News Nintendo v. Yuzu Lawsuit: Yuzu agrees to pay $2.4 million to settle, Yuzu and Citra emulators shutting down

[Semi Lazy Gamer]

Apparently, the person who outed Yuzu to Nintendo was pissed at the Yuzu team for actively messing with the Windows 7 version instead of abandoning it.

How's lawfare for a feature? · Issue #13189 · yuzu-emu/yuzu

Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues What feature are you suggesting? Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 jus...

web.archive.org

 

[TrashMarket]

If they had no case Yuzu wouldn't have settled in the first place

nintendo probably had a case, but the ridiculous amount of money it takes to go through a lengthy legal battle in the US played a part in this, too. when a corporation with deep pockets comes for you, the most responsible option is often to settle out of court or, in gary bowser's case, plead guilty

 

[TreIII]

Secondly, Nintendo's primary complaint in the lawsuit was that Yuzu's emulator doesn't work properly without circumventing their encryption, but that's largely true of software emulating any modern console. So I think the concern about Nintendo's attitude towards emulation is quite justified.

But therein lies the issue.

The principle of having an emulator (or "core") that runs on "clean room" design means you would have been able to create a program that could effectively reverse engineer everything, so that at the very least, Nintendo could not say you're infringing on them by using their proprietary stuff. This is the basics here, and it's the very reason why Nintendo can't really do anything about the likes of the Analogue Pocket or other "clone hardware" that's actively on the market, too.

Again, the Yuzu team utilized Nintendo's own SDK, and pretty much put a huge target on their backs because...that part of the suit is right. They couldn't do what they did without circumventing the encryption by utilizing Nintendo's own code.

 

[7hatDeadCat]

Apparently, the person who outed Yuzu to Nintendo was pissed at the Yuzu team for actively messing with the Windows 7 version instead of abandoning it.

How's lawfare for a feature? · Issue #13189 · yuzu-emu/yuzu

Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues What feature are you suggesting? Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 jus...

web.archive.org

goldenx86 - "Linux would have solved your issues just fine."

lol

 

[lexony]

Except Nintendo has preserved games better then anyone, just because they're not publicly available does not mean they aren't preserved. Preservation does not mean anyone who wants to play something can, it just means the original code isn't lost forever.

I knew someone would say that.

Look that is very likely true. Nintendo probably archives all of their games (or at least those they want to) and they are well stored somewhere in a vault deep underneath their HQ.

But most of the artistic world (and science if it matters) has a different view on preservation. You can gladly read the long and well researched Wiki Article about Film Preservation, how difficult it was and that even studios showed a genuine effort to help them archiving.

It is generally accepted that Media and Art in general needs to be in some form available outside of you being it able to buy in a store. Be it publicly in a museum for you to see, having it stored somewhere or that you can get at least access at restricted archive if you are a Student/Researcher/Journalist with a specific topic related to it.

For games it is difficult because of it being a new medium, that for a long time no one really cared and also because it is software which comes with some difficulties (legally and technically) to archiving compared to other types of media.

I don't even say that this is only an issue with Nintendo nor that it is hard to get current titles from them in any way. Just that we can't trust on private companies alone to do that in secret. Because like mentioned 90% of all games released before 2010 aren't "officially" available anymore.

 

[Danny]

I think taking the whole DRM aspect of their argument to its logical conclusion, will Nintendo make the Switch 2 a DRM machine by putting all sort of stuff into the system that makes emulating it without infringing on Nintendo copyrights basically impossible? Nintendo seems to see DCMA as their best bet against emulation for a reason.

I mean Nintendo can just look at the DCMA laws and then try to foolproof the Switch 2 by designing a system that makes it most likely for emulators to break the DCMA by emulating it.

 

[darthdiablo]

Apparently, the person who outed Yuzu to Nintendo was pissed at the Yuzu team for actively messing with the Windows 7 version instead of abandoning it.

How's lawfare for a feature? · Issue #13189 · yuzu-emu/yuzu

Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues What feature are you suggesting? Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 jus...

web.archive.org

Geez, is there anything Yuzu did "right" at all? LMAO, it seems like everything that they can do wrong, was done wrong.

 

[Lugia667]

nintendo probably had a case, but the ridiculous amount of money it takes to go through a lengthy legal battle in the US played a part in this, too. when a corporation with deep pockets comes for you, the most responsible option is often to settle out of court or, in gary bowser's case, plead guilty

yuzu apparently hired a respectable lawyer....so I very much doubt money was an issue for them

 

[VagrantValmar]

I knew someone would say that.

Look that is very likely true. Nintendo probably archives all of their games (or at least those they want to) and they are well stored somewhere in a vault deep underneath their HQ.

But most of the artistic world (and science if it matters) has a different view on preservation. You can gladly read the long and well researched Wiki Article about Film Preservation, how difficult it was and that even studios showed a genuine effort to help them archiving.
Media and Art in general needs to be in some form available outside of you being it able to buy in a store. Be it publicly in a museum for you to see or that you get at least access if you are a researcher in a specific topic at a restricted archive (if it is really needed).

