6 ms·

I'm pretty sure the true reason behind this lawsuit was that the Yuzu people were running a company selling (on Patreon) "Early Access" to emulator features and

I'm pretty sure the true reason behind this lawsuit was that the Yuzu people were running a company selling (on Patreon) "Early Access" to emulator features and access to a private Discord where there was A LOT of user-uploaded Switch ROM dumps floating around and the moderators (employed by the company charging for access) were extremely happy to look the other way. Also, doesn't Yuzu itself include pre-decrypted ROM dumps from the actual Switch hardware, like for example the OS bootloader ? It's one thing to build an emulator. It's a very different thing to run a company by facilitating piracy. Also, this judgement probably won't financially ruin the Yuzu devs, because they (as persons) were not sued. But it will probably tank their liability-limited company named Tropic Haze LLC. I have a strong feeling that if you'd post lossless rips of pre-release cinema movies to a private (but paid) discord, you'd get a rather similar treatment ;) EDIT: I mean even the name choice "Tropic Haze" kind of hints at sailing the high seas ;) EDIT2: Straight from the filing: "The lead developer of Yuzu [..] has publicly acknowledged most users pirate prod.keys and games online" EDIT3: "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was unlawfully distributed a week and a half before its release"

corytheboyd 3y ago
Thank you for providing the sober explanation of what really happened here, I knew there had to be more to it, but didn’t care enough to dig in.
- bakugo 3y ago
  There isn't more to it, that explanation is wrong. See my other comments.
  - corytheboyd 3y ago
    So did they run a discord server where people shared ROMs or not? That alone is enough of a woopsie.
    - fxtentacle 3y ago
      They did, but indirectly by tolerating it, and some files are even still online: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39596261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39596261
      - brookst 3y ago
        I mean if you’re in the emulator grey area, you can position yourself as righteously enabling people who have purchased the games, or you can position yourself as a way to play the games without paying. Anything less than a zero tolerance policy for ROM trading on the corporate discord server is pretty much a declaration of the latter.
andix 3y ago
It’s surprising that someone runs a business like you describe in your post from a jurisdiction where Nintendo can actually get to them. I really don’t want to support piracy, but there are many countries where Nintendo could never get any access to the company. And all those countries have the internet too.
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  I don't think they started with that business model. It's more like their users pushed it onto them. And it's very difficult to say no once you've started getting used to the money flowing in. But they did say in their official statement that they "have come to the decision [..] piracy of video games [..] should end". https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzu/comments/1b6jvar/end_of_yuzucitra_message_from_admins/ https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzu/comments/1b6jvar/end_of_yuzuci... But then again, posts like this certainly didn't help their case: https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzuemulador/comments/17fk9uf/prodkeys_1700_dump_offical_switch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzuemulador/comments/17fk9uf/prodk... Note that the now-defunct "prod.keys 17.0.0" pointed to a file posted in their discord (but not by them).
  - bakugo 3y ago
    They didn't start with that business model and they didn't end with that business model, either. Please stop spreading misinformation. The second link in your post isn't even on the main yuzu subreddit, it's just a random person on a random subreddit posting a link, and it's not from their discord.
    - fxtentacle 3y ago
      If you're so eager to argue, then in your opinion, what was their business model? They were running a company and that company has been sued (and not the people behind it or the people working on the emulator, but only the company). How did that company make money?
- account42 3y ago
  > I really don’t want to support piracy Me neither. Copyright infringement however is a moral imperative.
bakugo 3y ago
> Yuzu people were running a company selling (on Patreon) "Early Access" to emulator features and access to a private Discord where there was A LOT of user-uploaded Switch ROM dumps floating around and the moderators (employed by the company charging for access) were extremely happy to look the other way. This is completely false. The yuzu developers were in no way distributing games or keys to the public, and this was not stated in the lawsuit. They were, however, known to distribute games and keys amongst themselves in private discord chats for development purposes, and this could've been used as evidence against them if they tried to fight the case.
