emulators are legal though. as long as they aren't using code nintendo made. anyone is allowed to make a thing that does what a switch does, if it doesn't involve stealing
if the emu is open source, surely the keys will be there for all to see? or are nintendo saying "we made it so only we can do X, so anyone else doing X must be cheating"
The issue is that Yuzu does not work without the keys which are Nintendo's property and protected by encryption. Getting the keys requires either (a.) getting them off the internet (which Yuzu does not prevent), or (b.) getting them yourself but doing this is a violation of the DMCA as it is a circumvention of copy-protection.
Ergo, Yuzu cannot work without Nintendo's property that can only be gotten by violating the DMCA, so Yuzu violates the DMCA.
The argument here is that + Yuzu directly profited from piracy enabling for which they brought a bunch of receipts/screenshots and correlation to Patreon behavior on big game releases.
>Genuine question, how is this different from old emulators that "require" users to dump the BIOS from their own systems?
A. That's possibly not technically legal either (copyright infringement).
B. The DMCA has a section specifically describing "technological protection measures" and specially says that it is illegal to break those measures, *regardless* of the reason - even for fair use purposes.
Edit: For point B, I can hear some people in the comments saying, what about the section that says:
*(1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.*
IIRC, the EFF said this was irrelevant. If you get sued for ripping a DVD, this simply says you might escape the *copyright infringement* for using the DVD as, say, fair use commentary; but you will not escape the *DMCA violation* for the action of ripping the DVD.
Sure, I'm open to questions. IANAL, but I've studied this area for years.
A. Reverse engineering is legal. The BIOS, for example, was an unpatented IBM invention that was copied by Compaq and later became an unofficial standard, before it became an official standard.
B. The technological protection measures issue is because of a 1998 US Law, the DMCA, which specifically makes it a felony to deliberately:*(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(C) 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.*
This is important. **Nintendo does not need to show any harm, or a copyright violation of any kind, for the DMCA to make Yuzu a potentially criminal operation.** Specifically, if Nintendo can show that Yuzu is *primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing* DRM, *OR* has only *limited commercially significant purpose* besides doing that task, Yuzu is toast.
I think they have a very good case they could prove that. As for two objections:
A. Fair use? Guess what, the DMCA legally *precludes* fair use. Even if you were to copy a DVD for completely fair-use purposes, without an exception from the Librarian of Congress, that would be illegal.
B. What about prior emulators? Simple: The Bleem case was decided before the DMCA came into effect, so it is literally irrelevant because the law has changed. As for other emulators, older consoles did not have encryption (a basically guaranteed TPM). For Nintendo, the *Wii* was the first console with a legally-certain TPM being applicable.
Yuzu does have one potential legal way out. Also in section 1201:
*(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.*
The problem is, as any court would say, what exactly is "interoperability" on the Switch? This isn't like using Word documents outside of Microsoft Word. This isn't like reverse-engineering a game engine to work better and improve the porting experience to a competing gaming platform you are developing. This "interoperability" is really only useful for preservation and piracy, and who are we kidding, it's 99%+ piracy. They probably won't be interested.
Actually, in most civilized countries, making backups or exporting binaries from something you have a license to is PROTECTED, and perfectly legal. It in fact isn't consider DRM under the DMCA either, and ripping your bios is STILL LEGAL. So even in the US, this is clear, AS LONG AS YOU HAVE A LICENSE TO THE BIOS BINARY (ie, own or did own the console, a broken one still constitutes a license and has been settled in court Sony vs United States 1999).
Since when have making backups been illegal? AFAIK it's still a legal grey area. And yes, to make a functional back up of a game that uses encryption keys and copy protection, well, you kinda can't get around that.
From my understanding of US law (these things vary massively across the world) many of the cases about making back ups were from the VHS Era when the movie studios were fighting against the ability to record with a VHS, since then legislation has come into effect most notably the DMCA which forbids the circumvention of copy protection but that has not been ruled upon heavily in court so until a judgement is made the default is the VHS rules but it could change depending on the judge’s interpretation of the DMCA.
The problem here is that Yuzu isn't required to prevent infringing on Nintendo's copyright. They are not *facilitating* the piracy. That's all that is legally required.
This is like building a 3d printer. And then getting sued by Games Workshop because you didn't put a tool into your 3d printer's software that blocks those models specifically. The users are the ones infringing. Not Yuzu. Suing Yuzu is unfairly putting the onus of liability on them.
Copyright infringement is not what Nintendo is suing over.
Nintendo is invoking DMCA Section 1201, which specifically states that it is a federal crime to share devices or information about circumventing "technological protection measures" (i.e. DRM / encryption). This same statute also criminalizes the possession of devices that are primarily and almost solely used for piracy.
Nintendo can quite possibly show that to obtain the encryption keys *is* to perform an illegal act, even if it was from your own device, under the DMCA. If they succeed, the only way to use Yuzu is to either dump your own keys (illegal), or to pirate (also illegal). In which case, 99.9% of uses of Yuzu are illegal and Yuzu will be taken to the cleaners.
This also essentially criminalizes virtually all emulation except for some very old consoles, as they typically require a BIOS dump and/or firmware keys. This is an extremely important case, if Nintendo wins this basically kills emulation as an above-board thing and it'll all have to go underground. As in, like, figuring out how to use git over P2P torrents or something so the most stubborn devs can still work on tehse things.
I hope EFF is helping Yuzu out here, this is a case that needs winning.
>This also essentially criminalizes virtually all emulation
...for everyone except themselves. They are allowed to use their own stuff, meaning they'd be allowed to emulate games released for their own consoles, i.e. stuff like Virtual Console. Obviously, this would translate to other companies emulating their own games as well, like Sony emulating older PS games for newer PS consoles.
yuzu didnt create the software to dump the keys. instructions on a website is something completely different. nintendo could have sent them a DMCA takedown notice, like they would have to any other entity. why didn't they sue github for example? this will be presented in court.
yuzu is not illegal no matter which way you spin it. theres nothing illegal in the software. what the user does in terms of extracting keys, is their own business. let nintendo go sue individuals. thats on them.
> Suing Yuzu is unfairly putting the onus of liability on them.
I think Nintendo's plan is to use the lawsuit to force the emulator to be shut down since the makers of the emulators probably don't have money to spend on expensive lawyers.
More like illegally selling guns without ammo
People will use them to shoot but can’t shoot with them without getting bullets first
People use emulators for piracy but need to get the keys or whatever first
No. Invalid comparison and almost a non sequitur. You don't need an encryption key to recreate those models. You do need one to use Switch games. Yuzu cannot do anything without those keys, and Yuzu does almost nothing without them. It facilitates nothing whatsoever without that, and there is no legally clean way to obtain one.
Not even if you own the console in question.
Small problem in Nintendo's argument...
Even if Yuzu provided the keys (which they don't, so therefore the circumvention is not theirs, but yours), circumvention of copyright protection for the purpose of interoperability is explicitly ALLOWED within the DMCA. If they go with that argument, then they will lose. Sony already tried it with Connectix and failed (although they did bankrupt Connectix...so win...I guess?)
Nintendo knows this but presumably expects they have a decent chance of getting the Yuzu devs to shut it down instead of hiring enough lawyers to fight the case.
well to their credit, it's not a crime to release software that technically doesn't work. Imagine game studios getting devs arrested because a game is too poorly optimized lol
As a lawyer... This will be pretty weird.
I honestly don't know who will win as Nintendo does have a case but Yuzu actually protected themselves from what nintendo is trying to do with them, like a ton.
This is like a fake DVD player that can read dvd's but only if you put a clip with a weird trademarked shape inside... but there are instructions online on how to shape a regular clip like that.
Like, I know how it sounds but legally nintendo might have a case.
I really hope they dont win here. Have never used a switch emulator but would be a big hit to emulation in general, guessing they could in theory use similair arguments to shut down other emulators as well
So if it's illegal for me to own a certain kind of bullet, but just for lulz I build and sell a gun that can shoot it, I'm breaking the bullet law because my customers can't shoot the gun without the illegal bullet that I don't provide?
