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Emulation (Games) The Courts Businesses Nintendo

Nintendo Switch Emulator Yuzu To Shut Down, Pay $2.4 Million To Settle Lawsuit (liliputing.com) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the cease-and-desist dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Liliputing: Yuzu is a free and open source emulator that makes it possible to run Nintendo Switch games on Windows, Linux, and Android devices. First released in 2018, the software has been under constant development since then (the Android port was released less than a year ago). But last week Nintendo sued the developers, claiming that the primary purpose of the software is to circumvent Nintendo Switch encryption and allow users to play pirated games. Rather than fight the case in court, Tropic Haze (the developers behind Yuzu) have agreed to a settlement which involves paying $2.4 million in damages to Nintendo and basically shutting down Yuzu.

As part of a permanent injunction, Tropic Haze has agreed to stop distributing, advertising, or promoting Yuzu or any of its source code or features or any other "software or devices that circumvent Nintendo's technical protection measures." The court is also ordering the developers to turn over the yuzu-emu.org website to Nintendo and bars them "from supporting or facilitating access" to any other related websites, social media, chatrooms, or apps. In one of the more bizarre parts of the court order, the Yuzu team is told to delete all "circumvention devices," which includes any tools used for development of Yuzu and "all copies of Yuzu."
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Nintendo Switch Emulator Yuzu To Shut Down, Pay $2.4 Million To Settle Lawsuit More

Nintendo Switch Emulator Yuzu To Shut Down, Pay $2.4 Million To Settle Lawsuit

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  • Okay. So where do I mirror it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MIPSPro ( 10156657 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:13PM (#64289526)
    Yeah, yeah, Yap yap court yap, damages-blah, "delete"... lol. No. This is the Internet. Where is the torrent or mirror of the last set of binaries?

    • There is a reason data hoarders exist. People like you think shit is replicated and stored in perpetuity by "the internet", only to find no one kept it, expecting other people to have. There is plenty that is gone forever because of said reason

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        If you downloaded it you got it, but possibly the court Injunction will order all 3rd parties to delete All copies of these programs as well.

        Their website may be still up at the moment, but very possibly within a couple days those files Won't be available anywhere.

        Anyone reposting it would possibly be facing a similar action by Nintendo, so it's likely not going to be mirrored.

        • It does not appear to be on The Pirate Bay yet, but give it a day or two.

        • Re:Okay. So where do I mirror it? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by black3d ( 1648913 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:44PM (#64289602)
          The website doesn't have any of the files, just links to them on Github, from which the page has already been deleted. Ditto with Citra. It would be a real shame if someone had already saved the last yuzu-windows-msvc-20240227-120358cf6.zip and citra-nightly-2103.7z or posted the names of those files.

        • Re:Okay. So where do I mirror it? (Score:5, Informative)

          by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @06:08PM (#64289688)

          I wasn't a party to any case. I can't be ordered to do anything. And in this situation there was no order. Yuzu settled out of court.

        • Anyone reposting it would possibly be facing a similar action by Nintendo, so it's likely not going to be mirrored.

          Best of luck to Nintendo with that. You see, it already was a copyright violation to distribute the Switch games themselves and the threat of legal action wasn't stopping anyone from doing that. The main distinction is that usually emulators are perfectly legal to distribute through the regular sort of software hosting services, so you don't have to fly your Jolly Roger to find a copy.

          Basically what has happened here is that the developers who have been sued have agreed to divest from their participation

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Moryath ( 553296 )

          but possibly the court Injunction will order all 3rd parties to delete All copies of these programs as well.

          RELATED: It's possible I will tell the senile fucking klanass trash court to eat my raw ass. Fucking technologically illiterate octegenarian fuckwits.

        • possibly the court Injunction will order all 3rd parties to delete All copies of these programs as well.

          The huge majority of 3rd parties are outside of the court jurisdiction

    • Re:Okay. So where do I mirror it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tabrisnet ( 722816 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:23PM (#64289552)

      can't say for the binaries, but git.tardis.systems/mirrors/yuzu has the git repo

      • It's missing some git submodules in /external/:

        fatal: clone of 'https://github.com/yuzu-emu/breakpad.git' into submodule path '/yuzu/externals/breakpad' failed
        fatal: clone of 'https://github.com/yuzu-emu/discord-rpc.git' into submodule path '/yuzu/externals/discord-rpc' failed
        fatal: clone of 'https://github.com/merryhime/dynarmic.git' into submodule path '/yuzu/externals/dynarmic' failed
        fatal: clone of 'https://github.com/yuzu-emu/mbedtls.git' into submodule path '/yuzu/externals/mbedtls' failed
        fatal:

        • so somebody put up a mirror, still on github, and I have no idea if they fixed the external references.
          but github.com / yuzu-mirror has a bunch of repos. may be of some help

    • Re:Okay. So where do I mirror it? (Score:4)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:42PM (#64289596)

      Indeed. They probably have never heard of the Streisand-Effect.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dougmc ( 70836 )

        Nintendo definitely has heard of it by now.

