https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/02/nintendo-goes-after-switch-emulator-yuzu-in-new-lawsuit/
Well, here we go. Nintendo have formally filed a lawsuit against the creators of the popular open source Switch emulator yuzu.
unlawfully hacking a Nintendo Switch console
What? It's my hardware, Apple lost his battle with jailbreaking years ago, Nintendo just shit out an already lost argument.
This is not really the same thing.
The Apple lawsuit was about running unsigned code on the iPhone, which courts deemed that Apple couldn't use copyright as a tool to enforce its walled garden.
Nintendo isn't arguing about people modifying their switch to run homebrew. They're arguing that to use Yuzu you need to provide it with a copy of the decryption keys and system firmware which must be either extracted from a Switch or distributed illegally.
This is a much stronger case in Nintendo's favor, than the Apple jailbreak one. Although, I suspect the Yuzu dev has a better case as it's already legal to back up discs and ROMs as long as you dont distribute them and they're not responsible for other people's actions if they choose to break copyright
IIRC Sony lost their lawsuit which was almost identical to Nintendo's. I'm guessing they are hoping for a far friendlier conservative court.
No, it's not.
The case Sony lost also relied on the end user having a blob of Sony's code. A user using their own key and a blob of Nintendo's firmware, which is the official stance of Yuzu on the correct way to do so, is exactly the same thing. There's nothing new to be litigated. Every part of Yuzu is very clearly legal.
The fact that it was used to play a game before official release straight up cannot possibly be relevant. It's a distraction. The project isn't, and isn't capable of being, responsible for anything but its own code.
By existing. (Yes, that's the only argument they made. There is no assertion that anyone associated with Yuzu "cracked" (not necessary) or actively distributed TOTK.)
It's a distraction. It's literally impossible for it to be relevant unless the yuzu project page hosted TOTK files.
As long as they don't distribute copyrighted material, they should be good. Hopefully a judge throws this out due to no evidence of actual copyright violation.
Yeah. That bit stood out to me as well. I posted in the other cross-post that I wonder if that means Nintendo's going to try to go after stuff like Atmosphere and Hekate etc next.
The hacking discords were just hit with another wave of bans across the board. Sure, a lot of them were sharing piracy links, but I know of several that clearly weren't and still got nuked. Nintendo is going hard into repression, next step is probably going to be going after modchip sellers.
They probably know they'll lose. But they can drag Yuzu creators through court and bleed them dry in the process.
We should ban the practice of tying software to hardware, and the creation of arbitrary restrictions for such practices.
In my opinion there are a few legitimate cases for piracy and platform exclusives is one of them. And these pirates prove it's completely possible for Nintendo to make it available for sale on other platforms. If Nintendo doesn't make it available for sale, it should be a free-for-all. I don't want to buy a Switch. I don't want to buy an Xbox or a PS5. Not to mention paying the 30% Nintendo tax for the privilege of creating a game that actually runs on it. And I don't want to feed any of these megacorporations my telemetry. Fuck 'em.
Why would anyone play your games on hardware that's ten years behind? The few Nintendo games I still buy (like Tears of the Kingdom actually) I still play on emulator, because it's objectively better in every way. Fuck off.
Seeing Tears of the Kingdom actually run in 60 fps on the steamdeck made me immediately sell my Switch. Nintendo are holding back technological development by dragging their feet, and pushing anti-consumer practices.
Seeing Tears of the Kingdom actually run in 60 fps on the steamdeck
Uhh, you did not see that. It doesn't even get to 30 in most cases sadly.
I’ve been working to build a large collection of DS and 3DS games that I still enjoy to this day on the original hardware.
As a side rant, the 3DS/2DS really is a great console. It has a huge catelog of affordable games that can be purchased used from eBay and it doesn’t have the requirement to be online like the switch does. I took my switch off grid a while ago and was mega disappointed to find I couldn’t play a single game without “updates” because this wasn’t my “primary console” (a concept I didn’t realize existed or mattered).
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Ugh, not this again. I'm very adamantly against piracy and I've personally dumped every one of my Switch ROMs from games I physically own, but these kinds of stunts make me want to pirate Nintendo games purely out of spite. Hopefully this gets thrown out or otherwise resolved quickly. The issue of clean room emulators has been tested before and found to be fair use and to my knowledge there's no legal precedent for Nintendo's claims.
The 3DS and Wii U digital stores were just decommissioned, and preservation is a bullshit excuse?
Preservation is why it's important to have emulators as soon as someone has figured out how to get one running. Nintendo should be embarrassed that pirating their games often lets these people experience their games better than if the games were run through official channels. I was sure tempted to pirate Metroid Dread instead of buying it, but it wasn't because I couldn't afford it, just wanted it for free, or had some notion of retribution toward Nintendo. I was tempted because the Switch is terrible hardware, I prefer to play games on my PC, and it would run better on my PC. I think that was the last Nintendo game I bought. I haven't pirated any Switch games to date, because the only actual retribution I want toward Nintendo is for both my money and my time to go to games where the companies are less shitty. I'm not going to fault someone for wanting to play Tears of the Kingdom at frame rates higher than 23 FPS and resolutions better than 540p with no anti aliasing, and the best way for Nintendo to cut back on that piracy is to make the game for PC like everyone else is doing these days, but they know the upside of Switch sales is worth more to them than what these pirates cost them. Piracy will also preserve the game better than Nintendo ever will. I honestly don't care what the percentages are of freeloaders by comparison, because it doesn't matter.
EDIT: Oh, btw, I have pirated plenty of their back catalog, and I'm sure you have too. I'd love to buy them, like I bought Sega Genesis games and like I bought old Mega Man games on Steam, but how strange! There's no legal way to buy those old Nintendo games digitally. You can only rent them in perpetuity. Nah, I'll just pirate them.
If you’re downloading stuff because you want to play for free - which can be because of a lack of access (financial or otherwise) or a myriad of other reasons (perhaps it’s a milestone work but you don’t want to support a piece of shit dev) - then just be honest.
Why?
which I explained in the part of my comment you left out.
Pardon me. Here is the part you left out:
It cheapens the endeavor
You'll forgive me if I can't seem to scrape enough detail about your argument out of that.
Piracy fully supports the endeavor of archiving. The motivations of pirates has nothing at all to do with it. Archiving springs from piracy, it is a consequence of piracy. And the corporations you are de-facto acting as defense counsel for here have proven over and over again it means less than nothing to them.
But I'm making assumptions about your argument, because apparently you think "cheapens the endeavor" is a real mic drop.
Go multi platform and a large chunk of the people currently pirating Switch games for emulation will just buy your games instead.
As an example I've paid for a copy of Breath of Fire 3, 3 times in my life, because the disc broke twice over the years. Now my ps1 & 2 are caput. I still own a copy of the disk. Would it be illegal to download an emulator (I've boughten 2 ps1 and 4 ps2 in my lifetime) and a rom of BoF3? Sony got their cut 9 times already.
If buying isnt owning then pirating isnt stealing in my humble opinion.
Some might argue you would need to copy the ROM from the disc you own instead of downloading it from the internet.
Luckily for the PS2 this is trivial for anyone with a PC and a disc drive.
What about when the Switch is no longer supported just like the 3DS? The only way to get those games now is other online avenues, or searching local stores which aren't promising anymore.