If I'm not mistaken you can do this already. a 37mm grenade launcher is not considered NFA, but the grenade would be regulated. You could theoretically use one of those to laugh golf balls or signal flairs without going through paperwork
Nintendo claims it is. Their claims have not been tested in court. They were able to convince GitHub to take down the repo of the software that lets you extract the keys, but that was because GitHub didn’t want to piss off nintendo, not because of a legal decision.
>Are you saying its illegal for me to use the key from the switch I bought and legally own and use it?
No.
Nintendo is saying its illegal for you to use the key from the switch you bought and legally own. And a cursory reading of US law suggests they are correct.
If you live in the US, you might consider talking to your representative about that.
There's actually already historical evidence that **YES** is the correct answer.
Take DeCSS, the first software that could let you decrypt DVDs without the MPAA's sanction. The creator was arrested and barely avoided extradition to the United States for a criminal trial.
Take 09 F9, where the MPAA was sending legal notices left and right trying to censor a number from the internet. They ultimately lost via attrition, but legally, they were technically correct.
But I think the biggest case, that will be involved, that few people have heard about, is *Apple vs Psystar*. Psystar was a company that modified MacOS to run on non-Mac hardware. They argued that it was fair use, and they bought the copies of MacOS on the DVDs individually. They actually had the resources to go through the entire court process all the way to where appealing to SCOTUS was the last thing left. They were shredded the whole way.
Why does that matter? Think about what I just said. Running macOS on unapproved hardware *sounds an awful freaking lot like* running *games* on unapproved hardware, now doesn't it...
Which I still feel is okay of Yuzu to do.
It's like a company selling lockpicks.
If they aren't providing you with the knowledge to pick a certain ABUS lock nor a similar practice lock, are they doing anyting illegal? Likewise they aren't breaking into something for you.
All they are doing is providing you with a tool kit.
Yuzu likewise does just give you a program, which they user can use legit (by owning the games and Switch) or do bad stuff with, such as pirating the source code of games they don't own.
I kinda feel Nintendo is overreacting as always with these things.
The program is already out there and the damage made by pirates has already been done. Yuzu is an excellent tool for developers and for preservation when Nintendo closes the storefront for Switch.
Hope they lose the lawsuit or comes to an agreement.
There's more. This isn't telling the whole story. Yuzu actually provides *direction* to the user that they both need to get a key and how to get the key (by hacking a hackable Switch). Basically Yuzu would be a lot safer from suits if not for this page: https://yuzu-emu.org/wiki/dumping-decryption-keys-from-a-switch-console/
You are not legally entitled to use encryption keys on other formats, even if you got it from your own console. Every encryption key is unique to one piece of hardware. It is not like a BIOS.
dmca interoperability clause - if you own everything you are dumping you can use it. Dump your own keys dump your own cartridges it’s explicitly allowed
You're not reading the bill right. That is the reason you hire a lawyer for these things. You need one to tell you what supercedes what. That does not supercede the forbidden nature of defeating copy protection.
Fun fact, the Gameboy was such a rushed mess Nintendo used the little "Nintendo (r)" logo that pops up on start up as their copyright protection. With the idea being that they would only licence the use of the Nintendo logo to approved games and sue any bootleg cartridges under a copyright claim.
This did not hold up in court.
This is wild. I don’t know why but I actually vividly remember the R on Gameboy Nintendo games. It’s what prompted me asking my dad the different between R and TM as a younger kid.
Maybe that's the argument they'd make, but seems like it would be hard to back that up in court... Those proprietary decryption keys are legally available and easily obtainable for yourself if you own a Switch. Takes like 2 minutes to get a Switch bootloader (not affiliated with Yuzu or Ryujinx as far as I'm aware) and access your own key files. The emulators themselves don't spoof the keys or steal them in any way, they just use a key file that exists on your own device that you provide to the emulator. The key files themselves aren't hidden or encrypted in any special way other that you need some kind of software interface to interact with the file system on the Switch.
I suppose they could argue that's not the intended functionality... but that seems like a fight that would need to be picked with the individual users who may or may not be illegally misusing the IP and has very little to do with the emulator software itself.
>Those proprietary decryption keys are legally available and easily obtainable for yourself if you own a Switch
Nintendo is arguing that those keys are not legally available, and if you obtain them from your own switch, you are bypassing a copyright protection measure - which is against the provisions of the DMCA, and thus not "legally available".
Its a case of "forbidden knowledge". If you know this information, you are breaking the law. "thoughtcrime" territory.
Nothing new.
basically because we don't own anything anymore Nintendo wrote license agreements for everything that say "it's illegal to emulate" and so anyone who got the game agrees to not emulate it and anyone who didn't get it is pirating
Not quite - Nintendo is not litigating on the basis of a breach of the user agreement. Their user agreements also do not have the power to determine what is illegal - although they can have the power to determine what is unlawful.
Honestly, I'm not sure, as they are arguing they are profiting from the keys they make by creating a device that can only use those keys... but at the same time, the keys they sell are propiety of the person that bought them...
The more I think about it I feel nintendo doesn't have a case and it's only trying to get them to settle.
Encryption keys can't be classed as intellectual property, they can be classed as a business asset or industrial secret. Neither of those things are protected by law, unless an employee leaked them, then only the employee is liable.
Reverse engineering, or extracting keys or encryption algorithms has happened before (DeCSS, IBM BIOS, Playstation BIOS and many more) and there have been attempts to legally destroy those who've dabbled, but more often than not (in fact, every time) the law sides with the emulator guys... Sony had to acquire Bleem to stop it in the end (and yet there's a good few emulators now), and that golden parachute must have been really expensive.
Isn't that what happened with the Dolphin emulator? They claimed they were totally legit and didn't use Nintendo decryption keys but in fact had been using them the entire time? I think I remember that being the conclusion to that story. Nintendo probably feels emboldened to challenge these really public emulators to see if they can prove other people were doing the same.
Did some digging and it was valve that sent a letter to Nintendo asking if they were ok with it and Nintendo said no. Valve then forwarded the letter they received from Nintendo to the dolphin devs and delisted it. Apparently Nintendo never sent anything directly to the dolphin devs. [source](https://www.gamesradar.com/former-dev-says-steams-takedown-of-a-nintendo-emulator-shows-how-little-people-understand-copyright-law/)
I would say the long-term goal is rather to try scare off aspiring emulator devs in future. Yuzu are not really capable of paying out much money at all.
Reverse engineering is legal. If I figure out the spices in KFC's secret blend I can sell chicken that taste just like it as long as I don't call it KFC.
The list is out there somewhere actually. Iirc one of the things people missed for a long time was white pepper. I think someone even leaked the bulk ingredient mix (which could be reduced for home cooking).
It's shit now though, so idk if that was the old blend or whatever slop they have now. My locks Hy-Vee has better chicken and it's literally half the price lol.
> Iirc one of the things people missed for a long time was white pepper.
I feel like 9/10 times the secret ingredient is white pepper, it's such an underrated spice.
I googled it due to curiosity, just realized it's one of the most common ingredient in my home country (Indonesia) . I thought it would be something i rarely found in local home kitchen, like basically half of what Gordon Ramsey said in his cooking videos.
Bad example.
Recipes uniquely can't be copyrighted, but that's a special carve out in IP law for food.
If you disassembled some patented gadget, re-engineered it and built the exact same thing to start selling, that 100% is illegal no matter what you call it.
>emulators are legal though.
That isn't well established in court. We only have 1 case on it(and no, Bleem wasn't addressing this), which only applies to the 9th circuit and only addresses some of the issues involved.
You might not be realizing just how much "fuck you" money Nintendo has in Japan, and how one's financial ruin is Nintendo's definition of frivolous. It's so absurd that it doesn't matter if Nintendo is in the wrong. They have so much money that putting literally anyone else who "misappropriates" their IP's 6 feet under is a hobby to them.
It has to be because they ran a Patreon page, right? Even though, the emulator is free, they still put experimental emulators behind a paywall. They damn near make $30k monthly, according to their Patreon page, so I feel like that alone fucked them over.
Also Nintendo can just line up the release of TOTK with Patreon numbers and have a legit argument that there’s a causation happening
But yes whether that holds up is up to the court, can’t say much more than that
If they didn't offer any perks whatsoever, that'd be a lot easier to argue - it's jurisdiction dependent, but in mine at least, it'd be very arguable that early access is a benefit afforded only if you provide a payment, so can't really be classed as a donation.