I don't even say that this is only an issue with Nintendo nor that it is hard to get current titles from them in any way. Just that we can't trust on private companies alone to do that in secret. Because like mentioned 90% of all games released before 2010 aren't "officially" available anymore.

Legit question. Does it really make a difference if it's officially or unofficially available as long as it's available?
Couldn't it be considered even more accessible thanks to it being unofficial but still available since it doesn't have to worry about the law?

If this question is "too close to the sun" with the thread rules, please ignore. I'll gladly delete or edit the comment.

 

[Maxrunner]

This thread on resetera shows how moderation there is governed like a dictatorship. People are being banned for say something that's not "fu** Nintendo".

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

Apparently, the person who outed Yuzu to Nintendo was pissed at the Yuzu team for actively messing with the Windows 7 version instead of abandoning it.

How's lawfare for a feature? · Issue #13189 · yuzu-emu/yuzu

Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues What feature are you suggesting? Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 jus...

web.archive.org

This should teach everyone that you absolutely do not mess with someone still running Win 7 in 2024

 

[lexony]

Legit question. Does it really make a difference if it's officially or unofficially available as long as it's available?
Couldn't it be considered even more accessible thanks to it being unofficial but still available since it doesn't have to worry about the law?

If this question is "too close to the sun" with the thread rules, please ignore. I'll gladly delete or edit the comment.

I mean if you really want to force your way to get a game probably not (Even though there are some games actually lost). Though I think them being accessible more "officially" be it on a national library or University it would help Games (good or bad) to be taken more seriously as an art form. It is already happening in some way especially with indie games, but when it comes to the big ones, most of the time it really seems like there is a big corporate wall to the art, science and (most of) the journalistic world.

 

[TreIII]

This should teach everyone that you absolutely do not mess with someone still running Win 7 in 2024

LOL

But seriously, Yuzu should serve as a textbook of how trying to run a business around an emulator like a typical tech bro thing, with no standards or clean room ethics, is a recipe for disaster.

 

[TLZ]

Apparently, the person who outed Yuzu to Nintendo was pissed at the Yuzu team for actively messing with the Windows 7 version instead of abandoning it.

How's lawfare for a feature? · Issue #13189 · yuzu-emu/yuzu

Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues What feature are you suggesting? Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 jus...

web.archive.org

What an asshole. Especially coming from someone who was ok with all along and only turned against them because they didn't do what the person wanted. So if they did what this person wanted, said person would be completely cool and ignore the other complaints.

Such people are despicable individuals.

 

[BassForever]

I knew someone would say that.

Look that is very likely true. Nintendo probably archives all of their games (or at least those they want to) and they are well stored somewhere in a vault deep underneath their HQ.

But most of the artistic world (and science if it matters) has a different view on preservation. You can gladly read the long and well researched Wiki Article about Film Preservation, how difficult it was and that even studios showed a genuine effort to help them archiving.

It is generally accepted that Media and Art in general needs to be in some form available outside of you being it able to buy in a store. Be it publicly in a museum for you to see, having it stored somewhere or that you can get at least access at restricted archive if you are a Student/Researcher/Journalist with a specific topic related to it.

For games it is difficult because of it being a new medium, that for a long time no one really cared and also because it is software which comes with some difficulties (legally and technically) to archiving compared to other types of media.

I don't even say that this is only an issue with Nintendo nor that it is hard to get current titles from them in any way. Just that we can't trust on private companies alone to do that in secret. Because like mentioned 90% of all games released before 2010 aren't "officially" available anymore.

Trust me, I would love to live in a world where all the games, movies, tv shows, anime, manga, etc were all available for public consumption. Be it a subscription service, the world's largest digital public library, or just a super store that sold infinite amounts of everything. I think is great for new generations of kids who "missed" the chance to buy many of these when they happened, for older people who missed out back in the day for whatever reason, for developers to be able to check out good/bad games to see why they worked, and for scholars to study the history of gaming.

I realize that'll never happen, and in a lot of ways the emulation/modding scene has made experiences more playable for people now than they were even back in the day. Enabling online multiplayer for games designed as offline local only, enabling people to Re experience limited time events, allowing for patches and balance fixes to old games, and many too numerous to name. It's very easy to say "the fans known best how to preserve and are taking more efforts then Nintendo/the industry", and in some ways that's probably true. We can acknowledge all the good the emulation scene does while also acknowledging the bad things it enables.

My original response was more focused on your comment about Nintendo not being happy with emulators. I agree they're clearly not happy about the fact one can download snes9x and quickly play any snes game ever made. They'd clearly shut down more of the scene if they could, Yuzu fucked up in a special way to get slapped this hard. Ultimately I just think we have too many stories of how good Nintendo's preservation has been over the years, how they've often been at the forefront of having backwards compatibility in their systems when possible or offered the ability to buy/subscribe to get classic games, and even put out accessories like the the super game boy and game boy player to allow more people to access games on new hardware. I just don't think it's accurate or fair to say they don't care about preservation or getting their classic games available when they very clearly have, often in weird Nintendo ways, but they have.

