

              This is a thread about Nintendo suing a completely legal Emulator. I do believe you’re the one who should “get out of here”, if you’re going to say Nintendo has every right to do this, when everyone else here disagrees.

          • Bone@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            17
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            OP of the comment I replied to explained nothing. So I don’t know what you’re talking about, unless you’re just making stuff up. Their comment was nothing but pure rage, and it got a lot of support, much of which couldn’t explain their rage either.

            Edit: I see a comment above mine, but when I made my reply there were no other comments. Same time.

            • CALIGVLA@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              If you have more than a couple of neurons you don’t need me to explain why I hate Nintendo, unless you’re a corporate bootlicker who thinks Nintendo can do no wrong. If you really can’t fathom why anyone would hate them, then all you gotta do is Google “Nintendo anticonsumer” and you’ll have reading material for the whole week.

  • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    130
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    the funniest shit about the paperowrk is that nintendo indirectly says nintendo is doing illegal work because they claim a video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published for a specific console on a general purpose device.

    they either have to say NSO/Nes/Snes classic are not emulation, or admit their definition of emulators is not the universally accepted definition of it, else Nintendo just Claimed Nintendo is serving up and charging for an unlawful service that is NSO.

        • schmidtster@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          22
          ·
          10 months ago

          That’s a funny one too me, because they are the original source when you dig your way down, so how are they doing anything wrong there?

          Yeah it’s someone else’s work… which isn’t there’s anyways… so isn’t it always nintendos then?

            • schmidtster@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              10
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              It’s illegal if you don’t own the rom or decoded it with their keys. If you have the physical copy of the game, and a way to decrypt it, it’s not illegal to play the rom on an emulator.

              So it’s not illegal, it becomes illegal when you don’t have the physical copy, or decode it with their stuff.

        • Atemu@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          That’s rather clear evidence that they dumped their own ROM and distributed that. Since they own the rights to that ROM, they’re not distributing it illegally though. They can dump and distribute their ROMs all they want; they own the rights to them.

          • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            I’m no legal expert but Nintendo’s argument seems to surround a video game emulator being a tool whose primary use is to facilitate illegal circumvention of DRM and piracy. Nintendo’s use of emulation for a legal means to resell their games on another platform, could suggest otherwise. The possible use of a ROM illegally distributed by a 3rd party as inputs in a legitimate Nintendo emulator (though Nintendo denies this) could help separate the issues between ROMs and emulation, because Nintendo’s emulator isn’t used for piracy.

            Nintendo could use a copy of the freely available Yuzu to emulate Switch games on their rumored Switch 2, if they were so inclined, and it would be a legitimate use case.

        • Mango@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          I cannot even come up with a way to express how goddamn hilarious that is!!

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      I really want a real explanation on how I’ve caused Nintendo financial harm by format shifting my legally owned games. Especially considering I pay for NSO. At some point there has to be precedent that a pirated download does not equal a lost sale and that the individuals are responsible for the infringement and not the tools.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      58
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      They could have sold 19 million copies though. Won’t someone think of the billion dollar corporations?

      • PineRune@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        42
        ·
        10 months ago

        I feel like a large number of the people pirating wouldn’t have bought the game even if it was their only option. Then there’s people who pirated and bought the game both. Unrealized profit is not the same as losing money.

        • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          10 months ago

          But the IP lobby sucessfully got that idea to the courts. In my country if you are caught torrenting a series episode just for 10 seconds, the courts accept the idea, that you spread like a hundred copies of the IP to people who would have definetely bought it otherwise, so you now owe the IP holder 1000 €.

          It is complete horseshit

        • caut_R@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          10 months ago

          I think the majority of these is people just downloading it to see if it works for 2 hours and never touch it again lol

        • yamanii@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Yeah I don’t have a switch, and I’m not about to start it when the second one is near us.

      • woodgen@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        I wouldn’t have bought the stuff I pirated If I couldn’t have pirate it.

  • bozo@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    89
    ·
    10 months ago

    What’s more, is that from these passages, it sounds like Nintendo even wants backups of games you have lawfully purchased to constitute copyright violation and made illegal (because they have to bypass encryption, therefore violating DMCA). I’m not fluent in legalese though, so correct me if I’m misinterpreting:

    • evranch@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      56
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      These passages imply the writers of them lack basic computer literacy and don’t even understand Nintendo’s own systems.

