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Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

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Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#121

Post by mqus »

miohtama wrote: post #111

The solution is decentralised Github: https://radicle.xyz Radicle gives a decentralised Git network that is much more immune to any legal action. This makes it much more difficult for Nintendo to take such action. Because it is a civil dispute, not a criminal one, the trick is to make it more costly for Nintendo to abuse the legal system (it is unlikely the legal system abuse will be fixed in long term, or ever). Whe…

Isn't radicle then the easy way to argue that participants actually distribute the program themselves, including an easily trackable IP, so lawyers can just add a client themselves and then sue all IPs that transfer a byte of the (illegal) program?

The same happens to media sharing via bittorrent in germany right now. Having some site which gets closed instead seems to be preferable to me.

Of course copyright infringement is different from whatever emulators are doing but I imagine the effect might be the same

Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#122

Post by mqus »

mqus wrote: post #121
miohtama wrote: post #111

The solution is decentralised Github: https://radicle.xyz Radicle gives a decentralised Git network that is much more immune to any legal action. This makes it much more difficult for Nintendo to take such action. Because it is a civil dispute, not a criminal one, the trick is to make it more costly for Nintendo to abuse the legal system (it is unlikely the legal system abuse will be fixed in long term, or ever). Whe…

Isn't radicle then the easy way to argue that participants actually distribute the program themselves, including an easily trackable IP, so lawyers can just add a client themselves and then sue all IPs that transfer a byte of the (illegal) program? The same happens to media sharing via bittorrent in germany right now. Having some site which gets closed instead seems to be preferable to me. Of course copyright infring…

Of course the goal for the lawyers then is different, it's just extracting money instead of preventing distribution

Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#123

Post by bluescrn »

fuu_dev wrote: post #77
pprotas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, it says it right there: No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 Can the emulators remove the circumvention code to avoid the DMCA takedown?

DMCA § 1201 makes reverse engineering modern consoles illegal. Any modern game console has some form of decryption, which can be argued to prevent access. This is when we run into the chicken/egg problem because you can't write emulation without violating 1201. It is also in part the argumentation Nintendo used in the yuzu case.

Not just modern consoles. Nintendo has had ‘security’ hardware built in since the NES (the CIC chip)

Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#124

Post by TheNewAndy »

fidelramos wrote: post #88
baq wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchain is just a slow database. What you want is a peer to peer system which actually has peers instead of a couple super nodes and ephemeral drive-by clients.

"Just" a slow database that allows coordinated writes in a decentralized way, effectively solving the Byzantine Generals problem. That's what made Bitcoin a novel idea.

How does it solve the Byzantine generals problem?

Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#125

Post by progbits »

pprotas wrote: post #40
None4U wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But which law makes it illegal to circumvent such systems? DMCA section 1201

You are right, it says it right there: No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 Can the emulators remove the circumvention code to avoid the DMCA takedown?

> that effectively controls access

Not very effective, is it?

I assume this means something else in lawyer speak.

Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#127

Post by Asraelite »

mqus wrote: post #121
miohtama wrote: post #111

The solution is decentralised Github: https://radicle.xyz Radicle gives a decentralised Git network that is much more immune to any legal action. This makes it much more difficult for Nintendo to take such action. Because it is a civil dispute, not a criminal one, the trick is to make it more costly for Nintendo to abuse the legal system (it is unlikely the legal system abuse will be fixed in long term, or ever). Whe…

Isn't radicle then the easy way to argue that participants actually distribute the program themselves, including an easily trackable IP, so lawyers can just add a client themselves and then sue all IPs that transfer a byte of the (illegal) program? The same happens to media sharing via bittorrent in germany right now. Having some site which gets closed instead seems to be preferable to me. Of course copyright infring…

It's pretty easy to safely get away with piracy with a VPN. In most countries even that isn't required. I'd imagine it's the same here.

Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#129

Post by DoctorMckay101 »

Emulator developer here (not for videogame consoles but IoT and Honeypots). The DRM circumvention that Yuzu implements can be attacked legally twofold. The decryption process to run a game in the Nintendo Switch uses some alphanumerical keys stored in 2 files if I remember correctly, called "prod.keys" and "title.keys".

Yuzu did not distribute those.

However it did implement the code to use those keys and decrypt a game. So you could say the final compiled binary "implements a way to circumvent DRM". Although you could also defend it by saying "it just models what the hardware does".

Regardless, for the whole "emulators are illegal" discussion, you could technically distribute code for an emulator that does not include that piece of code. Then "ask" your users to "search" for it (kinda like with prod and title keys) and "tell" them to compile it.

But these are very technical arguments you would need to pass in front of a non-technical judge. So good luck.

Re: Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8k emulator-related DMCA takedowns

#130

Post by Yeul »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #105
saddlerustle wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overarching terms of the DMCA are specified by the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty, which every developed country has implemented.

It might be, but enforcement is a different thing. For example russian search engines are not blocking streaming websites like US/EU ones do.

Countries don't care about copyright until they make stuff worth stealing.
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