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  "The yuzu developers were in no way distributing games or keys to the public" I agree. They did not distribute games themselves. But they provided a tutorial for ripping games and they were managing the discord where the ripped files were uploaded. And they were very unsuccessful at removing obviously unauthorized game ROM dumps from their discord.
  - bakugo 3y ago
    > they provided a tutorial for ripping games Yes, because that's how you legally play your own purchased games. > they were managing the discord where the ripped files were uploaded They were not. You weren't even allowed to mention that you pirated a game on their discord, much less post links to pirated games. Hell, even posting an emulator log file containing a game path pointing to your downloads folder was enough to get you warned.
    - pushedx 3y ago
      Yes. The amount of blatant slander and misinformation in these comments is really sad. The Yuzu team never supported piracy, and any discussion of it was disallowed in the Discord.
      - fxtentacle 3y ago
        Search the Discord for: "we're aware at least some folks aren't legit" "convincingly PRETEND to follow the rules" (emphasis by them) "pirating the game" "don't have to witch hunt"
metalcrow 3y ago
> include pre-decrypted ROM dumps from the actual Switch hardware, like for example the OS bootloader Is that known to be illegal currently? Or is that currently still a grey area in the law?
- ronsor 3y ago
  Distributing copies of the system bootloader is definitively copyright infringement, even without the awful DMCA section 1201. That aside, reimplementing the bootloader is legal. I haven't dug into the code to see if Yuzu actually is redistributing anything.
Osmose 3y ago
I believe that Yuzu includes a standalone implementation of the Switch firmware but can run user-provided firmware because a few games have compatibility issues, and it doesn't run Nintendo's own OS software (you can't run the Switch system menu on it, for example). But to your larger point: Nintendo being mad about people sharing Switch ROMs or Yuzu funding their work shouldn't have any bearing on the actual legal question of whether Yuzu violates the DMCA anti-circumvention clause. Dolphin argued after legal consultation that inclusion of these keys qualifies under exceptions for interoperability; Yuzu doesn't include the keys at all. It doesn't appear to have been a question tested in the courts yet. That point _does_ matter if you're making a moral argument about whether Yuzu crossed a line, but given that emulation has been commonplace for almost the entirety of Nintendo's video game business and it has done very little to stop them from staying on top of the game industry, but has enabled millions to experience and be inspired by games they would've otherwise never have been able to play, I'm not terribly convinced that $23k a month in donations is wrong for people putting in serious engineering work into a project that enables that.
- echelon 3y ago
  > I'm not terribly convinced that $23k a month in donations is wrong for people putting in serious engineering work into a project that enables that. That's not it. Say what you will about "sales lost to piracy are not sales", but Netflix and Steam suggest otherwise. Kids playing Zelda for free might be spending their opportunity cost money on Xbox instead because of what Yuzu enabled. I support hardware and software emulation. The stuff Kaze [1] and others do is both amazing and inspiring. It's the correct kind of emulation. Yuzu wasn't acting in good faith. The team saw abuse firsthand and embraced it. [1] https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuvSqzfO_LV_QzHdmEj84SQ https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuvSqzfO_LV_QzHdmEj84SQ
  - rahkiin 3y ago
    Netflix, Steam, and Spotify show that the best deterrent from piracy is easy access. Eg I would love to play Zelda or Mario but I do not feel like getting a whole switch for it that is just another console in the closet used a couple of times per month at most.
ShamelessC 3y ago
> EDIT3: "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was unlawfully distributed a week and a half before its release" The game was leaked. How is that the fault of the yuzu devs?
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/402241866935828490/472886034632278016/unknown.png?ex=65f61670&is=65e3a170&hm=716a69f0a71f3fd8dda931aeeaa8433f355ff54752aeaa23c1c2f29b6a8eef39& https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/402241866935828490/47... That's a list of dumped ROMs. (Posted in 2018, BTW) Notice the "402241866935828490" in the URL? That's the ID of the #support-dumping channel on the Yuzu Discord. Like I said, the Yuzu moderators were very happy to look away when people discussed ROM piracy.
  - Osmose 3y ago