 

[lexony]

Trust me, I would love to live in a world where all the games, movies, tv shows, anime, manga, etc were all available for public consumption

I think this is not essentially true, depending on where you are searching you can get a lot of stuff in libraries. But yeah specifically (most) Manga and Anime or
Non-Western TV Shows are too niche to find here in the west.

Again it wasn't really my point that anyone can get freely access any form of media. I get that I wrote quite a lot in this thread and I don't expect that you and others read all of my posts here, but I think I already explained my point of view and how I think Art Preservation works, at least from what I learned from the perspective of studying (Game-)Design at an art school and previously having worked for a marketing agency heavily involved with copyright of music.

I should privately have the possibility to build up an media archive for me, family and close friends and we as a society should make an effort to collect our artistic property outside just of the hands of private companies. Both is already possible (not in all countries) and happening, even when being incomplete. But especially for games there are still some difficulties to overcome because of either neglecting in the past or because of many bigger game companies having little interest working together and being way more corporate and nontransparent. Not only preservation but also talking about the process of making the game. While it is not all shiny, Film Production for example is very different in this case and way less secretive on any level.

Though otherwise I mostly agree with what you say.

 

[omniryu]

I just don't think it's accurate or fair to say they don't care about preservation or getting their classic games available when they very clearly have, often in weird Nintendo ways, but they have.

It is more than fair. Super mario bros has been available on the market for the past 15 or 16 years yet people still play them on non Nintendo emulator. It just some people just rather pirate. To some extent, I don't care. To me, the whole Yuzu (and other switch emulator to a lesser extent) situation was more about the 'noise'. Nintendo’s lawyers are not stupid. They can find all the illegal stuff on the very first Google page if they look. The lawyers probably already know, for years. I think they largely don't care. What upset Nintendo was the pre-release mess. Not the money, you can't stop someone from making money for making their own software.

 

[omniryu]

This should teach everyone that you absolutely do not mess with someone still running Win 7 in 2024

 

[omniryu]

Unless I am misunderstanding, any Switch game requires cryptographic keys to emulate, so the claim is that DMCA basically does not allow emulating Switch games at all, either now or in the future. That feels pretty alarming.

Like I said, see it from a law maker point of view. Why would a company encrypt something if they didn't want the wrong people to decrypt it? That's why they have that law. Whoever had permission to decrypt it can.

 

[thoughthaver]

I knew someone would say that.

Look that is very likely true. Nintendo probably archives all of their games (or at least those they want to) and they are well stored somewhere in a vault deep underneath their HQ.

But most of the artistic world (and science if it matters) has a different view on preservation. You can gladly read the long and well researched Wiki Article about Film Preservation, how difficult it was and that even studios showed a genuine effort to help them archiving.

It is generally accepted that Media and Art in general needs to be in some form available outside of you being it able to buy in a store. Be it publicly in a museum for you to see, having it stored somewhere or that you can get at least access at restricted archive if you are a Student/Researcher/Journalist with a specific topic related to it.

For games it is difficult because of it being a new medium, that for a long time no one really cared and also because it is software which comes with some difficulties (legally and technically) to archiving compared to other types of media.

I don't even say that this is only an issue with Nintendo nor that it is hard to get current titles from them in any way. Just that we can't trust on private companies alone to do that in secret. Because like mentioned 90% of all games released before 2010 aren't "officially" available anymore.

dont think nintendo made 90 percent of games so i dont get laying the sins of the industry at their feet. a video game museum would be nice too but last i checked the yuzu guys werent building a museum but instead running a multi million dollar business. and instead of expending resources towards the 3ds which actually does need to be preserved they instead expended resources on the switch because pc gamers wanted to play tears of the kingdom. that doesnt really paint a good picture of actual preservation efforts if the platform that desperately needs the attention is being ignored in favor of making fat stacks off the newest nintendo release. which is why i would prefer, just like you, for actual institutions to step in instead of relying on some guys sharing roms on a discord channel. established museums and academic institutions would have the institutional heft to make nintendo listen to them and potentially collaborate with them which has the extra perks of getting access to bts stuff. the days of a single user named gohanyoshi654 running an emulator off his bedroom are gone so if we're actually serious about this preservation stuff then having some actual institutional and knowledge backing it would go a long way. it would be incredibly unsexy of course and you wont be able to play the new zelda at 8k 120fps but you gotta take the bad with the good.

 

[NBOctoling]

Funnily enough, isn't Nintendo opening a museum this month? Wonder what that's gonna look like.

EDIT: I doubt the musuem will have many if any old games available but I just thought it was funny since we're talking about museums.

 

[Hailinel]

dont think nintendo made 90 percent of games so i dont get laying the sins of the industry at their feet. a video game museum would be nice too but last i checked the yuzu guys werent building a museum but instead running a multi million dollar business. and instead of expending resources towards the 3ds which actually does need to be preserved they instead expended resources on the switch because pc gamers wanted to play tears of the kingdom. that doesnt really paint a good picture of actual preservation efforts if the platform that desperately needs the attention is being ignored in favor of making fat stacks off the newest nintendo release. which is why i would prefer, just like you, for actual institutions to step in instead of relying on some guys sharing roms on a discord channel. established museums and academic institutions would have the institutional heft to make nintendo listen to them and potentially collaborate with them which has the extra perks of getting access to bts stuff. the days of a single user named gohanyoshi654 running an emulator off his bedroom are gone so if we're actually serious about this preservation stuff then having some actual institutional and knowledge backing it would go a long way. it would be incredibly unsexy of course and you wont be able to play the new zelda at 8k 120fps but you gotta take the bad with the good.

