Law Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu - Emulator tools aren't inherently illegal, but the way in which Yuzu is being actively used and promoted is what Nintendo appears to be objecting to here.

New documents filed Monday, February 26 reveal that videogame giant Nintendo is taking action against the creators of the popular emulator tool Yuzu.

The copyright infringement filing, from Nintendo of America, states that the Yuzu tool (from developer Tropic Haze LLC) illegally circumvents the software encryption and copyright protection systems of Nintendo Switch titles, and thus facilitates piracy and infringes copyright under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Nintendo alleges that Tropic Haze's free Yuzu emulator tool unlawfully allows pirated Switch games to be played on PCs and other devices, bypassing Nintendo's protection measures.

The official Yuzu website suggests that the tool is to be used with software you yourself own: "You are legally required to dump your games from your Nintendo Switch" — but it's common knowledge, that this is not how these tools are primarily used.

The legal document claims that over a million copies of last year's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom were downloaded prior to the game's official retail release.

Additionally, Nintendo's filing points to the success of Yuzu's Patreon page, highlighting how the project is actively supported by over 7,000 members. At time of writing, the Yuzu Patreon currently brings in close to $30,000 USD per month. Nintendo's filing alludes that this Patreon page has been actively engaged in promoting the emulator, and thus by extension piracy.

Emulator tools aren't inherently illegal, but the way in which Yuzu is being actively used and promoted is what Nintendo appears to be objecting to here.

As a result, Nintendo is now seeking a trial by jury, damages, and is demanding that the Yuzu emulator is shut down.

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[BlueKirbo]

Tranny devs.. W nintendo Rizz
L tranny emulation devs

 

[X Prime]

Tranny devs..

I have bad news about a lot of emulator authors, especially for Nintendo systems.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

It doesn’t.

There’s a reason why Nintendo has only gone after people if they make money. Until you do that they don’t care.

And as said, if they’d not been retarded with a public patreon for the emulator this would not be happening.

Didn't Nintendo shut down that Metroid 2 project, even though the guy doing it was doing it for free? Also, they definitely went after EmuParadise and that couple wasn't selling anything AFAIK. Otherwise, I can see where Nintendo is going with this lawsuit if they Yuzu devs are being funded by Patreon. Don't try and make money off of someone else's copyrighted idea. It always ends badly.

 

[Wendell X]

I’ve just tend to found most people suffering drift is because they take absolute garbage care of their controllers is all.

I've had half a dozen gaming systems during my life, only one kind of controller got joycon drift. Also machines are made for man, not the other way around.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

This is scary as fuck and if successful truly the end to gaming history. No more ability to get around dead old systems, the end of the modding and improving scene and so much more. I'm not sure how they plan on hoping to succeed since emulators are already court tested legal both directly and on the basic understanding that anything with a legitimate (legal) use can't be deemed "illegal" or illegitimate simply because it can also be used for bad and even illegal things as well.

You have to give them props for basically acknowledging this and then daring to state "but in this case it's different because it allows people to use roms too." The very argument they just acknowledged to be bunk.

The DMCA part though is what scares me. Since is has the bogus (arguably illegal) and ridiculous parts in it making circumvention of DRM alone (even just hardware, irrespective of any media) technically illegal. Making modding or in any way messing with our own owned hardware, even a TV or disk player, technically a crime. And also applies to software DRM. Which on it's face, makes your (legally established) right to backup your media outright impossible. I'm pretty sure those parts of DMCA have never been fully legally tested before. This could be the case. But probably not once again since settlement chances are likely high if it gets that far.

Your daily reminder that CR laws in general, DMCA in particular (for what it does to the net as well) needs to be burned to the fucking ground! And only then should we start thinking about its replacement! Something along the lines of it's original intent. Basic copy protection (not full ownership rights over every aspect and part of a media or work) for a reasonable amount of time. Like ~3-5 years. (not a lifetime and beyond) With restrictions on transferred rights and things like (literal) death of the author.

The Japanese take CR law to the utmost extreme! Insanely extreme. Things like Game Shark and Game Genie were always illegal for violating CR by allowing endusers to modify the CR code in use.. Thus violating their exclusive "rights" to sell their media....... Modding is basically out of Japanese games as well. They have no fair use either. Yet another reminder on why we CAN NEVER ALLOW the government to sign an agreement like Bush and Obama almost did, directly "respecting" a bunch of other countries CR laws officially. Including Japan. That would be the end of the fansub for anime and manga equivalent. (The japanese media companies take even these aspects deadly seriously) Worst of all, it would pretty much give western media companies and their "localizers" default gatekeeping ability over what we are allowed to get and see. You better believe a western tech, media and business world already going out of their way to harass Japanese media products and censor them, would love to enforce things like this. And thanks to shit like DMCA, they can since you don't need to prove, let alone be the rights holder, to file a complaint. It would be the end of getting anything a now unpressured western industry decided to pick up. And without the fear of pirating, Japanese companies would feel free to be a lot more conservative about that they brought over. (they already try so hard to play nice with western SJWs already) Same with western companies too.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

Didn't Nintendo shut down that Metroid 2 project, even though the guy doing it was doing it for free?