    "Someone posted a screenshot of a separate torrent's contents in their server 5+ years ago", with no context into why someone posted it or what moderation actions were taken in response, is poor evidence to your accusation.
    - fxtentacle 3y ago
      There's a lot of stuff in that discord that can cause trouble for the moderators. Also, how do you think a lawyer would interpret this: moderator: "Since April 29th, we've had about 50,000 members join" random person: "Let's be honest, 40k of that was the zombie horde who rushed the gates when TotK leaked" moderator: "The support we've been receiving has been incredible Very happy with our community, and we're all honored to be able to provide great software to all our users."
  - nfriedly 3y ago
    Wait, "#support-dumping" sounds like it's for helping people dump the games they have physical copies of. Basically the opposite of piracy. The screenshot looks like it's of the Internet Archive, but all the files are marked as not available for download.
0xcde4c3db 3y ago
Also worth noting is that while the "Early Access" changes were not kept secret, the Yuzu team went out of its way to make it harder than necessary to replicate an equivalent build from the public Git repo (there was no public EA branch, just a bunch of PRs with a specific tag) and aggressively disapproved of anyone actually forking the project or providing unofficial builds. They couldn't actually stop anyone under the license, but anyone doing so risked being blackballed/banned from official spaces, and in one case a Yuzu developer allegedly even altered the copyright notice on a contribution because it referenced a provider of unofficial EA-equivalent builds [1]. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/ljxnvi/yuzu_stole_code/ https://old.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/ljxnvi/yuzu_stol...
KomoD 3y ago
> I mean even the name choice "Tropic Haze" kind of hints at sailing the high seas ;) Can you explain how?
- bena 3y ago
  A lot of what we think of when we think of pirates is heavily influenced by the "golden age of piracy" which was mainly in the Caribbean region. So it's like a second or third order reference, but it's there-ish. Pirate -> Caribbean -> Tropical But there's also likely another explanation that would fit just as well, if not better.
  - jondwillis 3y ago
    Sounds more like a strain of cannabis to me.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      Or a retrowave album.
0x_rs 3y ago
Yuzu developers didn't put themselves in a favorable position from the community perspective by doing DMCAs and cease-and-desists on people redistributing "early access" builds.. of GPL licensed source code. And the CLA drama, and so on. Ryujinx isn't affected by the self-proclaimed "necessity of productization" of emulation software, and the recent events are not surprising. Some might even say they painted a target on their back.
dancemethis 3y ago
It's double as funny because Discord knows of the piracy going on (since they have direct access to all user data and metadata), but the "rights owners" don't pay them enough in the back door to catch them.
jerrysievert 3y ago
> I mean even the name choice "Tropic Haze" kind of hints at sailing the high seas 1. We know this woman is a witch because she looks like one. 2. We know this woman is a witch because she dresses like one. 3. We know this woman is a witch because she has a wart. 4. We know this woman is a witch because she turned someone into a newt. 5. One burns witches. 6. One burns wood. 7. Witches burn because they are made out of wood. 8. Bridges are made of wood. 9. However, bridges are multiply realizable. They can be built from stone. [Implied] Building a bridge out of the woman will not determine that she is made of wood. 10. Wood floats in water. 11. A duck floats in water [bread, apples, very small rocks, cider, gravy, cherries, mud, churches, lead]. 12. If the woman weighs the same as a duck, then she is made of wood. 13. The woman weighs the same as a duck. 14. Therefore, the woman is a witch. more leaps of logic. [editing to add: with apologies to https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/06/27/monty-python-witch-trial-validity-soundness-and-the-fallacy-of-the-undistributed-middle/ https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/06/27/monty-python-witch-tri...]
NotPractical 3y ago
I doubt that Nintendo was aware of any of that, aside from maybe the Patreon, when they decided to initiate the litigation process. The Patreon was admittedly risky, but as far as I can tell the settlement states that the emulator itself is illegal as per the DMCA, regardless of whether or not they were making money off of it. If a precedent is set here, it is quite dangerous. > Also, doesn't Yuzu itself include pre-decrypted ROM dumps from the actual Switch hardware, like for example the OS bootloader ? As other commenters have pointed out, Yuzu did not include any Nintendo copyrighted assets, so this is wrong.