      • “copied the game ROMs into Yuzu” Yuzu is not a VM or other container and the ROMs are simply stored on disk in their original dumped form… Yuzu doesn’t “store” or “contain” any games.

      • “any copy not on an authorized cartridge” LOL! What about games downloaded from your own digital marketplace, then?

      What about a game you downloaded from Nintendo eShop and stored on an external SD card, which is a standard and well supported storage method on Switch? Is that SD card an “authorized cartridge”?

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        The authorized cartridge thing would hopefully be ignored due to several other times Nintendo tried to stop developers like Tengen from bypassing their licensing system and developing their own carts for the NES (you know those weird ones that were usually blue or black? Those were “illegal” in Nintendo’s eyes but they lost every single case they took against them to try and stop them from being made).

      • Atemu@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        “copied the game ROMs into Yuzu” Yuzu is not a VM or other container and the ROMs are simply stored on disk in their original dumped form… Yuzu doesn’t “store” or “contain” any games.

        ROMs are indeed copied “into Yuzu”. They must be loaded into Yuzu’s memory in order for Yuzu to execute their code or render their assets. In copyright law, even loading something to memory constitutes a “copy”.

        Also, almost every emulator is a VM; do you think those ARM instructions are running on your x86 processor and its desktop OS kernel natively?

        • evranch@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          I thought Yuzu was actually a dynamic recompiler? I remember this practice started in the days of N64 emulation, and these tools are more like debuggers than like VMs. So in this case, ROMs may only be copied “into Yuzu” byte by byte, not stored as a block in memory. At this point it’s really semantics, but that’s what the lawyers are supposed to figure out, right?

          Unlike older emulators, Switch emulators don’t even support saving the emulator state, and their savegame data is stored right on the native filesystem. I believe they are actually more like Wine, and remember, Wine Is Not an Emulator.

          • badabim@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            10 months ago

            Yuzu does recompile some parts during runtime by using a JIT, but the rest is still emulated.

            You can’t compare them to Wine, since Wine acts as a compatibility layer by translating OS specific calls, but it does not translate between instruction sets.

            • evranch@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              Thanks for clarifying, I only have a casual knowledge of Yuzu internals and had been led to believe the ARM was translated rather than emulated.

              The performance is honestly incredible for software emulating a different instruction set.

      • ADTJ@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        10 months ago

        It says “not on an authorized cartridge or console”, the latter would cover legitimately downloaded games. Agree on the other points though.

    • the16bitgamer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      10 months ago

      Ah corporate Lawyer BS, pointing out what they want to be true and not pointing out the other. ROMs are legal under existing Copywrite laws under archival laws in the USA (117) and backup laws in Canada (29.24). The Americans have a bit more of a restricted way of using their archives, but that’s not needs to be argued here, as it appears that Nintendo is blaming Yuzu for actions of the general consumer. It’ll be like blaming your Network provider for allowing a user to download a movie, both legally and illegally, thus they should be punished for both actions.

      I also love that Nintendo isn’t not stating it’s illegal here, just that it’s infringing because it’s not authorized.

      • captain_oni@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        10 months ago

        It’ll be like blaming your Network provider for allowing a user to download a movie

        Which, by the way it was recently ruled in the US that ISPs can’t be punished for that. article source

      • echo64@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Nintendo is blaming Yuzu for actions of the general consumer

        If you read the dmca, that’s something you can do. Making tools that enable others to break copyright protection is specifically disallowed. Which is why it’s one of the more insidious copyright laws

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          However, the thing is that Yuzu doesn’t do that. Yuzu doesn’t include any form of tooling that breaks encryption, facilitates ROM dumping or offer downloads of Nintendo Copyrighted software. They aren’t facilitating it, the user has to provide all of that chain of the emulation on their own. Hopefully this would be obvious to a judge.

          • Atemu@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            Yuzu doesn’t include any form of tooling that breaks encryption

            You cannot state that with certainty. That’s the problem.

            Yuzu does indeed include a method to use the Switch’s production keys (which you must dump yourself) to decrypt the games. Whether this constitutes effective DRM is not a question that can easily be answered and must be decided by a court on a case-by-case basis.
            This will be what the case will hinge on: Is Ninty’s scheme effective DRM?

            I would say no because symmetric encryption with a publicly known key may aswell be no encryption at all but that’s not my decision to make.