Yeah. Specifically on the topic of preservation, actual proper preservation is something that museums and archives are built specifically for. If I dump the ROM of my TOTK card on my desktop, that's having a copy the ROM to use for myself, but that's not preservation.

And you go to a museum, you can't always see everything they have, because they do keep some exhibits in archives or storage, often so that care is taken to keep them maintained. Preservation is keeping code and related materials in as pristine a condition as possible.

Video games are obviously different from paintings in that they're made to be interacted with. So I'm not going to claim this is all a 1:1 comparison. But so long as the way things are the way they currently are, with legal gray zones and everything else, the best method of preservation would be working with rights holders that are open to the concept of a proper archive, library, or museum dedicated to preservation of as much of the medium as possible.

 

[lexony]

dont think nintendo made 90 percent of games so i dont get laying the sins of the industry at their feet.

I thought it was implied that I wasn't talking only about Nintendo when I wrote "I don't even say that this is only an issue with Nintendo".

which is why i would prefer, just like you, for actual institutions to step in instead of relying on some guys sharing roms on a discord channel. established museums and academic institutions would have the institutional heft to make nintendo listen to them and potentially collaborate with them which has the extra perks of getting access to bts stuff. the days of a single user named gohanyoshi654 running an emulator off his bedroom are gone so if we're actually serious about this preservation stuff then having some actual institutional and knowledge backing it would go a long way. it would be incredibly unsexy of course and you wont be able to play the new zelda at 8k 120fps but you gotta take the bad with the good.

True. Though I believe it is not that easy. As long as games don't get seen as cultural heritage as much as other forms of media said institutions don't have really the power/the money to do much and game companies don't really see a reason to collaborate with them on this level.

 

[Hailinel]

I thought it was implied that I wasn't talking only about Nintendo when I wrote "I don't even say that this is only an issue with Nintendo".

True. Though I believe it is not that easy. As long as games don't get seen as cultural heritage as much as other forms of media said institutions don't have really the power/the money to do much and game companies don't really see a reason to collaborate with them on this level.

I don't know that any academic body has actually tried. The biggest preservation push I'm aware of is headed by a guy that made an ass of himself in accusing Nintendo of posting ROMs of their own games pulled from pirate sites as VC titles, but they also gave the same guy access to the only known intact Skyskipper cabinet in existence.

 

[hologram]

Like I said, see it from a law maker point of view. Why would a company encrypt something if they didn't want the wrong people to decrypt it? That's why they have that law. Whoever had permission to decrypt it can.

I'm not really interested in seeing it from a lawmaker's point of view. If the law allows companies to specify that their software, that the user has paid for, is only allowed to be used on specific hardware while connected to the internet, then I think that law is bad. In this case, the reason why Nintendo has encryption is fairly obvious: to protect their profits and their potential future profits (to distribute old games when and how they see fit).

The principle of having an emulator (or "core") that runs on "clean room" design means you would have been able to create a program that could effectively reverse engineer everything, so that at the very least, Nintendo could not say you're infringing on them by using their proprietary stuff. This is the basics here, and it's the very reason why Nintendo can't really do anything about the likes of the Analogue Pocket or other "clone hardware" that's actively on the market, too.

Again, the Yuzu team utilized Nintendo's own SDK, and pretty much put a huge target on their backs because...that part of the suit is right. They couldn't do what they did without circumventing the encryption by utilizing Nintendo's own code.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert here, so please do let me know if I am misunderstanding, but my interpretation of the core complaint in the suit was: our software is encrypted, so using it on unauthorized hardware necessitates circumventing our encryption in some way. I'm not going to argue about Yuzu in particular, who clearly did some pretty egregious things that made it seem like it would have been pretty hard to lose for Nintendo, but it's this specific implication that worries me

 

[Jersh]

But therein lies the issue.

The principle of having an emulator (or "core") that runs on "clean room" design means you would have been able to create a program that could effectively reverse engineer everything, so that at the very least, Nintendo could not say you're infringing on them by using their proprietary stuff. This is the basics here, and it's the very reason why Nintendo can't really do anything about the likes of the Analogue Pocket or other "clone hardware" that's actively on the market, too.

Again, the Yuzu team utilized Nintendo's own SDK, and pretty much put a huge target on their backs because...that part of the suit is right. They couldn't do what they did without circumventing the encryption by utilizing Nintendo's own code.

This has been the general Internet's claim about emulation legality for some time, but read up on DCMA Section 1201 (or look at what I quoted in this post) which is what Nintendo's lawyers are focusing on. Clean room design automatically making things legal isn't really what (US) copyright law says; Section 1201 basically states copyright owners have full control over how digital content is allowed to be accessed.

