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Nintendo Emulation (Games) The Courts

Nintendo Suing Makers of Open-Source Switch Emulator Yuzu (polygon.com) 107

Nintendo has filed a 41-page lawsuit against the makers of Yuzu, an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, accusing them of "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale." Polygon reports: Yuzu is a free emulator that was released in 2018 months after the Nintendo Switch originally launched. The same folks who made Citra, a Nintendo 3DS emulator, made this one. Basically, it's a piece of software that lets people play Nintendo Switch games on Windows PC, Linux, and Android devices. (It also runs on Steam Deck, which Valve showed -- then wiped -- in a Steam Deck video clip.) Emulators aren't necessarily illegal, but pirating games to play on them is. But Nintendo said in its lawsuit that there's no way to legal way to use Yuzu.

Nintendo argued that Yuzu executes codes that "defeat" Nintendo's security measures, including decryption using "an illegally-obtained copy of prod.keys." "In other words, without Yuzu's decryption of Nintendo's encryption, unauthorized copies of games could not be played on PCs or Android devices," Nintendo wrote in the lawsuit. As to the alleged damages created by Yuzu, Nintendo pointed to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Tears of the Kingdom leaked almost two weeks earlier than the game's May 12 release date. The pirated version of the game spread quickly; Nintendo said it was downloaded more than 1 million times before Tears of the Kingdom's release date. People used Yuzu to play the game; Nintendo said more than 20% of download links pointed people to Yuzu.

Though Yuzu doesn't give out pirated copies of games, Nintendo repeatedly said that most ROM sites point people toward Yuzu to play whatever games they've downloaded. Nintendo said its "expended significant resources to stop the illegal copying, marketing, sale, and distribution" of its Nintendo Switch games. It says that Yuzu earns the team $30,000 per month on its Patreon from more than 7,000 patrons. Nintendo said the company has earned at least $50,000 in paid Yuzu downloads. Nintendo said that Yuzu's Patreon doubled its paid members in the period between May 1 and May 12, when Tears of the Kingdom was released. Nintendo is asking the court to shut down the emulator, and for damages.

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Nintendo Suing Makers of Open-Source Switch Emulator Yuzu

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @01:44AM (#64274678)

    The entire reverse engineering process of the Switch was documented in public. An absolutely ridiculous amount of dedication and work to accomplish, check it out. Nothing illegal was done. At least not that part of it.

    Of course this company is like the Disney of the software world so will probably win regardless of merit.

    • by stevenm86 ( 780116 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @02:02AM (#64274696)
      Yeah, but I've worked for such companies and throwing everything at the wall to intimidate a hobbyist into submission is an openly acknowledged legal strategy, even when they know they don't have a leg to stand on. Took my lead a while to talk me down from ragequitting when my buddy said they were coming the community I helped lead. Fuck these people.
    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well that isn't really true, they are definitely doing something illegal by breaking the encryption on games to allow pirated copies to run. yes there is nothing illegal about a reverse engineered emulator, but as correctly pointed out by Nintendo that emulator is only useful if you add in the ability to decrypt the games, they have not reverse engineered that bit, they are using compromised keys to effectively "steal" the content.
      • by black3d ( 1648913 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @02:41AM (#64274740)
        Yuzu isn't doing anything illegal. Yuzu isn't providing the decryption keys - the user has to add them. We can argue all day about how useful an emulator is or isn't without decryption keys, but in the existing precedence of copyright law, Yuzu is doing nothing illegal. They've written their own program, which does it's own thing. It's up to the end-user to provide production and title keys to decrypt commercial games. Nintendo wants to (and has been trying for years to) get a court to set a new precedent whereby emulators themselves become illegal, whether they contain any copyrighted material or not, just by nature of their function. Once the precedence exists that an emulator is illegal purely by its function despite it possessing no infringing code, all emulators become illegal. Now, it's unlikely they'll succeed, but they can make the court-case too expensive for Yuzu to defend before running out of money. That's their tactic here, to force a settlement which sees Yuzu cease development.
        • by v1 ( 525388 )

          So they're not breaking any law, and the only thing that Nintendo is upset about is they're doing something that's reducing their profits - like that can't be legal for some reason.

