5 ms·

It's how the DMCA works though, if the media has any DRM on it.

DrillShopper 2y ago
No it's not. You can't just say "SOME PEOPLE ARE USING THIS FOR PIRACY SO NOBODY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE THIS LEGALLY". That's _not_ how it works and there are many court cases on point here. The legal uses as well as the plausible fair uses need to be evaluated before you can say "nope, this has gotta go".
- roywiggins 2y ago
  Well maybe, if you have the time and the money to make a fair use defense in court...
- stzsch 2y ago
  Nintendo's latest legal argument against emulators does rest on the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision. The letter from Nintendo to Valve in the Dolphin case makes it pretty clear.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    That's just Nintendo's opinion on the matter. This letter is just them asking Valve politely to please take down the emulator. Until this stuff actually goes to court and an actual judge decides on it, nobody knows what the truth is. Who am I kidding? Even when the truth is known, they'll still abuse the expense associated with the legal system to bully people into submission. Sony sued a commercial emulator developer decades ago. They made the asinine argument that the screenshots they used was copyright infringement. The judge said it was just comparative advertising instead, and that it was actually good for consumers. Nevertheless you still see these monopolists take down emulator screenshots of their games as if they had the right to do it. They know they won't fight back.
- bitwize 2y ago
  > That's _not_ how it works and there are many court cases on point here. Those court cases were overridden by Congress... when they passed the DMCA. Under the DMCA, IT IS A CRIME to: 1) circumvent an "effective" copyright measure for any purpose, except specific, delineated purposes and cases which must be approved and reapproved by the Librarian of Congress every 3 years; 2) traffic in the means or technology to so circumvent a copy protection measure, with no exceptions. The definition of "effective" is so weak that it applies to anything, even a bit of JavaScript that intercepts right click so you can't "Save Image As". It basically means, would the copy protection measure prevent copying "during the normal course of its operation". I.e., if it's buggy, employs weak crypto, or is otherwise trivially defeated, too bad. You can still catch federal time for breaking it. In order for a Switch emulator to work properly, the copy protection on the game must be defeated. So even if you dump it yourself and a court somehow rules that copy to be fair use, YOU ARE STILL COMMITTING A CRIME by the very act of dumping it. Therefore, it is illegal to run a Switch emulator to play legitimate Switch games, irrespective of whether those games are "legal" copies or not. And a court may rule that Switch emulators are illegal to distribute as well, since they only have illegal uses. I am not a lawyer, so I recommend you find yourself a good one if you want to mess around with Switch emulation. Best bet is to not get involved with it at all. Forget about preservation. The Switch and its games are not yours to preserve.
  - roywiggins 2y ago
    If an emulator isn't actually enabling the circumvention (the DRM has already been circumvented) it does seem a serious stretch to apply it to them. I wouldn't want to have to pay lawyers to litigate that, mind you...
  - Space5000 2y ago
    How does an after fact of someone's supposed illegal activity become itself illegal in a case like this? Especially in Brazil if I'm assuming correctly. I never heard of a case declaring a non-circumvent tool to be illegal just because it may indirectly rely on people dumping it first. If so, then even project64 would be illegal too as bypassing a physical cartridge was ruled to also bypass copy protection. Also the tool was in another specific country, which I heard doesn't have copy protection laws so the idea that it itself becomes illegal because of the actions in another country sounds even more silly. I am not a lawyer by the way.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  > You can't just say "SOME PEOPLE ARE USING THIS FOR PIRACY SO NOBODY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE THIS LEGALLY" That is in fact how many court cases are resolved. >The legal uses as well as the plausible fair uses need to be evaluated before you can say "nope, this has gotta go". what "fair uses" do we really have to stand on? "I can play Nintendo games better on my PC"? Are you a university or organization trying to preserve software? At the end of the day, video games as a whole are not a societal need. So it becomes hard to make some argument against having IP owners not clamp down on entertainment intended to make money.
  - roywiggins 2y ago
    The LoC can issue exemptions, sort of, but it has to be renewed every three years, and they don't actually apply to circumvention devices themselves, only to users. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-librarian-congress-renews-and-expands-protections-fair-uses https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-libraria... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exemption-video-games-closer-look https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exempt...
  - BobaFloutist 2y ago
    >what "fair uses" do we really have to stand on? "I can play Nintendo games better on my PC"? Are you a university or organization trying to preserve software? "I own it and I want to" is more than enough.