corytheboyd 3y ago

Thank you for providing the sober explanation of what really happened here, I knew there had to be more to it, but didn’t care enough to dig in.

bakugo 3y ago
There isn't more to it, that explanation is wrong. See my other comments.
- corytheboyd 3y ago
  So did they run a discord server where people shared ROMs or not? That alone is enough of a woopsie.
  - fxtentacle 3y ago
    They did, but indirectly by tolerating it, and some files are even still online: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39596261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39596261
    - brookst 3y ago
      I mean if you’re in the emulator grey area, you can position yourself as righteously enabling people who have purchased the games, or you can position yourself as a way to play the games without paying. Anything less than a zero tolerance policy for ROM trading on the corporate discord server is pretty much a declaration of the latter.

andix 3y ago

It’s surprising that someone runs a business like you describe in your post from a jurisdiction where Nintendo can actually get to them. I really don’t want to support piracy, but there are many countries where Nintendo could never get any access to the company. And all those countries have the internet too.

fxtentacle 3y ago
I don't think they started with that business model. It's more like their users pushed it onto them. And it's very difficult to say no once you've started getting used to the money flowing in. But they did say in their official statement that they "have come to the decision [..] piracy of video games [..] should end". https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzu/comments/1b6jvar/end_of_yuzucitra_message_from_admins/ https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzu/comments/1b6jvar/end_of_yuzuci... But then again, posts like this certainly didn't help their case: https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzuemulador/comments/17fk9uf/prodkeys_1700_dump_offical_switch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzuemulador/comments/17fk9uf/prodk... Note that the now-defunct "prod.keys 17.0.0" pointed to a file posted in their discord (but not by them).
- bakugo 3y ago
  They didn't start with that business model and they didn't end with that business model, either. Please stop spreading misinformation. The second link in your post isn't even on the main yuzu subreddit, it's just a random person on a random subreddit posting a link, and it's not from their discord.
  - fxtentacle 3y ago
    If you're so eager to argue, then in your opinion, what was their business model? They were running a company and that company has been sued (and not the people behind it or the people working on the emulator, but only the company). How did that company make money?
account42 3y ago
> I really don’t want to support piracy Me neither. Copyright infringement however is a moral imperative.

bakugo 3y ago

> Yuzu people were running a company selling (on Patreon) "Early Access" to emulator features and access to a private Discord where there was A LOT of user-uploaded Switch ROM dumps floating around and the moderators (employed by the company charging for access) were extremely happy to look the other way. This is completely false. The yuzu developers were in no way distributing games or keys to the public, and this was not stated in the lawsuit. They were, however, known to distribute games and keys amongst themselves in private discord chats for development purposes, and this could've been used as evidence against them if they tried to fight the case.

