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

 

[The Catboy]

Ahhhh... After reading the filing, Nintendo isn't going after Emulation, because they know that's settled case law and they would lose in wholesale fashion...
What they ARE going after is Yuzu using Nintendo's prod.keys according to the filing, which presumably Nintendo has copyrighted, and THAT would be enforceable, as Nintendo can in fact demonstrate that they are the originators of that original work.

This might not be good for the Yuzu team, I do not claim to be a copyright lawyer, but squabbles over copyrighted code have often gone the way of the original developer before, so before everyone starts thinking Nintendo is going to lose, or they don't know what they're doing, it seems that they might have sufficient grounds.

Here’s the thing, they aren’t distributing the keys and requires the user to dump their own keys. Nintendo is literally suing them because the user has to dump (or obtain) the keys themselves to decrypt the game. The issue, it’s been determined to not be illegal to dump your own bios. Way back in the PS1 days, it was determined to be acceptable to dump your system files, just not distribute them.
Nintendo is most likely trying to use the legal system to bankrupt the Yuzu team and put the fear of the Big N on other emulators.

 

[JORGETECH]

I dont know, the entire thing reads like yuzu is solely responsible for any pirated copy out in the wild aswell as for the games that get leaked ahead of their release. I know that they want things to be in their favor so they overdramatize but a few of their points wont hold any ground. Such as romfs being the reason for leaked media, because atmosphere supports this too and they havent taken any measures to stop it.

The thing is that they mention the head dev speaking about piracy in a way that doesnt shine a good light. Emulators itself are legal but them mentioning piracy in the way they did can and will bite them in the ass.

I agree that some of the points seem to be overdramatization, I actually think this case won't be too relevant for emulation since it seems like there are too many precedents for emulation being legal (not a lawyer, so don't trust me of course). I remember Dolphin's post when Valve contacted Nintendo for permission to publish Dolphin on Steam and the Dolphin devs, after consulting a lawyer, came into the conclusion that even with the leaked Wii Common Key the emulator was legal, if it was illegal I believe Nintendo would have taken the opportunity to sue the Dolphin devs back when they tried to publish on Steam.

Of course, this case might be different since the Yuzu devs were not careful and did some really shady stuff in my opinion, but there is a high chance of just the Yuzu devs (or better said, the ones that benefit from Patreon) being affected rather than emulation in general. If the outcome of this case ends up being that way I hope it serves as an example of what not to do when funding an emulator.

 

[kiaghi7]

Yeah, I have no doubt that Nintendo want to bankrupt the Yuzu developers as well, and I have to admit my ignorance as to how Yuzu works or what it needs to work, but I'm just reading what the filing has to say...

So it may be possible that Nintendo is asserting that within Yuzu they are making use of copyrighted code to decrypt the prod.keys, and that is the problem...

I'm not suggesting that Nintendo is right in their claims, and this might just blow up in their face like when they sued Galoob, creating an entire market from their litigious lust, but I've also seen some pretty crazy court rulings that anyone who knows the subject would shake their head at, but because it's a VERY niche area of expertise, the court was able to be bamboozled just enough to make a very dubious ruling.

 

[BigOnYa]

I don't use Switch emulators, but why are they suing Yuzu and not Ryujinx also. How do they differ? Does Yuzu include prod keys?

 

[Noctosphere]

Im sick of Nintendo being a sue happy company its not about gaming and having fun its all about money and profits i used to collect physical copies of switch games not any more now i pirate my switch games and i dont need yuzu i have two v1 unpatched switches fuck Nintendo!

I miss Satoru Iwata-sama time. To people saying "they were sueing everyone back then too", well back then, we had Iwata and Miyamoto and all those colorful character everywhere on the front line. We had the positive side AND the negative side. Right now, they sue everyone, but we dont get much entertaining from actual people, so we only see the negative side of Nintendo, and they don't even make any effort to show us a better side.
Nintendo is a shame to video game company. Very sad...

 

[JORGETECH]

I don't use Switch emulators, but why are they suing Yuzu and not Ryujinx also. Why do they differ? Does Yuzu include prod keys?

I don't believe so, but Yuzu does lock Early Access builds behind a paywall. Ryujinx seems to only give Discord benefits in their Patreon.

 

[gamecaptor]

Ryujinx it is then!

 

[The Catboy]

I don't use Switch emulators, but why are they suing Yuzu and not Ryujinx also. How do they differ? Does Yuzu include prod keys?

Yuzu is far more popular, especially since that time it was included in a Steam Deck trailer. They are properly hoping the team will call it quits out of fear of the Big N

 

[choconado]

i am not a lawyer in any way shape or form, but like others have said it feels like nintendo has a very shaky case at best and is mostly attempting intimidation here, and similar tactics you see in say, SLAPP suits, of attempting to either cow the defendant into settlement, or legally drown them into nonexistence. One of the x factors here is that US courts are currently extremely generous to corporations in their rulings, however rhode island isn't exactly a bastion of foreign corp generosity in the courtroom. Also the most important question, does tropical haze llc have the legal muscle to power through this fight at all? A good legal team could definitely take even just all the stuff said in this thread and spin it into a good defense that could make it all the way up the appeals process to scotus. I'm just not sure THllc possess that level of resource.

