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Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

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Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#651

Post by coryfklein »

GabrielTFS wrote: post #643
coryfklein wrote: post #628

I love video games. I grew up with Super Mario Bros on the NES and since the 2000's I feel absolutely spoiled by the burgoening and diverse indie game industry. I can hardly believe that today I can mix and match genres, and the fact that the genre "deck building city builder roquelike" (looking at you Against the Storm) even exists is amazing. This whole industry exists because society has made guarantees that you c…

Yuzu certainly doesn't seem like a project that promotes piracy. They've made it very clear that they do not endorse piracy in any capacity, and in fact anyone found to be pirating games on e.g. their Discord server gets an insta-ban from what I've heard.

I haven't seen any indication that they promote it, but I'm guessing that something on the order of 98% of instances of Yuzu currently running on CPUs have pirated content in them. If the tool is used primarily for illegal purposes, it seems it would be good and laudable for the creators of it to do something to counter balance that beyond simply not endorsing said behavior?

Again, not saying they are morally or legally obligated to do anything beyond "not endorse", but I assume the creators like video games and want there to be a market for them, and that they are aware of how the tool they create erodes said market.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#652

Post by apetresc »

kmeisthax wrote: post #646
belthesar wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing though, Yuzu doesn't ship with the common keys. Yuzu's quick start guide provides clear instructions for how to root a physical switch and dump the keys from the device, but it doesn't ship with the keys itself. What Nintendo is alleging is that providing the instructions to dump the keys is equivalent to providing them itself.

Yeah, sorry, I misread Nintendo's legal complaint. That being said, I don't think two layers of indirection help Yuzu. It's one thing to say "this requires decryption keys and you have to rip your own games", and another to say "and here's where and how you get those things". Put it this way: You know how emulator developers are very strict about not providing ROMs for obvious reasons? The decryption keys work the sa…

But Yuzu's instructions for getting decryption keys is for the correct, legal, way to do it. They're not linking to the sites where you can grab already-dumped keys - that would be the analogy to your example. The correct analogy would be if Yuzu told you how to dump your own ROMs - which is exactly what it does (and should do).

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#653

Post by ursa_solaris »

jsheard wrote: post #163
m-p-3 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, the decryption keys to use the ROMs are not distributed with the emulator, and you need to retrieve these on your own from software licenses you possess.

That's correct, Yuzu doesn't include the keys, but is there any precedent that "bring your own keys" actually works as a loophole around the DMCA circumvention rules? I'm not aware of it ever being tested, so it's unclear whether it would actually hold up in a case where the softwares express purpose is to consume keys for the purpose of circumventing DRM. Back when the movie industry was going after DVD ripping tool…

To my knowledge the keys are just standard RSA-2048 keys. It's not illegal for a program to support RSA-2048, and it is no concern of the program or its developers where I get my keys from. I could just as easily use these keys in any other program. Even if in some foolish way they made it illegal for Yuzu to support industry standard decryption algorithms in this specific kind of program, then Yuzu would simply require the users to manually decrypt the game beforehand.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#654

Post by withinboredom »

monocasa wrote: post #627
withinboredom wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how do you know there’s copyrighted content there and you aren’t just building something compatible?

It's soft; like a lot of legal concepts, there isn't a black and white test. At the end of the day it's what can be proven to a jury. In this case for instance, I don't think there's a decent legal strategy for Yuzu wrt "we didn't know the encryption on switch ROMs was a 1201 protected device".

> we didn't know the encryption on switch ROMs was a 1201 protected device

I didn't know that, and I'm a software engineer. Good luck convincing a jury :)

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#655

Post by GabrielTFS »

coryfklein wrote: post #651
GabrielTFS wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yuzu certainly doesn't seem like a project that promotes piracy. They've made it very clear that they do not endorse piracy in any capacity, and in fact anyone found to be pirating games on e.g. their Discord server gets an insta-ban from what I've heard.