fxtentacle 3y ago
"The yuzu developers were in no way distributing games or keys to the public" I agree. They did not distribute games themselves. But they provided a tutorial for ripping games and they were managing the discord where the ripped files were uploaded. And they were very unsuccessful at removing obviously unauthorized game ROM dumps from their discord.
- bakugo 3y ago
  > they provided a tutorial for ripping games Yes, because that's how you legally play your own purchased games. > they were managing the discord where the ripped files were uploaded They were not. You weren't even allowed to mention that you pirated a game on their discord, much less post links to pirated games. Hell, even posting an emulator log file containing a game path pointing to your downloads folder was enough to get you warned.
  - pushedx 3y ago
    Yes. The amount of blatant slander and misinformation in these comments is really sad. The Yuzu team never supported piracy, and any discussion of it was disallowed in the Discord.
    - fxtentacle 3y ago
      Search the Discord for: "we're aware at least some folks aren't legit" "convincingly PRETEND to follow the rules" (emphasis by them) "pirating the game" "don't have to witch hunt"

metalcrow 3y ago

> include pre-decrypted ROM dumps from the actual Switch hardware, like for example the OS bootloader Is that known to be illegal currently? Or is that currently still a grey area in the law?

ronsor 3y ago
Distributing copies of the system bootloader is definitively copyright infringement, even without the awful DMCA section 1201. That aside, reimplementing the bootloader is legal. I haven't dug into the code to see if Yuzu actually is redistributing anything.

Osmose 3y ago

I believe that Yuzu includes a standalone implementation of the Switch firmware but can run user-provided firmware because a few games have compatibility issues, and it doesn't run Nintendo's own OS software (you can't run the Switch system menu on it, for example). But to your larger point: Nintendo being mad about people sharing Switch ROMs or Yuzu funding their work shouldn't have any bearing on the actual legal question of whether Yuzu violates the DMCA anti-circumvention clause. Dolphin argued after legal consultation that inclusion of these keys qualifies under exceptions for interoperability; Yuzu doesn't include the keys at all. It doesn't appear to have been a question tested in the courts yet. That point _does_ matter if you're making a moral argument about whether Yuzu crossed a line, but given that emulation has been commonplace for almost the entirety of Nintendo's video game business and it has done very little to stop them from staying on top of the game industry, but has enabled millions to experience and be inspired by games they would've otherwise never have been able to play, I'm not terribly convinced that $23k a month in donations is wrong for people putting in serious engineering work into a project that enables that.

echelon 3y ago
> I'm not terribly convinced that $23k a month in donations is wrong for people putting in serious engineering work into a project that enables that. That's not it. Say what you will about "sales lost to piracy are not sales", but Netflix and Steam suggest otherwise. Kids playing Zelda for free might be spending their opportunity cost money on Xbox instead because of what Yuzu enabled. I support hardware and software emulation. The stuff Kaze [1] and others do is both amazing and inspiring. It's the correct kind of emulation. Yuzu wasn't acting in good faith. The team saw abuse firsthand and embraced it. [1] https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuvSqzfO_LV_QzHdmEj84SQ https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuvSqzfO_LV_QzHdmEj84SQ
- rahkiin 3y ago
  Netflix, Steam, and Spotify show that the best deterrent from piracy is easy access. Eg I would love to play Zelda or Mario but I do not feel like getting a whole switch for it that is just another console in the closet used a couple of times per month at most.

ShamelessC 3y ago

> EDIT3: "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was unlawfully distributed a week and a half before its release" The game was leaked. How is that the fault of the yuzu devs?

fxtentacle 3y ago
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/402241866935828490/472886034632278016/unknown.png?ex=65f61670&is=65e3a170&hm=716a69f0a71f3fd8dda931aeeaa8433f355ff54752aeaa23c1c2f29b6a8eef39& https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/402241866935828490/47... That's a list of dumped ROMs. (Posted in 2018, BTW) Notice the "402241866935828490" in the URL? That's the ID of the #support-dumping channel on the Yuzu Discord. Like I said, the Yuzu moderators were very happy to look away when people discussed ROM piracy.
- Osmose 3y ago
  "Someone posted a screenshot of a separate torrent's contents in their server 5+ years ago", with no context into why someone posted it or what moderation actions were taken in response, is poor evidence to your accusation.
  - fxtentacle 3y ago
    There's a lot of stuff in that discord that can cause trouble for the moderators. Also, how do you think a lawyer would interpret this: moderator: "Since April 29th, we've had about 50,000 members join" random person: "Let's be honest, 40k of that was the zombie horde who rushed the gates when TotK leaked" moderator: "The support we've been receiving has been incredible Very happy with our community, and we're all honored to be able to provide great software to all our users."
- nfriedly 3y ago
  Wait, "#support-dumping" sounds like it's for helping people dump the games they have physical copies of. Basically the opposite of piracy. The screenshot looks like it's of the Internet Archive, but all the files are marked as not available for download.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago

