Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, developers settling lawsuit from Nintendo with $2.4M payout, handing over its domains, and agreeing "Yuzu [is] primarily designed to circumvent [DRM]".
I'm sorry but how is using the actual keys from a legally purchased system circumventing anything? It's like saying using the actual key to your own front door counts as breaking and entering.
Using our keys without our permission is circumventing our DRM.
Yuzu is a tool that enables you to use our keys.
It's illegal to distribute tools to circumvent DRM.
It's a massive reach, but it's a plausible argument—or even a good one if the judge is a technologically illiterate luddite. Beyond that, Nintendo is the kind of litigant that will drag out a lawsuit until the other party is forced to settle.
A court in Germany has recently decided that reading the code of a software you legally purchased and finding plain text passwords there is illegal hacking.
The person was hired to do a security audit (by a third party) and disclosed the finding to the software developer, not even to his own employer.
The developer decided to sue him instead of fixing the problem.
At this point I have lost all trust in the technological capacities of judges out there.
It shouldn't be illegal, but it is because the law about it was written by the industry 25 years ago because our lawmakers think the internet and indoor plumbing work the same way.
It isn't, but when you are a small project the law is inconsequential if a massive corporation goes after you and you don't have the money for the legal battle.
Whether or not you paid for the game is completely irrelevant to whether Yuzu is designed to circumvent DRM. DRM is designed to prevent making unauthorized copies, which is exactly what Yuzu does, regardless of whether you paid for it or not.
I'm not defending Nintendo, just the English language.
Yes, but the emulator doesn't circumvent any copy protection. It utilizes the decryption key from your own hardware (assuming you dumped it yourself) to run ROMs which have already had the DRM circumvented by whatever was used to dump them in the first place (which the emulator doesn't do).
This is generally the same reason why emulators such as Bleem (which works the same way as Yuzu with the decryption keys but for PS1) have been ruled legal in past court cases.
A good analogy would be that you're using their keys, on their locks, but put in a different door.
I'm pretty sure the keys aren't a part of the actual game/download, it's a part of your Switch. So if you have an emulator with one of those keys built in, it's piracy.
I think what they should have done is prompt the user to put it in themselves and then we could just find keys on the internet and avoid this whole situation. But I'm no expert
I think what they should have done is prompt the user to put it in themselves and then we could just find keys on the internet and avoid this whole situation. But I'm no expert
That's exactly how it is... Yuzu does not distribute those files. They give you a guide on how to dump it yourself from your own Switch.
Okay, so no, it's not hacking. It doesn't fall under hacking laws. It's not illegal to sell hacking tools. Basically, everything you said is wrong.
In this case, it's all about copyright and the DMCA, which made it illegal to break the copyright protection systems companies put in place or to make or distribute tools to break copyright protection systems.
So, nothing to do will selling things or hacking. Everything to do with copyright and draconian dot come era laws.
The electronic key I purchased and collected from my own hardware is "hacking" because Nintendo's doesn't intend it? Maybe the legality of selling a tool to get the key is a hard concept to grasp because the premise is objectionable. If a Switch makes a good doorstop then it will be doing it's "intended purpose" if that's what I intend for my property.
I'm against companies having unjust control over our own computing.
Wow. Fuck Nintendo. I own 2 switches and ToTK. Of course I emulate it, so I don't have to play at 20fps. And I can mod the game. Not buying another nintendo product again. I'm done. I'll just pirate it since it seems I don't own it anyways. Can't play it where I want, how I want, so why play by the rules at all.
Nintendo went after them for using (not distributing) prod.keys to decrypt game titles and system firmware under 17 U.S.C. 1201 (2), which sidesteps having to challenge the legality of emulation directly. I guess Yuzu doesn't have the funds to fight them in court on that.
They agreed to delete, “all circumvention tools used for developing or using Yuzu—such as TegraRcmGUI, Hekate, Atmosphère, Lockpick_RCM, NDDumpTool, nxDumpFuse, and TegraExplorer,” and hand over any “physical circumvention devices” and “modified Nintendo hardware.
They know what their emulator was primarily used for. Key word here. Primarily.