            They aren’t facilitating it, the user has to provide all of that chain of the emulation on their own.

            Um, no. The emulator is doing the decryption on its own. All the user does is provide the prod keys and unmodified ROM.

            • dustyData@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              Yuzu itself doesn’t provide tools to dump keys and Roms from the Switch. The user has to procure them, or the means to dump them, themselves. Thus Yuzu doesn’t facilitates DRM circumvention. The user has to solve that part on their own. They do provide guides for how to do it on their website. But Yuzu themselves don’t make or distribute the tooling, and Yuzu the software is incapable of doing it.

              • Atemu@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                The dumps are just that: Dumps; 1:1 copies.

                The tools don’t decrypt anything; that happens within Yuzu. Why else would users need to provide the prod keys to Yuzu?

                • dustyData@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  To dump the keys, third party tools rely on DRM circumventing sploits. You essentially have to hack your own device, certain versions of Switch and certain software updates are no longer susceptible. But it remains that Yuzu doesn’t do any of that. Those tools and sploits were developed by others.

          • echo64@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            it decrypts games using your console keys though? i’ve seen mention of that in their docs so i’m not sure, but yeah if it does that, it’s similar to things that decrypt blurays. feasibly against the dmca because of how broad the dmca is.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      10 months ago

      I remember a video of SomeOrdinaryGamers talking about a case where a company (I think it was Nintendo) was arguing that making a copy of games you own yourself should be illegal. The whole case was just that. Probably something from the last 4 months or so.

      Anyway, regarding 124, a judge with a working brain would say “There’s nothing here stating that it was Yuzu who allowed, or facilitated, anyone to obtain said reproductions.”

      1. The copies were not obtained through Yuzu. Yuzu is not a site where the roms are, or even links to any of them. Sure, it exists solely to emulate nintendo’s current hardware, but that’s not the problem.

      Sigh. If only law and justice worked based on factual evidence and logic, instead of interpretative contortionism…

  • Grangle1@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    ·
    10 months ago

    Don’t know how good a case Nintendo has here unless it can prove that Yuzu itself contains proprietary code that allows the ROMs to be played. If the decryption is being done on the ROMs’ end, then that’s just another reason to go after the ones dumping and distributing the ROMs. Nintendo couldn’t even substantially stop Dolphin, and Dolphin actually had a decryption key straight from Wii firmware in it. Good luck to them, but they’re likely going for the wrong legal target. Taking down what ROM sites they can (which would legally be a lot easier than the emulator makers) is just getting rid of drops in the ocean of the ROMs’ spread, but they’re the target Nintendo should be going after.

    • Kevin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      49
      ·
      10 months ago

      Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Yuzu has any proprietary code. Folks have to go to other websites to download the Switch firmware and keys needed to play games.

      • echo64@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        10 months ago

        That’s not really enough to be not in violation. For example, vlc can’t natively decrypt blurays. This is because both its not bundled with the decryption library nor the decryption keys. Vlc out of the box can not decrypt blurays.

        If yuzu can, if you provide some keys, eh that might be enough for them to win. It’s certainly not enough to push nintendo away. You unfortunately need to be extremely careful around the dmca stuff.

        • evranch@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          10 months ago

          You don’t just need to provide keys, but an entire firmware dump. Yuzu contains no executable Switch code AFAIK

          • echo64@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            Not claiming it does. It seems like it might have the tooling to break copyright enforcement if you give it the right keys is the problem.

        • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          It really depends on the kind of encryption being used. I’m pretty sure if it’s a common algorithm that logic does not stand.

    • kosanovskiy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      43
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      They don’t, they just want legal money drain u til they cave. Nintendo is abusive af.

    • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      31
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      DMCA § 1201 is the anti-circumvention clause. It makes it illegal to circumvent DRM, no copyrighted content reproduction needed.

      Yuzu may have defenses if they clean-room broke the encryption, but it’s a fight that will be difficult because the statute itself is unreasonable - essentially outlawing using knowledge to circumvent access controls. To those of us who know about this statute and its history in attempt to lock-down content, it’s a serious scumbag move because they may actually win. The statute is terrible and has been since it was enacted in 1998.

      They also seem to be asserting a secondary liability argument - i.e., the infringement of users is Yuzu’s responsibility because Yuzu allegedly facilitated piracy, or recklessly moved forwarded when it knew or had reason to know it would be used as such. This is harder to prove.

