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News Yuzu devs have agreed to paid Nintendo 2.4 million to settle lawsuit.

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Selarmor said:
No legal precedent to build on is established when the case is settled.

The basis of Nintendo's argument (the ones that weren't total BS and provably false, at least), were that specific individuals engaged in and promoted piracy through means beyond simply developing an emulator. There was probably some evidence of this subject to discovery, so these individuals settled.

I don't think the Ryujinx devs are subject to the same arguments, nor would be anyone who picked up development on Yuzu (unless they're morons like the Yuzu devs were).
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No legal precedent sure, but practical, observable precedent for anyone out there promoting their emulator, or any community getting a bit too enthusiastic about piracy? It's not about the legality, it's about observable cause and effect.
 
BotenAnna said:
I am going to say something somewhat controversial on this forum, but preservation for current media by consumers tends to not really exist without there also being a demand for piracy. You really can't have one without the other.

I'm not here trying to tell you piracy is great or anything, but if you are pro preservation of modern media you have to grapple with the fact piracy is going to come along with that in some capacity. It's why I always get weirded out when people talk about "preservation" in a nebulous sense like it's purely academic. Historically in other media this is not the case, and fan preservation that is adjacent to piracy has always been part of it. I've said it before but I'll say it again, I wouldn't let pirates trying to morally shield themselves by invoking the term preservation really weigh too heavy on how I feel about this kinda thing.

I do generally agree Yuzu kinda stuck their whole ass out there and caused problems for everybody, don't get me wrong. I get why they did it, but it was clearly the wrong move to be so brazen and frankly stupid to go as far as they did. Just, I do kinda wanna put it there to untangle this specific line of thinking that there is a kind of nuance in the grey area between piracy and preservation.
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I mean this is why I prefaced the rest of my post with no consoles currently in production

The legalization of emulators in the US as a whole are an entire grey area. But it's a grey area that by definition offers so many benefits that I don't think the status quo should change for the worse (consumers)

Things like Analogue Pocket are only possible because of these laws

And Nintendo could choose to take preservation into their own hands by offering and letting us have all our purchased games carry over (even from past generations) but they don't want that. It's not profitable or worth the expenses of maintaining (it would be incredibly difficult to get all our physical games downloaded into a virtual emulator provided by Nintendo)

I do expect Switch games to carry over to Switch 2 tho, much like GC did to Wii and Wii to Wii U
 
Hailinel said:
It won't, but anyone that releases future updates will need to be very careful about what is in the code and how they offer it (Don't run a goddamn Patreon).
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You can run a Patreon. Almost every emulator has a Patreon. Just don't wink-wink-nudge-nudge when it comes to piracy or talk about it in private messages subject to discovery.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
And yet, here we are with dozens of emulators for their systems that have been around for years and not been sued.
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Likewise, fangames that directly utilize original game assets, such as ZeldaClassic, have been around for over 25 years.

Nintendo keeps their litigation hand strong, no doubt, but standing back, you get a bit more of a view of what and where they may "look the other way for".
 
WestEgg said:
No legal precedent sure, but practical, observable precedent for anyone out there promoting their emulator, or any community getting a bit too enthusiastic about piracy? It's not about the legality, it's about observable cause and effect.
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Most likely observable effect you'll see from this is "stop linking to key dumping guides"/"develop the emulator in such a way it doesn't directly run dumped games".

A lot of this lawsuit hinged on the fact that Yuzu was actively informing users how to dump illegal numbers (encryption keys) from the switch and that Yuzu was able to run games that were encrypted with them.

It's not illegal to just emulate the hardware itself, it's illegal to bypass/neutralize the TPMs (technical protection measures) that Nintendo put into the software. (This is what's known as section 1201, since that's the section number of the DMCA that this is about.)
 
This feels like an appropriate slap on the wrist. I really don't give a shit about the morality of using Switch emulators but if you're gonna run a project like that, would it kill you to be a little more discreet about it? That means not showing the kids how to extract encryption keys and definitely not running a Patreon to profit off your emulator lmaaaooooo
 
Ojoloco said:


Goodbye yuzu in any form
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Surely someone has the source code out there, and if the dust has settled it‘ll be distributed (illegally if I understand correctly, atleast if you’re in the US) somewhere again. Also the succesor is around the corner so soon Switch emulators‘ll be left alone from Nintendo.
 
Selarmor said:
It's been forked 4,000 times. The injunction applies to the Yuzu team. The code is open source and does not violate any copyright. The Yuzu source code is unaffected by this.
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“Their settlement with Nintendo prohibits any distribution of yuzu in built and source code form.“ so atleast says the twitter post.
 
Darknut85 said:
“Their settlement with Nintendo prohibits any distribution of yuzu in built and source code form.“ so atleast says the twitter post.
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Usually, that's not going to do much.