          • they're doing something that's reducing their profits

            I'm not even sure that is the case here. The fact that people went to all the trouble of making an emulator and that other people are using it should tell them that many people are interested in playing their games but they aren't willing to buy their console in order to do so. They could have ported their IPs to PC and other consoles and made a lot of money off them. All the money that this Palworld game is making now - Nintendo could have been making that money - and more, given that Pokemon is such a wel

            • The fact that people went to all the trouble of making an emulator and that other people are using it should tell them that many people are interested in playing their games but they aren't willing to buy their console in order to do so.

              No, it doesn't. You need the keys from their console in order to run games on the emulator. This should tell them that people want to play the same games on PC. They could sell their own emulator, people would certainly pay for it.

          • If Nintendo is worried about somebody reducing their profits they need to take a look in the mirror and FIX THEIR GODDAMN STORE.
        • by snowshovelboy ( 242280 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @10:03AM (#64275354)

          I was with you until I saw that Yuzu has screenshots on their website of commercial games running in the emulator, and the FAQ on gives end users detailed instructions how to violate the DMCA

          • The DMCA is an abomination.
          • 1) That information isn't illegal.
            2) Every console emulator has images showing it's compatibility with commercial software as a way of showing proof of it's accuracy, capabilities, and performance in a way that the public can draw realistic comparisons against. (Legal in the US as of the Sony Vs. Bleem ruling [google.co.uk].)
            3) Running commercial software in an emulator is legal in the US as long as the software in question was itself obtained legally.
          • Certainly, the emulator is written with the knowledge that most end-users will use it to play pirated software. Most screenshots of commercial games running in it come from end-users, however even if they provide some themselves, there are plenty of jurisdictions where accessing material you own (and even circumventing DRM in order to do so) on a different device is considered legal.

            But all that aside; the distinction is - and has thus far been supported by the courts - that _they_ are not distributing a
          • It's not piracy or violating the DMCA if you own the game you're obtaining a copy of. Granted, that's not possible with a game that hasn't been released yet. Showing an official Nintendo game running in an emulator is NOT necessarily promoting piracy.

        • Yuzu isn't providing the decryption keys - the user has to add them.

          Should also be pointed out that Nintendo issued takedown requests against LockpickRCM last year [slashdot.org] which dumped prod.keys from the user's own console.

          This is just Nintendo having a fit over the fact that it's next console got delayed [slashdot.org] and their current console's security, which has always been a joke due to Nvidia's RCM bug (AKA. CVE-2018-6242) [medium.com], has no technological means by which Nintendo can wrest control back from the device's owners.

          See you in court Nintendo. We've all been down this road before, and w

      • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @09:22AM (#64275286)

        Yuzu requires someone find those keys. Many other emulators for consoles & systems also require users to locate the system ROMs necessary to make the emulation function properly. Personally I don't see how Yuzu facilitates piracy more than any other emulator - it emulates CPU & GPU instructions and maps IO onto PC hardware. The SheepShaver I used to open some old Mac files last week is essentially the same as Yuzu - I needed to obtain a ROM and System 7 to make it do anything and the only difference is there is no economic incentive for Apple to chase the SheepShaver devs.

        So unless Nintendo can point at specific stolen code in the source of this thing, then I don't think there is much legal merit to their claim. Of course legal merit may have little to do with it, if they think they can shut the product down through legal intimidation.

        I should add that Nintendo is freaking out over Yuzu because now a Steam deck or similar PC handheld can play Switch games (and many other platforms). I'm not surprised they sued Yuzu though instead of Valve. Once a closed system like a console is cracked for "home brew" or "custom firmware" (i.e. piracy), it's basically game over for that platform with new releases becoming a trickle of mostly shovelware. It's no wonder platform holders act so extremely.