      Even if Nintendo doesn’t win the suit (but they may win it), they already “won” by filing because this will have a chilling effect on legitimate emulation.

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        10 months ago

        There are two things in conflict that apply to Dolphin, and in general to post-DRM console emulators:

        • It’s illegal to create or distribute a device which circumvents DRM.
        • It’s legal to ignore DMCA restrictions for the sole purpose of making things interoperable, like running software on machines it wasn’t originally created for when you’d be able to run it on the machine it was created for.

        The wording in the legislation is sufficiently vague that it’s not obvious whether it’s illegal to create or distribute a device that circumvents DRM for the sole purpose of interoperability. If a case goes to court, it could set a precedent that has to be applied in the future, or it could be settled out of court to avoid setting a precedent, and so far, there’s no case law setting a precedent.

        When Nintendo asked Valve not to allow Dolphin onto Steam, despite what some people were saying, the decryption key was known to be there, and the Dolphin team had legal advice that it was reasonable to expect that the interoperability exceptions had more power than the DRM circumvention restriction. The decryption key is a so-called illegal number, but these are probably not actually illegal, and you can see several examples on the Wikipedia page about them. Nintendo ended up taking no action against Dolphin, and it wouldn’t have been a good case to try and set a precedent with as there weren’t obvious damages now it’s been so long since the Wii stopped being sold, and because the Dolphin team have historically been so diligent about stamping out discussion of piracy in their official communities, making it hard to argue that it’s intended as a DRM circumvention device rather than an interoperability tool. Also, Dolphin’s never taken donations, easily covering all their costs with just basic ads on their site.

        Yuzu’s a bit of an easier target. For a start, it’s got a Patreon, and that makes it easier to paint its developers in a bad light as they’re getting money (as well as meaning there’s actual money to recover). They’ve also got data to back up the suggestion that lots and lots of Yuzu users are pirating games instead of just playing games they’ve already got a disk copy of. In a sensible world where laws are applied fairly, there’s an easy argument that hoops to jump through like requiring the user to provide Switch firmware show they’re not trying to make piracy easy, but it’s not like Yuzu will be able to muster up enough money for lawyers to match what Nintendo will be spending.

        The worst thing that could come out of this is a decision that interoperability isn’t an excuse for circumventing DRM under any circumstances, as that’ll have serious consequences for a bunch of other projects, and Nintendo are likely to want to push for this precedent to be set rather than accepting an out-of-court settlement. On the other hand, Nintendo could mess up and get the opposite precedent set, although if it looks like that’s going to happen, they’re likely to drop the suit.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      they basically have a weak argument because they claim yuzu gives you links to the tools to get the keys to enable piracy.

      • Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        indeed. they should sue fitgirl instead, who distributes an emulator, with an included rom and keys etc. ready to play

    • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      10 months ago

      Nope, you have to obtain the decryption keys yourself - I spent hours hunting around online for a set of console keys and firmware dump to get the emulator working on my steam deck.

      If you own a moddable switch you can dump the keys legally, but I don’t plan on doing that any time soon.

  • Epzillon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    10 months ago

    Typical Nintendo move. So sad to see Yuzu possibly going down this way. Even looks like Nintendo might win this one. I’m just gonna download the entire source from GitHub just in case.

    I wish this would just go full hydra mode if it goes down though. Start popping up new anonymous accounts releasing the source code everywhere.

    • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      55
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yuzu may go down, but Nintendo hasn’t learned the lessons of the Streisand effect and the hydra effect. The code is open source. 10 more projects will pop up the day after Yuzu goes down (IF it goes down.)

  • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    49
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    I sincerely hope that Yuzu developers don’t end up like Gary Bowser and have their income garnished for life by Nintendo.

    • Essence_of_Meh@kayb.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      As much as I dislike Nintendo and wish Yuzu devs all the best I’d like to point out that Bowser wasn’t some innocent guy who was caught by big bad company - Moonie has a video that goes into specifics about his involvement with a pirate enterprise worth a shitton of money.

      Other than that yeah, I hope they can survive this situation. I wonder if Ryujinx devs are next.

      • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        Isn’t moonie the dude who shit talked Karl Jobst and ended up deleting his video because Jobst called him out on how wrong he was on pretty much everything and how terrible his research was. Like literally just watched a couple YouTube videos level research? Don’t know if I can trust someone who would fuck up THAT bad. I get people make mistakes sometimes but that’s just complete negligence especially for someone with an audience that big.

