5 ms·

It's open source. If there are people interested in continuing development it won't go away. And even if there aren't the current version will still work fine,

by paol 3y ago

It's open source. If there are people interested in continuing development it won't go away. And even if there aren't the current version will still work fine, just maybe not for future games.

gjsman-1000 3y ago
You're assuming Nintendo doesn't file DMCA takedowns; especially considering they've literally just won a court case against it. And even if you are outside the US, I wouldn't be surprised if European service providers don't want to risk it because they are still under copyright treaties, of which the DMCA is just the US implementation.
- paol 3y ago
  I don't think it's that simple. For one thing emulation has been ruled legal in the US. By all reports Nintendo had an unusually strong case against Yuzu because the developers behind it didn't sufficiently distance themselves from piracy uses - the opposite if anything. On the practical side, the fact that the developers were a for profit company also made Nintendo's job much easier. Taking down a more legally careful, decentralized open source project should prove harder.
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    > For one thing emulation has been ruled legal in the US. By Emulation was; breaking cryptographic locks under the DMCA never was. In addition, most of the pro-emulation lawsuits were decided before the relevant DMCA sections even came into effect (e.g. Bleem), and are quite possibly already obsolete.
    - 1231232131231 3y ago
      What if it was forked and the code that broke DRM was separated from the codebase, preferably as a library (dll/lib)?
      - chaorace 3y ago
        In order to isolate one part of the software as "the bad bits", you need either clear specific language in the law or a clearly established relevant legal precedent. Neither of these things currently exist in the context of DMCA 1201. If you're curious, here's the most relevant parts of the text: > No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that [...] has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;[...] > As used in this subsection—[...]a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. FYI: I am not a lawyer, but you can listen to a lawyer explain the above at the following link https://youtu.be/wROQUZDCIMI?t=868 https://youtu.be/wROQUZDCIMI?t=868
      - colinsane 3y ago
        assuming you aren't a defendant in the above case, then the only ruling which would affect someone who wants to do this is (4): > Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [...] so, first reading, no: just taking Yuzu and splitting out the DRM stuff isn't legal if Yuzu still _depends_ on that DRM to function. you could maybe come up with some thing where you do full Switch emulation, with the code having literally zero concept of DRM/cryptography, and can only play homebrew games. do that and some other party would likely come around and do the (likely illegal) work to convert Switch games into a format your emulator understands. quite a bit like MAME cores, really. fun speculating about how to bypass the spirit of this ruling though, huh? IMO if you actually want to do this don't bother with the roundabout. just do it directly and don't incorporate yourself in a state that cares about DMCA like a dumbass, and strictly distance your operations from your legal identity if you live under such a repressive regime.
  - flykespice 3y ago
    > Taking down a more legally careful, decentralized open source project should prove harder. Oh sweetheart, have you learnt about intimidation by legal fees? Doesn't matter whether it's legal or not, not many can bank to take against dedicated Nintendo legal team.
    - hnfong 3y ago
      It's actually much harder for corporations to sue you if all they have on you is a github username. But once you start taking "donations" and run the project like a business with non-trivial revenue, they can take you down easily by following the money trail.
- kevingadd 3y ago
  They can probably also compel the original copyright holders (the yuzu team) to issue takedowns of forks
  - GardenLetter27 3y ago
    On what grounds? They can't retroactively revoke the copyright licence previously granted no?
    - kevingadd 3y ago
      You could probably contest the takedown on the basis that an open-source license allows you to post a fork, but Nintendo got them to agree that the content is illegal, so it seems questionable whether they could give you a license to distribute something it's no longer legal for them to distribute themselves. I wouldn't want to go to court over it, personally.
      - Phrodo_00 3y ago