Would that law hold in court? I couldn't say, and no one seems to be willing to find out; likely because both sides stand a lot to lose. Nintendo seems to be using Yuzu's several other egregious violations here to allow them to assert that encryption circumvention in any form is illegal without actually having that notion properly challenged, likely to serve as a deterrent for further developments. But that doesn't mean they'd lose if they did decide to go after something as clean as, say, Dolphin (though I can't see that as a good move for them anytime soon).

 

[lexony]

I don't know that any academic body has actually tried. The biggest preservation push I'm aware of is headed by a guy that made an ass of himself in accusing Nintendo of posting ROMs of their own games pulled from pirate sites as VC titles, but they also gave the same guy access to the only known intact Skyskipper cabinet in existence.

If we are not talking about academic bodies building emulators (don‘t know if it‘s a thing somewhere, but could be), there certainly are serious efforts to preserve games. France has a collection of over 20‘000 games. The US and many other countries are collecting games to some degree and I know from some Universities that have projects in this direction.

The problem mainly is about getting older titles and keep them able to run on aging hardware or newer games essentially not being physical media anymore (download only, online games, gaas). I think in some cases they build their own workarounds, but who knows if and how much they rely on random outside software.

 

[Secu]

Nintendo pivoting to GaaS is more likely to tank them than emulation... Piracy did not turn any prior, otherwise successful Nintendo console into a failure, so why would it now? There is a much larger barrier to pirating modern video games than there is to streaming anime illegally. Supposedly there were "only" about ~1m TotK downloads prior to launch, and as far as we know, this is the most egregious case by far. Relative to the 20m+ that it's sold legitimately already

1m is not true, it's just a small part of the real situation in the Yuzu channel before release.

 

[TreIII]

This has been the general Internet's claim about emulation legality for some time, but read up on DCMA Section 1201 (or look at what I quoted in this post) which is what Nintendo's lawyers are focusing on. Clean room design automatically making things legal isn't really what (US) copyright law says; Section 1201 basically states copyright owners have full control over how digital content is allowed to be accessed.

Would that law hold in court? I couldn't say, and no one seems to be willing to find out; likely because both sides stand a lot to lose. Nintendo seems to be using Yuzu's several other egregious violations here to allow them to assert that encryption circumvention in any form is illegal without actually having that notion properly challenged, likely to serve as a deterrent for further developments. But that doesn't mean they'd lose if they did decide to go after something as clean as, say, Dolphin (though I can't see that as a good move for them anytime soon).

Right, and I'm not trying to suggest that clean room is an automatic bye from scrutiny of any sort. Just that, again, it's the most basic fundamental that can protect you and your project, because at the very least, you don't give a party (or their legal) an easy target to go after because there's identifiable traces of proprietary in there. Of which, Yuzu has definitely learned that lesson the hard way.

But so long as Nintendo veers on the side of caution, which suggests they want to avoid another big loss to the tune of when Galoob beat them in '92, this is the best we can hope for when it comes to adhering to some semblance of the "status quo" we got right now.

 

[Lord Azrael]

1m is not true, it's just a small part of the real situation in the Yuzu channel before release.

That's literally what I said. ~1m prior to launch.

I guess what you're getting at is that there may have been more outside of the Yuzu channel? I don't think Nintendo made a distinction there in the lawsuit, so I'm just going based on what they stated. I can't really speculate as to the total impact

 

[Dekuman]

Apparently, the person who outed Yuzu to Nintendo was pissed at the Yuzu team for actively messing with the Windows 7 version instead of abandoning it.

How's lawfare for a feature? · Issue #13189 · yuzu-emu/yuzu

Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues What feature are you suggesting? Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 jus...

web.archive.org

Can you add more detail to why it has to be this one person? I am sure Nintendo have their own people looking at this for a long time. I'm not sure how one person being upset would hold all the keys for Nintendo to proceed.

 

[Toad King]

Apparently, the person who outed Yuzu to Nintendo was pissed at the Yuzu team for actively messing with the Windows 7 version instead of abandoning it.

How's lawfare for a feature? · Issue #13189 · yuzu-emu/yuzu

Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues What feature are you suggesting? Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 jus...

web.archive.org

I can promise you that Nintendo knew about Yuzu way before this guy emailed some people.

 

[Razgriz]

I'll note here that I believe Dolphin is also in violation of section 1201. GameCube and Wii discs are encrypted (albeit in a less secure manner).

That said, Nintendo gains a lot less and (imo) stands more to lose from targeting Dolphin. Dolphin's seemingly had little to no effect on sales of GCN/Wii remasters, and the public backlash would probably be much larger than what we're seeing with Yuzu. Dolphin is also a lot more no-nonsense when it comes to piracy (excluding section 1201) and doesn't take money (to my knowledge). Nintendo would have to be confident they could set precedent with section 1201 enforcement to take that to court, as there's nothing else to stand on.

There's another oddity to note with Dolphin - They never actually got sued or C&D'ed.