Also worth noting is that while the "Early Access" changes were not kept secret, the Yuzu team went out of its way to make it harder than necessary to replicate an equivalent build from the public Git repo (there was no public EA branch, just a bunch of PRs with a specific tag) and aggressively disapproved of anyone actually forking the project or providing unofficial builds. They couldn't actually stop anyone under the license, but anyone doing so risked being blackballed/banned from official spaces, and in one case a Yuzu developer allegedly even altered the copyright notice on a contribution because it referenced a provider of unofficial EA-equivalent builds [1]. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/ljxnvi/yuzu_stole_code/ https://old.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/ljxnvi/yuzu_stol...

KomoD 3y ago

> I mean even the name choice "Tropic Haze" kind of hints at sailing the high seas ;) Can you explain how?

bena 3y ago
A lot of what we think of when we think of pirates is heavily influenced by the "golden age of piracy" which was mainly in the Caribbean region. So it's like a second or third order reference, but it's there-ish. Pirate -> Caribbean -> Tropical But there's also likely another explanation that would fit just as well, if not better.
- jondwillis 3y ago
  Sounds more like a strain of cannabis to me.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    Or a retrowave album.

0x_rs 3y ago

Yuzu developers didn't put themselves in a favorable position from the community perspective by doing DMCAs and cease-and-desists on people redistributing "early access" builds.. of GPL licensed source code. And the CLA drama, and so on. Ryujinx isn't affected by the self-proclaimed "necessity of productization" of emulation software, and the recent events are not surprising. Some might even say they painted a target on their back.

dancemethis 3y ago

It's double as funny because Discord knows of the piracy going on (since they have direct access to all user data and metadata), but the "rights owners" don't pay them enough in the back door to catch them.

jerrysievert 3y ago

> I mean even the name choice "Tropic Haze" kind of hints at sailing the high seas 1. We know this woman is a witch because she looks like one. 2. We know this woman is a witch because she dresses like one. 3. We know this woman is a witch because she has a wart. 4. We know this woman is a witch because she turned someone into a newt. 5. One burns witches. 6. One burns wood. 7. Witches burn because they are made out of wood. 8. Bridges are made of wood. 9. However, bridges are multiply realizable. They can be built from stone. [Implied] Building a bridge out of the woman will not determine that she is made of wood. 10. Wood floats in water. 11. A duck floats in water [bread, apples, very small rocks, cider, gravy, cherries, mud, churches, lead]. 12. If the woman weighs the same as a duck, then she is made of wood. 13. The woman weighs the same as a duck. 14. Therefore, the woman is a witch. more leaps of logic. [editing to add: with apologies to https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/06/27/monty-python-witch-trial-validity-soundness-and-the-fallacy-of-the-undistributed-middle/ https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/06/27/monty-python-witch-tri...]

NotPractical 3y ago

I doubt that Nintendo was aware of any of that, aside from maybe the Patreon, when they decided to initiate the litigation process. The Patreon was admittedly risky, but as far as I can tell the settlement states that the emulator itself is illegal as per the DMCA, regardless of whether or not they were making money off of it. If a precedent is set here, it is quite dangerous. > Also, doesn't Yuzu itself include pre-decrypted ROM dumps from the actual Switch hardware, like for example the OS bootloader ? As other commenters have pointed out, Yuzu did not include any Nintendo copyrighted assets, so this is wrong.