        Nintendo did no such thing. They just settled out of court by owing enough money to bankrupt the company and agreeing to not distribute the work. It means nothing to other people that already have licenses to redistribute from earlier.
  - wtetzner 3y ago
    Given that it's under the GPL, I don't think they can do that.
  - GabrielTFS 3y ago
    People have a license under the GPL to redistribute Yuzu, and the devs know this - I don't think a settlement can compel them to commit perjury (which is what they would be doing if they knowingly lied in a DMCA takedown)
- ip_addr 3y ago
  I wonder if takedowns like this will make decentralized code tools popular, for example: https://radicle.xyz/ https://radicle.xyz/
- expert700 3y ago
  They did not just win a court case though, they merely settled it outside of court; settling outside of court does not establish any legal precedent one way or another
  - Narishma 3y ago
    They didn't settle outside of court.
    - GabrielTFS 3y ago
      I don't see how it could establish legal precedent in a way that would be meaningfully useful to Nintendo in other court cases (well, I guess the fact the Yuzu devs settled could scare others into also doing so, but I mean in a legal sense)
- snvzz 3y ago
  >especially considering they've literally just won a court case against it. Wait what? When did this happen? Doesn't this story (about devs settling) mean the opposite of a court case being won or lost?
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Out of court settlements are a thing, but this wasn't one. This was filed in-court. It's like the equivalent of a forfeit. > Plaintiff Nintendo of America Inc. (“Plaintiff” or “Nintendo”) and Tropic Haze LLC (“Defendant” or “Tropic Haze”), by and through their undersigned counsel, hereby consent to judgment in favor of Nintendo, and jointly move the Court to enter monetary relief in the sum of US$2,400,000.00 in favor of Nintendo and against Defendant. Translation: "Hey court, we both agree that Nintendo wins, can we just skip the rest of this and mark this down as a win for them?"
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - GabrielTFS 3y ago
      What's the distinction, then ? I can't imagine a company can set precedent to their liking on basically any issue by suing someone who has a vague relation to that issue and doesn't have to money to fight back to get them to sign up to some random settlement that says "the company is right, please set a precedent on this issue. - person who didn't have the money to fight back", right ?
      - hnfong 3y ago
        It doesn't set a "precedent" in the strict legal sense, especially that there's no point of law being discussed. But it does set a "precedent" in that when courts deal with similar cases in the future, they would look back and see the settlement, and it does influence a judges' assessment of whether Nintendo has a case or not, in the sense of "well, the defendants in the prior case forfeited, they must have had an open and shut case, right?" In a perfect world where courts have all the time and resources to try a case, this shouldn't happen, but in practice courts use all sorts of heuristics (as long as they're not explicitly banned)...
m3kw9 3y ago
They’d just jump to Ryujinx where it is still legal
- Zuiii 3y ago
  Yuzu is still legal.
  - m3kw9 3y ago
    The fruit?
  - colinsane 3y ago
    this is what i thought too, since it's just a settlement between Tropic Haze and Nintendo rather than a more broad ruling. but somebody linked this settlement elsewhere here and it adds up to distribution of the Yuzu code likely being a DMCA violation [1] FINDINGS OF FACT ... 3. Yuzu, a video game emulator, circumvents the Technological Measures and allows for the play of encrypted Nintendo Switch games on devices other than a Nintendo Switch. For example, Yuzu executes code that decrypts Nintendo Switch video games (including component files) immediately before and during runtime using unauthorized copies of Nintendo Switch cryptographic keys. Yuzu is primarily designed to circumvent and play Nintendo Switch games. In the ordinary course of its operation with those games, Yuzu requires the Nintendo Switch’s proprietary cryptographic keys to gain access to and play Nintendo Switch games. 4. Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures, because the software is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures. Id. § 1201(a)(2)(A). but, then, this document appears to be a draft ("proposed final judgement"). so things are still weirdly ambiguous for all the 3rd parties currently dealing with Yuzu :( 1: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.56980/gov.uscourts.rid.56980.10.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.569...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