The reporting on it was completely horrendous (as per usual for emulation really), but what happened was that the Dolphin guys wanted to put their emulator on Steam. Valves lawyers decided, on their own, to check with Nintendo beforehand if this was okay. Nintendo's lawyers returned with an extensive document that explained their position on Dolphin (no, it's piracy, if you do this we'll probably consider suing Dolphin). And then Valve decided independent of any legal claims (Valve would have zero risk if they ignored Nintendo's document) that they didn't want Dolphin on Steam.

That's also why the Dolphin guys had no recourse to that process. It's not illegal for someone to not do business with you within the jurisdiction that Valve operates in (as long as it's not based on discrimination against protected classes) and that's effectively what happened.

---
Besides that, there's one clause in the DMCA that could provide a defense against section 1201 for modern emulators; it's the general interoperability exemption. Basically you're allowed to circumvent a TPM in only a few highly specific conditions and those include doing so for the sake of interoperability (which is the only general exemption iirc - the rest are a list that the US Congress votes on each year). The thing is, that exemption comes with a ton of conditions, one of which is that it's as limited in scope as you can make it and that you don't willy nilly share the documentation of the process on the internet, which makes it a pretty difficult defense to mount against in a lawsuit for an emulator.

It's my understanding that the Dolphin guys are arguing (not in any lawsuit but as a general position) that their circumvention of the Technical Protection Measures on the Wii is fully legal because of this exemption. (GameCube does not use any TPMs.)

I can somewhat see where they're coming from with this - the TPM of the Wii is unfortunately for Nintendo rather simplistic; you only need one key to emulate the Wii (the common key). Whilst there are other encryption keys on the Wii, all the ones you need for emulation are otherwise stored in a game dump and can be derived from said common key.

For clarity/staying high level; future consoles from Nintendo use far more sophisticated TPMs. The way 3DS and Wii U emulators avoided the entire problem was by demanding game dumps to exist in a decrypted format (which allowed them to avoid the problem entirely and originates from both starting as homebrew emulators iirc). Yuzu on the other hand allowed users to deliver the keys on their own, which got them right into the weeds of the legal problem.

 

[ertaboy356b]

Unless I am misunderstanding, any Switch game requires cryptographic keys to emulate, so the claim is that DMCA basically does not allow emulating Switch games at all, either now or in the future. That feels pretty alarming.

Thoughts?

I don't think this is the case. Emulation can be done without circumventing by only reading decrypted roms. Basically what Yuzu has done is decrypt encrypted roms on the fly using a key which in turn becoming some sort of a decryptor app. What they should have done is to create a decrypted rom format similar to the .wua format of CEMU (Wii U Emulator). They can then remove the need for the title keys that is illegally obtained.

 

[VagrantValmar]

I don't think this is the case. Emulation can be done without circumventing by only reading decrypted roms. Basically what Yuzu has done is decrypt encrypted roms on the fly using a key which in turn becoming some sort of a decryptor app. What they should have done is to create a decrypted rom format similar to the .wua format of CEMU (Wii U Emulator). They can then remove the need for the title keys that is illegally obtained.

Care to elaborate more? I understand what you're saying in principle but is there an emulator that does this?

 

[ertaboy356b]

Care to elaborate more? I understand what you're saying in principle but is there an emulator that does this?

There's CEMU and CITRA. For CEMU, it has this file format called .wua, a completely decrypted rom. CEMU doesn't need keys to run this rom. Citra also does this by only running decrypted roms and thus doesn't require a key.

 

[7hatDeadCat]

There's CEMU and CITRA. For CEMU, it has this file format called .wua, a completely decrypted rom. CEMU doesn't need keys to run this rom. Citra also does this by only running decrypted roms and thus doesn't require a key.

is it even possible to make a decrypted switch game file tho? i mean i assume it would be, but if it can be done thatd seem like an obvious thing to do

 

[Vilifier]

Yuzu’s $2.4M settlement with Nintendo has been approved by a judge.

Not a single line was changed, in case you’re wondering. Here’s the final signed order (pdf).

www.theverge.com

Sean Hollister
Yuzu’s $2.4M settlement with Nintendo has been approved by a judge.
Not a single line was changed, in case you’re wondering. Here’s the final signed order (pdf).

 

[Hailinel]

Yuzu’s $2.4M settlement with Nintendo has been approved by a judge.

Not a single line was changed, in case you’re wondering. Here’s the final signed order (pdf).

www.theverge.com

Not surprising.

 

[ertaboy356b]

is it even possible to make a decrypted switch game file tho? i mean i assume it would be, but if it can be done thatd seem like an obvious thing to do

Why not, the game can only be played in decrypted form, it's just that Yuzu decrypts it on the fly. Maybe one of the reason they didn't do it is because existing dumps already exists and it would be a hassle to create decrypted forms to each one of them. Not to mention decryption is said to be illegal unless there is an exemption stated by the congress.

In the point of preservation, a 1:1 copy is preferred because maybe then in the future, a flashcart may be created and loaded into the switch hardware. A decrypted rom cannot be loaded to the switch unless the user re-encrypts it.

