Nintendo is going after the development team of an emulator. A legal case was filed by Nintendo yesterday, alleging that the Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, has caused damages to the company by allowing for its games to be played illegally before release. The suit also claims that the company behind the emulator, Tropic Haze LLC, makes a profit by facilitating piracy, noting that during the leak of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Yuzu's Patreon saw a large increase in users. Nintendo's legal team makes a case that Tropic Haze profits from and popularizes video game piracy.

NEW: Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu, saying their tech illegally circumvents Nintendo's software encryption and facilitates piracy.
Seeks damages for alleged violations and a shutdown of the emulator. pic.twitter.com/SGZVI6Cs0x

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) February 27, 2024

In the legal document, Nintendo refers to an emulator as, "a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games". They also assert that the Yuzu team is aware of the emulator's use in the context of piracy, and do not try to hide that aspect. In addition, Nintendo's legal team states that extracting your own keys from a Nintendo Switch console--a requirement to run any Nintendo Switch emulator--is illegal.

Source

 

[realtimesave]

I pirate games and unlike most on here I'm not ashamed of it. I laugh when I see posts like "well if Nintendo didn't charge $70 for Tears of the Kingdom it wouldn't get pirated" lol that is BULLSHIT. People pirate games because they don't want to pay for it at all, not because the game is $10 more.

Yup. Even if a game is $10 it gets pirated because people don't want to pay. Pretty simple. As for myself, I own every game that Nintendo is "worried" that people will not buy which are the ones that they calculated Gary Bowser's fine off of lol. I got em all stacked neatly in my closet, factory sealed Y seals ftw.

Anyways as far as Yuzu goes, as beavis and butthead would say "huh huh they're getting sued huh huh huh that would be cool."

 

[MetaLLG]

Oh, egads! My realeses are leaked! But what if I were to sue some enthusiasts and disguise the leak as not my own fault? Hehehe! Delightfully devilish, 9-10 do.

 

[LoggerMan]

Nintendo will go after you if you profit from piracy of their games. If you don't profit from it, including not having ads on your site, you are relatively safe.

 

[drazenm]

Gives more reason to get a switch, hack it and pirate the out of ninty : )

 

[AdenTheThird]

Just read through the first couple pages. This case is flimsy as HELL. Yes, piracy is possible (and, arguably, aided) by the existance of emulators, but actually attributing piracy to those emulators? That's a far reach.

In unrelated news, I just downloaded the Yuzu app.

 

[HarveyHouston]

So, my question is, what took them so long? Yuzu has been out for a long time already, and it was already well known that they circumvent Nintendo Switch security measures in order to run homebrew and backups of Switch titles - which Nintendo is saying that it's "illegal" and "piracy", but IMHO Fair Use permits the consumer to make multiple copies of software you LEGALLY BOUGHT for your own PERSONAL USE, which at times conflicts with copyright laws.

Something must've changed for Nintendo to take action against the Yuzu development team. This can't just be an "out of the blue" situation. I mean, there are ways to get WiiWare unofficially via certain software, and THAT was never investigated by Nintendo AFAIK, yet piracy was definitely involved. Therefore, something must be different.

 

[KirovAir]

So, my question is, what took them so long? Yuzu has been out for a long time already, and it was already well known that they circumvent Nintendo Switch security measures in order to run homebrew and backups of Switch titles - which Nintendo is saying that it's "illegal" and "piracy", but IMHO Fair Use permits the consumer to make multiple copies of software you LEGALLY BOUGHT for your own PERSONAL USE, which at times conflicts with copyright laws.

Something must've changed for Nintendo to take action against the Yuzu development team. This can't just be an "out of the blue" situation. I mean, there are ways to get WiiWare unofficially via certain software, and THAT was never investigated by Nintendo AFAIK, yet piracy was definitely involved. Therefore, something must be different.

Yuzu fucked up by bragging about "release day" ready games which implies having dumps to test before release date.

See also:

Most other points of Nintendo are moot points based on the Bleem! case, but admitting to having early dumps is giving Nintendo more than enough sticks to beat you legally.

Nintendo simply needed to harvest enough evidence to make it a clear cut case. (And facing the document, they have quite a lot of evidence)

Also, I hope this will not fuck up other people's (legal!) projects because of this.