No it's not. You can't just say "SOME PEOPLE ARE USING THIS FOR PIRACY SO NOBODY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE THIS LEGALLY". That's _not_ how it works and there are many court cases on point here. The legal uses as well as the plausible fair uses need to be evaluated before you can say "nope, this has gotta go".

roywiggins 2y ago
Well maybe, if you have the time and the money to make a fair use defense in court...
stzsch 2y ago
Nintendo's latest legal argument against emulators does rest on the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision. The letter from Nintendo to Valve in the Dolphin case makes it pretty clear.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  That's just Nintendo's opinion on the matter. This letter is just them asking Valve politely to please take down the emulator. Until this stuff actually goes to court and an actual judge decides on it, nobody knows what the truth is. Who am I kidding? Even when the truth is known, they'll still abuse the expense associated with the legal system to bully people into submission. Sony sued a commercial emulator developer decades ago. They made the asinine argument that the screenshots they used was copyright infringement. The judge said it was just comparative advertising instead, and that it was actually good for consumers. Nevertheless you still see these monopolists take down emulator screenshots of their games as if they had the right to do it. They know they won't fight back.
bitwize 2y ago
> That's _not_ how it works and there are many court cases on point here. Those court cases were overridden by Congress... when they passed the DMCA. Under the DMCA, IT IS A CRIME to: 1) circumvent an "effective" copyright measure for any purpose, except specific, delineated purposes and cases which must be approved and reapproved by the Librarian of Congress every 3 years; 2) traffic in the means or technology to so circumvent a copy protection measure, with no exceptions. The definition of "effective" is so weak that it applies to anything, even a bit of JavaScript that intercepts right click so you can't "Save Image As". It basically means, would the copy protection measure prevent copying "during the normal course of its operation". I.e., if it's buggy, employs weak crypto, or is otherwise trivially defeated, too bad. You can still catch federal time for breaking it. In order for a Switch emulator to work properly, the copy protection on the game must be defeated. So even if you dump it yourself and a court somehow rules that copy to be fair use, YOU ARE STILL COMMITTING A CRIME by the very act of dumping it. Therefore, it is illegal to run a Switch emulator to play legitimate Switch games, irrespective of whether those games are "legal" copies or not. And a court may rule that Switch emulators are illegal to distribute as well, since they only have illegal uses. I am not a lawyer, so I recommend you find yourself a good one if you want to mess around with Switch emulation. Best bet is to not get involved with it at all. Forget about preservation. The Switch and its games are not yours to preserve.
- roywiggins 2y ago
  If an emulator isn't actually enabling the circumvention (the DRM has already been circumvented) it does seem a serious stretch to apply it to them. I wouldn't want to have to pay lawyers to litigate that, mind you...
- Space5000 2y ago
  How does an after fact of someone's supposed illegal activity become itself illegal in a case like this? Especially in Brazil if I'm assuming correctly. I never heard of a case declaring a non-circumvent tool to be illegal just because it may indirectly rely on people dumping it first. If so, then even project64 would be illegal too as bypassing a physical cartridge was ruled to also bypass copy protection. Also the tool was in another specific country, which I heard doesn't have copy protection laws so the idea that it itself becomes illegal because of the actions in another country sounds even more silly. I am not a lawyer by the way.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
> You can't just say "SOME PEOPLE ARE USING THIS FOR PIRACY SO NOBODY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE THIS LEGALLY" That is in fact how many court cases are resolved. >The legal uses as well as the plausible fair uses need to be evaluated before you can say "nope, this has gotta go". what "fair uses" do we really have to stand on? "I can play Nintendo games better on my PC"? Are you a university or organization trying to preserve software? At the end of the day, video games as a whole are not a societal need. So it becomes hard to make some argument against having IP owners not clamp down on entertainment intended to make money.
- roywiggins 2y ago
  The LoC can issue exemptions, sort of, but it has to be renewed every three years, and they don't actually apply to circumvention devices themselves, only to users. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-librarian-congress-renews-and-expands-protections-fair-uses https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-libraria... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exemption-video-games-closer-look https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exempt...
- BobaFloutist 2y ago
  >what "fair uses" do we really have to stand on? "I can play Nintendo games better on my PC"? Are you a university or organization trying to preserve software? "I own it and I want to" is more than enough.