I own a launch era Switch. When I run Yuzu, I use the keys that I pulled off of it. When I play games in Yuzu, they are games I have purchased and dumped using the Switch Nintendo sold me. The controller I use is a Nintendo Pro controller. I play on my computer because it is MUCH better at playing Switch games than my overclocked Switch is. Just fuck off with this Nintendo, stop making your games worse.
Your Switch needs to be hackable. If yours is any revision beyond the initial release chances are you are out of luck. I set it up a long while ago so I can't recall the steps, but googling "Nintendo switch overclock" will get you what you're looking for.
The Switch is based on the Nvidia Shield, whose stock clocks are roughly double the Switch's. This means you can OC it without exceeding the manufacturer's specs, which is pretty neat. Bringing the memory clocks up really helps titles like ToTK.
Let this be a lesson: if you try to forcibly pry open the gates of DRM hell and let software be free, you best let it be truly free and only money off it from the donations of your supporters. Don't be like yuzu and monetize the living hell out of your emulator. Don't stuff it with telemetry, don't hide releases behind a patreon paywall.
tbf there was never a paywall. ea = latest yuzu master branch with some work-in-progress-but-almost-ready-for-general-use prs merged in.
anyone could have taken the repo, merged prs from the list and built it, with no need to pay for anything. It's free software after all
Yeah you're right, it was brought to my attention that the lawsuit was about decrypting games, especially Tears of the Kingdom, before they were released. The monetization was just to provide earlier access to precompiled binaries
Bleem was a paid and they won, but this was before the anti circumvention addendum. Yuzu wasn't sued for being an emulator, but because it used the keys file to decrypt games.
I started out in the computer industry working for a company that reverse engineered and built IBM compatible terminal systems, This was more than 40 years ago, when that was its own large and profitable sector of the computer hardware market. It was absolutely legal to build 'plug compatible' reverse engineered third party systems. DRM is almost entirely horseshit that has helped turn the entire tech industry into silo'd enshittified monopolies.
Nothing capitalists say about feudal rights mean much of anything. More or less the entire tech industry isn't allowed to have non-competes and it's such a big field because of it.
Anyone downloading executable code from a random person on the internet needs to take a course in digital safety.
I assume you're not being malicious, OXero0, but none of us can possibly know that.
For anyone thinking of downloading it, wait until the popular, vetted forks show up. If you don't already have a working version, you don't need it today.
Yes, everyone should be careful downloading files from a rando on the internet. But at the same time, most people just want to get the files and don't want or know how to deal with the source code. And everything is on archive.org but not everyone knows about it, and they probably don't want to wait for a new emulator when they know the old one works.
I'm not saying that you should trust me, you don't know me, I don't know you, so as you said, it's best to be careful anyway.
Btw, I've read that Yuzu collected telemetry, and now that Nintendo owns the site, it's best to set up a firewall and block Yuzu from accessing the internet so be safe.
Can't blame them but at the same time, yeah kind of sad they folded as easily as a Nintendo DS.
I will say Nintendo can count on me, a older game with disposable income and kids, not buying a switch 2 with they way they've been acting with all of their lawsuit and anti-consumer practices.
Same here: When I want to buy a game for portable play, I'll just use my Steam Deck and buy from Valve or GOG instead, maybe even emulate some Nintendo games on it out of spite.
Logging in to cancel my switch online right now. I was using YUZU to play games I bought from them, in some cases even more than once. F Nintendo. I won't be buying a Switch 2.
As another older gamer I have bought every single switch first party game to display them on my shelves. I also have them all on my PC as roms so I can enjoy them with high fidelity and stable 60 FPS.
I will neither buy another one of their games nor their next console and I also downloaded each and every rom I could find out of spite. I hope their next console crashes and burns like the Wii U...
This right here. Disney and Nintendo get no more of my hard earned $$$. These companies create iconic products and they get paid for it. All of the DRM anti-consumer over-reach is where I draw the line though.
Nintendo got them alone in a dark room and told them that if they don't settle, admit and pay something they might be able to pay off in their lifetimes (Nintendo doesn't care about the money, 2.4 million is nothing to them), Nintendo would tie them up in legal battles for years, still making them broke and probably blocking them from doing something new.
