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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]". (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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This also includes ceasing development and destroying their copies of the code.

The GitHub repo page for Yuzu now returns a 404, as well. In addition, the repo for the Citra 3DS emulator was also taken down.

As of at least 23:30 UTC, Yuzu's website and Citra's website have been replaced with a statement about their discontinuation.

Other sources found by @Daughter3546@lemmy.world:

There is also an active Reddit thread about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1b6gtb5/

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[–] 111 points 2 years ago (6 children)

The fuck? Why? Emulators are entirely legal and they could've won

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  • [–] [S] 109 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [+] -26 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    How would they fight it if they had the money? Did they have a significant use case other than piracy?

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  • [–] 57 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Easy. Game preservation.

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  • [+] -13 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Game preservation is explicitly exclusided from the dmca true, but only only when the game needs online servers which have now been shut down.

    So it would not work in this case at all.

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  • [+] -27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    They settled because they actively endorsed and proliferated illegal piracy.

    They couldn’t play that angle with what they were doing.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    Is it piracy to play my legally purchased and backed up games on an emulator?

    Edit: a lot of people responding to this are accidentally answering the question above. Yes, those are the things they would have fought if they had the money to go up against Nintendo.

    To those saying that it is indeed piracy -- pretty sure the law has disagreed up to this point. Note that Nintendo didn't win this suit, Yuzu settled. No legal precedent set (yet).

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If you circumvent the copyright protection systems to do so, then under American law yes. If you don't like this, you have to campaign for change.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Do you believe there is a chance of success for campaigning for change?

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Every few years, more things are added as exceptions to the DMCAs circumvention clause. There's a whole host of exceptions, and they are all exceptions in favor of people over companies. Those exceptions came about because people who care fought for them.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Do you have any specific examples and how long it took, or how much it cost? It seems farfetched to think it is feasible to counter the "anti circumvention technology" aspect of the DMCA.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    How is it far fetched when there's a literal bunch of examples you can go find right now? You're basing your estimation on zero evidence and doomerism.

    Try, apply yourself. Don't just assume.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Does it matter? I suspect that if that's what you did, you were one of very few people doing so, and the law doesn't require the absence of any possible legitimate use. In this case, something is illegal if it

    is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

    has only limited commercially significant purpose or use

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    You asked if there was a significant use-case. That's what it is, and why emulators have remained legal up to this point.

    How many people take advantage of that use-case over piracy is a different point.

    Also the law has not decided anything here, yet. As far as the law is concerned, emulators are still legal.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    It's a use case, but I would argue that it's not a significant use case.

    Emulators are still legal in theory, but I doubt that it is in practice possible to make an emulator for a modern video game system without violating some other part of the law.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    It's a use case, but I would argue that it's not a significant use case.

    And that's the answer to your question about what Yuzu would have fought if they had the money to take on Nintendo.

    Emulators are still legal in theory, but I doubt that it is in practice possible to make an emulator for a modern video game system without violating some other part of the law.

    That's exactly what hasn't been determined, since Yuzu settled and it didn't go to court.

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  • [–] 45 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Because Nintendo is a vexatious litigant that weaponizes the legal system in an attempt to bankrupt their opponents.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago

    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.

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