        They just don't care.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Quite possibly. It seems that Nintendo's goal was to shut down a semi-commercial emulator. It was so big that they set up a company to handle the Patreon income, around $30,000 a month. That's a full time job for a few developers.

          Once you start accepting money for working on an emulator, there is probably going to be some legal liability because any copyright infringement goes from small scale personal use to for-profit commercial.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        100% Wrong they are counting on it!

        1) They waited until very late in the Switch's product cycle to do this. So the harm of this specific emulator being publicized is limited.

        2) They secured the outcome they wanted, massive judgement in their favor

        3) They don't care if people hear about emulators, emulators are not a 'hey I didnt know you could do that' thing any more, they even use the word emulator in their own literature about their retro-gaming offerings and have since the Wii almost 20 years ago now.

        Nin

    • Re:Okay. So where do I mirror it? (Score:4)

      by micksam7 ( 1026240 ) * on Monday March 04, 2024 @06:21PM (#64289736)

      Pineapple:

      https://github.com/pineappleEA... [github.com]

      Is a fork of Yuzu's patreon-locked dev branches.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Cool.. I wonder if there are any mirrors of binaries and setup documentation?

        I had no interest in Switch emulators until hearing about this being taken down,
        and I bought all my Switch games from Nintendo for full price. But now they've gone and pissed me off, so I probably won't be purchasing any more modern titles published by them anymore.

    • Yeah, yeah, Yap yap court yap, damages-blah, "delete"... lol. No. This is the Internet. Where is the torrent or mirror of the last set of binaries?

      And thus, this exchange [slashdot.org] from a few days ago:

      Psychos think if they can take something and not get caught then they have the right to take the thing.

      Such as movies, songs, and software where everyone is entitled to take what they want without compensating the owner.

      • And thus, this exchange [slashdot.org] from a few days ago:

        Psychos think if they can take something and not get caught then they have the right to take the thing.

        Such as movies, songs, and software where everyone is entitled to take what they want without compensating the owner.

        Sometimes you do compensate the rightsholder and that's still not good enough. Take Animal Crossing New Horizons, for example. The game only allows one island per Switch. Yes, that's per console, not per purchased copy of the game - you could go out and buy ten copies of the damn game and if you're playing them all on the same console you still only get one island. So, if you've got multiple kids sharing the same console, they'll be forced to share the same island. That's nothing more than a blatant c

        • *YAWN*. Mother fuck Cory Doctorow. I cannot be bothered to read anything that Communist idiot writes.

  • Delete all (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bryanandaimee ( 2454338 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:16PM (#64289530) Homepage
    Delete all copies of a free and open source software.

    Good luck with that.

  • Citra too (Score:4, Informative)

    by LoneBoco ( 701026 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:25PM (#64289556)

    It looks like Citra (3DS emulator) may have been managed by the same entity so Citra has been removed too.

  • Seems like a bad strategy on Nintendo's part (Score:3)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:29PM (#64289574)

    Nintendo makes use of OSS [nintendo.co.jp] in their products. Seems like a bad strategy to go after other OSS devs.

    Note that I'm not saying what the Yuzu devs was justified/all legal (I'm not going to weigh in on this case since I've not studied it), just that Nintendo should tread carefully if they wish to keep benefiting from OSS works.

    • Re:Seems like a bad strategy on Nintendo's part (Score:4, Informative)

      by Grismar ( 840501 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @05:41PM (#64289594)
      That sounds like the most toothless threat ever. What's the risk to Nintendo? By the nature of OSS projects, they can't be banned from using them. And unless you have some evidence that Nintendo is using them in conflict with the licence, litigation seems pointless as well. What, people are not going to work on OSS projects because Nintendo may benefit?
      • Projects can opt to refuse to provide advance/priority disclosures of security issues to Nintendo, that alone would be highly damaging for them, as it would severely hamper their ability to secure userspace. While some may argue good kernel and/or hypervisor security can overcome that, Sony learned the hard way that don't work.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Moryath ( 553296 )

        "By downloading, reading, or using this source code in whole or in part, you certify that you are not Anish KapoorNintendo, you are in no way affiliated to Anish KapoorNintendo [and] you are not downloading, reading, or using this source code in whole or in part on behalf of Anish KapoorNintendo or an associate of Anish KapoorNintendo.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Moryath ( 553296 )

      Yuzu fucked themselves by bragging about compatibility with yet-to-be-released games that HAD to be results of piracy or illegal attacks on Nintendo dev team systems.

