this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Nintendo is one of the worst companies that always want to set an "example" about the DMCA. They don't realize they are fighting a battle they cannot win. Emulators are perfectly legal as long as the emulators don't contain any code that was in ownership from them.
That being said, I'm betting some of those forks were following the DMCA but Nintendo still shut them down. This is where copyright needs to be reevaluated.
I'm honestly not surprised they haven't gone after dolphin emulator since those devs contain the encryption keys to play the iso files.
So, I agree with your general points, but I think part of the reason Nintendo is so harsh towards Yuzu is because, as far as I'm aware, Yuzu does actually contain proprietary code from Nintendo.
My understanding is that the Yuzu team used a Switch development kit instead of reverse engineering the Switch as they had claimed, so the entire code is essentially tainted because it's unclear which parts came from the development kit and which parts came from true reverse engineering
Source?
Not disbelieving, but I've never heard this before.
I tried looking for it, but all my searches are flooded with articles about this current takedown wave. I did find a forum post talking about it, though, so I know I'm not crazy.
I might try searching again later, in which case I'll edit this comment.
Also, I know this isn't really relevant to the question, but the Yuzu team was doing some really shady stuff, even ignoring the development kit usage. For instance, they were collecting telemetry data from all of their users and were using illegally obtained roms to optimize Yuzu, to the point where the Yuzu team was able to get games to work before the game's official release
They did do shady stuff but I hate that the "TOTK worked on the Switch perfectly on release day" is thrown around as an argument. It's an emulator, emulating the switch hardware, if it does it's job well of course it'll do that.
I know that they used leaked builds but that just annoys me.
And obligatory, fuck Nintendo.
I've seen hearsay that there have been Yuzu patches specifically to aid compatibility with TOTK before it was officially out, which would have greatly supported the "mainly/primarily used for piracy" argument in court.
I would agree with you, but there was apparently evidence that specific patches were made that allowed TOTK to work. And then if you take a look at the link, there were screenshots of the Nintendo documents to suggest that TOTK apparently was not the Yuzu team's first rodeo when it came to patching for pre-release games
I kind of want to just see the evidence. No offense, but the heresay is obnoxious.
It doesn't matter if there's patches to make it work specifically, if they don't contain Nintendo's code. At most they could accuse whoever contributed the patch with piracy / breach of NDA or similar for having downloaded the ROM prior to release (couldn't have purchased it) but that doesn't impact the emulator itself
IIRC they also had some stuff going around about how Tears of the Kingdom ran better on the emulator than the actual Switch.
Pretty sure that was the point at which Nintendo decided to unleash the dogs on them
https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/3/24147936/nintendo-dmca-takedown-yuzu-emulator-copies
It's true. They used Nintendo's own cryptographic keys to make the yuzu switch emulation work.
That's not "proprietary code", those are keys. And they actually didn't include keys, Yuzu did require you to supply a key, however a lot of them were then derived from the key supplied.
And there is no other way to do emulation and a whole host of other things if you can't use their keys. Make no mistake, Nintendo wishes it could make using the keys at all illegal.
Here's the thing. The creators of Yuzu folded which is a win as far as Nintendo is concerned and a loss for everyone else who uses the yuzu emulators. Your semantics about the situation aren't helping. All I did was supply a link to a news story that was already available on Lemmy on literally the technology community. This has already been hashed out.
That's not code and Texas Instruments already lost on that one
The distribution of DRM encryption keys is very storied.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy
And Nintendo won.
They didn't win, they did an out-of-court settlement.
Something something legal precedence. This hasn't gone through court yet, has it?
And if Nintendo has its way (which they did this go round) they won't have to. They got what they wanted and they're not having to spend ridiculous amounts of money (that there's basically no way to re-coup) on litigation. They sued a guy who can never pay them back what the court says he owes them. I doubt they want to go through that again. Easier to just for arbitrate the proceedings.
Part of the problem is they apply Japanese copyright law to an international level. Wouod be cool if they hit the wrong target, got sued for trying to apply their laws to the world stage, and got matched each time they appealed until their war chest got drained dry
What Japanese copyright law? They sued Yuzu in a US court.
In terms of their mentality, I mean
The DMCA is a US law, so I don't see how you can say they're using Japanese law.
In Japan, there is no concept of "Fair Use", it's why they don't have a modding scene and why Japanese devs actively fight against people trying to mod their games. Nintendo uses DMCA on things that are clearly fair use (Parodies like SML, Nintendo themed mods on Garry's Mod), and people cave solely because they can't afford to go to court.
It's also literally a criminal offense in Japan to modify Pokemon data because tournaments in that scene are taken that seriously.
Or to be blunt, Nintendo abuses DMCA (an American Legal system) by applying it to things that would only be illegal in Japan, but are perfectly legal in America as it's outside of Japan, and since the courts only care about who has more money, no one's pointed this out as they'd have to do so in court in front of Nintendo's army of lawyers.
In terms of their mentality, I mean