Exemptions:

Spoiler

The 2021 exemptions, issued in October 2021, are for:[15]

• Motion pictures (including television shows and videos), as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101, where circumvention is undertaken solely in order to make use of short portions of the motion pictures for the purpose of criticism or comment, for supervised educational purposes, to accommodate for accessibility for disabled students in educational institutions, for preservation of the motion picture by a library, archive, or museum, or for research purposes at educational institutions;
• Literary works, distributed electronically, that are protected by technological measures that either prevent the enabling of read-aloud functionality or interfere with screen readers or other applications or assistive technologies, or for research purposes at educational institutions;
• Literary works consisting of compilations of data generated by medical devices that are wholly or partially implanted in the body or by their corresponding personal monitoring systems, for the sole purpose of lawfully accessing the data on one's own device;
• Computer programs that enable wireless devices to connect to a wireless telecommunications network when circumvention is undertaken solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and such connection is authorized by the operator of such network;
• Computer programs that enable smartphones, tablets, and portable all-purpose mobile computing devices, and smart televisions to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the smartphone or device or to permit removal of software from the smartphone or device;
• Computer programs that enable smart televisions to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the smart television;
• Computer programs that enable voice assistant devices to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the device;
• Computer programs that enable routers and dedicated network devices to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the router or dedicated network device, and is not accomplished for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to other copyrighted works;
• Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a lawfully acquired motorized land vehicle or marine vessel such as a personal automobile or boat, commercial vehicle or vessel, or mechanized agricultural vehicle or vessel, except for programs accessed through a separate subscription service, when circumvention is a necessary step to allow the diagnosis, repair, or lawful modification of a vehicle or vessel function, where such circumvention is not accomplished for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to other copyrighted works;
• Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a lawfully acquired device that is primarily designed for use by consumers, when circumvention is a necessary step to allow the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of such a device, and is not accomplished for the purpose of gaining access to other copyrighted works;
• Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a lawfully acquired medical device or system, and related data files, when circumvention is a necessary step to allow the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of such a device or system.
• Computer programs, where the circumvention is undertaken on a lawfully acquired device or machine on which the computer program operates, or is undertaken on a computer, computer system, or computer network on which the computer program operates with the authorization of the owner or operator of such computer, computer system, or computer network, solely for the purpose of good-faith security research.
• Video games in the form of computer programs embodied in physical or downloaded formats that have been lawfully acquired as complete games, when the copyright owner or its authorized representative has ceased to provide access to an external computer server necessary to facilitate an authentication process to enable local gameplay;
• Computer programs, except video games, that have been lawfully acquired and that are no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace, solely for the purpose of lawful preservation of a computer program, or of digital materials dependent upon a computer program as a condition of access, by an eligible library, archives, or museum, where such activities are carried out without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage.
• Computer programs that operate 3D printers that employ technological measures to limit the use of material, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of using alternative material and not for the purpose of accessing design software, design files, or proprietary data;
• Computer programs, solely for the purpose of investigating a potential infringement of free and open source computer programs;
• Video games in the form of computer programs, embodied in lawfully acquired physical or downloaded formats, and operated on a general-purpose computer, where circumvention is undertaken solely for the purpose of allowing an individual with a physical disability to use software or hardware input methods other than a standard keyboard or mouse.

 

[omniryu]

I can promise you that Nintendo knew about Yuzu way before this guy emailed some people.

Exactly. We can't pretend it is hard to find roms. They are not even exclusive to the dark web. Give yourself self 5 minutes, the latest and you can download whatever you want. Nintendo has lawyers who can Google.

Exemptions:

Oh! Don't let the emulation see this...

I don't think this is the case. Emulation can be done without circumventing by only reading decrypted roms. Basically what Yuzu has done is decrypt encrypted roms on the fly using a key which in turn becoming some sort of a decryptor app. What they should have done is to create a decrypted rom format similar to the .wua format of CEMU (Wii U Emulator). They can then remove the need for the title keys that is illegally obtained.

Which is why I found it so stupid that they didn't do they in the first place. Unless there's some type of encryption in switch rom even after you decrypt the first layer.
Idk, just making a dumb guess.

I'm not really interested in seeing it from a lawmaker's point of view. If the law allows companies to specify that their software, that the user has paid for, is only allowed to be used on specific hardware while connected to the internet, then I think that law is bad. In this case, the reason why Nintendo has encryption is fairly obvious: to protect their profits and their potential future profits (to distribute old games when and how they see fit).

Sorry, don't know what to tell you.

 

[ertaboy356b]

Oh! Don't let the emulation see this...

Yeah, the 3 "Video Game" related exemptions doesn't even apply to emulation lmao. I wonder how they will spin this one.

Spoiler

• Video games in the form of computer programs embodied in physical or downloaded formats that have been lawfully acquired as complete games, when the copyright owner or its authorized representative has ceased to provide access to an external computer server necessary to facilitate an authentication process to enable local gameplay;
  
  
• Computer programs, except video games, that have been lawfully acquired and that are no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace, solely for the purpose of lawful preservation of a computer program, or of digital materials dependent upon a computer program as a condition of access, by an eligible library, archives, or museum, where such activities are carried out without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage.
• Video games in the form of computer programs, embodied in lawfully acquired physical or downloaded formats, and operated on a general-purpose computer, where circumvention is undertaken solely for the purpose of allowing an individual with a physical disability to use software or hardware input methods other than a standard keyboard or mouse.

