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Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

overkill.wtf

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Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#511

Things like this and companies like Nintendo must be stopped, it's both morally and legally correct to emulate when people actually owns the machine and cartridges.

Disagreed. I'm guessing that 99.99% of Switch emulator users do not own the cartridges. They're stealing, which is not only morally wrong, but legally wrong. Nintendo has the right to protect their IP and they have the right to make money. Furthermore, I disagree in general that it's morally and legally correct to emulate something you purchased.

Regardless of the moral question, digital piracy is not really "stealing"

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#512
post #492
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Nintendo caught using an open source emulator for the switch, without any sort of credit to the authors after suing? Majesco Entertainment published some switch games made by Mistic Software, which used an open source emulator without credit and in violation of its license (and therefore were infringing copyright). Atari was somehow involved as well. Nintendo had no involvement,…

> unless you consider them responsible for not doing a thorough enough license audit of every company that publishes Switch games or something. That's the thing with closed platform, you can't have your cake and it too.

They can if software is licensed under MIT or a similar "permissive" licence. In this case the software was correctly licensed under GPL, though.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo made it clear that this is also "illegal". You have to opt for the worse experience (using the switch) otherwise you're the bad guy ...

Depends on the place. This sort of interoperability is explicitly allowed in the EU.

Per whose interpretation of the law? The DMA isn’t going to give nerds the utopia they think that they’re going to get.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#514

Things like this and companies like Nintendo must be stopped, it's both morally and legally correct to emulate when people actually owns the machine and cartridges.

Disagreed. I'm guessing that 99.99% of Switch emulator users do not own the cartridges. They're stealing, which is not only morally wrong, but legally wrong. Nintendo has the right to protect their IP and they have the right to make money. Furthermore, I disagree in general that it's morally and legally correct to emulate something you purchased.

what's morally problematic about emulating something you already own?

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#515

I knew that Patreon would bite them some day. Any time money comes into a "offensive" open source project, whoever feels they are getting hurt can make a claim a lot easier. Somewhat surprised they haven't yet sued Ryujinx (the other Switch emulator project) for also having a Patreon.

Making money is not a factor for fair use, but one factor is whether it’s a for-profit endeavor; you can be making money to fund an operation without doing so for profit. And even then, courts haven’t been too concerned with that aspect when other aspects are clearly met.

> Making money is not a factor for fair use, but one factor is whether it’s a for-profit endeavor

Whether the use is for-profit is not a factor either. It's part of a factor. The first factor of the fair use test [1] is:

> the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

"including" is not "limited to", so something as simple as whether the use brings in any revenue, whether through donations or sales, could be one consideration within the first factor. Whether the use is for-profit is another consideration.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#U.S._fair_use_factors

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#517
post #423
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe so (the Sony v. Bleem cases mainly ended up in favor of Bleem), but also I don't think anyone has tried since the DMCA. It looks like Nintendo is taking a 'trafficking in circumvention device' legal strategy as opposed to a strictly anti-emulator legal strategy.

It's funny, the game companies lost the emulator court cases. But the companies behind those emulators still went out of business.

Right. What I hate about copyright is that winning a copyright infringement lawsuit with a fair use defense (fair use being by definition not infringement [1]) will still bankrupt you because of the legal fees.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp.#...

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think MyFedora is suggesting that even if Yuzu's primary usecase is piracy, that's because it's so difficult to use Yuzu in the legit manner (due to Nintendo's DRM on the console/game you own).

I feel like it would be a lot more straightforward if people just came out and said that they think piracy should be legal. Currently we have this weird mealy-mouthed roundabout discussions where people act ever so outraged at the idea that a tool or site is primarily used for piracy when anyone who's not hopelessly naïve recognizes that that's in fact what they're used for. At best we get comments like yours that ar…

I don't think this is an accurate portrayal of those feelings, certainly not mine. DRM has no benefit to the consumer except in the abstract sense that it is needed to protect the product so a company can make more things in the future. Whatever. At best it is inoffensive and not noticable, but more typically it is an issue.