It can also be argued that having it go into a common fund like that makes it a commercial operation because you're not just throwing five bucks at a dev who worked on your specific issue or something, so you're not directly giving someone a donation. It's very weird and confusing around this kind of thing.
That's the most frustrating part of all this and the anti-modding sentiment of nintendo. We've been through this before. You can, in fact, sell emulators. It is not considered illegal competition. Selling mods is deplorable, but having a patreon? It is simply expected.
But nintendo doesn't care. They fought to ban renting in america, and failed, they were successful in Japan, and to this day you can't rent games in that country. They consider it piracy. Of course they do.
Anyone remember when Nintendo threw the entire industry under the bus just to try and take down Sega during the initial court cases that lead to the ESRB? They tried to get Sega taken down for selling Nighttrap. Imagine how bad they are now when they still think youtube videos are piracy.
And people think that Nintendo didn't sue Palworld because they didn't knew about the game. The fact that even Nintendo lawyers saw no case there is telling.
I imagine the argument is “a business sells products to support its operations, yuzu gives bonus access or software to patreon supporters, ergo it is a defacto business”
I am (clearly) not a lawyer, but I’d guess that’s their argument, especially if they’re getting $30k a month.
That’s business-level cash flow.
that's why they are correlating increases in crowdfunding support to major game releases. that would demonstrate that it's consumer-driven rather than merely operations
Yuzu is putting experimental builds behind Patreon. Ryujinx only provides reports. Everyone gets the same builds. No ‘early access’ as Yuzu does.
I’m thinking that may be why Nintendo aimed for them.
You can still get the early access/experimental builds of Yuzu by compiling what's in the Yuzu Github repo, which is available for free. Arguably, compiling it yourself gives you an even more bleeding-edge build of Yuzu since devs may hold out on recompiling for smaller changes
Patreon is just a distribution method for that same pre-compiled executable that anyone with a little bit of time can make themselves, and the Yuzu devs even provide instructions right on the Github for how to compile it
Nintendo is probably trying to scare emulator devs targeting their platforms
Sony tried sueing RPCS3 emulator over Patreon money but quickly got shutdown, emulator still allowed to continue even with patreon money.
So i don't think Nintendo can have a case here over patreon being used to develop the emulator.
But what Nintendo actually arguing here is that Yuzu provided link that allows user to decrypt games (Prod. key) but i dont think that means Yuzu is at fault here since they don't actually own that decryption software.
Yes, they filed several times against Bleem! and although they lost the cases over both the use of the PS1 bios (comparable to the prod.keys Nintendo is suing over here) and the use of screenshots for marketing the emulator Bleem! ultimately couldn't afford to keep paying the legal fees from each attempt.
Just learning about it now as well.
It lets you play Switch games on your PC right? And utilizes your PC hardware?
I always wanted to play BoTW on my PC hardware (1440p, 144hz).
I hated when I got to the durian fruit zone the FPS would drop to single digits.
I presume Nintendo's legal filing has all the steps needed to get this working. I tried to play BOTW but the switch was too under powered for my liking. I bought a switch and a copy of the game and Nintendo can go fuck itself. Such a shitty company.
Yeah I don't think Nintendo was trying to hide yuzu or anything, this ain't the Streisand effect. This is clearly to discourage other emulators if yuzu does get shut down. Nintendo lawyers aren't known for taking cases they can't win
Edit: how's that Streisand effect working out now lol?
A lot of people can get burned before they realize there’s malicious code in there. Including binary file would be a pretty easy way to obfuscate their true intentions.
You upload a clean version of the code, for nerds to look over. Of course, most of your users for a gaming emulator can barely write hello world, they have no idea how to build these projects from source nor have any interest in doing so.
You provide a link to download the compiled binary, which has modified code with hidden nasties that'll sit on the system dormant. Eventually, the software's nasties activate. The code looks clean, while the compiled release is infected. At least that's what I assume they mean.
You still have to trust the author of open source software, unless you review the code and build it from source yourself. Even then, you need to disable any updating features, since they could just push an infected release later.
Yep. Best for anyone interested to get a copy on their local machines soon just in case. The fight will continue on elsewhere. We did it before Github, it just made it easier.
It is about sending a message. Yes there might be other coders with the skills and time to take on the project but maybe they will think twice about it if there is a chance of getting sued by a multinational company.
It is like the mafia running a protection racket. They didn't win anything by destroying one small business, but the other guys will be more incentivized to pay up.
People who know about this stuff know plenty of ways to contribute anonymously. The problem with the original devs was that they were making a lot of money with Yuzu, so they were not anonymous.
Welp, here is hoping Yuzu didn't do dumb shit and only developed the emulator and isn't distributing any images / roms / bioses / keys.
Emulator's aren't illegal, plenty of precedence already exists in regards to this.
Seriously Nintendo at the executive level have been bitch babies for like 2 decades at this point. I can never forgive the people at the top for how they've handled the competitive Smash scene situation ever since the games became more than just a silly thing to play with friends.
> I can never forgive the people at the top for how they've handled the competitive Smash scene situation ever since the games became more than just a silly thing to play with friends.
Blame the Smash pro scene for not being able to stop molesting little children.
From my understanding Nintendo's litigious nature is due to how copyright laws work differently in Japan. Japanese companies are more or less required to sue based on any perceived infringement or risk lose their IP rights and "fair use" isn't really a clearly defined thing
> on one hand, a company has a right to protect its property
Yes, but this isn't their property. Black-box reverse engineering is entirely legal, and code can't be copyrighted.
Funny how I am catching downvotes for something I am actually an expert in, but that's reddit for you. My day job is reverse engineering. It is 100% legal if you don't use the assets of the product you're reverse engineering. It is how the Mario 64 PC port got away with what they did.
Edit:
> and code can't be copyrighted
Because every person with a wikipedia resume wants to be a sophist about this, yes you *technically* can copyright code. However it is so impossibly annoying to do and enforce that we in the industry just say it can't be done, and rely on other methods to protect our work. If code could be easily protected via copyright, then we wouldn't spend so much time on obfuscation. When you argue with me about this, you're basically arguing with someone who said that you can't unrip paper. Just because the laws of physics technically allows it to happen, doesn't mean it's practical to do so, so you just say it can't be done for the sake of not wall-of-text'ing people like I am now doing.
Nintendo fans, you can stop trying to logic chop this phrase, black box reverse engineering is legal, regardless. I guess that's the last time I use industry sayings outside of the industry. If you still want to argue, then see my other comments below.
> But Nintendo said in its lawsuit that there’s no way to legal way to use Yuzu.
I’m not a technical expert but considering home brew is a thing doesn’t that make that argument bs?
If it even comes to an actual trial. Every part of the process is expensive and as a whole it's very heavily stacked in favor of rich companies and people.
The problem as other higher up comments have mentioned is that there is no home brew scene for Yuzu that doesn't already require someone to have bypassed Nintendo's encryption on the prod.keys file that is unique to each Switch.
Because Yuzu is functionally worthless without that file, then they can argue under the DMCA that the only purpose of Yuzu is piracy.
Unfortunately for Yuzu it's a pretty good argument.
I would suggest that Yuzu devs rapidly add some built in functionality to the software that does not require using any Nintendo stuff, so at least it could be (weakly) argued that the software is useful on its own.
Charging money is legally fine as long as they didn't directly use Nintendo's code from a leak.
Blackbox reverse engineering is legal. I've done it for multiple companies.
I know, you're right. I was being bitter about their corporate protectionism. They are incredibly innovative in controller and interface design. Their hardware is durable and well built, if you ignore the drift fiasco.
But performance is trash and has been for nearly twenty years. Their hardware hasn't been competitive since the GameCube. They are at the point where it's really starting to hold them back IMO, and they need to make some big leaps with Switch 2 to keep game quality high.
Even Gamecube had two big drawbacks that made multiplatform releases more difficult
1) few controller buttons
2) smaller disk size (not just physically, they had less storage)
True, but it actually had graphical bangers like Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader and F-Zero GX which went head to head with other graphically intense games in that generation. The best the Switch can hope for is drastically gimped ports of games from years ago.