      On the other hand, every OSS license should definitely say "our software cannot be used by Nintendo, fuck you." Nintendo has been one of the worst fucking bully companies on the planet for too long.

  • All other emulators of Nintendo hardware will be at risk now, and Nintendo games in general will be seen as toxic when it comes to ip rights in the future. Even Nintendo uses emulators, and with legal precedents unresolved but left with a chilling effects even something like Wine could be C&Ded by Microsoft using similar arguments.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HBI ( 10338492 )

      These guys made an economic decision to give up and surrender. This sets no precedent at all except to indicate that it takes a lot of money to get justice. Which we all knew.

    • Which they themselves actually developed? They succeeded in getting the entirety of a Yahoo group closed...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 )
      The technical difference here, as far as I understand it, is about circumventing Nintendo's DRM for Switch games. While Nintendo does argue that the license for the games does legally prohibit you from running it in an emulator, it doesn't appear to be that strong of a legal argument. Circumvention of copy protection, even for personal backups, isn't allowed under the DMCA. Yuzu was providing documentation, with links to tools, for bypassing the DRM.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Circumvention of copy protection, even for personal backups, isn't allowed under the DMCA

        Actually DMCA doesn't change your fair use rights.. you can circumvent copy protection. The DMCA prohibits distributing/trafficking in Circumvention tools, even if those circumvention tools are being used for a Legal purpose.

        Yuzu was providing documentation, with links to tools, for bypassing...

        This is the huge problem for Yuzu. If they had wanted to mount a defense, they would effectively be having to argue about w

    • While that certainly is a risk I think there are a couple key distinctions here:

      1. The Switch is the current selling console so an emulator of it really more than likely is going to be mainly focused on piracy of things available right now. While Nintendo does sell and profit from the older games on older consoles out of stock I think there is *ever so slightly* shakier legal ground on something long out of production and something currently in production and sold everywhere.

      2. Most emulators are hobby pr

  • Remember this next time (Score:3)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @06:11PM (#64289692)

    Remember this the next time you want to buy a Nintendo device or game.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )

      If you wanted to buy a Nintendo device or game you wouldn't be using software that plays pirated Nintendo games on someone else's hardware.

      • Not saying that this was even a significant portion of their user base, but I have heard of people ripping their own switch's keys and whatever, then playing the game on a steamdeck or similar, because the performance was better than a real switch. Linus Tech Tips even has a video tutorial, put up specifically to spite Nintendo.

      • If you wanted to buy a Nintendo device or game you wouldn't be using software that plays pirated Nintendo games on someone else's hardware.

        I hate to be pedantic (ok actually no I don't), but that doesn't necessarily follow. Someone who already has a Switch and believes in the moral obligation to pay for a copy of the game, yet wants to have a playable version on their PC for any of several reasons already discussed, might do exactly what you describe.

  • The GitHub repos are already down. It isn't just Yuzu either but Citra (3DS) too. Install Yuzu and Citra now then use flatpak create-usb to get a working offline copy of the final binaries. Next, use archive.org to browse the final release, which someone handily submitted URLs to just before the repos got pulled down (coincidence?) to grab the source tarballs. As the settlement doesn't outlaw possession of this wonderful software, go grab it, preserve it and help others to work on it. That goes for both Cit
  • Everything is in the title: What OSS project can pay $2.4 million?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zenbi ( 3530707 )
      According to the Ars article [arstechnica.com]:

      The Yuzu Patreon currently brings in about $30,000 a month, making a $2.4 million settlement a significant expense for Tropic Haze LLC, the US company set up to coordinate those Patreon donations for the emulator's development. But in the proposed settlement, the Yuzu developers say this figure "bears a reasonable relationship to the range of damages and attorneys’ fees and full costs that the parties could have anticipated would be awarded at and following a trial of this

      • The Yuzu Patreon currently brings in about $30,000 a month, making a $2.4 million settlement a significant expense

        That is 6 years of income. Not sure they profited for that long.

  • Since Yuzu has been treated as illegal I would assume copies will now start circulating with the keys needed to use that Yuzu was not including.

    So in short Nintendo have made marginally harder to find but potentially easier to get running when you do find a copy.

  • From what I read, 2.4 million is based on how much they estimated the defense costs could be.

    Basically emulation is legal in the USA (at least the last time I checked), but Nintendo argued since they used decryption keys for games, they are aiding in DMCA circumvention. If, BIG if, these guys had financial backing with them, they could go to court, and defend their case. That would once and for all shut Nintendo down (who am I kidding, they would continue to bully small companies).

    However due to the way our

  • Time for those Nintendogs to discover what the Streisand Effect is...

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