Again, the source code is already out there. Enough modifications and author changes, and whatever else produced will be effectively "something else" and harder to prove that it's "Yuzu", as defined in the suit.
 
I'm glad this didn't go to court and set precedent against emulation. Yuzu developers aught to be ashamed of how they've negatively impacted the emulation community at large.
 
TreIII said:
Usually, that's not going to do much.

Again, the source code is already out there. Enough modifications and author changes, and whatever else produced will be effectively "something else" and harder to prove that it's "Yuzu", as defined in the suit.
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Agree, it‘s only theoretical “illegal“ and code‘ll be surely distributed again.
 
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Selarmor said:
It's been forked 4,000 times. The injunction applies to the Yuzu team. The code is open source and does not violate any copyright. The Yuzu source code is unaffected by this.
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For what it counts, it's unclear how much this impacts the "Yuzu team", since the "Yuzu team" wasn't the one sued. The LLC that "owns" Yuzu, Tropic Haze, was (and is what will be coughing up the fine). Yuzu itself is iirc otherwise GPL?

Basically depending on how that LLC was set up, the developers of Yuzu might not legally count as part of the Yuzu team and could continue on their own. The one person we know for sure is impacted is the owner of the LLC, Bunnei (who is also the one developer listed several times in the complaint), but that says nothing about anyone else involved.

(Which to be clear, I am not a lawyer.)
 
pelusilla6 said:
Worst possible outcome, Nintendo gets some low effot coins and the community losses a valuable asset for game preservation.
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This isn't even close to the worst outcome. There was a possibility wherein Nintendo would have dragged this to court and used it as a stepping stone to hitting all the other emulators.
 
While the code is out there and might continue in secret, it'll likely be scattered and inconsistent. Odds are there won't be a single "not yuzu" fork that the community pools together around, otherwise they'll just summon Nintendo to bop it hard.

Part of what made Yuzu so ahead of the curve was the team made quiet a bit of money to work on it basically full time to my knowledge. "Not yuzu" will likely be hobby status and updated a lot slower. Nintendo still wins even if Switch emulation isn't completely dead.
 
To my understanding, the Patreon wasn't even the issue. Lots of emulators have Patreons. And even though it feels worse that it's an emulator for a system that's still currently on sale, that doesn't make it any less legal than an emulator for a console that's out of production.

The main issue, to my understanding, is that people were able to run TotK on Yuzu a week before launch. And you might say, okay but Yuzu didn't provide the ROMs, so it's not on them, but... how did they get the emulator patched and running TotK smoothly without the game? Seems like there was evidence they were basing their development on a leaked ROM of TotK, which is a big no-no
 
I wonder how much Valve’s Steam Deck commercial slip-up affected Nintendo’s decision to try to take this to court
 
MSnap said:
I wonder how much Valve’s Steam Deck commercial slip-up affected Nintendo’s decision to try to take this to court
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You mean when they advertised Yuzu running on SD? Odds are Nintendo was already investigating when that happened.
 
Switch emulation has become polished enough that I don't think this will kill it. If Nintendo did this years ago, maybe it would have considerably slowed down the scene. Aside, Ryujinx still exists (though who knows for how long?)

Lord Azrael said:
To my understanding, the Patreon wasn't even the issue. Lots of emulators have Patreons. And even though it feels worse that it's an emulator for a system that's still currently on sale, that doesn't make it any less legal than an emulator for a console that's out of production.

The main issue, to my understanding, is that people were able to run TotK on Yuzu a week before launch. And you might say, okay but Yuzu didn't provide the ROMs, so it's not on them, but... how did they get the emulator patched and running TotK smoothly without the game? Seems like there was evidence they were basing their development on a leaked ROM of TotK, which is a big no-no
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Apparently TotK didn't run on Yuzu pre-launch though. It was a custom fork that did run ToTK pre-launch. My guess is that it was less enticing to spend so much money on a multi-year lawsuit they weren't sure of winning than to settle with Nintendo (it also benefits Nintendo in their own way to not actually risk setting a major precedent in favor of emulation).
 
Lord Azrael said:
how did they get the emulator patched and running TotK smoothly without the game? Seems like there was evidence they were basing their development on a leaked ROM of TotK, which is a big no-no
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It didn't, however there were pirate groups who deployed modified versions of Yuzu that could run the game smoothly.
 
If I were Ryujinx developer, I'd be looking into closing up the shop and getting out with whatever bank I made so far before it's too late. It's just not worth the risk and more importantly, the stress of constantly having to watch my back to continue. But that's probably just me...
 
balgajo said:
What's the license of their source code? Do they have control over it?
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It's GPL3.
BassForever said:
While the code is out there and might continue in secret, it'll likely be scattered and inconsistent. Odds are there won't be a single "not yuzu" fork that the community pools together around, otherwise they'll just summon Nintendo to bop it hard.
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It doesn't have to be secret. The injunction is against specific individuals/companies. They can no longer develop or distribute the code. Anyone else unaffiliated can.