        • by snowshovelboy ( 242280 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @10:13AM (#64275386)

          Yuzu provides detailed instructions how to get the system ROMS, and links to the tools to do so. I think they might have a case here because they invite people to pirate. IANAL, but I don't think the crime here is direct copyright infringement. Its contributory infringement. [cornell.edu]

        • I should add that Nintendo is freaking out over Yuzu because now a Steam deck or similar PC handheld can play Switch games (and many other platforms). I'm not surprised they sued Yuzu though instead of Valve. Once a closed system like a console is cracked for "home brew" or "custom firmware" (i.e. piracy), it's basically game over for that platform with new releases becoming a trickle of mostly shovelware.

          What would be the claim against Valve? What does running Homebrew on a Switch have to do with emulating a Switch on SteamDeck?

          • by DrXym ( 126579 )

            They would claim on the basis that it enables piracy. But Valve is an incredibly wealthy company that would kerb stomp any such lawsuit whereas Yuzu devs probably couldn't fight a suit whether they had a defence or not.

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Personally I don't see how Yuzu facilitates piracy more than any other emulator - it emulates CPU & GPU instructions and maps IO onto PC hardware. The SheepShaver I used to open some old Mac files last week is essentially the same as Yuzu - I needed to obtain a ROM and System 7 to make it do anything and the only difference is there is no economic incentive for Apple to chase the SheepShaver devs.

          ... no economic incentive to such a degree that IIRC, in the early days of SheepShaver, Apple actually provided classic Mac OS software installation disks for free as downloadable disk images on ftp.apple.com. :-)

      • By your logic, you seem to make a great case that bullet manufacturers should be liable for people do with them.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm sure to get voted down as a Troll for having a contrary opinion... Once Nintendo stops selling the Switch I'm all for emulators popping up all over the place to play the games for it, but while it's an actual product that they're still selling in stores and trying to earn a living from it really is enabling piracy that's cannibalizing their sales.
      • Given that it's the 3rd best selling console of all time, I don't think there's a great deal of cannibalizing going on.

      • while it's an actual product that they're still selling in stores and trying to earn a living from it really is enabling piracy that's cannibalizing their sales.

        Boo hoo, cry me a river. Every game publisher without the benefit of their product being exclusive to a console with better DRM has to realize that some amount of piracy is just part of doing business. It's still debatable if pirated copies even truly represent lost sales, because people generally pirate things because they weren't likely to buy it in the first place. Conversely, sometimes pirates do become paying customers after trying something they wouldn't have otherwise bought and think to themselve

      • it's an actual product that they're still selling in stores and trying to earn a living from it really is enabling piracy that's cannibalizing their sales.

        (Keep in mind that Nindento is typically making money by selling games. In the whole gaming sector, consoles are usually either sold at a loss, or close to costs. Selling fewer Switches isn't costing them money, only public visibility and less lock-in. So the whole arguments of emulator versus sales of machines isn't very convincing).

        Yuzu technically cannot cannibalize sales of Switch consoles: it doesn't break the DRM. Instead it relies on duplicating the key of a Switch you already own
        (and Nintendo's argu

        • Yuzu technically cannot cannibalize sales of Switch consoles: it doesn't break the DRM. Instead it relies on duplicating the key of a Switch you already own

          Sure... and all those "bath salts" for sale at the bodega down the street are meant to be used for a nice relaxing soak in the tub.

          You make some reasonable points about why it's better to dump your own keys than to rely on those from some warez site but I'd still be shocked if that's the way the majority of Yuzu users are doing Switch emulation. I'm unsure if hard data exists but the fact that "theprodkeys.com" is the first result when I google "Switch Prod.keys", I imagine that the warez approach is pre

        • Not entirely correct.

