Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu
Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu
The video game emulator Yuzu circumvents encryption on Nintendo Switch games, making them available on other platforms like personal computers and mobile phones in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, according to a lawsuit from Nintendo of America Inc.
https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1762576284817768457/
"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.
Notes 1 million copies of Tears of the Kingdom downloaded prior to game's release; says Yuzu's Patreon support doubled during that time. Basically arguing that that is proof that Yuzu's business model helps piracy flourish."
I have a .zip containing the latest early access version of Yuzu, for Windows and Linux. It includes the emulator, all required decryption keys, the latest firmware for game compatibility, a tool to automatically download mods, and a convenient guide on how to acquire ROMs.
I will forever distribute this .zip in a non-limited download link to anyone who asks me. Forever. You can PM me today and I'll send it, you can PM me in 5 years and I'll send it. Please feel free to do so. It's not illegal to share where I live, so I'll share. But do it via PMs, as to avoid causing trouble to the community.
Again, forever. If you're reading this in the future, unless I'm dead (my mental health is a bit shaky), I'm sending you a fully functional Yuzu pack.
Have a nice day.
the funniest shit about the paperowrk is that nintendo indirectly says nintendo is doing illegal work because they claim a video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published for a specific console on a general purpose device.
they either have to say NSO/Nes/Snes classic are not emulation, or admit their definition of emulators is not the universally accepted definition of it, else Nintendo just Claimed Nintendo is serving up and charging for an unlawful service that is NSO.
Emulators are not illegal. Fuck off Nintendo.
What's more, is that from these passages, it sounds like Nintendo even wants backups of games you have lawfully purchased to constitute copyright violation and made illegal (because they have to bypass encryption, therefore violating DMCA). I'm not fluent in legalese though, so correct me if I'm misinterpreting:
Fuck you, Nintendo.
Don't know how good a case Nintendo has here unless it can prove that Yuzu itself contains proprietary code that allows the ROMs to be played. If the decryption is being done on the ROMs' end, then that's just another reason to go after the ones dumping and distributing the ROMs. Nintendo couldn't even substantially stop Dolphin, and Dolphin actually had a decryption key straight from Wii firmware in it. Good luck to them, but they're likely going for the wrong legal target. Taking down what ROM sites they can (which would legally be a lot easier than the emulator makers) is just getting rid of drops in the ocean of the ROMs' spread, but they're the target Nintendo should be going after.
Typical Nintendo move. So sad to see Yuzu possibly going down this way. Even looks like Nintendo might win this one. I'm just gonna download the entire source from GitHub just in case.
I wish this would just go full hydra mode if it goes down though. Start popping up new anonymous accounts releasing the source code everywhere.
Yuzu actually even took steps to make the emulator NOT run pirated versions of the new Mario game before it officially released. I ran it on Ryujinx like a week ahead of its release date, but Yuzu literally refused. They insta-banned anyone who talked about it.
They might have a case if yuzu is actually decrypting switch software. That would be stupid of the developers, though. I would assume that they require you to provide decrypted games.
That's basically the only leg nintendo has to stand on here, but nintendo can out lawyer you into the poor house regardless.
Edit: I am dumb, of course the source code is out there. I have visited this repository a thousand times but my monkey brain can't remember what I ate for breakfast.
https://github.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu
Everyone download the hell out of it and never let this die.
~ ~ ~
If it isn't already open source, Yuzu team needs to get that shiz open source post-haste. Let's get that code absolutely everywhere.
When that popular manga app Tachiyomi got legal bonked, the bajillion forks of it kept some semblance of the original going.
I know there's money to be made and something like an emulator is considerably more complex than a book reading app/scraper, but it would at least give the project a chance of not dying forever.
Oh cool I didn't know that existed, thanks Nintendo!
nintendo-insider.com link for an article that works.
Looks like they're about to find out.
The legality of the emulation itself has long been established, but I've been concerned for a while that illegal DRM circumvention of the games themselves has been a viable legal avenue. Under the DMCA, even the process to dump your own legally-licensed games has arguably been in a legal grey area for a while now, with how they are locked down. If any method to playing the games become illegal, any unauthorized emulation of games becomes de facto illegal.
I'd cite legal precedent here, but there's been a substantial right-wing, pro-corporate shift in American courts over time. Who knows how this will go.
Yet another reason I never buy anything from Nintendo. Fuck those fucks. On average only like 2 Nintendo games per console generation are ever any good anyway. They should be held responsible for all the e-waste they generate.
If Nintendo wanted to, maybe they could offer a legal, paid way to play Nintendo games on PCs. They could fork Yuzu and offer it, along with the proprietary files you need like the BIOS, as a paid download. "Nintendo Switch PC Platform" or something. If they set the price right, it would be cheaper than a real Switch because you don't have to supply real hardware, but they could still make as much profit from it as they do from a real Switch. Then of course they could sell digital versions of their games that could be used by the emulator.
For comparison, look at Sony. They have started bringing some of their games to PC (Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Death Stranding). They probably realised there's money to be made there.
Shit like this is why I moved away from Nintendo for my gaming platform of choice.
But take heart, Nintendo, I'll try to make time to enjoy Nintendo first party games later on a pre-loaded cheap Chinese knock-off device.
Except, I definitely won't because Nintendo will definitely succeed in stuffing the genie back into the bottle, and preventing their games from being enjoyed on un-approved platforms in un-approved ways. /s
Maybe they should have named it Ryujinx or something else that sounds less phonetically like "you sue"