Or something.
Fucking corporate shills. Why can't we just all have fun gaming.
Piracy increases sales.
There's no way they would state that directly, or they would be labeled a vexatious litigant. They might have emphasized their desire to refuse future settlement offers if the first one wasn't taken, if you catch my drift.
I was thinking of buying a few Nintendo games to use on an emulator but that's a lot of effort and there are other good games out there. Glad I didn't so I wouldn't feel shame for giving them more money. Nintendo Direct my balls into your mouth.
I mean, why would you? Nintendo has been anti-consumer for a long time now.
This is just a drop in the bucket for them, not nearly as bad as trying to extort lets players/streamers into giving over half their income to nintendo and shit like that.
Fuck Nintendo. I paid full price for BotW late last year, $100 fucking dollars for a six year old game. I wasn't happy about it but whatever, greatest game ever right? What could go wrong? Turns out BotW is a mid game at best and I got bored before my trip ended.
I am still completely baffled at the reception that game got.
Man... in a better world Nintendo wouldn't have a case because liberating encryption keys is the basis for interoperability, which is good for, you know, competition. Competition is good. Or so I've heard.
That's how it was. Then the "infinite growth" mind virus infected all of the private sector. I think it's because with the internet and global markets, the competition between firms isn't about fighting for customers - the customer base is essentially infinite, or at least much bigger than the firms need, so the goal isn't to serve your customers better so they come to you instead of your competitors. What's scarce is investment capital - more and more of the equity markets are consolidated into fewer and fewer players, and since the modern share market is much more speculative (i.e. investors buy not on the expected value of the share of the profits they get as dividends, but on the ability to flip their shares to someone else at a higher price later, who in turn is only buying because they anticipate flipping the shares, there's no regard to the fundamentals of the business), the goal is to compete with other firms by showing the capital investors that you can offer the best return on investment.
Under this mindset, you don't have customers to serve, you have assets to monetise, you've gotta show the moneymen that you're getting faster and faster growth with lots of new revenue streams - you don't actually need for these to pan out, because noone cares about whether you're actually making profits so much as whether you look like you're growing so you can be flipped to another speculator. And in that mindset, customers are an obstacle - they're preventing you from monetising your assets by standing between you and their money.
They are correct based on the interpretation of existing law. That's why the meme someone posted is relevant, you're not wrong, but you're still an asshole.
They are asking a federal judge to say yes to this, specifically:
Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures, because the software is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures.
So I think they're definitely intending to set precedent with this case, though this settlement hasn't been accepted by the court yet.
Nintendo isn't arguing against emulation itself, they're challenging Yuzu on the anti-circumvention part of the DMCA. There isn't precedent for going against emulators using that yet AFAICT; Sony v. Bleem is entirely unrelated.
I have never played any Nintendo games. Idk what people see in them. I feel like people buy them mostly because of nostalgia. First game you ever played and all that, and then they buy switch for their kid.
Different perspectives I guess. That era to me is the era of Apogee software and DOS shareware games, since we never owned a Nintendo system but my Dad did have a decent PC. Many evenings as a preteen were spent trying to cook up my own shitty games in QBasic.
I set up a script the other day to check the repo every half hour or so and download any updates. I will give myself a reminder tomorrow to post it on Dropbox or something, if you don't find it elsewhere.
It also agrees to not delete any other “evidence” that infringes Nintendo’s IP rights.
You can read through the entirety of the proposed final judgment and permanent injunction at the bottom of this story; they have not yet been approved by a judge.
Yuzu has still not publicly commented on the lawsuit at its website, Patreon, or Discord — though a bot is still replying to some Discord users with the following message: “yuzu is legal, we don’t support illegal activities.
It’s not yet clear if this is the end of Yuzu, since copies of both the emulator and its source code are in the wild.
Some online supporters specifically mentioned backing up the code after Nintendo sued two weeks ago.
But now, Nintendo and Tropic Haze are asking a judge to specifically find that Yuzu circumvents its copyright protections by using those keys, even if it doesn’t come with them.
The original article contains 396 words, the summary contains 151 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!