          (note, I own a 1st generation Fusee-gelee vulnerable switch, which has never touched nintendo's servers, and have extracted my own keys from it. The emulator I use likewise, is configured to disable the networking stack, so the emulated switch never talks to nintendo's servers)

          What the keys REALLY do, is uniquely identify that switch, and that cartridge. The actual decryption keys still use a master signing key, and all switches are able to decode all cartridges/downloads, without pull

      • This used to be a place where robust thinking was common. The lazy and sloppy thinking in this discussion is truly astounding.

        Yuzu doesn't sell the emulator. They give it away for free.

      • while it's an actual product that they're still selling in stores and trying to earn a living from it really is enabling piracy that's cannibalizing their sales.

        The SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U, in addition to the Switch, have all had to compete with emulators of them during their lifetimes.

        Nintendo literally exists as a profitable company, with the biggest grossing media franchise in the world no less, in spite of emulation of their current offerings being a thing for well over two decades.

        Your claim does not reflect facts nor reality.

      • Nobody is guaranteed profit.

    • History repeats (Score:5, Informative)

      by Xenographic ( 557057 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @03:24AM (#64274792) Journal

      > Nothing illegal was done.

      The main precedents in emulation legality are Sony v. Connectix and Sony v. Bleem, where Sony lost both cases, but drove the defendant out of business via the lawsuit. Make of that what you will.

      • Sony is wrong here. If they do win or cower them out of business - the show will go on. Only this time there will be no site censors or removal of posts about keys(preventing piracy) the other sites will now be full on - multiplying the perceived problem. Sony should pay this site 50K per year to activity remove posts discussing keys, and adding posts about 'bricking'. Were I a judge, I would rule against Sony, telling then where is your alternate key. Just like a compromised password - you change it.
        • by znrt ( 2424692 )

          sony is right: they know that they can abuse the law and our failing judicial system to exert economic violence over weaker "competitors" (an exaggeration in this case) even if said law gives them no standing whatsoever. they can do that whenever they please, so they are not the least worried about any show going on. if anything, bad publicity is still publicity and it can even drive sales up. heck, check some of the answers here, i bet there's people supporting their fetish brand with extra micropayments b

        • Just for the record, it's Nintendo suing this time, not Sony. Sony is only responsible for the precedent, which says that emulation is legal.

          Nintendo may be repeating their strategy here, though.

      • In those cases though, Connectix and Bleem were both commercial companies that were put out of business. Connectix was ultimately bought out by Sony, but Bleem did become bankrupt due to legal costs, as you said.

        However, it's a lot harder to kill an open source project from the internet. Ultimately Sony's actions were futile, as open source emulators for the original PlayStation were created to fill the void. Nintendo would have as much success trying to sue Bitcoin out of existence.

        • An opensource project can either dissolve their team letting some other unrelated team(s) pick up where they left or start a crowdsourcing campaign to hire good lawyers to defend themselves.
        • I mean, that's fair, but you can still bankrupt the devs and it's not always easy to replace them, nor will a lot of people be eager to step up if they think they might be next.

      • > Nothing illegal was done.

        The main precedents in emulation legality are Sony v. Connectix and Sony v. Bleem, where Sony lost both cases, but drove the defendant out of business via the lawsuit. Make of that what you will.

        I remember running both of them. Interesting programs but PCs lack al ot of the power needed to run well, as I recall my experience.

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @01:57AM (#64274692)

    Nintendo does not like fan projects at all!

    • Sue your fans into oblivion. Hey, it worked for Metallica.

  • ... drunk driving.

    Facilitating something does not mean that they endorse or encourage it.

    • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

      You can drive while under the influence, but it's not mandated by the automaker.

      You cannot play any game legally on Yuzu. The only way to play is to commit piracy.

      this is quite different.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Mirddes ( 798147 )
        thats not true. it's entirely possible to dump your own keys from your own hardware and dump roms from games you own using the same hardware. and then use hardware that wasn't obsolete 10 years ago to play games at 4k60 etc. thats not piracy. it might not be how nintendo wants you to use the stuff you bought and paid for but fuck them they got paid. yuzu doing patreon is going to fuck them over in court.
      • You cannot play any game legally on Yuzu.