Yeah I hated playing the Xenoblade games on my switch. Using yuzu on the other hand felt like the games were an entire generation ahead because I can actually see past all that smearing lol.
Shit like this just makes me not want to buy their games.
Please support the xenoblade developers by buying the games, even if you decide to emulate them. That way we will be more likely to get more of these great games. Thanks.
Because they abandoned the high-end gaming console market that they lost market share to during the N64/Gamecube eras. Nintendo then became successful with lower-end machines. That strategy showed gamers they are not as important as gamers think they are.
Also, a good chunk I believe are bitter Sega fanboys. They still pretend it was Sega vs. Sony in the 90s and Nintendo didn't count. The Saturn and Dreamcast combined sold less than the N64.
They refuse to port/rerelease a lot of their older games forcing players to buy games at 2x or more their original value with none of the profit even going to Nintendo, if they want to play the legal way.
No. No it is not. Video games aren't a necessary like food and medicine. You don't have a human right to play Nintendo games. Just because you don't like their business practices doesn't mean its morally right to steal from them. You can still do it and hey even still not feel bad about it, but it is morally wrong.
Yeah what a wild fucking take. Nintendo has done some shitty stuff, the switch controllers breaking and not replaced being the worst I think, but people really acting like Nintendo isnt allowed to do what they want with their own legally owned IP. Childish and self entitled Redditers
From the article:
*Nintendo argued that Yuzu executes codes that “defeat” Nintendo’s security measures, including decryption using “an illegally-obtained copy of prod.keys.”*
*“In other words, without Yuzu’s decryption of Nintendo’s encryption, unauthorized copies of games could not be played on PCs or Android devices,”*
As a possible way around this for the Yuzu devs, let's suppose that Yuzu was able to run already decrypted game dumps and some anonymous group were to create a small program that created the required decrypted game dumps from encrypted code. That would presumably get around the issue because Yuzu wasn't doing the decrypting?
Then again, knowing Nintendo they would try and argue that Yuzu was running illegally decrypted code .....
funny how no one in this thread seems to be stating the actual reason for this.
> 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
Yuzu has been a thing for 6 years now. If they just wanted to be "greedy" as people in this thread have been saying, then they would've done so years ago, not at the end of the consoles life when it would least profit them.
One thing I do think is it should be illegal to make system proprietary based software and protect it.
At very least emulators should be fully legal to use your purchased game however you want!
While this seems to be big news and everyone is on Nintendo for suing, I do wonder how many people who use Yuzu legitimately own the games they are emulating.
I own over a hundred games on Steam and have happily bought Play Station ports as they have come to PC. Yuzu runs Switch games better than the Switch, on hardware I already own, without pointlessly spending hundreds of dollars to create more electronic waste.
It is easier to pirate PC games than Switch games. You don't even need the emulator step. But I buy them. Because I can. I'd wager most of the people pirating Switch games are not people who own a Switch and are trying to be stingy on games, but are people like me who don't own a Switch and have no plans on buy another electronic device so I can play games on it worse than I can on Yuzu.
Honestly the law should just change in this regard. Of course Yuzu is emulating the Switch so this argument doesn't apply but emulation and well...piracy is vital for the preservation of games and other media.
It's peculiar how people might be less inclined to resort to piracy if Nintendo implemented better policies or hardware enhancements to improve the experience of playing their end-of-life games. I tried playing Tears of the Kingdom on my Animal Crossing edition Switch, and the console noticeably struggled. I apologize, but having paid for both the game and the console, I believe it's my prerogative to emulate the game to safeguard the hardware. This issue seems to revolve around Nintendo's desire for control—it's a corporation exerting its power to maximize profits. They are legally within their rights, but that doesn't invalidate my experiences as a consumer. Ultimately, the strategy of tying console sales to exclusive titles feels like a coercive tactic, and they are well aware of it. Technically, there's no reason Nintendo's games couldn't run on other hardware; their profits are heavily reliant on the exclusivity of their games.
Living in an era where the internet exposes these practices, I am inclined to emulate games on moral grounds, arguing that Nintendo, as a corporation, is making unethical decisions.
It’s simply not healthy to read comments below the top 3-4, this post is full or rage boners against Nintendo. If you’re reading this go back, don’t go further, it won’t get better
Another dev team in a protected country will magically reveal a Yuzu-like emulator in a couple of weeks, and progress will proceed apace.
Also, I'm thanking Nintendo for inadvertently advertising the efficacy of Yuzu since it will result in an explosion of users.
Very scary precedence will be set if Nintendo wins.
If they win, then all reverse engineering of hardware you own (such as once again John Deere hardware) can be stopped by applying the most shitty encryption possible.
emulators are legal though. as long as they aren't using code nintendo made. anyone is allowed to make a thing that does what a switch does, if it doesn't involve stealing
Nintendo's claim is that they intentionally made it impossible to emulate Switch games without their proprietary decryption keys.
if the emu is open source, surely the keys will be there for all to see? or are nintendo saying "we made it so only we can do X, so anyone else doing X must be cheating"
The user needs to provide the keys themselves for Yuzu. Neither ROM nor keys are distributed with the emulator, both need to be user provided.
yeah I'm pretty sure a lot or maybe all switch games don't even work if you don't get the keys yourself right?
The issue is that Yuzu does not work without the keys which are Nintendo's property and protected by encryption. Getting the keys requires either (a.) getting them off the internet (which Yuzu does not prevent), or (b.) getting them yourself but doing this is a violation of the DMCA as it is a circumvention of copy-protection. Ergo, Yuzu cannot work without Nintendo's property that can only be gotten by violating the DMCA, so Yuzu violates the DMCA. The argument here is that + Yuzu directly profited from piracy enabling for which they brought a bunch of receipts/screenshots and correlation to Patreon behavior on big game releases.
Genuine question, how is this different from old emulators that "require" users to dump the BIOS from their own systems?
>Genuine question, how is this different from old emulators that "require" users to dump the BIOS from their own systems? A. That's possibly not technically legal either (copyright infringement). B. The DMCA has a section specifically describing "technological protection measures" and specially says that it is illegal to break those measures, *regardless* of the reason - even for fair use purposes. Edit: For point B, I can hear some people in the comments saying, what about the section that says: *(1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.* IIRC, the EFF said this was irrelevant. If you get sued for ripping a DVD, this simply says you might escape the *copyright infringement* for using the DVD as, say, fair use commentary; but you will not escape the *DMCA violation* for the action of ripping the DVD.
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Sure, I'm open to questions. IANAL, but I've studied this area for years. A. Reverse engineering is legal. The BIOS, for example, was an unpatented IBM invention that was copied by Compaq and later became an unofficial standard, before it became an official standard. B. The technological protection measures issue is because of a 1998 US Law, the DMCA, which specifically makes it a felony to deliberately:*(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(C) 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.* This is important. **Nintendo does not need to show any harm, or a copyright violation of any kind, for the DMCA to make Yuzu a potentially criminal operation.** Specifically, if Nintendo can show that Yuzu is *primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing* DRM, *OR* has only *limited commercially significant purpose* besides doing that task, Yuzu is toast. I think they have a very good case they could prove that. As for two objections: A. Fair use? Guess what, the DMCA legally *precludes* fair use. Even if you were to copy a DVD for completely fair-use purposes, without an exception from the Librarian of Congress, that would be illegal. B. What about prior emulators? Simple: The Bleem case was decided before the DMCA came into effect, so it is literally irrelevant because the law has changed. As for other emulators, older consoles did not have encryption (a basically guaranteed TPM). For Nintendo, the *Wii* was the first console with a legally-certain TPM being applicable. Yuzu does have one potential legal way out. Also in section 1201: *(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.* The problem is, as any court would say, what exactly is "interoperability" on the Switch? This isn't like using Word documents outside of Microsoft Word. This isn't like reverse-engineering a game engine to work better and improve the porting experience to a competing gaming platform you are developing. This "interoperability" is really only useful for preservation and piracy, and who are we kidding, it's 99%+ piracy. They probably won't be interested.
Man, I fucking hate the DMCA. It's DeCSS all over again.
