Yuzu NSW emultor legally terminated by Nintendo *spawn

[Silent_Buddha]

You're extrapolating the legal status of emulators from an interpretation of this outcome. The "destruction of everything" is just how you clean shop, but that's limited to the Defendant's operations.

The court orders spell out who can and can't use Yuzu and its source code:

​

5. The Court further orders, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §§ 503 & 1203, upon Nintendo’s​

election and to the extent controlled by Defendant or its members, the destruction by deletion of​

all circumvention devices, including all copies of Yuzu, all circumvention tools used for​

developing or using Yuzu—such as TegraRcmGUI, Hekate, Atmosphère, Lockpick_RCM,​

NDDumpTool, nxDumpFuse, and TegraExplorer, and all copies of Nintendo cryptographic keys​

including the prod.keys, and all other electronic material within Defendant or its members’​

custody, possession, or control that violate Nintendo’s rights under the DMCA or infringe​

copyrights owned or exclusively licensed by Nintendo.​

The destruction by deletion of all circumvention devices, including all copies of Yuzu...within Defendant or its members’ custody, possession, or control. The only somewhat ambiguous bit is order 2:

2. The Court further enjoins all third parties acting in active concert and participation​

with Defendant from:​

a. Offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting,​

selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in Yuzu or any​

source code or features of Yuzu; and​

This refuses further distribution of Yuzu source code, but only for "third parties acting in active concert and participation with Defendant". I don't think independent third parties come under that.



None of the companies are okay with emulation but there's nothing they can do about it in the ordinary course of events.

Emulators are not illegal. I'll point to Wiki on this where numerous attempts by console companies to stop emulators and have them ruled illegal have failed.
The fact they are used for piracy doesn't render emulators themselves illegal. That's be proven in court time and time again, so that point is pretty irrelevant to the understanding of what Nintendo can get out of this.


They have successfully stopped the commercial operation and piracy of their games by Yuzu who were using illegal hacking methods to gain access to pre-release games. That's what they set out to do. They didn't set out to stop NSW emulation, much as they'd like to, because they can't. Unless there's evidence of stolen IP within the Yuzu source code, it can't legally be stopped and can be continued by other parties so long as they don't circumvent Nintendo's securities.

The message is out that if you try to make illegal money from emulators, you'll be punished. Emulators remain free for people to develop and use for their own paid-or legal content, which is a good enough outcome.

Now if the source is illegal, Nintendo will go after Github etc to remove it. However, the court orders did not say every copy everywhere has to be destroyed; only those relating to the defendant and their collaborators, so there's not an obvious pointer to this happening.

Yes, the important part isn't that Yuzu was making an emulator. Why it was successful in forcing a settlement was because the developers of Yuzu had pirated content on their machines and in a repository owned by them.

Basically, the Yuzu source code is fine to remain in the wild and someone else can continue development of it. Nothing illegal was found involving the Yuzu code itself.

What was illegal was the developers participating in pirating activities including storing pirated games in a repository which was also used to distribute pirated games. The developers were facing serious jail time if it went to court for actions WRT participating in and facilitating piracy of games for Nintendo systems (perhaps others as well).

That was a convenient avenue that Nintendo could then use to force a settlement. The developers basically agreed to stop all development on Yuzu by themselves and any participating actors (likely also involved in the piracy ring) as well as stopping all participation in and facilitation of piracy of Nintendo software (likely including 3rd party software as well). In exchange Nintendo would cease to proceed with prosecution of the team for piracy of intellectual property.

In short, had the Yuzu developers not participated in and facilitated piracy of game software, Nintendo would have had no grounds with which to force a settlement.

Regards,
SB

 

[see colon]

If you say "I support emulation, but"

Did I say that?
If.
So.
Where.
In.
This.
Thread.

in the age of "you don't own this product, you only own the license" , and the countless examples of the DCMA being abused over the years, it's very odd to me hold corporate IP as some sacrosanct principle that is morally abhorrent to ever violate in any fashion.

The problem is that 'vibes' don't really come into play when we're having a discussion on the legal ramifications of a case. Whether you think people are being 'moral' about DMCA enforcement is irrelevant, the very concept of the enforcement of the DMCA, or any other law, is legal.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

The problem is that 'vibes' don't really come into play when we're having a discussion on the legal ramifications of a case. Whether you think people are being 'moral' about DMCA enforcement is irrelevant, the very concept of the enforcement of the DMCA, or any other law, is legal.