The first one is about circumvention of online authentication which can be circumvented in the event that authentication is no longer possible (i.e. That weird Microsoft Online Only DRM)

The second one is about circumvention for preservation (which emulators are all about) does not even include Video Games.

The third one is circumvention for the purpose of allowing accessibility game controllers.

There's also an argument about the right to do backup, but that case is moot since modern day digital software are encrypted and doing a 1:1 backup (provided that you have the tools to do so) is useless on an emulator until the encryption is circumvented.

 

[omniryu]

The second one is about circumvention for preservation (which emulators are all about) does not even include Video Games.

Not gonna lie. I laughed at this one. I bet you I can take these exemption to Yuzu reddit and get down voted to like the 25 points

 

[richardbro]

Sucks, but it is what it is. There are a lot of passionate Nintendo fans that would rather play their games on PC and a lot of them would be happy to purchase them on PC (if Nintendo goes that route some day but probably not for another decadei if even later).

In regards to preservation, like how many people would buy SMB 1-3 on steam if it were released at a cheap price (Under 10$). The number is probably over a million to be honest.

 

[Reinhard Schneider]

Well, with the settlement approved we can finally say this chapter is over, and holy shit what a mess this was.

Having to delete anything Nintendo related means that not only Citra, but also FBI and even Dynarmic got hit since their devs were also part of the Yuzu team, seemingly.

Sucks, but it is what it is. There are a lot of passionate Nintendo fans that would rather play their games on PC and a lot of them would be happy to purchase them on PC (if Nintendo goes that route some day but probably not for another decadei if even later).

In regards to preservation, like how many people would buy SMB 1-3 on steam if it were released at a cheap price (Under 10$). The number is probably over a million to be honest.

Are we sure about this? Do we have numbers of the official emulator that sega launched with piecemeal games listed as DLC?

 

[Yamanoi]

About that Hikiko user's Tweets on prior page, I think this thread is worth reading from someone credible at RPG Site -

 

[Razgriz]

The second one is about circumvention for preservation (which emulators are all about) does not even include Video Games.

This one also has the (important) qualifier that if you're not a legally recognized library, archive or museum, you aren't allowed to do this for regular software either.

The carveout exists solely for the Internet Archive in realistic terms, since I know for a fact they lobbied to get that exemption and this specific qualifier was added to make sure it's only the Internet Archive who has that exemption, not some random Joe. (Meaning IA slammed the door shut for everyone else when lobbying this, which is one of my biggest gripes with the IA - they're big "preservation for me, not for thee" types.)

 

[boodream]

Sucks, but it is what it is. There are a lot of passionate Nintendo fans that would rather play their games on PC and a lot of them would be happy to purchase them on PC (if Nintendo goes that route some day but probably not for another decadei if even later).

Nintendo makes its games based on its hardware and vice versa. This is what they publicly claim as an integrated strategy, at the heart of their identity. So for them the harm is very important, in fact, when someone ignores their hardware, even when that someone is one of the people who did not get the game for free. I’m not trying to make a moral judgment here, we all know people who have played Switch games on PC and everyone does what they want, it’s not my problem.

That some people do not want to discuss, however, the fact that making available games of a current console is not retro gaming by definition, seems to me a pity. Denouncing capitalism, corporations, and overall greed to deplore a lawsuit that came out of the fact that people have literally made money from the intellectual property of others also seem a little bit...hypocritical?

 

[Reinhard Schneider]

Nintendo makes its games based on its hardware and vice versa. This is what they publicly claim as an integrated strategy, at the heart of their identity.

Exactly, plus most of their games take advantage of their hardware, and that has pushed the industry forward when it comes to inputs.

I honestly doubt that we would have amazing controllers like the Dualsense or standarized Gyro support if Nintendo didn't push linear actuators and motion controls through their games. Wii Sports, Splatoon and 123 Switch! changed this industry forever, and you'll take me down from that hill when my corpse is cold and rigid.

Hell, going by the Xbox leak, they're finally caving in and adding HD rumble and gyro to their next controller, wich means that they'll finally add native gyro support to Xinput, wich is all sorts of amazing. That wouldn't be possible if Nintendo didn't push hard for that.

Because yeah, we've seen lots - and i mean LOTS - of different attempt of innovation through the decades on the PC space, but the only ones that stuck were the genre specific controllers like HOTAS or wheels. Even analog sticks were a rarity until they became commonplace on consoles.

 

[BotenAnna]

One of the major tools for installing software to a 3DS was nuked from github today too. I'm sure it's saved and will pop back up at some point, but with Citra being down and that being pulled, gaining access to 3DS software just plummeted on both emulation and real hardware. Good thing you can still very easily acquire all those games legally, and why would you ever wanna install anything else on a 3DS?

The 3DS is barely a decade old and this situation has actually slaughtered access to that console's library.