After shutting down several popular emulators, Nintendo admits emulation is legal
After shutting down several popular emulators, Nintendo admits emulation is legal
After shutting down several popular emulators over the years, Nintendo's top IP lawyer just admitted that emulators are legal.
Emulation is legal but emulators that circumvent the DMCA in order to function are not. Yuzu and Ryujinx both decrypt encrypted Switch content using prod keys and title keys in order to execute it. The act of decrypting switch games in real-time using those keys is a violation of DMCA and is illegal (in countries that care about the DMCA anyhow). Having code in your emulator that CAN decrypt the Switch content can be viewed as a DMCA violation as well, even if it also supports unencrypted content.
Based on that, it seems like all we need is for Ryujinx/Yuzu/some other switch emulator that hasn't yet been sued by Nintendo to be built in a way that it requires decrypted copies of the software and they could then argue that the person who violated the DMCA was the person who released the decryption tool or the teams that release decrypted versions of switch software.
Seems like if the developers remove the need for the emulator to use prod keys or title keys and they can remove the primary DMCA violation that is being weaponized against these emulators.
So, I have the prod keys from my own v1 Switch, and plugged those into the emulator, to play games I bought on physical carts.
I’ve never understood how that is illegal when everything (if you’re doing it legitimately of course) is done legitimately? They could’ve taken out the generic prod keys and be okay? Or does it not matter either way because Nintendo said so?
I’m genuinely curious because that seems like it’s well within my rights to do, but I’m not sure as legalese gives me a headache. :/
The problem is that the DMCA is a flawed piece of legislature that hamstrings fair use in a couple of really key ways.
Obligatory IANAL, but my read on the (admittedly very legalese) section 1201 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201) is that it lists a very few exemptions for what is allowable under the DMCA with regard to bypassing copyright protection mechanisms, and archival copies of personal media are not in that list of exemptions. Archival use of computer programs is covered under section 117 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117) and it allows you to make a bit-by-bit copy of your media for archiving it. It doesn't allow you to bypass copyright protection mechanisms on that exist that content.
So, you'd be protected if you were making a 1:1 exact cloned (and therefore, encrypted) copy of your switch game. Any action to decrypt that switch game (because the encryption is explicitly a copyright protection mechanism) would be a violation, whether it be you doing it manually with a tool, or an emulator doing it on your behalf. If you move that violation outside of the emulator, I would think that based on how the law is written they'd have to find some other way you were violating the DMCA with the emulator specifically in order to target it.
Ultimately, I think the reason it's illegal is because the DMCA is corpo crap that has been bastardized several times over to reduce consumer rights, but the lawyers seem to wield section 1201 as the silver bullet.
We're forgetting that Yuzu devs had Tears of the Kingdom and released a version that could run the game before it came out commercially. And to those who were behind a donation paywall too.
The team got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and had to settle the lawsuit. They had too much cash on hand to appear like innocent homebrew developers. And how silly is it to be sharing such hot warez like AAA game leaks on a crappy platform like Discord?
They served this lawsuit to Nintendo on a platter. I've been following the emulator scene since 1998 and have no love lost for their high-priced ninja lawyer warriors. Teams deserve donations but not based on the promise that users will get an updated emulator before games even hit store shelves. The scene has to protect itself by making good decisions that avoid further legal debacles.
See, this point I understand completely. The moment you start making money from these types of things, you’re opening yourself up for lawsuits.
yeah, if it were illegal they wouldn't be able to emulate their own games
Time to open them back up then
Emulators are for Nintendo what loud chewing is for most people, not exactly illegal but if you do it you're gonna get decked.
What I don't get is why emulator devs don't develop completely anonymously, you can't shut them down if you don't know who they are
Okay but they still need to distribute it if they want others to use it. And you don’t reach a lot of people through sneakernet alone. Nintendo will just shut down every place the software gets distributed. Then no legitimate site wants to touch that with a ten yard stick.
You don’t admit that something legal is legal. You’re the asshole that says "OK, maybe you’re right." I’m fed up with their crap, I’ll emulate everything from now on.
I wrote my own NES emulator out of spite
Emulation ahoy!
They set the stage that they never said otherwise, but circumventing piracy protections is somehow illegal…
Now the question arises, what counts as piracy protection? Is a nag enough? Can you be criminalised in clicking away a nag you dis not read?
🤔
Here in Denmark, it's legal to circumvent piracy protection, if the purpose is to legally use the product.
The example that was used in the media when this was new, is when you buy a DVD and want to play it on a PC instead of a DVD player. Usually piracy protection would stop it from working on a PC. Of course the circumvention also makes it easy to make and distribute a pirate copy.
So the ability to use the product in the way the customer choose (within reason), is weighted higher than stopping piracy a little.
Subverting copy protection had always been a vuage notion because they sell you encrypted content, but they still have to sell you something with the decryption keys as well.
Now, using the key to remove the encryption falls under "subverting" but if you use the key to play the encrypted media directly, why does it matter what hardware it is happening on?
When it came to switch emulation you didn't really circumvent the copy protection, you exported the keys from a switch. The game images are basically dumped as is.
Yes, you could find the keys elsewhere, but if you dumped your own it wouldn't really be considered subverting. Especially with the jig you put the switch into a state built into the switch hardware. It's not even a exploit like jailbreak usually are. The recovery boot mode is an intended service feature.
The only illegal thing would be getting copies of games and keys from other people.
Piracy protection is things like encryption, firmware checks, pairing systems, unique game identifiers per instance of game, unique console id's, ... Basically any system put in place to make, or identify, a game/console to be genuine or make sure a genuine game running on genuine hardware and nothing else.
These are all systems the switch had btw.
Switch emulation bypassed or faked all of those, which counts as piracy protection circumvention.
So what's the current state of emulation on Linux? I still have both Yuzu and Ryujinx installed, but has either been superseded by a fork?
Keep an eye on this page to stay up to date with Switch emulators.
I played through a game on Linux shortly before Yuzu was removed and had absolutely no issues. I'd be fine to use that version of Yuzu I have installed if I were to play other game.
They didn't shut down anything, they asked and people took them down voluntarily. Legally speaking that's what happened.
Mafia boss found not guilty. Made an offfer the individual couldn't refuse, finds judge.
When reached for comment Nintendo is quoted as saying, "Stop busting my balls and fuhgeddaboudit."
Not true. They filled a lawsuit against Yuzu and Citra and the developers had to pay 2.4 million dollars to Nintendo. They probably threatened the Ryujinx dev to do the same.
Yuzu was different due to how they were getting the keys. Still fucked tho.
Those never made it to trial, right? My understanding is they settled, because that was cheaper than the trial.
That's correct, I thought it was just a cease and desist
Technically the lawsuit was against Yuzu. Citra was shutdown by association.