The code itself is open source and free of any copyright violations.
 
Puikko said:
If I were Ryujinx developer, I'd be looking into closing up the shop and getting out with whatever bank I made so far before it's too late. It's just not worth the risk and more importantly, the stress of constantly having to watch my back to continue. But that's probably just me...
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I think the risk‘ll only decrease going forward, next year the succesor launches and‘ll be Nintendo‘s main focus, and Switch won’t receive any meaningful 1rst party support after 2026/2027. Even though you’re right they should be indeed careful.
 
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Selarmor said:
No legal precedent to build on is established when the case is settled.

The basis of Nintendo's argument (the ones that weren't total BS and provably false, at least), were that specific individuals engaged in and promoted piracy through means beyond simply developing an emulator. There was probably some evidence of this subject to discovery, so these individuals settled.

I don't think the Ryujinx devs are subject to the same arguments, nor would be anyone who picked up development on Yuzu (unless they're morons like the Yuzu devs were).
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No legal precedent but if the biggest emulator got crushed in a week, it will have some chilling effect on the others.
 
The whole goal of this will be to quiet down the pirates and scare people from being brazen. Piracy doesn't go away, but it is going to quiet down some people from advertising for a while.
 
Ojoloco said:
And what other measures apart from paying damages will be taken?
Because I imagine they will also be forced to close Yuzu or modify it.
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Probably give nintendo for free all the emulation property. They may have just resolved switch 2 emulation…
 
So apparently Nintendo and the Yuzu devs are asking that the judge does make a legal ruling?

www.theverge.com

Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu will utterly fold and pay $2.4M to settle its lawsuit

Just about a week after getting sued.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
They are asking a federal judge to say yes to this, specifically:

Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures, because the software is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures.
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This I'm not familiar with. You can make this kind of massive ruling as part of a settlement? This doesn't seem correct.
 
I actually feel this was coming for a long time I had friends that where playing top Nintendo games before me because pirated! Now Steam deck won't be able to run pirated as it should never of done. Homebred is good as it taps into the creativity but that's not what a lot of people where using these emulators for.
 
Best for both sides to avoid all the court costs and settle outside of court.

Ryujinx will likely still live on, unless Nintendo targets them for similar items. Once Yuzu was putting up a paywall for Patreon for early access, it was bound for issues.

There will likely be custom versions of Yuzu in the future as with any open-source software, but it won't be officially released from Yuzu team.
 
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If Yuzu has to die to let other emulators live, then so be it. Hopefully this remains a Yuzu-specific situation and not an invitation for anything else in the future.
 
BotenAnna said:
I am going to say something somewhat controversial on this forum, but preservation for current media by consumers tends to not really exist without there also being a demand for piracy. You really can't have one without the other.

I'm not here trying to tell you piracy is great or anything, but if you are pro preservation of modern media you have to grapple with the fact piracy is going to come along with that in some capacity. It's why I always get weirded out when people talk about "preservation" in a nebulous sense like it's purely academic. Historically in other media this is not the case, and fan preservation that is adjacent to piracy has always been part of it. I've said it before but I'll say it again, I wouldn't let pirates trying to morally shield themselves by invoking the term preservation really weigh too heavy on how I feel about this kinda thing.

I do generally agree Yuzu kinda stuck their whole ass out there and caused problems for everybody, don't get me wrong. I get why they did it, but it was clearly the wrong move to be so brazen and frankly stupid to go as far as they did. Just, I do kinda wanna put it there to untangle this specific line of thinking that there is a kind of nuance in the grey area between piracy and preservation.
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This, 100%. Someone made a similar point in the last thread, but this is the crux of the matter. There's quite a number of people here who have extremely black-and-white, moralistic views about piracy, and that's fine, but pragmatically speaking you have to acknowledge that to completely abolish piracy would involve the end of emulation as we know it and be a huge blow to game preservation.

It's for the best that this ended up being settled, because an in-court victory for Nintendo -- which seems to have been the preferred outcome for some people here -- could have had disastrous consequences
 
hologram said:
This, 100%. Someone made a similar point in the last thread, but this is the crux of the matter. There's quite a number of people here who have extremely black-and-white, moralistic views about piracy, and that's fine, but pragmatically speaking you have to acknowledge that to completely abolish piracy would involve the end of emulation as we know it and be a huge blow to game preservation.

It's for the best that this ended up being settled, because an in-court victory for Nintendo -- which seems to have been the preferred outcome for some people here -- could have had disastrous consequences
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Piracy comes with emulation and with protection of it, there'll be no going away. There's gotta be understanding of it.

The only problem is when pirates act like smug asses towards people who buy. But that's just assholes being assholes.
 
image.png

Citra (3DS Emulator) is also going down.
 
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