The vast majority of games on PC at this point do not have any DRM, or I guess I should say any meaningful DRM. Denuvo games being the most notable exception. But most games on Steam have literally nothing other than a paperthin basic license check for Steam which is circumventable in a dozen incredibly trivial and automated/generic ways.

PC seems to be doing pretty great as a platform, better than ever, even. Honestly I think it might be worth reframing/clarifying what you are defining as piracy. If I own a Switch (and I do.) And I own games on that platform that I purchased from the e-shop. (And I do.) and I play those games on my PC with Yuzu/Ryujinx is that piracy? I don't even mean in the legal sense, I just mean what you do you personally think?

The need to defend/excuse Yuzus clear involvement is makes for an incredibly leading question, but the simplest answer is that I don't think people are surprised that Nintendo is doing it, just that it is shitty and not only does it not actually address the issue, it has potentially hugely chilling effects on legitimate software development.

I understand why some people are rubbed a little wrong by very mature and well-developed emulation of a current-gen (technically) platform. 100% it is used in piracy. Does that mean it shouldn't exist though? I sure don't think so. And that opinion isn't because I'm pro-piracy.

For what it is worth, on its merits, Yuzu actually did take steps to prevent casual users from playing TOTK pre-release. But also I don't think it is Yuzu's fault because Nintendo had its game leak.

Companies want money. Nintendo wants money. Nintendo is entitled to think this any anything else is a threat to their bottom line and I'm not surprised by it. Nintendo is also failing to serve the market in a way that meets its needs and that is legitimate driver of switch emulation usage, legally or otherwise. I can't feel bad about that.

I don't know why people would have piled on to the Yuzu Patreon during the TOTK leak, given what they did to prevent its usage for that purpose on a base level. There is no strong reason to give the Yuzu team money on Patreon. Daily builds are cool but hardly critical. It is impressive how much they're making on Patreon but that isn't money that Nintendo is going to get back if Yuzu was struck from the platform either.

Being anti-DRM isn't being pro-piracy and that is a false equivalence that I really hate to see. The least protected platform is now increasingly supported by the two other hardware manufacturers (Neither MS first-party or the Sony published stuff is laden with any non-trivial DRM) and the never-ending doomsaying about the PC as a hotbed for piracy really doesn't seem to have panned out the way many have predicted.

DRM sucks. Can't play netflix above 720p outside of their app/edge on Windows. Capcom added DRM to many games that were several years old breaking mods and proton/steam deck compatibility. In a world where DRM didn't get in the way, fine. We don't live in that world and wanting to not be punished as a consumer because DRM overwhelmingly sucks doesn't seem like a hot take. My steam library is over 1,000 games deep. I pay for shit. I don't want to deal with bullshit.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better as in much better framerate with no performance drops. At least that's what I've heard. Pretty much all the games I have played allowed to disable the motion controls. I think it counts towards accessibility. Personally I really dislike the whole motion control aspect so always turn them off. Zelda included. I'm sure there are other tradeoffs as well. But would love it see what it's like on an emulator. Or may…

That has not been my experience with switch games on the Steam Deck. Anytime shaders are loaded the FPS seems to stutter which in the newer Mario game is like every few seconds at first and it gets better the longer you play. I still prefer the switch for switch games myself.

I've tried a few and it does very much seem to depend on the game. Some run better, some run worse. Most are about equal.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#520

Things like this and companies like Nintendo must be stopped, it's both morally and legally correct to emulate when people actually owns the machine and cartridges.

Disagreed. I'm guessing that 99.99% of Switch emulator users do not own the cartridges. They're stealing, which is not only morally wrong, but legally wrong. Nintendo has the right to protect their IP and they have the right to make money. Furthermore, I disagree in general that it's morally and legally correct to emulate something you purchased.

It may be morally wrong, but that is somewhat orthogonal to whether it is legally wrong (e.g. illegal).
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