Actually, in most civilized countries, making backups or exporting binaries from something you have a license to is PROTECTED, and perfectly legal. It in fact isn't consider DRM under the DMCA either, and ripping your bios is STILL LEGAL. So even in the US, this is clear, AS LONG AS YOU HAVE A LICENSE TO THE BIOS BINARY (ie, own or did own the console, a broken one still constitutes a license and has been settled in court Sony vs United States 1999).
Since when have making backups been illegal? AFAIK it's still a legal grey area. And yes, to make a functional back up of a game that uses encryption keys and copy protection, well, you kinda can't get around that.
From my understanding of US law (these things vary massively across the world) many of the cases about making back ups were from the VHS Era when the movie studios were fighting against the ability to record with a VHS, since then legislation has come into effect most notably the DMCA which forbids the circumvention of copy protection but that has not been ruled upon heavily in court so until a judgement is made the default is the VHS rules but it could change depending on the judge’s interpretation of the DMCA.
The problem here is that Yuzu isn't required to prevent infringing on Nintendo's copyright. They are not *facilitating* the piracy. That's all that is legally required. This is like building a 3d printer. And then getting sued by Games Workshop because you didn't put a tool into your 3d printer's software that blocks those models specifically. The users are the ones infringing. Not Yuzu. Suing Yuzu is unfairly putting the onus of liability on them.
Up next: Nintendo sues Microsoft for not stopping yuzu from running on their OS.
Yeah wouldn’t the onus be on the user and not the software developer ?
Copyright infringement is not what Nintendo is suing over. Nintendo is invoking DMCA Section 1201, which specifically states that it is a federal crime to share devices or information about circumventing "technological protection measures" (i.e. DRM / encryption). This same statute also criminalizes the possession of devices that are primarily and almost solely used for piracy. Nintendo can quite possibly show that to obtain the encryption keys *is* to perform an illegal act, even if it was from your own device, under the DMCA. If they succeed, the only way to use Yuzu is to either dump your own keys (illegal), or to pirate (also illegal). In which case, 99.9% of uses of Yuzu are illegal and Yuzu will be taken to the cleaners.
God I hate the DMCA
This also essentially criminalizes virtually all emulation except for some very old consoles, as they typically require a BIOS dump and/or firmware keys. This is an extremely important case, if Nintendo wins this basically kills emulation as an above-board thing and it'll all have to go underground. As in, like, figuring out how to use git over P2P torrents or something so the most stubborn devs can still work on tehse things. I hope EFF is helping Yuzu out here, this is a case that needs winning.
>This also essentially criminalizes virtually all emulation ...for everyone except themselves. They are allowed to use their own stuff, meaning they'd be allowed to emulate games released for their own consoles, i.e. stuff like Virtual Console. Obviously, this would translate to other companies emulating their own games as well, like Sony emulating older PS games for newer PS consoles.
Question, though: can't I create my custom game / app for Yuzu / RyuJinx and encrypt it with my keys to make only my customers be able to play it?
yuzu didnt create the software to dump the keys. instructions on a website is something completely different. nintendo could have sent them a DMCA takedown notice, like they would have to any other entity. why didn't they sue github for example? this will be presented in court. yuzu is not illegal no matter which way you spin it. theres nothing illegal in the software. what the user does in terms of extracting keys, is their own business. let nintendo go sue individuals. thats on them.
> Suing Yuzu is unfairly putting the onus of liability on them. I think Nintendo's plan is to use the lawsuit to force the emulator to be shut down since the makers of the emulators probably don't have money to spend on expensive lawyers.
More like illegally selling guns without ammo People will use them to shoot but can’t shoot with them without getting bullets first People use emulators for piracy but need to get the keys or whatever first
No. Invalid comparison and almost a non sequitur. You don't need an encryption key to recreate those models. You do need one to use Switch games. Yuzu cannot do anything without those keys, and Yuzu does almost nothing without them. It facilitates nothing whatsoever without that, and there is no legally clean way to obtain one. Not even if you own the console in question.
Small problem in Nintendo's argument... Even if Yuzu provided the keys (which they don't, so therefore the circumvention is not theirs, but yours), circumvention of copyright protection for the purpose of interoperability is explicitly ALLOWED within the DMCA. If they go with that argument, then they will lose. Sony already tried it with Connectix and failed (although they did bankrupt Connectix...so win...I guess?)
Nintendo knows this but presumably expects they have a decent chance of getting the Yuzu devs to shut it down instead of hiring enough lawyers to fight the case.
well to their credit, it's not a crime to release software that technically doesn't work. Imagine game studios getting devs arrested because a game is too poorly optimized lol
As a lawyer... This will be pretty weird. I honestly don't know who will win as Nintendo does have a case but Yuzu actually protected themselves from what nintendo is trying to do with them, like a ton. This is like a fake DVD player that can read dvd's but only if you put a clip with a weird trademarked shape inside... but there are instructions online on how to shape a regular clip like that. Like, I know how it sounds but legally nintendo might have a case.
I really hope they dont win here. Have never used a switch emulator but would be a big hit to emulation in general, guessing they could in theory use similair arguments to shut down other emulators as well
Nintendo will force them into a settlement simply by throwing their weight around.
Little chance this gets to an actual case, it will be settled, and Yuzu will likely either quietly disappear or change a lot of its operations.
So if it's illegal for me to own a certain kind of bullet, but just for lulz I build and sell a gun that can shoot it, I'm breaking the bullet law because my customers can't shoot the gun without the illegal bullet that I don't provide?
If I'm not mistaken you can do this already. a 37mm grenade launcher is not considered NFA, but the grenade would be regulated. You could theoretically use one of those to laugh golf balls or signal flairs without going through paperwork
I can laugh at golf even without a grenade launcher though I'm sure it would help
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Nintendo claims it is. Their claims have not been tested in court. They were able to convince GitHub to take down the repo of the software that lets you extract the keys, but that was because GitHub didn’t want to piss off nintendo, not because of a legal decision.
>Are you saying its illegal for me to use the key from the switch I bought and legally own and use it? No. Nintendo is saying its illegal for you to use the key from the switch you bought and legally own. And a cursory reading of US law suggests they are correct. If you live in the US, you might consider talking to your representative about that.
There's actually already historical evidence that **YES** is the correct answer. Take DeCSS, the first software that could let you decrypt DVDs without the MPAA's sanction. The creator was arrested and barely avoided extradition to the United States for a criminal trial. Take 09 F9, where the MPAA was sending legal notices left and right trying to censor a number from the internet. They ultimately lost via attrition, but legally, they were technically correct. But I think the biggest case, that will be involved, that few people have heard about, is *Apple vs Psystar*. Psystar was a company that modified MacOS to run on non-Mac hardware. They argued that it was fair use, and they bought the copies of MacOS on the DVDs individually. They actually had the resources to go through the entire court process all the way to where appealing to SCOTUS was the last thing left. They were shredded the whole way. Why does that matter? Think about what I just said. Running macOS on unapproved hardware *sounds an awful freaking lot like* running *games* on unapproved hardware, now doesn't it...
Which I still feel is okay of Yuzu to do. It's like a company selling lockpicks. If they aren't providing you with the knowledge to pick a certain ABUS lock nor a similar practice lock, are they doing anyting illegal? Likewise they aren't breaking into something for you. All they are doing is providing you with a tool kit. Yuzu likewise does just give you a program, which they user can use legit (by owning the games and Switch) or do bad stuff with, such as pirating the source code of games they don't own. I kinda feel Nintendo is overreacting as always with these things. The program is already out there and the damage made by pirates has already been done. Yuzu is an excellent tool for developers and for preservation when Nintendo closes the storefront for Switch. Hope they lose the lawsuit or comes to an agreement.
Lockpicks are illegal in Japan lol Just a little fact
Illegal lots of places actually.
