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

 

[ertaboy356b]

Worth mentioning that Bleem! was literally on store shelves. This isn’t an argument in their favour, and they know that, which is why their wording is purposefully evasive.

The way I see it, bleem also runs CD only games so I think that is in the clear (You need to own the CD hence buy it). If Yuzu only runs on cartridge, that would be similar to bleem. Anyway, let's see what will happen next.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

Is this to deter others from emulating Switch 2?

It's obvious switch 2 will use same architecture and they're too fucking lazy to change it

 

[Dragozard]

Welp, time to update!

 

[Delerious]

it's legally distinct
sx was taking money for purchase
yuzu's devs produce a free software and people choose to donate to them

Donations are legally distinct, true, but you can still get in trouble for taking donations depending on what those donations are being used for. If that money is being used to promote the development of something that is "used to commit piracy," as is the accusation here, with the burden of proof being on the plaintiff that it does cause said harm, then if the court rules in favor of the plaintiff, you may still be required to pay recompense. Additionally, donating at least $5/mo to Yuzu's team does provide the incentive of newer releases to their donors. Not sure how it would hold up in court, but a case could be made that this is, in fact, a form of exchange that incentivizes both parties in relation to the accusation of making money for developing a software that "promotes piracy."

Anyway, the point is, why risk it? If the Yuzu devs were smart enough to look at the patterns with some of Nintendo's previous lawsuits, i.e. money being involved in some such projects, they could have avoided this lawsuit to begin with. Sure, they might have otherwise received a cease and desist from Nintendo, but Nintendo's case against them might have been much weaker, to the point that the Yuzu team wouldn't have to worry about the risks that come with such a lawsuit, even if they do win. As much as I hate Nintendo for these practices, it's hard for me to defend some of these people, because they were stupid enough to have the exchange of money involved in their projects to begin with, whether it be through donations with incentives or outright selling a product.

 

[Dawn_Chaos]

Did nintendo never read what happened with Bleem?

What ever did happen with Bleem? I was too young to know anything other than I could not play Lemmings on my PC because laws.

 

[wolffangalchemist]

i hope this ends the way sony vs bleem did.... but i have my doubts it will.
some how i hope a precedent in a positive way gets set for game preservations sake if nothing else.
these corporations are getting more outwardly and visibly greedy by the min, the you will own nothing and like it corpo manifesto.

 

[Dawn_Chaos]

This is the logical path for Nintendo to follow, given their history. Fuck them; I hope they lose and I hope this causes a loss of support for them.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Sony didn't have the backing of the DMCA. Nintendo does. If this case however wins, it will be a massive trouble for all emulators going forward.

Right now Nintendo are blaming Yuzu and Ryujinx thanks to repackers (even if I don't like them I understand why they exist and some releases are a godsend *hint The Sims*).

They seem to use the circumvention argument in the DMCA for this case.

Bleem came out a year after the DMCA was introduced, it was absolutely a factor. The courts decided the "personal backup" exception applies, since emulators are intended to be used with them.
It doesn't circumvent anything as it doesn't include the required encryption keys, you have to provide those yourself.

It doesn't seem like Nintendo has a case here. This argument has been tried in court multiple times, and it has never worked. I guess they're hoping Yuzu will just take it down without a fight, since that has been working for them lately.

As much as Nintendo wishes emulation was illegal, that is not the case.

 

[Goku1992A]

Donations are legally distinct, true, but you can still get in trouble for taking donations depending on what those donations are being used for. If that money is being used to promote the development of something that is "used to commit piracy," as is the accusation here, with the burden of proof being on the plaintiff that it does cause said harm, then if the court rules in favor of the plaintiff, you may still be required to pay recompense. Additionally, donating at least $5/mo to Yuzu's team does provide the incentive of newer releases to their donors. Not sure how it would hold up in court, but a case could be made that this is, in fact, a form of exchange that incentivizes both parties in relation to the accusation of making money for developing a software that "promotes piracy."

Anyway, the point is, why risk it? If the Yuzu devs were smart enough to look at the patterns with some of Nintendo's previous lawsuits, i.e. money being involved in some such projects, they could have avoided this lawsuit to begin with. Sure, they might have otherwise received a cease and desist from Nintendo, but Nintendo's case against them might have been much weaker, to the point that the Yuzu team wouldn't have to worry about the risks that come with such a lawsuit, even if they do win. As much as I hate Nintendo for these practices, it's hard for me to defend some of these people, because they were stupid enough to have the exchange of money involved in their projects to begin with, whether it be through donations with incentives or outright selling a product.