I think that might be the only instance where the dude did nothing but I’d have to go check.

Also, they definitely went after EmuParadise and that couple wasn't selling anything AFAIK.

If I remember they were making money while Nintendo IP was plastered all over their site. Not a good look. If I’m remembering the correct site. Or it was another site and EmuParadise just went ‘yeah, we don’t want that to happen to us’ and wisely closed shop as a result.

Otherwise, I can see where Nintendo is going with this lawsuit if they Yuzu devs are being funded by Patreon. Don't try and make money off of someone else's copyrighted idea. It always ends badly.

I swear people have forgotten the very pricaple of doing things ubderground or out of the public eye.

Or at the very least doing something else that is clearly funding your shady shit but is marked for something different so you have deniability.

Or waiting for years after the console is dead to start officially selling.

 

[Vic Viper T301]

I take care of mine and they still drifted after two months of use. My PS2 and PS3 controllers do not have this problem and I took worse care of those. If a controller needs treated like a newborn baby, it's a shitty controller.

This. I have had more faults with Switch controllers than any other console in my life. Both joycons and the Switch pro controller are very low quality and outrageously expensive. I miss the Wii U pro controller, if the right analog stick placement wasn't retarded that would be the greatest controller ever made.

 

[Disc]

The virgin

Piracy is not stealing, though.

• Hiring workers to do a job, then not paying them, is stealing.
• Breaking into a company server, downloading unpublished files, and distributing them on the online is stealing.
• Pretending to be the original author of the work is stealing.
• Reusing a living author's characters can be argued to be stealing (companies are not people, though). I think "life or 20 years, whichever is greater" is an ok copyright term under capitalism
  • (although of course copyright shouldn't exist, the gubmint should have some artists on a payroll making "free" content and everyone else should have no legal protection either).

Making near-identical copies of an existing work is not stealing.

vs. the chad

Yes and I do it anyway.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

This. I have had more faults with Switch controllers than any other console in my life. Both joycons and the Switch pro controller are very low quality and outrageously expensive. I miss the Wii U pro controller, if the right analog stick placement wasn't retarded that would be the greatest controller ever made.

Seems like the build quality went to shit once Iwata died. If it wasn't for cancer, we might have Switch controllers that don't have seizures after two months of moderate use and pampering. Pretty sure I even sang lullabies to my joycons.

 

[Breadbassket]

Update to this situation.

Tears Of The Kingdom Was Pirated 1 Million Times, Nintendo Claims In Lawsuit​

Nintendo filed a civil lawsuit on February 26 against Yuzu software developer Tropic Haze, claiming that the team’s tech let folks illegally pirate 2023’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom over one million times a full week and a half before it even came out. According to the Mario maker, the harm caused by this software was “manifest and irreparable.”

Filed in the United States District Court of Rhode Island, the suit (that was viewed by Kotaku) claims that Tropic Haze’s Yuzu “unlawfully circumvents” the measures the company has in place by “executing code necessary” to bypass many of the technologies associated with the Nintendo Switch console and its games. As the Mario maker put it, Yuzu decrypts Nintendo Switch game files using an “illegally-obtained copy” of production keys that are secured on the console itself. These keys are then passed around on illegal websites, giving anyone and everyone the means to download and play the company’s games on systems outside of the handheld-console hybrid without spending a single cent.

Nintendo is obviously not happy about this, saying:

In effect, Yuzu turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others’ copyrighted works. […] Today, Yuzu provides any Internet user in the world with the means to unlawfully decrypt and play virtually any Nintendo Switch game—including Nintendo’s current generation and most popular games—without ever paying a dime for a Nintendo console or for that game. And to be clear, there is no lawful way to use Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games, including because it must decrypt the games’ encryption. Defendant must be held accountable for willfully providing users the means to violate Nintendo’s intellectual property rights at such a scale. The harm to Nintendo is manifest and irreparable.

Nintendo said that thanks to Yuzu—which makes console exclusives playable on Android, Linux, and Windows systems—The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom wasn’t just pirated over one million times, but the developers’ website gave detailed instructions on how to install the game while promoting their software. As such, the company is taking legal action against Tropic Haze, suing them for “trafficking in circumvention technology” and “unauthorized reproduction and distribution of protected works,” among other things. More specifically, Nintendo wants $150,000 in damages as well as any additional damages and profits Yuzu made from its violations (including the alleged $30,000 a month Tropic Haze makes from its Patreon), and demands the developers stand trial.

Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo and Tropic Haze for comment.

This isn’t the first time a Nintendo Switch game has been emulated unlawfully. Metroid Dread, the 2021 side-scrolling action platformer, illegally appeared online just days after its release. Despite reportedly being stolen over one million times, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was still a runaway success for the company, selling over 20 million copies since its May 2023 launch.

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[6MillionCoofs]

I've had half a dozen gaming systems during my life, only one kind of controller got joycon drift. Also machines are made for man, not the other way around.

Oh, seen it happen with them all which is what I don’t get. The Switch is notable less retard proof in so many ways than other Consoles were. Like, it’s absolutely the customers fault but you aren’t fixing that. There was a reason their last two handhelds were bomb proof, the Wii came with safety straps, warnings and useage instructions any time you played any game and the U was again bomb proof and big.

The Switch? Tiny and small with important bits that can go missing. And unlike the DS you need the JoyCons to play the games and a random pen won’t do.

 

[Day of the Cope]

Nintendo said that thanks to Yuzu—which makes console exclusives playable on Android, Linux, and Windows systems—The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom wasn’t just pirated over one million times, but the developers’ website gave detailed instructions on how to install the game while promoting their software

TotK can barely run at a stable 30fps without stutters and frame drops on hardware it was developed for by the makers of said hardware who know its ins-and-outs more than anyone else. Yeah, despite what Nintendo might think, not everyone is interested in playing a game at 30fps and even fewer are fine with a game not being able to maintain such a low bar. Combined with the fact that the Joycon drift causing Link to start whipping shitties, it's a less than ideal experience.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

I’ve just tend to found most people suffering drift is because they take absolute garbage care of their controllers is all.

I've had controllers that I've treated like shit for years and they don't drift. Nintendium has been replaced with chinesium.

 

[Wendell X]

Oh, seen it happen with them all which is what I don’t get. The Switch is notable less retard proof in so many ways than other Consoles were. Like, it’s absolutely the customers fault but you aren’t fixing that. There was a reason their last two handhelds were bomb proof, the Wii came with safety straps, warnings and useage instructions any time you played any game and the U was again bomb proof and big.

The Switch? Tiny and small with important bits that can go missing. And unlike the DS you need the JoyCons to play the games and a random pen won’t do.

What? Yeah I've seen controllers go to shit too - after years of bad treatment. But my right joycon began drifting not even three months after I got it and the left started a month later. They're poorly made, there's no two ways about it. And I'm certain it's a flaw in the design, because I bought a pro controller to replace my drifting joycons while my friend bought new joycons - his joycons started drifting within six months and my pro controller still works great 4 years later.

 

[TroonsDid911]

If these guys want to start some shit they could try organizing a class action lawsuit against Nintendo for their shit controllers that break after 2 months and cost $100. I want this shit company to suffer as much as possible.

Excuse me while I proceed to pirate every single Nintendo game I possibly can because every motherfucking controller I own for this stupid console is drifting.

 

[George Lucas]

I think the problem isn’t the build quality of the JoyCon sticks but the firmware or something higher level. The N64 and Gamecube sticks are actually shit and break in an internal level, but the software works around that so you won’t notice.

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

I had to see it to believe it, seen zoomers shitting themselves trying to use a fax machine...

In slight fairness to zoomers, why the FUCK are we using fax machines in 2024...

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Stop simping for a company that clearly fucking hates you. I've stopped feeling sorry for nintendrones that keep getting sued and screwed over by nintendo over and over again.

I felt sorry the first time, the second time, the third time, the fourth time, fifth time and the sixth time, etc, but at this point anyone that still tries to do this shit and gets fucked over is clearly asking for it.

Nintendo has spent the past decades making abundantly fucking clear beyond a shadow of a doubt what their policy on this shit to the point where I don't blame it anymore because even the rocks are aware by now, but retards still go "ITS OK MUH NOSTALGIA WILL SHIELD ME FROM A LAWSUIT THIS TIME SURELY".

I'm not even against piracy and I think digital preservation is a good cause, but holy shit retards get a clue already. The games aren't even that fucking good.

 

[cybertoaster]

In slight fairness to zoomers, why the FUCK are we using fax machines in 2024...

Legal reasons, if you send something as a fax it counts as a legal document.

Still if zoomers can't figure a fax machine then they are beyond retarded, its literally just dialing a number and hitting send, there 30-sec videos on how to do it.

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

Legal reasons, if you send something as a fax it counts as a legal document.

So if you send the exact same document as an email it 'doesn't count'? Wow is our legal system stupid. But hey, I learned something new today!