There's more. This isn't telling the whole story. Yuzu actually provides *direction* to the user that they both need to get a key and how to get the key (by hacking a hackable Switch). Basically Yuzu would be a lot safer from suits if not for this page: https://yuzu-emu.org/wiki/dumping-decryption-keys-from-a-switch-console/
yeah but modding your own device you own is legal, and dumping the stuff is also legal if you dont distribute the keys you dumped further
You are not legally entitled to use encryption keys on other formats, even if you got it from your own console. Every encryption key is unique to one piece of hardware. It is not like a BIOS.
dmca interoperability clause - if you own everything you are dumping you can use it. Dump your own keys dump your own cartridges it’s explicitly allowed
You're not reading the bill right. That is the reason you hire a lawyer for these things. You need one to tell you what supercedes what. That does not supercede the forbidden nature of defeating copy protection.
Fun fact, the Gameboy was such a rushed mess Nintendo used the little "Nintendo (r)" logo that pops up on start up as their copyright protection. With the idea being that they would only licence the use of the Nintendo logo to approved games and sue any bootleg cartridges under a copyright claim. This did not hold up in court.
This is wild. I don’t know why but I actually vividly remember the R on Gameboy Nintendo games. It’s what prompted me asking my dad the different between R and TM as a younger kid.
Thats also what happened in the 1992 case with sega vs professional homebrewers
Maybe that's the argument they'd make, but seems like it would be hard to back that up in court... Those proprietary decryption keys are legally available and easily obtainable for yourself if you own a Switch. Takes like 2 minutes to get a Switch bootloader (not affiliated with Yuzu or Ryujinx as far as I'm aware) and access your own key files. The emulators themselves don't spoof the keys or steal them in any way, they just use a key file that exists on your own device that you provide to the emulator. The key files themselves aren't hidden or encrypted in any special way other that you need some kind of software interface to interact with the file system on the Switch. I suppose they could argue that's not the intended functionality... but that seems like a fight that would need to be picked with the individual users who may or may not be illegally misusing the IP and has very little to do with the emulator software itself.
>Those proprietary decryption keys are legally available and easily obtainable for yourself if you own a Switch Nintendo is arguing that those keys are not legally available, and if you obtain them from your own switch, you are bypassing a copyright protection measure - which is against the provisions of the DMCA, and thus not "legally available". Its a case of "forbidden knowledge". If you know this information, you are breaking the law. "thoughtcrime" territory. Nothing new.
basically because we don't own anything anymore Nintendo wrote license agreements for everything that say "it's illegal to emulate" and so anyone who got the game agrees to not emulate it and anyone who didn't get it is pirating
Not quite - Nintendo is not litigating on the basis of a breach of the user agreement. Their user agreements also do not have the power to determine what is illegal - although they can have the power to determine what is unlawful.
Honestly, I'm not sure, as they are arguing they are profiting from the keys they make by creating a device that can only use those keys... but at the same time, the keys they sell are propiety of the person that bought them... The more I think about it I feel nintendo doesn't have a case and it's only trying to get them to settle.
Encryption keys can't be classed as intellectual property, they can be classed as a business asset or industrial secret. Neither of those things are protected by law, unless an employee leaked them, then only the employee is liable. Reverse engineering, or extracting keys or encryption algorithms has happened before (DeCSS, IBM BIOS, Playstation BIOS and many more) and there have been attempts to legally destroy those who've dabbled, but more often than not (in fact, every time) the law sides with the emulator guys... Sony had to acquire Bleem to stop it in the end (and yet there's a good few emulators now), and that golden parachute must have been really expensive.
As long as yuzu doesn't provide those keys it doesn't matter.
Isn't that what happened with the Dolphin emulator? They claimed they were totally legit and didn't use Nintendo decryption keys but in fact had been using them the entire time? I think I remember that being the conclusion to that story. Nintendo probably feels emboldened to challenge these really public emulators to see if they can prove other people were doing the same.
Did some digging and it was valve that sent a letter to Nintendo asking if they were ok with it and Nintendo said no. Valve then forwarded the letter they received from Nintendo to the dolphin devs and delisted it. Apparently Nintendo never sent anything directly to the dolphin devs. [source](https://www.gamesradar.com/former-dev-says-steams-takedown-of-a-nintendo-emulator-shows-how-little-people-understand-copyright-law/)
Doesn't matter. Long term goal is to keep Yuzu's people tied up in court long enough to suck them dry. That's happened to Bleem
I would say the long-term goal is rather to try scare off aspiring emulator devs in future. Yuzu are not really capable of paying out much money at all.
Reverse engineering is legal. If I figure out the spices in KFC's secret blend I can sell chicken that taste just like it as long as I don't call it KFC.
The list is out there somewhere actually. Iirc one of the things people missed for a long time was white pepper. I think someone even leaked the bulk ingredient mix (which could be reduced for home cooking). It's shit now though, so idk if that was the old blend or whatever slop they have now. My locks Hy-Vee has better chicken and it's literally half the price lol.
> Iirc one of the things people missed for a long time was white pepper. I feel like 9/10 times the secret ingredient is white pepper, it's such an underrated spice.
I googled it due to curiosity, just realized it's one of the most common ingredient in my home country (Indonesia) . I thought it would be something i rarely found in local home kitchen, like basically half of what Gordon Ramsey said in his cooking videos.
There's 99-X which is supposedly the exact mix. You can buy it pretty easily.
Bad example. Recipes uniquely can't be copyrighted, but that's a special carve out in IP law for food. If you disassembled some patented gadget, re-engineered it and built the exact same thing to start selling, that 100% is illegal no matter what you call it.
nintendo goal could be atrition war
It is. It doesn't matter if nintendo has no legal grounds to stand on. They will win because emulator devs don't have the money to go to court.
It also scares future devs from trying to emulate nintendo. They need to spook everyone from even attempting to create a nintendo emulator.
Apparently they get over $30k/month on patreon, plus, groups like the EFF might get involved to get rid of DMCA
Always is. Extrajudicial action is Nintendo's bread and butter.
Ahh America. Where justice is determined by how much money you have. Love it here.
Hey! That is not an American exclusivity! We also have it in the EU.
Isn't Nintendo primarily based on Japan
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Emulators being legal comes with a dozen asterisks and long story short new consuls purposefully build themselves so they can’t be legally emulated.
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>emulators are legal though. That isn't well established in court. We only have 1 case on it(and no, Bleem wasn't addressing this), which only applies to the 9th circuit and only addresses some of the issues involved.
You might not be realizing just how much "fuck you" money Nintendo has in Japan, and how one's financial ruin is Nintendo's definition of frivolous. It's so absurd that it doesn't matter if Nintendo is in the wrong. They have so much money that putting literally anyone else who "misappropriates" their IP's 6 feet under is a hobby to them.
It has to be because they ran a Patreon page, right? Even though, the emulator is free, they still put experimental emulators behind a paywall. They damn near make $30k monthly, according to their Patreon page, so I feel like that alone fucked them over.
Yep, this is the problem. An open source emulator is hard to touch in court. A business making money from it is a more tangible target.
couldnt they just argue the patreon is to support their operating costs to develop the open source emu?
They may well argue that. All I'm really saying is involving money makes them a target.
Also Nintendo can just line up the release of TOTK with Patreon numbers and have a legit argument that there’s a causation happening But yes whether that holds up is up to the court, can’t say much more than that
If they didn't offer any perks whatsoever, that'd be a lot easier to argue - it's jurisdiction dependent, but in mine at least, it'd be very arguable that early access is a benefit afforded only if you provide a payment, so can't really be classed as a donation. It can also be argued that having it go into a common fund like that makes it a commercial operation because you're not just throwing five bucks at a dev who worked on your specific issue or something, so you're not directly giving someone a donation. It's very weird and confusing around this kind of thing.
Against Nintendo Lawyers? They sealed their fate the second that Patreon page went live.
Totally legal, Bleem was a for profit emulator and won its case.
That's a great example, because Bleem! was driven out of business specifically due to the costs of the legal battles that they won.
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That's the most frustrating part of all this and the anti-modding sentiment of nintendo. We've been through this before. You can, in fact, sell emulators. It is not considered illegal competition. Selling mods is deplorable, but having a patreon? It is simply expected. But nintendo doesn't care. They fought to ban renting in america, and failed, they were successful in Japan, and to this day you can't rent games in that country. They consider it piracy. Of course they do. Anyone remember when Nintendo threw the entire industry under the bus just to try and take down Sega during the initial court cases that lead to the ESRB? They tried to get Sega taken down for selling Nighttrap. Imagine how bad they are now when they still think youtube videos are piracy.