I disagree with you… they need money to further their development because this isn’t free.

That’s why a lot of projects get scraped because people work for free and get tired of working on something with no benefit.

 

[Hassal]

This holds as much legitimacy as suing Snes9x team. As long as it doesn't infringe on any intellectual property its all fair game.

Maybe just maybe you upped your game a little bit perhaps it would be hard to emulate your pile of shit but you didn't so go cry in the corner.

 

[ChanseyIsTheBest]

I'd like to partially attribute this to the ToTK leak mouthbreathers who were livestreaming on Twitch literally showing how to access Tinfoil shops to download the game before the game came out.

 

[VashTS]

i dont believe Yuzu circumvents the protections in place by Nintendo. It emulates the functions using keys that are on the hardware you purchased. the EULA might say its against the rules, but not illegal to dump your own software from your hardware.

 

[Tomtani1]

Yuzu is an awesome emulator. The Yuzu team should have been smarter by NOT making Yuzu run Nintendo's new releases. The Yuzu team should have waited 6 months after the games have been released and let Nintendo make their sales. The Yuzu team actually promotes their patreon early release version of Yuzu being able to run Nintendo's new games. It would be ashame to lose Yuzu.

 

[Kurt91]

I wonder if it would have made any difference if the Patreon was initially set up for "Yuzu Carrot Farm", where people were officially donating to fund somebody growing carrots in their garden, and donors officially got a picture of the largest carrot harvested that year. Meanwhile, for completely unrelated reasons, the person running the garden was personally donating to the Yuzu emulator team for no personal benefit (since it's the same guy), and the Yuzu team just happened to unofficially decide they like the people in the carrot farm's Discord and were dropping early access builds "out of the kindness of their hearts".

 

[Hassal]

I find this kind of funny because the reason BigN is suing was the very reason the court reversed the ruling in favor of the emulator creator.

Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix2 involved a software publisher (Connectix) that developed software known as the Virtual Game Station that emulated the Sony PlayStation game console on Macintosh and Windows computers. Development of the Virtual Game Station required reverse engineering efforts that included extracting the BIOS of a PlayStation console and observing it in a debugger, as well as disassembling the BIOS object code. Sony sued and Connectix lost an initial skirmish and was temporarily enjoined from distributing the Virtual Game Station. Ultimately, however, the Ninth Circuit reversed that ruling, finding that Connectix’s intermediate copying was a fair use. The court emphasized that the intermediate nature of the copying (i.e., no Sony BIOS code as included in the Virtual Game Station code), the necessity of reverse engineering, and the value of permitting consumers to play PlayStation games on new platforms.

 

[Jayinem]

I pirate games and unlike most on here I'm not ashamed of it. I laugh when I see posts like "well if Nintendo didn't charge $70 for Tears of the Kingdom it wouldn't get pirated" lol that is BULLSHIT. People pirate games because they don't want to pay for it at all, not because the game is $10 more.

 

[M7L7NK7]

What ever did happen with Bleem? I was too young to know anything other than I could not play Lemmings on my PC because laws.

 

[Tomtani1]

How many people here have a Switch but use Yuzu for atleast some games? Never tried Yuzu before but might try it since I just picked up a ROG Ally. Would be nice for graphic upgrades and a more comfortable handheld experience.

In general is the Yuzu experience relatively glitch free?

Yuzu is an amazing emulator. I have a Switch but often times I like to use Yuzu better. I hate to lose Yuzu.

 

[orangy57]

let's hope for everyone's sake that judges still view computers as computers and the definition hasn't shifted too far. If anything happens this could set a really really bad precedent. If the old definition still stands, clean-room emulators will hopefully stay completely legal

It seems like nintendo is looking for any teeny tiny window to try and "get" this emulator on just so it can make an example and scare others off. If they really wanted to be petty they could go for Dolphin emulator since it uses proprietary keys but it seems like there's not much harm to their bottom line so they're not going to bother.

 

[MasterJ360]

Well I guess they are coming after Ryujinx next b/c finger pointing will happen. I know ppl want to use patreon on everything for public support, but we gotta start using this stuff underground and more anonymous. The team can clearly counter case this b/c their emulation doesn't come with piracy - The user has to provide "Dumped" content its literally the same argument of using Atmosphere CFW. The question is do they have the money to fight back? Nintendo is suing them b/c they don't want their exclusives being played on PC that would look and perform better than their outdated Switch.