Wednesday, February 28th 2024
Nintendo of America Sues "Yuzu Switch Emulator" Development Company
Game File reporter, Stephen Totilo, has discovered a new Nintendo-filed legal document—the Japanese multinational video game company's North American office is ready to do battle (in court) with Tropic Haze. The latter's Yuzu Switch Emulator is the focus of Nintendo's legal case—initiated on February 26, at the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Totilo's social media summary of goings-on stated: "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." The Dolphin Emulator—a Gamecube and Wii emulation platform—was removed from Valve's Steam store last year, following the sending of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown order, but its development team was not pursued in US courts. The House of Mario is reportedly fiercely protective of its intellectual properties and technologies—gaining a hard-nosed reputation for engaging in plenty of legal action over decades past.
Nintendo's federal-level lawsuit alleges that Tropic Haze's Yuzu Switch Emulator played a large part in widespread illegal distribution of a 2023 flagship game title. They believe that "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" was pirated over one million times in a time period prior to its official launch on Switch consoles, while Yuzu's Patreon funding almost doubled within the same cycle. Nintendo stated (through filed documentation): "With Yuzu in hand, nothing stops a user from obtaining and playing unlawful copies of virtually any game made for the Nintendo Switch, all without paying a dime to Nintendo or to any of the hundreds of other game developers and publishers making and selling games for the Nintendo Switch...In effect, Yuzu turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others' copyrighted works." They argue that Yuzu is capable of circumventing the Switch console's many layers of encryption—Tropic Haze's software, in their opinion, is "primarily designed" to break Switch software protections.
The Verge asked Richard Hoeg—a business attorney—about Nintendo's latest legal case: "The important thing is that Nintendo is bringing the case as a DMCA circumvention claim," says Hoeg, who hosts the Virtual Legality podcast. He tells me that that while emulators are broadly legal if engineered "correctly," the DMCA also lets Nintendo focus on whether the emulator was only designed to break Nintendo's control over its games. 'There is a real chance for them to win as the court 'tests' things like the effectiveness of the measure and just how the emulator was created," Hoeg says."
Sources:
Eurogamer, Stephen Totilo Tweet, VGC, Ars Technica, Kotaku
Nintendo's federal-level lawsuit alleges that Tropic Haze's Yuzu Switch Emulator played a large part in widespread illegal distribution of a 2023 flagship game title. They believe that "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" was pirated over one million times in a time period prior to its official launch on Switch consoles, while Yuzu's Patreon funding almost doubled within the same cycle. Nintendo stated (through filed documentation): "With Yuzu in hand, nothing stops a user from obtaining and playing unlawful copies of virtually any game made for the Nintendo Switch, all without paying a dime to Nintendo or to any of the hundreds of other game developers and publishers making and selling games for the Nintendo Switch...In effect, Yuzu turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others' copyrighted works." They argue that Yuzu is capable of circumventing the Switch console's many layers of encryption—Tropic Haze's software, in their opinion, is "primarily designed" to break Switch software protections.
24 Comments on Nintendo of America Sues "Yuzu Switch Emulator" Development Company
If Ryujinx was mentioned in a lot of those .NFOs too (they are in some though, I checked), they would've been caught in the fire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.
EU has a similar view: www.bileta.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Software-Emulation-in-the-Light-of-EU-Legislation.pdf
Since Yuzu is FOSS, even if Nintendo lost + bought the rights to it with the intention of shutting it down like Sony did to Connectix's emulator, it would live on in some form.
Nintendo better have some real dirt on the Yuzu devs
But when a product reaches end of life, a law should allow it to become completely open and able to be reverse engineered. It's about preservation. Some will argue that old games can get remastered and re-released, but that's a different experience.
A pity those companies are not willing to work with emulator developers and make it official. They could actually make a profit, instead of damaging their reputation with DMCA takedowns.
Nintendo can go fuck them selves!There's established precedent for dumping your own roms just like for cloning your own CD's/DVD's/BluRay's, and anyone can say whatever they want, Nintendo would need to link Yuzu to the pirates, the other way around is just a SLAPP suit.
www.theverge.com/2024/3/4/24090357/nintendo-yuzu-emulator-lawsuit-settlement
The 3DS emulator Citra is getting axed along with Yuzu too