        You're wrong. You can play Switch homebrew games and run homebrew apps through Yuzu. One can use Yuzu to develop homebrew apps/games which later can be run on the Switch. So there are certainly legitimate reasons to use the emulator.
        The only thing that might hurt Yuzu's case is the protection keys. If they provide the keys with their emulator then they are in violation, if they don't, I think any judge should clear them.
        otherwise they might even sue creators of developmenttools for providing means to crea

      • by BadDreamer ( 196188 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @07:26AM (#64275056) Homepage

        Completely wrong. You can not only write your own game, but run homebrews that others have created. That's a growing area for both PSP, PS Vita and Switch consoles with cfw, and for their emulators.

        Some of those homebrews are applications, some are games, but they are all perfectly legal to use on Yuzu.

        In addition, dumping your own owned games and keys from your own owned console and cartridges, in order to run them with modifications, is perfectly legal. That is also a growing area for modded consoles and for emulators. Lots of beloved old games get bugs fixed and options added this way, in a way which is legal but requires an emulator.

        Making comments about how these tools can only be used for piracy is typical from people who have no interest in the communities around these tools, and who comment from a position of blatant ignorance of what is going on in homebrew and modded gaming today.

      • You keep saying that but it's not true. Please respect yourself and others to engage in a fact based discussion.
  • My guess this app will come down soon. Too bad though, while Nintendo does cite that there is no way to legally obtain a game for this, I'd argue if I bought the game I should have the right to play it wherever I want. This could have so many implications to things like Mame, which just loads abandonned software. I hope Nintendo loses this one.
    • It's unlikely they'd win, almost certainly not on appeal. However, even at $30k a month of income, Yuzu isn't making nearly enough money to outlast Nintendo in any protracted legal battle. The strategy here is likely to force a settlement requiring Yuzu and all parties to cease development and agree to not produce any more Nintendo emulators.
    • Personally, for continued copyright protection, I'd mandate that the software must still be available in new form for purchase, and at a 'reasonable' price. While it might be complicated calculate what "reasonable" means, I'd generally go with "no more than original MSRP." Maybe the last price the software was sold at on the open market.

      Same deal with music, books, and movies. If you can't purchase it legally new, then it is legal for you to obtain it however you may.

      Require samples to be deposited at th

  • I know of two, not one advanced Switch emulators: Yuzu and Ryujinx, both are community developed open source software. Supposedly each one has its own advantages, but in my very limited experience I found Yuzu the better one. And yes, is true piracy websites sometime link to at least one of those emulators, but more often they provide the ROMs bundled with an emulator and keys, but the emulators are just tools, if Nintendo is to blame someone, they should blame the piracy websites. I guess they think target

    • Re: ecosystem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by loufoque ( 1400831 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @03:36AM (#64274820)

      You also need a computer and a graphics card to run those things, clearly those things facilitate piracy and any computer that isn't DRM-locked and controlled by a big game corporation should be forbidden.

      • Welcome to the very slow boil of hardware identifiers and TPM requirements cause sek-ur-ah-tea. In reality, you control and own nothing and you can and will only do what we allow you to do with what is ostensibly yours - which, specifically, is buy shit from our 40,000 layers of DRM "store" where we get a 30%+ cut, and repeatedly buying the same thing every time we change something on a whim. Get fucked peasant, pay fealty to your Lord.

        • Get fucked peasant, pay fealty to your Lord.

          This is Japan we're talking about. That's Daimyõ to you, heimin.

      • You also need a computer and a graphics card to run those things, clearly those things facilitate piracy and any computer that isn't DRM-locked and controlled by a big game corporation should be forbidden.