"We" - meaning the majority of the posters in this thread - were in fact observing the legal ramifications of this case. Then you decided to bring in the concept of "nobility", as you were looking at it "wholistically" (sic). You were the one who decided to argue on the merits of morality rather than legal, and as I quoted you, I was responding to that argument. Your post complaining about those who were "pretending piracy is noble" otoh, was arguing against some phantom poster that had/has yet to appear in this thread, which is why I was wondering what its relevance was to the topic at that point.

I get your cute attempt of replying to me with the same style of reply as I did to you, but it doesn't really work here and frankly just comes off as lazy. Regardless, if you actually don't support emulation in any form and feel it is simply a vehicle for piracy, the legal case - so far - doesn't support that argument either.

 

[Cyan]

Suyu is working very well, running games at 60fps that run at 30 fps on the Switch.

and even 120fps.

 

[Cyan]

now that Citra is no more, Lime and Lime NX are coming.

 

[Cyan]

How Nintendo’s destruction of Yuzu is rocking the emulator world

Nintendo sued Yuzu into the ground. What happened next?

www.theverge.com

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Good read

 

[Nesh]

The problem is that 'vibes' don't really come into play when we're having a discussion on the legal ramifications of a case. Whether you think people are being 'moral' about DMCA enforcement is irrelevant, the very concept of the enforcement of the DMCA, or any other law, is legal.

And so are dictatorships that violate human rights through law. The subject of upholding legality over morality is complex. The very reason of laws is to enable a fair play that prevent violation of human rights and ensure a harmonious functional society that serves the people. Morality and laws should, ideally be in line. When the two depart too far away from each other, problems happen and is a sign that some groups or interests may be "more equal than others". When we put laws too high, there is danger that we might put them above the humans they are supposed to serve.

 

[Cyan]

And btw, there are plenty of hacked Switches out there - console owners can engage in piracy too without giving a thought to emulation!

Nintendo should lower the price of the Switch to sell more, their prices are high.

Whoever wants to pirate isn't going to care whether they price the Switch at 100€ or 1€ though.

Steam started with the idea that began because of the same reason why digital wasn't loved on consoles.

If you think about it, digital in relation to physical is better. It's fast, it doesn't take up space at home, you don't have to keep changing the CD, DVD, BR or card, etc... But there are people who prefer to buy physically rather than buy digitally.

The same thing happened with Steam. People at the time wanted to buy the game, install it and play. And not having to go through Steam... Until they got used to the fact that it was much better to have the code in Steam, install without the need for discs and play without needing a disc inserted in the CD/DVD drive.

It also took advantage of high discounts at the beginning to attract many more. It's the same thing that Epic has been trying to do with its store, but giving away games because making more aggressive discounts would do nothing to take away the position of Steam which already has almost the entire community in the palm of its hand.

 

[Cyan]

Also, I think the 'Why doesn't Nintendo just put their games on PC?' aspect still shows a misunderstanding of the console model. Nintendo does not want people to just buy the odd game on Steam or something. When somebody buys a Switch, that person will likely justify that purchase by buying multiple games, even 3rd party games of which Nintendo also takes a significant cut from. Selling a game on Steam, of which they also have to giveaway a large cut, is simply not fitting with how the traditional console model works.

And yea, we can point to Sony and Microsoft today and say that's an outdated notion, but I also imagine Nintendo isn't spending $300,000,000 to make a single game, nor are they desperate on margins or have some need to expand the market beyond their 100,000,000+ install base to be decently profitable. Nintendo are still making that traditional console model work for them to great effect, and so they've got no motivation to put their games on any other platform.

the Switch is selling well indeed.

And Nintendo games are bought by parents for themselves to relive the nostalgia, since children prefer master race computers with their RGB lights and gaming peripherals from their favorite YouTubers, and play a few matches of the free game with lootboxes with their friends from school. For children, playing on consoles is for dimwits, times have changed.

Even so, Nintendo is a giant, and have great resource management. i.e.. in the last 4 or 5 years they won more money than Sony ever won since the PS started in a 30 years span. Great management from Nintendo but not from Sony or what? MS is out of the question entirely, but that's another reality.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And so are dictatorships that violate human rights through law. The subject of upholding legality over morality is complex. The very reason of laws is to enable a fair play that prevent violation of human rights and ensure a harmonious functional society that serves the people. Morality and laws should, ideally be in line. When the two depart too far away from each other, problems happen and is a sign that some groups or interests may be "more equal than others". When we put laws too high, there is danger that we might put them above the humans they are supposed to serve.