        • Essence_of_Meh@kayb.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          No idea, I’m only familiar with some of his videos so can’t say one way or another. Is there any place I could read about it?

          Edit: Also, I believe the video I mentioned has links to specific legal documents surrounding this case so it should be easy to fact check. Still, I’m not trying to whitewash the situation you wrote about would love to learn more if it happened.

          Edit 2: A’ight, while I didn’t have time for a deep dive I did manage to confirm that situation happened.

          I sucks since the videos I’ve seen seemed reasonably researched and now I’m wondering whether that was a one-time screw up or a normal thing that simply wasn’t caught more often. Guess I’ll try to look into it more when I’m free.

          • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            The video by Karl Jobst himself on the matter is pretty informative and has proof to back up all of his claims. Iirc moonie also quoted legal statue and stuff on his video but was rebuked my Karl as well, don’t quote me on this though, I’ll have to rewatch that video to confirm. Here’s the link. Moonie did end up apologizing in the end and Karl did tell his viewers right off the back to not harass Moonie.

            If you like LONG form reasonably researched videos about all sorts of topics check out Hbomberguy. He’s great.

            • Essence_of_Meh@kayb.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              Iirc moonie also quoted legal statue and stuff on his video but was rebuked my Karl as well

              Yeah, that’s why I’m planning to look into whether that was a screw up or not, thanks for the link too.

              I’m familiar with HBG but it’s always good to mention him.

      • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        10 months ago

        He’s not innocent and went to jail for it, but does it warrant garnishing his income for life? I think they went too far with that.

        • Essence_of_Meh@kayb.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Oh no, I completely agree no one should be completely screwed over piracy. Just wanted to add some context as I saw a lot of discussion about him ending with “poor innocent dude” without digging into details. That’s all.

          Nintendo has a lot of problems that should absolutely be called out. I hope me trying to add more details didn’t imply otherwise.

      • yamanii@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        They are taking his income for life, that’s an insane overreach specially for a big successful company like Nintendo, and it didn’t matter since the actual team behind it is back selling flashcarts that are even better than having to solder a chip.

        • Essence_of_Meh@kayb.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          Yes, it is insane. That case is also a great showcase of how trying to make example out of a single guy doesn’t really work since, as you mentioned, rest of the team is still doing their thing.

          I’d like to think (well, hope anyway) that no one looks at Bowser’s story and thinks “yeah, that’s a reasonable conclusion”.

    • SuperDuper@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      63
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      “Fuck you, here’s a switch port for a Wii U game. It’s $15 more expensive than the original release because fuck you that’s why.”

      -Nintendo

    • ampersandrew@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      40
      ·
      10 months ago

      Maybe if emulating the game wasn’t often better than playing it on the only hardware the game is made for…

    • VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yup. I was in a second hand game shop (cex) a month or so ago and most switch games were only 10 quid cheaper than the e shop. Mario and legend of Zelda where something like 50 pounds. That’s because those games don’t actually drop in price either psychically or on the eShop much.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    43
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    10 months ago

    Booo! Nintendo sucks! This was decided 30 years ago. Emulation is not illegal.

    • s0ckpuppet@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah and none of the switch emulator stuff I’ve seen comes bundled with the firmware. You have to track that down separately or dump your own from your Switch.

      This sure looks like like a slapp suit to me.

    • echo64@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      19
      ·
      10 months ago

      It’s good we are all clear, nintendo isn’t arguing that. They are arguing a case about copyright infringement and being in violation of the dmca

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        It is not illegal to make copies of games you own and play them on an emulator. That is what was decided by the courts. Nintendo is trying to make that illegal.

        They’re using the DMCA to say that because Yuzu lets someone circumvent their encryption (which is illegal, but shouldn’t be), that’s the same as Yuzu circumventing their encryption.

        That’s basically like saying VLC should be illegal because it has the capability of copying a DVD.

        • Atemu@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          They’re using the DMCA to say that because Yuzu lets someone circumvent their encryption (which is illegal, but shouldn’t be), that’s the same as Yuzu circumventing their encryption.

          Yes, yes they are. That’s how the DMCA works. It’s mental.

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            That’s not how the DMCA works, or tons of other software would be illegal. It’s illegal to circumvent copy protection under the DMCA (something I wholeheartedly disagree with), but it’s not illegal to make something that can be used to circumvent copy protection.

