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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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[–] 190 points 2 years ago* (9 children)

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.

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  • [–] [S] 85 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Nintendo's angle is more along the lines of:

    • We gave our friend Switchy the keys to a lockbox.
    • You tricked Switchy into giving you our keys.
    • We didn't authorize you to use those keys.
    • 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.

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  • [–] 72 points 2 years ago

    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.

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

    There's a different kind of judge now than the technologically illiterate?

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  • [–] [S] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I can't quite remember the name, but there is actually at least one U.S. judge that takes the time and effort to learn about the technology in depth before making a ruling.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago*

    Not sure it will ever get better. Maybe a single person being allowed to decide a case that requires a technical understanding should be consulted by experts in it. I guess a better lawyer probably should have made that happen (shouldn't have to). But, as the old geezers die off and the younger "tech savvy" people take over, they will no longer be young or tech savvy, technologywill keep progressing and pass us up too. And you don't want an actual young person as a judge. So... the system is just broken.

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

    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.

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  • [+] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    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

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

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Oh... Huh, yeah then I'm with you lol, idk how they ended up winning that battle

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  • [+] -16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Because you're using the system outside of its intended purpose to break the law. That's basically the definition of hacking.

    I'm not sure why it being illegal to sell a tool to do that is a hard concept to grasp for so many people.

    I'm not against emulation or pirating, but no shit this was going to happen eventually.

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

    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.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    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.

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  • [+] -13 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    You might own the hardware, but you don't own the rights to the OS that runs on it. The encryption key is part of that software.

    It's not a hard concept to grasp. If I was openly selling a tool to break the activation lock on Windows, I could expect the same result.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    That's a ridiculous idea. If I buy a computer with an OS that has an encryption key to protect the hard drive, and later I need that key to remove my data to another system, I have an entirely reasonable expectation that I'm allowed to do so, regardless of how much the computer manufacturer doesn't want me to.

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