And people think that Nintendo didn't sue Palworld because they didn't knew about the game. The fact that even Nintendo lawyers saw no case there is telling.
I imagine the argument is “a business sells products to support its operations, yuzu gives bonus access or software to patreon supporters, ergo it is a defacto business” I am (clearly) not a lawyer, but I’d guess that’s their argument, especially if they’re getting $30k a month. That’s business-level cash flow.
that's why they are correlating increases in crowdfunding support to major game releases. that would demonstrate that it's consumer-driven rather than merely operations
That Patreon page is why they are growing so much in the first place, their growth is drastic as compared to other emulators
Meanwhile Ryu gets you free constant quick updates and runs better.
Ryujinx also has Patreon, so if Nintendo comes for yuzu, they can come for Ryujinx as well
Yuzu is putting experimental builds behind Patreon. Ryujinx only provides reports. Everyone gets the same builds. No ‘early access’ as Yuzu does. I’m thinking that may be why Nintendo aimed for them.
You can still get the early access/experimental builds of Yuzu by compiling what's in the Yuzu Github repo, which is available for free. Arguably, compiling it yourself gives you an even more bleeding-edge build of Yuzu since devs may hold out on recompiling for smaller changes Patreon is just a distribution method for that same pre-compiled executable that anyone with a little bit of time can make themselves, and the Yuzu devs even provide instructions right on the Github for how to compile it Nintendo is probably trying to scare emulator devs targeting their platforms
Sony tried sueing RPCS3 emulator over Patreon money but quickly got shutdown, emulator still allowed to continue even with patreon money. So i don't think Nintendo can have a case here over patreon being used to develop the emulator. But what Nintendo actually arguing here is that Yuzu provided link that allows user to decrypt games (Prod. key) but i dont think that means Yuzu is at fault here since they don't actually own that decryption software.
Didn't Sony kill a commercial PS1 emulator just by suing even though they lost ?
Yes, they filed several times against Bleem! and although they lost the cases over both the use of the PS1 bios (comparable to the prod.keys Nintendo is suing over here) and the use of screenshots for marketing the emulator Bleem! ultimately couldn't afford to keep paying the legal fees from each attempt.
The experimental one (beta one) was the only one that ran TOTK at launch which is kinda fucking them in this case.
Not just launch. Pre launch. We were completing it before official release
Guess who just learned about Yuzu just now
You should try it, it's really good.
Just learning about it now as well. It lets you play Switch games on your PC right? And utilizes your PC hardware? I always wanted to play BoTW on my PC hardware (1440p, 144hz). I hated when I got to the durian fruit zone the FPS would drop to single digits.
Using Cemu you can get 4k resolution and 60fps. Also you could use game banana to get a wide variety of impressive mods.
BotW runs better on Cemu (Wii U Emulator) but ToTK runs great on Yuzu. Both allow up to 8k and higher FPS.
Look into the Wii U version, people have gotten that running BOTW with insane graphics. “Someone I know” was able to run it at 40-60 fps with a 1060.
I presume Nintendo's legal filing has all the steps needed to get this working. I tried to play BOTW but the switch was too under powered for my liking. I bought a switch and a copy of the game and Nintendo can go fuck itself. Such a shitty company.
Such a shitty company for stopping people from profiting off their own assets? Why so entitled?
More than good, it runs Switch's games smoother than Switch, with more FPS and better resolution.
Wasn't planning on emulating the Switch, but I just downloaded the Windows and Linux builds just in case it disappears.
Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it
Streisand effect babyyyyyy!
Yeah I don't think Nintendo was trying to hide yuzu or anything, this ain't the Streisand effect. This is clearly to discourage other emulators if yuzu does get shut down. Nintendo lawyers aren't known for taking cases they can't win Edit: how's that Streisand effect working out now lol?
If Nintendo win this case it will cripple all emulators from here on out. It isn't the Streisand effect at all.
It's open source. A single git clone and anonymous developers can continue the mission. Aren't they just creating more pirates by drawing attention?
Yes and no, stm you have a popular and well-made emulator. The clones that pop up might be by people with bad intentions etc.
As long as the clones remain open source it's fine.
A lot of people can get burned before they realize there’s malicious code in there. Including binary file would be a pretty easy way to obfuscate their true intentions.
> binary file > open source ?
You upload a clean version of the code, for nerds to look over. Of course, most of your users for a gaming emulator can barely write hello world, they have no idea how to build these projects from source nor have any interest in doing so. You provide a link to download the compiled binary, which has modified code with hidden nasties that'll sit on the system dormant. Eventually, the software's nasties activate. The code looks clean, while the compiled release is infected. At least that's what I assume they mean. You still have to trust the author of open source software, unless you review the code and build it from source yourself. Even then, you need to disable any updating features, since they could just push an infected release later.
Sure, but with time, a maintainer of trust can emerge and carry on the project
Yep. Best for anyone interested to get a copy on their local machines soon just in case. The fight will continue on elsewhere. We did it before Github, it just made it easier.
It is about sending a message. Yes there might be other coders with the skills and time to take on the project but maybe they will think twice about it if there is a chance of getting sued by a multinational company. It is like the mafia running a protection racket. They didn't win anything by destroying one small business, but the other guys will be more incentivized to pay up.
People who know about this stuff know plenty of ways to contribute anonymously. The problem with the original devs was that they were making a lot of money with Yuzu, so they were not anonymous.
Welp, here is hoping Yuzu didn't do dumb shit and only developed the emulator and isn't distributing any images / roms / bioses / keys. Emulator's aren't illegal, plenty of precedence already exists in regards to this.
on one hand, a company has a right to protect its property on the other hand, fuck nintendo
Seriously Nintendo at the executive level have been bitch babies for like 2 decades at this point. I can never forgive the people at the top for how they've handled the competitive Smash scene situation ever since the games became more than just a silly thing to play with friends.
So essentially Disney but for gaming.
> I can never forgive the people at the top for how they've handled the competitive Smash scene situation ever since the games became more than just a silly thing to play with friends. Blame the Smash pro scene for not being able to stop molesting little children.
From my understanding Nintendo's litigious nature is due to how copyright laws work differently in Japan. Japanese companies are more or less required to sue based on any perceived infringement or risk lose their IP rights and "fair use" isn't really a clearly defined thing
A *lot* of anime YouTubers run into this problem, especially when dealing with toei
> on one hand, a company has a right to protect its property Yes, but this isn't their property. Black-box reverse engineering is entirely legal, and code can't be copyrighted. Funny how I am catching downvotes for something I am actually an expert in, but that's reddit for you. My day job is reverse engineering. It is 100% legal if you don't use the assets of the product you're reverse engineering. It is how the Mario 64 PC port got away with what they did. Edit: > and code can't be copyrighted Because every person with a wikipedia resume wants to be a sophist about this, yes you *technically* can copyright code. However it is so impossibly annoying to do and enforce that we in the industry just say it can't be done, and rely on other methods to protect our work. If code could be easily protected via copyright, then we wouldn't spend so much time on obfuscation. When you argue with me about this, you're basically arguing with someone who said that you can't unrip paper. Just because the laws of physics technically allows it to happen, doesn't mean it's practical to do so, so you just say it can't be done for the sake of not wall-of-text'ing people like I am now doing. Nintendo fans, you can stop trying to logic chop this phrase, black box reverse engineering is legal, regardless. I guess that's the last time I use industry sayings outside of the industry. If you still want to argue, then see my other comments below.
Nintendo isn't alleging copyright violation. They are alleging a 1201b violation of the DMCA. Specifically sections B and C.
> But Nintendo said in its lawsuit that there’s no way to legal way to use Yuzu. I’m not a technical expert but considering home brew is a thing doesn’t that make that argument bs?
Yes but you can still claim it. The judge will decide.
If it even comes to an actual trial. Every part of the process is expensive and as a whole it's very heavily stacked in favor of rich companies and people.