            In fact, there are exemptions to that provision and one of them states that circumventing copy protection in order to play a video game using assistive technologies is legal.

            • Atemu@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              It’s illegal to circumvent copy protection under the DMCA (something I wholeheartedly disagree with), but it’s not illegal to make something that can be used to circumvent copy protection.

              It is explicitly illegal to produce any thing whose purpose it is to circumvent DRM:

              (1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—
              (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

              I’m telling you, that law is mental.

              In fact, there are exemptions to that provision and one of them states that circumventing copy protection in order to play a video game using assistive technologies is legal.

              Could you point that specific exception in the law? I can’t find it.

              Link for convenience: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-105publ304/pdf/PLAW-105publ304.pdf

              • hperrin@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                The exceptions are handled by the Library of Congress and go through a renewal process every three years. Here’s the one from 2021:

                https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-10-28/pdf/2021-23311.pdf

                The accessibility use exception is on the last page, middle of the page, paragraph labeled 21.

                It’s illegal to make something that’s sole purpose is to circumvent copyright. Yuzu does not have that sole purpose, and doesn’t include the code necessary (prod.keys) to even accomplish it.

                • Atemu@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  The actual text for reference:

                  Video games in the form of computer programs, embodied in lawfully acquired physical or downloaded formats, and operated on a general-purpose computer, where circumvention is undertaken solely for the purpose of allowing an individual with a physical disability to use software or hardware input methods other than a standard keyboard or mouse.

                  That explicitly only applies to physically disabled people. Yuzu is not specifically targetted at providing a different input method (at all) and certainly not solely for the physically disabled.

                  That exception is not relevant to this case.

        • echo64@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          They’re using the DMCA to say that because Yuzu lets someone circumvent their encryption (which is illegal, but shouldn’t be),

          Yes. That’s what I’m saying. That’s what I said.

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Yuzu is not infringing on their copyright, some of the users are. Sue the users.

                • echo64@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  (2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that— (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or © is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. (3) As used in this subsection— (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          10 months ago

          I love YUZU and it’s wonderful…

          …but if they didn’t have a Patreon they’d have a better stance

          • yamanii@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            You are being downvoted but reminder to everyone that the public Yuzu is way behind on updates and compatibility, they sell access to their most recent version via their patreon. Something that Ryujinx does not do, it purely is a donation and nothing more.

            • Atemu@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              10 months ago

              You can download and view the latest Yuzu source code for free and do practically whatever you want with it (GPLv3), including building and running it.

              What paying via Patreon provides you is access to early access builds of the software. You’re paying for the convenience of them compiling the latest version of the software for you.

              • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                10 months ago

                You can even get all the latest EA builds as .exe files on the Yuzu PineappleEA GitHub!

            • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              You can get all the latest Yuzu EA builds for free on their GitHub

              But the fact that they’re kinda “selling” access… wait, why exactly DO they “sell” access even? They might not have as much legal trouble if they didn’t do that.

    • ZeroMmX@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      67
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      Brother… Nintendo’s net income last year was 3.1 BILLION dollars. There is no “fighting Nintendo”.

      Let’s be real homie. Yuzu is done. Downvote me all you want after I post this.

      As much as we all love Yuzu, the dev’s had to have known this was coming.

      I don’t want to be one of those dudes that keeps harping on the “Nintendo should be FOR preserving old games”. We all know Nintendo will continue to kick down ANYONE so much as glancing in their I.P. 's general direction.

      Nintendo does what you Nintendon’t want. Always.

      Extreme capitalism stifles and suffocates innovation and preservation.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        10 months ago

        They didn’t expect it to happen because of all of the landmark rulings in the past that emulators are inherently not illegal unless they provide bios to the end user. The only reason why Nintendo is acting now instead of years ago when Yuzu first hit the scene is because it’s in basically a fully working state now and they somehow verified that 1,000,000 people downloaded TOTK. I suspect far more copies of BOTW and Mario Odyssey were downloaded prior.

        • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          24
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          The thing is whatever beef they might rightfully have with 1,000,000 people pirating TotK, it’s not the emulator who’s to blame. The ones who distributed pirated copies are. They are trying to pin it entirely on the wrong group, out of convenience/intimidation.

