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

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

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) February 27, 2024

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

Source

 

[G0R3Z]

My theory is that this only matters now, is because Nintendo are still using a system similar to the Switch for their new console. It doesn't make sense for them to target Yuzu specifically, when it's been established for years. They going after Ryuijinx too? Their work on Yuzu probably threatens the new console, and would mean it could get emulated extremely early into the new console's release.

 

[Impossible_Igntiz]

about damn time! finally! hope they go back to finishing up Citra now and also to the pirates to finally get up their asses and start cracking denuvo instead of using emulators as your handy backdoor but of course this will be short lived cuz of the PS4 emulator coming soon

 

[SonowRaevius]

I swear Nintendo has tried this before in the past and lost. Some people never do learn.

 

[RAHelllord]

Lets hope their code really is clean (Unlike Dolphin), so they don't face legal repercussions.

Dolphin is legally clean and untouchable by Nintendo under the current legal framework. Hence why they haven't sued or DMCA'd the Dolphin team yet. The debacle with the steam store front was not a legal matter but one of courtesy between Valve and Nintendo, which is why Nintendo made demands of the dolphin team and Valve told dolphin to sort out an agreement with Nintendo. Neither valve nor Nintendo decided to involve lawyers beyond a notice from Nintendo towards valve about how mean the dolphin team is for making an emulator.

 

[rookiesearcher]

Quoting me from the other thread
My favorite part is the mental gymnastics they are going through to pin rampant piracy onto the emulator. Like, sure Nintendo, it definitely wasn’t the price hike. Also, I am pretty sure it’s not illegal to dump your own files but Nintendo seems to think it is, so wondering how that will turn out

Definitely WAS worth the extra 10$. It isn't illegal to dump your own files but sharing, running, or distributing them is.

 

[linuxares]

Dolphin is legally clean and untouchable by Nintendo

Wrong, they include the Wii commonkey. So it's technically illegal under the DMCA.

 

[Jayro]

Wrong, they include the Wii commonkey. So it's technically illegal under the DMCA.

Yeah, this was what I was talking about. @RAHelllord

 

[6555565556234]

View attachment 422646​

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


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

deserved yuzu sucked anyway

 

[Subtle Demise]

My theory is that this only matters now, is because Nintendo are still using a system similar to the Switch for their new console. It doesn't make sense for them to target Yuzu specifically, when it's been established for years. They going after Ryuijinx too? Their work on Yuzu probably threatens the new console, and would mean it could get emulated extremely early into the new console's release.

Yeah it makes no sense that they are only targeting Yuzu and not Ryujinx (oh I am also keeping the source code of this backed up as well just in case). Yuzu was very careful about not updating their emulator to play leaked titles, whereas Ryujinx team didn't seem to be worried about it.

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

Wrong, they include the Wii commonkey. So it's technically illegal under the DMCA.

repeal the DMCA, now

 

[linuxares]

about damn time! finally! hope they go back to finishing up Citra now and also to the pirates to finally get up their asses and start cracking denuvo instead of using emulators as your handy backdoor but of course this will be short lived cuz of the PS4 emulator coming soon

Funny when you say that...

"Bunnei was then the lead developer for “Citra,” a Nintendo 3DS emulator which is still widely-available and still supported"

 

[Jayro]

repeal the DMCA, now

I agree, the DMCA has been nothing but abused since it came out. Nintendo has molded it into a suit of armor and sues everyone they can think of.

 

[The Catboy]

Definitely WAS worth the extra 10$.

It really wasn’t, TOTK was aggressively mid

 

[tpax]

Not buying Nintendo games is a must.
(Playing them anyway is okay, though)

 

[The Catboy]

the reason it was pirated so much is because it was the new big zelda game, thats it.
also its not as simple as claiming dumping your own copy is legal, this obviously depends on the country and for most its also a difference if you circumvent some form of drm. and lets not kid ourselves here, the emulator (and emulators in general) is 99% used for pirated copies

The issue is, Nintendo outright saying it’s “unlawful” to dump your own files

 

[RAHelllord]

Wrong, they include the Wii commonkey. So it's technically illegal under the DMCA.

From https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/07/20/what-happened-to-dolphin-on-steam/

The reason the lawyers representing Nintendo would make such a leap is because they wished to create a narrative where the DMCA's exemptions do not apply to us, as these exemptions are powerful and widely in our favor. Of particular note for Dolphin is the reverse engineering exemption in 17 U.S.C. § 1201(f) which states that:

...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. 17 U.S.C. § 1201(f)(2)

Dolphin is an independently created computer program that is circumventing Wii disc encryption for interoperability with Wii software. According to this exemption, this does not constitute infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 1201. This exemption even allows distribution of information collected through circumvention, like encryption keys, if it is for software interoperability.

The law has specifically an exemption for small things that are necessary for interoperability, which includes things like simple keys that aren't able to be copyrighted or trademarked. Including an entire firmware on the other hand would be infringing because that is copyrighted by itself.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Interestingly, they want a trial by jury

 

[Subtle Demise]

Not buying Nintendo games is a must.
(Playing them anyway is okay, though)

This. Having my Switch modchipped as we speak.

 

[HinaNaru Cutie]

i hope shartendo loses and people drink to the win of yuzu/ryu - seriously people are a bunch of greedy goblins that need to be k'od already, crap has gone nuts far gone for this company its disgusting to see how far gone this company has gotten over the years of the super tablet(switch) release

 

[linuxares]

From https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/07/20/what-happened-to-dolphin-on-steam/

The law has specifically an exemption for small things that are necessary for interoperability, which includes things like simple keys that aren't able to be copyrighted or trademarked. Including an entire firmware on the other hand would be infringing because that is copyrighted by itself.

The exception is grey at best since its up to case by case. The DMCA count this commonkey as circumvention of you read the law. It's really written by lobbyist.

 

[eriol33]

You can actually sue an open source project?