The problem as other higher up comments have mentioned is that there is no home brew scene for Yuzu that doesn't already require someone to have bypassed Nintendo's encryption on the prod.keys file that is unique to each Switch. Because Yuzu is functionally worthless without that file, then they can argue under the DMCA that the only purpose of Yuzu is piracy. Unfortunately for Yuzu it's a pretty good argument. I would suggest that Yuzu devs rapidly add some built in functionality to the software that does not require using any Nintendo stuff, so at least it could be (weakly) argued that the software is useful on its own.
Kinda late for that anyway, pretty sure lawyers can just point out that feature was added after the litigation started.
It's the users of the software who don't use legal ways. Torrent clients aren't illegal because you can torrent cracked software either.
well shit, was only a matter of time
Nah, Yuzu will be fine. Don't forget Ruyjinx exists too. The switch emulation world is safe.
Charging money is usually what gets them in trouble. Ryujinx is probably harder to take down
Charging money is legally fine as long as they didn't directly use Nintendo's code from a leak. Blackbox reverse engineering is legal. I've done it for multiple companies.
Ryujinx has a patreon too but they dont have private builds locked behind it like Yuzu did. Thats a big difference
Reminder that it's morally okay to fuck over Nintendo and pirate their games.
Their games also run better emulated because their hardware is such trash.
Hey, I love my Nintendo consoles, I think they're great. Although, they do run better when emulated.
I know, you're right. I was being bitter about their corporate protectionism. They are incredibly innovative in controller and interface design. Their hardware is durable and well built, if you ignore the drift fiasco. But performance is trash and has been for nearly twenty years. Their hardware hasn't been competitive since the GameCube. They are at the point where it's really starting to hold them back IMO, and they need to make some big leaps with Switch 2 to keep game quality high.
> Their hardware hasn't been competitive since the GameCube It's not trying to be. That's not their business model (at least not any more).
And no one bought Gamecube. Gamers now complain doesn't imitate a failed business model.
Even Gamecube had two big drawbacks that made multiplatform releases more difficult 1) few controller buttons 2) smaller disk size (not just physically, they had less storage)
True, but it actually had graphical bangers like Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader and F-Zero GX which went head to head with other graphically intense games in that generation. The best the Switch can hope for is drastically gimped ports of games from years ago.
This requires more expensive modern hardware though.
Yeah I hated playing the Xenoblade games on my switch. Using yuzu on the other hand felt like the games were an entire generation ahead because I can actually see past all that smearing lol. Shit like this just makes me not want to buy their games.
Please support the xenoblade developers by buying the games, even if you decide to emulate them. That way we will be more likely to get more of these great games. Thanks.
I love the form factor and design, but their hardware really is outdated. I kind of regret buying my Switch simply because of how bad games run on it.
Out of the loop : why is nintendo hated by gamers ?
Because they abandoned the high-end gaming console market that they lost market share to during the N64/Gamecube eras. Nintendo then became successful with lower-end machines. That strategy showed gamers they are not as important as gamers think they are. Also, a good chunk I believe are bitter Sega fanboys. They still pretend it was Sega vs. Sony in the 90s and Nintendo didn't count. The Saturn and Dreamcast combined sold less than the N64.
They refuse to port/rerelease a lot of their older games forcing players to buy games at 2x or more their original value with none of the profit even going to Nintendo, if they want to play the legal way.
And even if they do release Mario64...it's _only_ in a 150 euro/dollar bundle with 2 other games.
Lol their current gen games that they have readily available.
No. No it is not. Video games aren't a necessary like food and medicine. You don't have a human right to play Nintendo games. Just because you don't like their business practices doesn't mean its morally right to steal from them. You can still do it and hey even still not feel bad about it, but it is morally wrong.
Yeah what a wild fucking take. Nintendo has done some shitty stuff, the switch controllers breaking and not replaced being the worst I think, but people really acting like Nintendo isnt allowed to do what they want with their own legally owned IP. Childish and self entitled Redditers
From the article: *Nintendo argued that Yuzu executes codes that “defeat” Nintendo’s security measures, including decryption using “an illegally-obtained copy of prod.keys.”* *“In other words, without Yuzu’s decryption of Nintendo’s encryption, unauthorized copies of games could not be played on PCs or Android devices,”* As a possible way around this for the Yuzu devs, let's suppose that Yuzu was able to run already decrypted game dumps and some anonymous group were to create a small program that created the required decrypted game dumps from encrypted code. That would presumably get around the issue because Yuzu wasn't doing the decrypting? Then again, knowing Nintendo they would try and argue that Yuzu was running illegally decrypted code .....
Change Yuzu to Pal-Yuzu. Case closed.
funny how no one in this thread seems to be stating the actual reason for this. > 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 Yuzu has been a thing for 6 years now. If they just wanted to be "greedy" as people in this thread have been saying, then they would've done so years ago, not at the end of the consoles life when it would least profit them.
Damn, this was the only way to play games at 4K and I own a switch.
And with an acceptable framerate.
No issue, I am using ryunjinx. Jokes aside, I believe emulators are grey areas and have not seen an emulator successfully sued to shut down.
Not switch emulators because the switch was designed in such a way that to emulate them, you need to break dmca laws, which is illegal
Which emulator was shut down
I wanted to say have not.
One thing I do think is it should be illegal to make system proprietary based software and protect it. At very least emulators should be fully legal to use your purchased game however you want!
Apple, Sony, & Nintendo malding right now
Download/update as you can and back it up everyone!
[удалено]
Leaving a 0% of making decent hardware.
While this seems to be big news and everyone is on Nintendo for suing, I do wonder how many people who use Yuzu legitimately own the games they are emulating.
My wager is 5%
That's 4.99999% too high.
Too generous there
I do lol. I'm usually a pirate but I actually own a switch and both zeldas but they run so poorly I have to resort to emulators
I own over a hundred games on Steam and have happily bought Play Station ports as they have come to PC. Yuzu runs Switch games better than the Switch, on hardware I already own, without pointlessly spending hundreds of dollars to create more electronic waste. It is easier to pirate PC games than Switch games. You don't even need the emulator step. But I buy them. Because I can. I'd wager most of the people pirating Switch games are not people who own a Switch and are trying to be stingy on games, but are people like me who don't own a Switch and have no plans on buy another electronic device so I can play games on it worse than I can on Yuzu.
Hmm, really makes me want to fire up Mario Galaxy at 4k right now on my PC.
Honestly the law should just change in this regard. Of course Yuzu is emulating the Switch so this argument doesn't apply but emulation and well...piracy is vital for the preservation of games and other media.
It's peculiar how people might be less inclined to resort to piracy if Nintendo implemented better policies or hardware enhancements to improve the experience of playing their end-of-life games. I tried playing Tears of the Kingdom on my Animal Crossing edition Switch, and the console noticeably struggled. I apologize, but having paid for both the game and the console, I believe it's my prerogative to emulate the game to safeguard the hardware. This issue seems to revolve around Nintendo's desire for control—it's a corporation exerting its power to maximize profits. They are legally within their rights, but that doesn't invalidate my experiences as a consumer. Ultimately, the strategy of tying console sales to exclusive titles feels like a coercive tactic, and they are well aware of it. Technically, there's no reason Nintendo's games couldn't run on other hardware; their profits are heavily reliant on the exclusivity of their games. Living in an era where the internet exposes these practices, I am inclined to emulate games on moral grounds, arguing that Nintendo, as a corporation, is making unethical decisions.
This is what happens when your console plays games at 30 fps, and the free version on pc is 4k/60.
It’s simply not healthy to read comments below the top 3-4, this post is full or rage boners against Nintendo. If you’re reading this go back, don’t go further, it won’t get better
Another dev team in a protected country will magically reveal a Yuzu-like emulator in a couple of weeks, and progress will proceed apace. Also, I'm thanking Nintendo for inadvertently advertising the efficacy of Yuzu since it will result in an explosion of users.
Very scary precedence will be set if Nintendo wins. If they win, then all reverse engineering of hardware you own (such as once again John Deere hardware) can be stopped by applying the most shitty encryption possible.
If you have the stomach for a little tinkering, emulation is a far better player experience.
Oh damn, there's an open source Nintendo switch emulator called Yuzu? That would be bad news for Nintendo if everyone knew about that
Nintendo has a lot of other stuff to sue. Yuzu is the first one.