I haven't seen any indication that they promote it, but I'm guessing that something on the order of 98% of instances of Yuzu currently running on CPUs have pirated content in them. If the tool is used primarily for illegal purposes, it seems it would be good and laudable for the creators of it to do something to counter balance that beyond simply not endorsing said behavior? Again, not saying they are morally or lega…

I don't really see any measures that they could feasibly put in place that wouldn't be one of:

- Incredibly easy to get around

- Extremely cumbersome for legitimate users (especially given I would bet it would get workarounds that are way more convenient for pirates within hours of the measures being put in place)

- Require laughably massive amounts of resources to put in place

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#656

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

GabrielTFS wrote: post #640
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #359

When the game isn't be sold any more, along with the console, emulation makes sense. But the switch emulation for at least 2 years now has been more than good enough to run games of a current gen system, and you're absolutely kidding yourself if you think any meaningful percentage own the game. The emulator also requires Nintendo data they're not actually allowed to ship (there's a number of resources to download it…

Legally it doesn't really matter at all whether or not the console is currently commercialized, at least from precedents like Sony v. Connectix (Connectix was selling a commercial (literally in shelves) emulator directly competing with the PlayStation while it was being commercialized and won the lawsuit Sony filed against them)

A quick glance shows that they developed their own Bios to do this, Yuzu specifically requires you to insert a copy of the Switch's firmware, it won't work otherwise.

It seems a bit grey as that would mean it's really the users who broke the law, but at the same time, the piece of software is quite literally useless without it. Even if they had their own absolutely terrible firmware with bad compatibility it'd be an easier defense to me. As is, their code is useless without an illegal-to-add addition.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#657

Post by Lammy »

ryzvonusef wrote: post #471

Nothing Nintendo can do can shut the emulation genie... because China. A lot of Chinese sff pc/handheld producers (GPD/Minisforum/Ayaneo/Beelink etc)[1] are now creating device with the explicit understanding that these devices will be used for emulation, and are creating devices as such. even if Yuzu is banned...Chinese will take over, and nothing any american/japanese game manufacturers can do to stop it. ---- [1]…

I know someone who uses a GPD WIN 3 as their primary computer and really loves it. Seems nice from the little I got to interact with it. I also like how the GPD WIN 4 looks like a giant PSVita lol

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#658

Post by hellotomyrars »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #645
hellotomyrars wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I am not saying Nintendo is wrong for making the hardware choices they have. By all accounts they intended to have a meaningful Switch hardware revision when the OLED hit but decided against it because of the then-exploded and uncertain supply chain. That said, I don't think you can draw a nice and neat trendline specifically from the Wii. I think the strategy has worked out well for them since its incep…

their strategy included the Wii U, to deny that is to deny reality. I also wouldn't call the Wii U a failure. Not being as successful as previous consoles from Nintendo is not the same thing as being a failure. Nintendo profited from every sale.

Well, no. The Wii U is one of the two notable examples where Nintendo did sell the hardware at a loss. This isn’t speculation. Iwata said this in shareholders calls. ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20095125)

The Wii was a breakout success in a demographic the market had never previously reached. It is def unrealistic to expect the Wii U to have recaptured that market but it was done about as poorly as possible.

I’m not saying the Wii U was a failure in totality but it did not live up to expectations for both Nintendo as a corporation or for many consumers. It’s okay to recognize this, Nintendo themselves did.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#659

Post by jamiek88 »

crtasm wrote: post #635
jamiek88 wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘Just’ and never ever ever ever forget. Easy. Just like it was for Ross Ulbricht!

Well obviously you need to not use the same usernames/emails with your other identities. What does that have to do with IP addresses?

The topic of the thread was hiding your identity from litigious corporations of which only a part of that is hiding your IP.

THAT was the point but thanks for being the thread police and a conversation killer. Next time if I want to digress a little I'll run it past you first.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#660

Post by Wowfunhappy »

pmx wrote: post #577
carlosrg wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In 2022 Nintendo starting taking down Youtube videos showing Steam Decks running Switch games: https://www.resetera.com/threads/nintendo-started-blocking-v ... What are they supposed to do? Leave videos about piracy of their own IP untouched? It baffles me how people believe they have a fundamental right to pirate Nintendo software without consequences.

You can just as easily run pirated games on real hardware as you can a steamdeck, and vice-versa. You're conflating emulation and piracy. Emulation does not mean piracy as it is perfectly legal (and moral) to dump a game that you own so that you can play it on your preferred hardware.

Running pirated games on real hardware requires tracking down a hackable Switch, which is not completely simple. I've seen torrents floating which contain Switch games alongside pre-setup emulators so you can just download and go.
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