          This is like suing a motorcycle company because a thief used one as a getaway vehicle.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            I believe the issue is that Yuzu was patched to support TotK before TotK was released, which could suggest having used some proprietary code, or at least stuff that the devs shouldn’t have had access to.

            They could also make the argument that very few people would’ve downloaded the game if the emulator didn’t exist or at least wasn’t being patched to support a game before it releases.

            They definitely didn’t lose 1,000,000 sales. At the same time, I feel like it kind of crosses a line to be pirating a game before it’s even supposed to be sold in stores.

            • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              I’ve heard people saying just the opposite. It couldn’t run TotK before official release, and whoever made it run had to modify it independently (because it’s an open source project)

              Arguing that people wouldn’t have downloaded it if not for the emulator, not only once again assigns blame to the wrong party (“if they didn’t have motorcycles to get away they might not have stolen it”), but it overlooks that there are modded Switches that can run pirated copies too.

              Pirating stuff before it’s even out for sale is pretty sketchy, but Yuzu is not the one doing it. It simply lets people play copies they already have, including those they may have dumped themselves. Nintendo is encroaching on customer ownership rights by trying to argue even doing that is infringing.

              edit: Maybe my analogy is lacking because one might argue that they rely on the tool to make use of the illicitly acquired thing, which is not necessarily true for a motorcycle. But if we say instead “the bluray player is to blame that people shoplifted” or “the media player is to blame that people downloaded pirated movies”, then I believe it should be even more clear that they are accusing the wrong party.

              The only way for Nintendo’s reasoning to work is if they try to argue that not even someone who dumps their own roms and extracts their own keys from their own console ought to have the right to do it. Which would be disastrous for customer rights and preservation. Nintendo cannot be allowed to get away with that.

        • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          10 months ago

          I’ve said this before and I’ll say it now: I bet most of those 1,000,000 people would have never bought a copy of the game anyway.

          • dustyData@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Pretty much, piracy are never lost sales. Either the person is extremely passionate and loving of the product so they’ll buy it anyway regardless if they pirated it or not; or they were just tasting the flavor of the week and never intended to buy it under any circumstance; or they are extremely poor/their economy and context doesn’t allow them to access the product legitimately, so they wouldn’t be capable of buying it even if they wanted; or the product is not legitimately available anymore, so pirating is the only way of accessing it.

            Piracy is never a lost sale.

            • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              10 months ago

              This is something that makes the Nintendo numbers bullshit. how many of those 1mill downloads were people who already owned/purchased the game? How many of those people don’t even have a switch and would have never purchased the game to begin with?

        • therealjcdenton@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          I wonder if Nintendo released their games outside of their own ecosystem if that number would still be as high

      • Robaque@feddit.it
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Extreme capitalism stifles and suffocates innovation and preservation.

        It’s an inherent contradiction of capitalist competition. Somehow everyone is supposed to be competitive but noone is supposed to win for capitalism to “work”. Otherwise it’s considered a monopoly and “anti-competitive”.

        Ironically this requires collaboration.

        • ZeroMmX@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          I had a feeling my adjective was too much.

          The way you explain it makes me picture an ouroboros where, instead of the snake eating it’s ass, it’s the ass eating the snake.

      • mlg@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        10 months ago

        I kind of doubt this because Yuzu doesn’t actually have any of the cryptographic key material that Nintendo could have a valid reason to sue over. They only offer instructions to dump keys, which has to be argued is causing harm because its completely legal to do on consoles and games that you own.

        Dolphin ships with the Wii’s AES key but Nintendo never pursued them in court.

        Most likely Nintendo won’t get anywhere and only get Yuzu to remove some wiki pages and stuff which will make it slightly harder to use or slow down development by threatening more lawsuits.

        • sebinspace@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          10 months ago

          Nintendo know this. What everyone seems to be missing is that defending yourself in lawsuits also costs money.

          Apple does this shit all the time.

      • Mango@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        I’d like to seem them dump all those dollars in a legal battle they can’t win. Imagine if they succeed with the judge. They will lose their audience.

  • thantik@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    10 months ago

    Yuzu actually even took steps to make the emulator NOT run pirated versions of the new Mario game before it officially released. I ran it on Ryujinx like a week ahead of its release date, but Yuzu literally refused. They insta-banned anyone who talked about it.

  • fne8w2ah@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    10 months ago

    As the sweetest revenge maybe someone should leak all Switch games and DLCs into the public Internet.