 

[AdenTheThird]

Yuzu fucked up by bragging about "release day" ready games which implies having dumps to test before release date.

View attachment 422727


See also:
View attachment 422728

Most other points of Nintendo are moot points based on the Bleem! case, but admitting to having early dumps is giving Nintendo more than enough sticks to beat you legally.

Also, I hope this will not fuck up other people's (legal!) projects because of this.
View attachment 422729

These release-day dump posts ARE pretty damning from a legal standpoint. There isn't really a way for piracy not to occur here unless they got their hands on a copy way early, which definitely didn't happen with every game. TotK is cited a few times and my guess is that Nintendo could've been waiting to use it as a scapegoat, hence why we're only now seeing the suit.
Some of the other stuff, like attributing Patreon surges for a completely free product to piracy motivations, is a much harder sell.
But at the end of the day this really isn't about Yuzu. This is Nintendo choosing an unfortunate bastard to be the next Gary Bowser in a desperate attempt to scare every other emulator off the market. It won't work. The Yuzu team got too careless and too cocky. But who am I to spoil the ending?

 

[yoyoyo69]

Seems Palworld has the abusive partner venting in any direction they can

 

[console]

That's very sad news. Not good. Nintendo do something more harm to emulators of developers.

There will be very sharp increase skyrocket crimes upcoming after if what emulators take down by Nintendo. People would destroy cities, dump tons of chemicals everywhere in places of lands and water to give disease / cancer to everyone, destroy everything, gun violence, lot of fighting anywhere places, drugs, murders, robberies / thieves would going to break in Nintendo markets to steal everything or/and destroy them. That's what can do something big harm to Nintendo company and their business to destroyed in near future. Huge threats are coming toward Nintendo in near future.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

Got a quote to back that up? Or just building strawmen? I hope Yuzu, Ryujinx and MigSwitch put Shitendo out of business forever.

And how would they put them out of business? Oh yeah.... From them not making money.... Due to piracy. Proving my point there m8

 

[dragonmaster]

Hope they loose the case i am tired of big companies using their monetary power to destroy innovation or fan projects

 

[Nakamichi]

Now would be the time to support them on Patreon. Vote with your wallet.
I just joined the "Yuzu Team".

 

[linuxares]

Bleem came out a year after the DMCA was introduced, it was absolutely a factor. The courts decided the "personal backup" exception applies, since emulators are intended to be used with them.
It doesn't circumvent anything as it doesn't include the required encryption keys, you have to provide those yourself.

It doesn't seem like Nintendo has a case here. This argument has been tried in court multiple times, and it has never worked. I guess they're hoping Yuzu will just take it down without a fight, since that has been working for them lately.

The dmca however been updated a couple of times since then

 

[urherenow]

Didn't bleem basically seize to exist after the Sony lawsuit?

They won the case. They just couldn't cope with the legal fees from the case. I'm almost surprised they didn't ask to be awarded the legal fees after Sony lost.

And Yuzu does not circumvent the security in any way. It USES the security. That's why you need to dump your keys.

 

[depaul]

What is Nintendo expecting to get from them? like $1000-10K?
It's a failed approach in the era of the internet. If your console is "emulatable" it's gonna be emulated.

Learn from PS5/XBX: even if someone created an emulator, it would run at 1fps lol

 

[urherenow]

Sure. But the case was eventually thrown out because it was obvious that the people using it, and not the software itself, was doing the pirating.

It's even more damning. you need the Firmware as well as keys, which isn't 'legally' available, to use Yuzu. You need to technically have a Switch. If anything it should be fair use of ones own property. Is it illegal for me to dump my own firmware, keys, and games, and play them on PC? Not to most courts, but to Nintendo, it apparently is copyright infringement.

To be fair, I just recently installed Yuzu in my Quest 3. I didn't install any firmware files at all. Just games and my keys. So I don't think it does require firmware. It's possibly only to run system apps, but don't quote me on that.

 

[Tomtani1]

Gives more reason to get a switch, hack it and pirate the out of ninty : )

Make sure you buy a used Switch so that Nintendo does not profit.

 

[Ligeia]

I hope the judges blame Nintendo for having such a weak and easily emulatable hardware

 

[_47iscool]

Maybe they wouldn't need the money had not the Switch sold so badly...