The problem with morality is that not everyone shares the same morals.

Should theft be illegal because I believe it's immoral to take from someone else the things they worked hard to afford (whether for personal use or resale)? I think it is, but some people don't think it's immoral (just look at San Francisco ).

Is it immoral to have an abortion? Or is it immoral to tell a woman she can't get an abortion?

Men in some parts of the Middle East (and other areas of the world as well) feel it is immoral for women to expose any part of their body more than is absolutely necessary. Most Western countries don't believe that is immoral.

Rules of law attempt to codify what the majority (most democracies) or those in power (most other government types) believe are what is right and/or moral and/or fair. It's what's required to have a functioning society. If everyone just chose to ignore laws because they, personally, don't feel the law is moral, then you have chaos and society breaks down.

So, one person or group of people saying X law is not moral does not mean the law is not moral and vice versa.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

How Nintendo’s destruction of Yuzu is rocking the emulator world

Nintendo sued Yuzu into the ground. What happened next?

www.theverge.com

Yes, as Shifty said, good read. The other side of lawsuits is that you don't necessarily have to prove you are right in a court of law. Apple, MS, Cisco, too many large companies to name ... have all routinely instigated legal action against smaller players who did not have the fund to properly defend themselves even though they knew they would likely win the case in court. Lawyers are expensive.

That's sort of one of my pet peeves with the current FTC administration, it wastes so much taxpayer dollars on basically frivolous lawsuits that they know have almost zero chances of winning in Federal Court in the hopes that they might get one or two past the courts and thus circumvent Congress by establishing a precedent or forcing the company in their targets to settle because they can't afford a protracted court case.

Regards,
SB

 

[Flappy Pannus]

How Nintendo’s destruction of Yuzu is rocking the emulator world

Nintendo sued Yuzu into the ground. What happened next?

www.theverge.com

The big companies do sometimes profit from letting emulation run its course. You can download classic games for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 today because of emulators. Nintendo is said to have hired from the scene for its own in-house emulation team, and Sony definitely did, hiring at least one developer of the PlayStation 2 emulator PCSX2 to bring PS2 games to PS4.

Distressing to see the console manufacturers themselves reward this immorality.

But yeah, as the article points out, there's these 'hydra memes' you see posted referencing all the Yuzu forks, cute, but it really doesn't mean much. You've already got a small talent pool to draw from before this, as evidenced by Sony/Nintendo having to hire these guys to actually help them with emulating their own hardware. Now they've just drained that small pool even further, the existence of a bunch of disjointed forks with no clear direction and no track record of skilled contributors isn't Yuzu rising phoenix-like from the ashes, it's a collection of small piles of burning embers. Like hey, good they exist and they rightfully should at least segregate any component of decryption from the emulating code itself, and they 'work' in that Yuzu worked well to this point already. I forsee most of them withering on the vine though, and the ones that don't will likely receive minor updates, at least compared to the pace of Yuzu before.

For Switch emulation right now, it doesn't mean that much as Yuzu/Ryujinx do a pretty decent job of emulating most games already. For the near future though, it's a massive blow to the hope/fear of potential Switch2 emulation, even if Nintendo makes another security fuckup like they did originally. The fear is enough to seriously curtail any significant effort to get a Switch2 emulator off the ground, even if it could be hacked as quickly as the Switch 1 was, which I doubt. Yes, yes, 'encryption was made to be broken', but it's all about time/$$$ needed to circumvent it. Yuzu wouldn't be a topic if it arrived years after the last Switch was manufactured.

Like technically, you can 'crack' Denuvo - but it's hard enough where it makes so little sense in terms of resource expenditure for people to invest the considerable skill and effort needed that it may as well be impenetrable at this point. And that's an open platform.

And so are dictatorships that violate human rights through law. The subject of upholding legality over morality is complex. The very reason of laws is to enable a fair play that prevent violation of human rights and ensure a harmonious functional society that serves the people. Morality and laws should, ideally be in line. When the two depart too far away from each other, problems happen and is a sign that some groups or interests may be "more equal than others". When we put laws too high, there is danger that we might put them above the humans they are supposed to serve.

Just FYI he's doing a "I know you are but what am I" c/p from the same reply I did to him in a different context, I wouldn't bother trying to parse it out as an actual argument.

 

[Nesh]

The problem with morality is that not everyone shares the same morals.

Should theft be illegal because I believe it's immoral to take from someone else the things they worked hard to afford (whether for personal use or resale)? I think it is, but some people don't think it's immoral (just look at San Francisco ).