 

[Bladexdsl]

o well RYU is better anyway

 

[Noctosphere]

Yuzu is far more popular, especially since that time it was included in a Steam Deck trailer. They are properly hoping the team will call it quits out of fear of the Big N

of course they will. Say bye bye to Yuzu, and hello to *insert another japanese fruit name*, an open-source project based on Yuzu code but totally unrelated to them

 

[Foxi4]

Sadly the US still uses that stupid system, along with many other stupid systems

It’s not a stupid system. Jury trials allow for jury nullification - getting someone off the hook for something that’s technically a crime, but society, represented by a jury of peers, believes it shouldn’t be and it’s the law that needs to catch up. It’s actually very liberal and progressive compared to systems where the judge is the sole arbiter of truth, one with their hands tied by rigid law.

 

[The Catboy]

It’s not a stupid system. Jury trials allow for jury nullification - getting someone off the hook for something that’s technically a crime, but society, represented by a jury of peers, believes it shouldn’t be and it’s the law that needs to catch up. It’s actually very liberal and progressive compared to systems where the judge is the sole arbiter of truth, one with their hands tied by rigid law.

The issue with the system is that it’s made up randoms who often don’t know the law and in this case, probably won’t understand the technology behind all of this. I think the system needs to be updated. I don’t think a random off the street is the best person to ask about a tech related legal issue. I do think it’s better than the Japanese legal system but it’s still stupid as it currently stands

 

[Noctosphere]

It’s not a stupid system. Jury trials allow for jury nullification - getting someone off the hook for something that’s technically a crime, but society, represented by a jury of peers, believes it shouldn’t be and it’s the law that needs to catch up. It’s actually very liberal and progressive compared to systems where the judge is the sole arbiter of truth, one with their hands tied by rigid law.

in canada, when facing charges, the one accused have the right to choose between a trial in front of jury or in front of a judge. In the first case, the jury will decide if you are guilty or innocent, in the latter, only the judge will decide. There are only a few cases where the one accused don't have the choice, like trials for murders, where the trials is in front of jury.
I don't know about companies (if they have a choice or not), but for low-value pirates, like most members of the Temp (like me), we have the choice. If I were to get caught for pirating, I only have to choose "trial in front of jury" and I have very very high chances to be found not-guilty.
During the selection of the jury, they don't know any details of the case. And when they are all chosen, and then get to know the case, they will pretty much all have the same reaction: "You want us to judge this guy for these charges?". Chances are very high that they will say "not guilty" as a way to say "fuck you" to justice.
Police forces usually leave us be, because we don't have value to their eyes, and also because they know it will end that way (unless they get 12 very zealous jury).

 

[whitesword7]

Ive read the entire document. They want 2.5k for each violation of anti-piracy circumvention and 150k for each copyright act violation. They throw multiple numbers around but mention that TOTK has been downloaded and played over a milllion times. Thats quite a huge sum.

While format shifting is legal, since you only buy a license to play the game, that basically gets thrown out the window.

I dont know, the entire thing reads like yuzu is solely responsible for any pirated copy out in the wild aswell as for the games that get leaked ahead of their release. I know that they want things to be in their favor so they overdramatize but a few of their points wont hold any ground. Such as romfs being the reason for leaked media, because atmosphere supports this too and they havent taken any measures to stop it.

The thing is that they mention the head dev speaking about piracy in a way that doesnt shine a good light. Emulators itself are legal but them mentioning piracy in the way they did can and will bite them in the ass.

what did the head dev said about piracy?

 

[realtimesave]

Im sick of Nintendo being a sue happy company its not about gaming and having fun its all about money and profits i used to collect physical copies of switch games not any more now i pirate my switch games and i dont need yuzu i have two v1 unpatched switches fuck Nintendo!

I collect physical copies of games and I don't open em. As far as Nintendo suing an emulator author good luck with that, since afaik Yuzu doesn't use Nintendo proprietary code. They aren't going to really get anywhere with it.

 

[ZeroFX]

Nintendo, this bs won't stop emulation, maybe cease yuzu development at max... That being said, yuzu devs are the worse, at least now they have some headache to deal with.

 

[Foxi4]

The issue with the system is that it’s made up randoms who often don’t know the law and in this case, probably won’t understand the technology behind all of this. I think the system needs to be updated. I don’t think a random off the street is the best person to ask about a tech related legal issue. I do think it’s better than the Japanese legal system but it’s still stupid as it currently stands

The issue with the system is that prosecutors are incentivised to put people in prison rather than to get to the bottom of any criminal inquiry. In fact, the juries are often instructed that they *must* make a verdict in accordance to some kind of made up standard when they absolutely do not. They’re also selected from a pool of candidates with a specific verdict in mind, so things are stacked against the defendants from the start. A “random person off the street” is the single best person you could ask because if the average American doesn’t give two shits about a certain issue then it’s a non-issue to begin with. The constitution grants power to We The People, not a bunch of guys in funny wigs.

 

[Wolfy]

Nintendo, I hope you read this one message.

Fuck off with ya. You making less than 1% of revenue isn't going to even be on your radar. Your demographic is still happily eating all the shit you come out with up so keep up the good work with that!

 

[Nincompoopdo]

Ever since Nintendo won the lawsuit case against Universal Studios (regarding Donkey Kong) in the early 80s - they learnt the ways of the law and how to make use of it.

This is actually a compliment to Yuzu, Nintendo didn't go after Ryujinx because it's not good enough to be a threat.