        While that has actively been the stance for the last 30 years, it is still not here yet. It is a bridge too far. Check back in another 20 years when our kids are at our stage. THEN it will not be a bridge too far. Palladium never died. The future looks absolutely awful.

  • in 3...2...1...

  • Nintendo said the company has earned at least $50,000 in paid Yuzu downloads. Nintendo said that Yuzu's Patreon doubled its paid members in the period between May 1 and May 12, when Tears of the Kingdom was released.

    Assuming that Nintendo's claims are valid, that is very damning evidence. Having money involved with piracy-adjacent tools is already a tight rope to walk, but having revenue/donations double right when a highly-anticipated NIntendo game is about to be released (and is already being pirated) mak

    • by ukoda ( 537183 )
      It is not 'evidence' because correlation does not imply causation, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]. My favorite explanation of this is from The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster where they show that global warming is caused by the decline in the number of pirates, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org], and they have the numbers to 'prove' it.

      If you want to win in court you need to provide real evidence, not coincidences.
      • > because correlation does not imply causation

        The causation would be that you had to donate to get access to the experimental version of Yuzu that supported the then-new Zelda game (TOTK).

        • Which wouldn't be true.
          • Eh, that much is definitely true. Prior to the street date release of TOTK, the only version of Yuzu that the game ran on was the experimental version. The free version could not run the game.

        • by ukoda ( 537183 )
          The part of your statement which is a legal fact that would probably hold up in court is "you had to donate to get access to the experimental version of Yuzu". The separate legal fact "Yuzu that supported the then-new Zelda game (TOTK)" part tacked on the end is trying to extend the two independent facts to infer the proposition that "you had to donate to get access to the then-new Zelda game (TOTK)", which is not a fact and will not hold up in court.

          Try this one in court: Company X releases a new model
      • If you want to win in court you need to provide real evidence, not coincidences.

        I can't imagine being naive enough to believe this.

  • by franzrogar ( 3986783 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @04:43AM (#64274892)

    Quote: "In other words, without Yuzu's decryption of Nintendo's encryption, unauthorized copies of games could not be played on PCs or Android devices,"

    My reply: Again? Did they not learn anything from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 ?

    • worse (Score:4, Informative)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @08:15AM (#64275134) Homepage

      It's even worse that with AACS movie.

      Yuzu on purpose does NOT come with keys baked in.

      You're supposed to copy the key from an actual Switch that you own.

      (Nintendo is abusing DMCA laws about the necessity to hack said own Swtich to achieve that).

    • They're trying to sue over magic integers again.

      The Courts will dutifully allow the multinational corporation to bankrupt the citizen in their campaign for fascist injustice.

      Until there are consequences.

    • Switch Master Key(s) Illegal Number Flag when?
  • by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @06:17AM (#64275008) Homepage
    One positive note in favor of the emulator is the fact they provide a means for consumers to play their bought games for eternity, even when Nintendo decides to stop fixing/creating new Switches. Just as any other console. Why should I have to pay again for a game I already own to be able to play on a newer console, for instance with PS3 games, where you can now play them on newer hardware thanks to emulator, as Sony does not provide any BC with their latest console, even though they are, now, capable of running them. My PS3 has broken down and now I cannot play my games anymore, except thanks to this emulator I can not continue playing them on my PC.
    • Emulation is critical for game preservation in a world where vendors want to dictate when and where you can use their digital goods, and more importantly, when and where you can't.
  • Release the games on PC and this wouldn't be an issue.
    Some us wouldn't mind paying for the games, just don't want the pile of shit hardware that only impresses idiots you call a video game console.
  • Does your media player play unlicensed content? If so, it facilitates piracy according to Nintendo.
  • If I was MS, Sony, or even Valve, I would be paying the Yuzu teams legal bills on the downlow. The longer this goes on, the worse N is gonna look, regardless of the legalities involved. The community at large is still shaking it's collective head at the perceived Bowser judgement for the same reason, and the big N sure seems to revel in playing the role of Goliath.

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