Is it immoral to have an abortion? Or is it immoral to tell a woman she can't get an abortion?

Men in some parts of the Middle East (and other areas of the world as well) feel it is immoral for women to expose any part of their body more than is absolutely necessary. Most Western countries don't believe that is immoral.

Rules of law attempt to codify what the majority (most democracies) or those in power (most other government types) believe are what is right and/or moral and/or fair. It's what's required to have a functioning society. If everyone just chose to ignore laws because they, personally, don't feel the law is moral, then you have chaos and society breaks down.

So, one person or group of people saying X law is not moral does not mean the law is not moral and vice versa.

Regards,
SB

That's why I said it a complicated subject. The basis of law is that it's purpose is to ensure order that serves the people. What you describe is levels of morality. Looting for example isnt what I would describe as a variation of morality, but variation of level of morality. I.e having less or more morals.

You could also have a system that serves the interests of few and some corporations while producing a lot of homeless that are starving in the streets that law prefers to let them die and punish if they pursue to survive, such as stealing a loaf of bread. That's a case where the structure of the system is misaligned from it's main purpose.

Regarding piracy I believe it may actually produce wealth in some occasions and I wouldn't necessarily call it stealing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's why I said it a complicated subject.

It's also self-evidently not one for the Games Industry forum. If you want to discuss the ethics of piracy and IP theft, that's for the RPSC forum. Here, piracy is illegal everywhere, not endorsed at B3D, and emulators are legal, regardless of what someone might think about them and their morality. The discussion is in relation to people producing emulators and companies endorsing or resisting their existence.

 

[pharma]

March 19, 2024

Suyu Nintendo Switch Emulator First Build to Launch Tomorrow; To Include Experimental macOS Build

The first binary release of the Suyu Nintendo Switch emulator will launch tomorrow. An experimental macOS build was also revealed

wccftech.com

It has been announced today on the emulator's official Discord server that the Suyu emulator's first binary release is set to launch tomorrow, March 20th. The team will provide binaries for Linux x86_64, Windows x86_64, Android ARMv8a, and even an experimental macOS build. With the project being in the works for only two weeks, it is unlikely this release will feature any major improvement over the now-defunct Yuzu emulator, but still, it's great to see how the project seems to be picking wind.
...
The Suyu Nintendo Switch emulator rose from the ashes of the already mentioned Yuzu emulator earlier this month. The development of the popular Switch emulator was discontinued following a file suit from Nintendo, which was settled before it went to court with Developer Tropic Haze agreeing to cease development at once and pay Nintendo $2.4 million. It later came to light how Nintendo's claims that the emulator was used primarily to play pirated games were backed by telemetry data.

 

[Nesh]

Doubtful this is real but this is how I see Nintendo, when they sue

 

[pharma]

March 23, 2024

Last Major Switch Emulator Ryujinx Already Runs Princess Peach: Showtime! With More Than 60FPS

Ryujinx, the last remaining major Switch emulator, can already run the freshly-released Princess Peach: Showtime! with over 60fps.

wccftech.com

Following the recent shutdown of the Yuzu emulator project, the Suyu project rose from its ashes with many developers working on the project. The emulator's first build, however, has already been taken down following a DMCA takedown notice. This makes Ryujinx the last remaining major Switch emulator project for PC out there, and as can be seen in a new video, the emulator is already able to smoothly run Nintendo's latest Switch release - Princess Peach: Showtime!

Of course, this isn't the first time that a new Switch title runs so smoothly on Ryujinx shortly after its release. As a matter of fact, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was already playable on both Ryujinx and Yuzu a week before the global launch of the Breath of the Wild sequel.

As always when emulating games, you'll need to legally own a copy of the Switch game in order to emulate it on PC.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Curious what the copyright infringement is. Although such takedowns can be pretty weak to get an initial action, and it wouldn't be worth challenging. Isn't the copyrighted content from Yuzu, keys etc, absent from Suyu?

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Curious what the copyright infringement is. Although such takedowns can be pretty weak to get an initial action, and it wouldn't be worth challenging. Isn't the copyrighted content from Yuzu, keys etc, absent from Suyu?

This video goes into more detail (not a lawyer, but taught entertainment law and writes contracts), it's a very odd type of DCMA notice but then again they don't really have a firm legal standing to make this case, and you don't need it to just send a copyright strike. Gitlab just didn't want to bother.

It's self-hosted now.