by paol 3y ago

It's open source. If there are people interested in continuing development it won't go away. And even if there aren't the current version will still work fine, just maybe not for future games.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

You're assuming Nintendo doesn't file DMCA takedowns; especially considering they've literally just won a court case against it. And even if you are outside the US, I wouldn't be surprised if European service providers don't want to risk it because they are still under copyright treaties, of which the DMCA is just the US implementation.

paol 3y ago
I don't think it's that simple. For one thing emulation has been ruled legal in the US. By all reports Nintendo had an unusually strong case against Yuzu because the developers behind it didn't sufficiently distance themselves from piracy uses - the opposite if anything. On the practical side, the fact that the developers were a for profit company also made Nintendo's job much easier. Taking down a more legally careful, decentralized open source project should prove harder.
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  > For one thing emulation has been ruled legal in the US. By Emulation was; breaking cryptographic locks under the DMCA never was. In addition, most of the pro-emulation lawsuits were decided before the relevant DMCA sections even came into effect (e.g. Bleem), and are quite possibly already obsolete.
  - 1231232131231 3y ago
    What if it was forked and the code that broke DRM was separated from the codebase, preferably as a library (dll/lib)?
    - chaorace 3y ago
      In order to isolate one part of the software as "the bad bits", you need either clear specific language in the law or a clearly established relevant legal precedent. Neither of these things currently exist in the context of DMCA 1201. If you're curious, here's the most relevant parts of the text: > No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that [...] has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;[...] > As used in this subsection—[...]a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. FYI: I am not a lawyer, but you can listen to a lawyer explain the above at the following link https://youtu.be/wROQUZDCIMI?t=868 https://youtu.be/wROQUZDCIMI?t=868
    - colinsane 3y ago
      assuming you aren't a defendant in the above case, then the only ruling which would affect someone who wants to do this is (4): > Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [...] so, first reading, no: just taking Yuzu and splitting out the DRM stuff isn't legal if Yuzu still _depends_ on that DRM to function. you could maybe come up with some thing where you do full Switch emulation, with the code having literally zero concept of DRM/cryptography, and can only play homebrew games. do that and some other party would likely come around and do the (likely illegal) work to convert Switch games into a format your emulator understands. quite a bit like MAME cores, really. fun speculating about how to bypass the spirit of this ruling though, huh? IMO if you actually want to do this don't bother with the roundabout. just do it directly and don't incorporate yourself in a state that cares about DMCA like a dumbass, and strictly distance your operations from your legal identity if you live under such a repressive regime.
- flykespice 3y ago
  > Taking down a more legally careful, decentralized open source project should prove harder. Oh sweetheart, have you learnt about intimidation by legal fees? Doesn't matter whether it's legal or not, not many can bank to take against dedicated Nintendo legal team.
  - hnfong 3y ago
    It's actually much harder for corporations to sue you if all they have on you is a github username. But once you start taking "donations" and run the project like a business with non-trivial revenue, they can take you down easily by following the money trail.
kevingadd 3y ago
They can probably also compel the original copyright holders (the yuzu team) to issue takedowns of forks
- GardenLetter27 3y ago
  On what grounds? They can't retroactively revoke the copyright licence previously granted no?
  - kevingadd 3y ago
    You could probably contest the takedown on the basis that an open-source license allows you to post a fork, but Nintendo got them to agree that the content is illegal, so it seems questionable whether they could give you a license to distribute something it's no longer legal for them to distribute themselves. I wouldn't want to go to court over it, personally.
    - Phrodo_00 3y ago
      Nintendo did no such thing. They just settled out of court by owing enough money to bankrupt the company and agreeing to not distribute the work. It means nothing to other people that already have licenses to redistribute from earlier.
- wtetzner 3y ago
  Given that it's under the GPL, I don't think they can do that.
- GabrielTFS 3y ago
  People have a license under the GPL to redistribute Yuzu, and the devs know this - I don't think a settlement can compel them to commit perjury (which is what they would be doing if they knowingly lied in a DMCA takedown)
ip_addr 3y ago
I wonder if takedowns like this will make decentralized code tools popular, for example: https://radicle.xyz/ https://radicle.xyz/
expert700 3y ago
They did not just win a court case though, they merely settled it outside of court; settling outside of court does not establish any legal precedent one way or another
- Narishma 3y ago
  They didn't settle outside of court.
  - GabrielTFS 3y ago
    I don't see how it could establish legal precedent in a way that would be meaningfully useful to Nintendo in other court cases (well, I guess the fact the Yuzu devs settled could scare others into also doing so, but I mean in a legal sense)
snvzz 3y ago
>especially considering they've literally just won a court case against it. Wait what? When did this happen? Doesn't this story (about devs settling) mean the opposite of a court case being won or lost?
- kube-system 3y ago
  Out of court settlements are a thing, but this wasn't one. This was filed in-court. It's like the equivalent of a forfeit. > Plaintiff Nintendo of America Inc. (“Plaintiff” or “Nintendo”) and Tropic Haze LLC (“Defendant” or “Tropic Haze”), by and through their undersigned counsel, hereby consent to judgment in favor of Nintendo, and jointly move the Court to enter monetary relief in the sum of US$2,400,000.00 in favor of Nintendo and against Defendant. Translation: "Hey court, we both agree that Nintendo wins, can we just skip the rest of this and mark this down as a win for them?"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - GabrielTFS 3y ago
    What's the distinction, then ? I can't imagine a company can set precedent to their liking on basically any issue by suing someone who has a vague relation to that issue and doesn't have to money to fight back to get them to sign up to some random settlement that says "the company is right, please set a precedent on this issue. - person who didn't have the money to fight back", right ?
    - hnfong 3y ago
      It doesn't set a "precedent" in the strict legal sense, especially that there's no point of law being discussed. But it does set a "precedent" in that when courts deal with similar cases in the future, they would look back and see the settlement, and it does influence a judges' assessment of whether Nintendo has a case or not, in the sense of "well, the defendants in the prior case forfeited, they must have had an open and shut case, right?" In a perfect world where courts have all the time and resources to try a case, this shouldn't happen, but in practice courts use all sorts of heuristics (as long as they're not explicitly banned)...

m3kw9 3y ago

They’d just jump to Ryujinx where it is still legal

Zuiii 3y ago
Yuzu is still legal.
- m3kw9 3y ago
  The fruit?
- colinsane 3y ago
  this is what i thought too, since it's just a settlement between Tropic Haze and Nintendo rather than a more broad ruling. but somebody linked this settlement elsewhere here and it adds up to distribution of the Yuzu code likely being a DMCA violation [1] FINDINGS OF FACT ... 3. Yuzu, a video game emulator, circumvents the Technological Measures and allows for the play of encrypted Nintendo Switch games on devices other than a Nintendo Switch. For example, Yuzu executes code that decrypts Nintendo Switch video games (including component files) immediately before and during runtime using unauthorized copies of Nintendo Switch cryptographic keys. Yuzu is primarily designed to circumvent and play Nintendo Switch games. In the ordinary course of its operation with those games, Yuzu requires the Nintendo Switch’s proprietary cryptographic keys to gain access to and play Nintendo Switch games. 4. Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures, because the software is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures. Id. § 1201(a)(2)(A). but, then, this document appears to be a draft ("proposed final judgement"). so things are still weirdly ambiguous for all the 3rd parties currently dealing with Yuzu :( 1: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.56980/gov.uscourts.rid.56980.10.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.569...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]