yuzu

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Nintendo targets Switch-emulation chat servers, decryption tools with DMCA

DMCA, Emulation, gaming, Nintendo, suyu, Switch, yuzu / /

Tightening the clamps —

Legal fallout continues following Yuzu lawsuit.

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Is a name like

Enlarge / Is a name like “Suyu” ironic enough to avoid facing a lawsuit?

Suyu

Nintendo continues to use DMCA requests to halt projects it says aid in the piracy of Switch content. Discord has shut down the discussion servers associated with two prominent Yuzu forks—Suyu and Sudachi—while GitHub has removed a couple of projects related to the decryption of Switch software for use with emulators or hacked consoles.

The takedowns are the latest aftershocks from Nintendo’s federal lawsuit against Switch emulator Yuzu, which led to a $2.4 million settlement weeks later. Yuzu voluntarily shut down its GitHub page and Discord server as part of that settlement, though archived discussions from Discord are still accessible.

That settlement includes a section prohibiting the makers of Yuzu from “acting in active concert and participation” with third parties in the distribution or promotion of Yuzu or any clones that make use of its code. But there’s no evidence that anyone enjoined by that settlement is actively working with Suyu or Sudachi on their projects.

“Discord responds to and complies with all legal and valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests,” a company spokesperson told The Verge. “In this instance, there was also a court-ordered injunction for the takedown of these materials, and we took action in a manner consistent with the court order.”

On GitHub, Nintendo’s latest DMCA requests focus on two tools: Sigpatch Updater, which the company says “allow[s] users to bypass the signature verification” in Switch games, and Lockpick, which allows “unauthorized access to, extraction of, and decryption of all the cryptographic keys, including product keys, contained in the Nintendo Switch” on modded consoles, Nintendo says.

You can run…

Last month, one of the moderators behind the Suyu project told Ars Technica that Suyu had taken pains to avoid the legal pitfalls that tripped up Yuzu before it. That includes Discord server rules that strictly prohibited any discussion of piracy, including “asking for system files, ROMs, encryption keys, shader caches, and discussion of leaked games etc.”

Discord’s “Copyright & IP policy” requires complaints to include “a description of where the material you think is infringing is located on our services.” Both Suyu and Sudachi host their core emulation files on services separate from Discord.

Suyu began hosting its Git files locally after a takedown request on its GitLab repository was served late last month. Following the Discord takedown, the project now also hosts its own chat service via its website. Sudachi’s emulator files, meanwhile, remain available on GitHub as of press time.

The Discord server for Ryujinx—a separate Switch emulator that doesn’t share any code with Yuzu—remains active as of press time. “Nothing is happening to Ryujinx,” reads an automated message on that server. “We know nothing more than you do. No dooming.”

Nintendo targets Switch-emulation chat servers, decryption tools with DMCA Read More »

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Here’s how the makers of the “Suyu” Switch emulator plan to avoid getting sued

Emulation, emulator, gaming, lawsuit, legal, Nintendo, Switch, yuzu / /
Is a name like

Enlarge / Is a name like “Suyu” ironic enough to avoid facing a lawsuit?

Suyu

Last week, the developers behind the popular Switch emulator Yuzu took down their GitHub and web presence in the face of a major lawsuit from Nintendo. Now, a new project built from the Yuzu source code, cheekily named Suyu, has arisen as “the continuation of the world’s most popular, open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu.”

Despite the name—which the project’s GitHub page notes is “pronounced ‘sue-you’ (wink, wink)”—the developers behind Suyu are going out of their way to try to avoid a lawsuit like the one that took down Yuzu.

“Suyu currently exists in a legal gray area we are trying to work our way out of,” contributor and Discord moderator Sharpie told Ars in a recent interview. “There are multiple plans and possibilities for what to do next. Things are still being organized and planned.”

Doing things differently

The Suyu project arose out of “a passion for Switch emulation” and a desire not to see “years of impressive work by the Yuzu team go to waste,” Sharpie said. But that passion is being tempered by a cautious approach designed to avoid the legal fate that befell the project’s predecessor.

After consulting with an unnamed “someone with legal experience” (Sharpie would only say “they claimed three years of law school”), the Suyu development team has decided to avoid “any monetization,” Sharpie said. The project’s GitHub page clearly states that “we do not intend to make money or profit from this project,” an important declaration after Nintendo cited Yuzu’s profitability a few times in its recent lawsuit. Other emulator makers also told Ars that Yuzu’s Patreon opened the project up to a set of pesky consumer demands and expectations.

The Suyu devs have also been warned against “providing step-by-step guides” like the ones that Yuzu offered for how to play copyrighted games on their emulator. Those guides were a major focus of Nintendo’s lawsuit, as were some examples of developer conversations in the Yuzu Discord that seemed to acknowledge and condone piracy.

Xenoblade Chronicles the day before its release.” height=”626″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/yuzuleak-640×626.png” width=”640″>

Enlarge / In a blog post cited in Nintendo’s lawsuit, the Yuzu developers discuss compatibility with a leaked copy of Xenoblade Chronicles the day before its release.

Suyu, by contrast, is taking an extremely hard line against even the hint of any discussion of potential piracy on its platforms. The Suyu GitHub page is upfront that the developers “do not support or condone piracy in any form,” a message that didn’t appear on Yuzu’s GitHub page or website.

The No. 1 rule listed on the Suyu Discord is that “piracy is prohibited.” That includes any talk about downloading games or “asking for system files, ROMs, encryption keys, shader caches, and discussion of leaked games etc.” Even a mention of the word piracy with regard to legal questions is enough to earn a warning on the Discord, according to those rules.

Here’s how the makers of the “Suyu” Switch emulator plan to avoid getting sued Read More »

emulation-community-expresses-defiance-in-wake-of-nintendo’s-yuzu-lawsuit

Emulation community expresses defiance in wake of Nintendo’s Yuzu lawsuit

Emulation, gaming, lawsuit, Nintendo, ryujinx, yuzu / /
Power (glove) to the people.

Enlarge / Power (glove) to the people.

Aurich Lawson

Nintendo’s recent lawsuit against Switch emulator-maker Yuzu seems written like it was designed to strike fear into the heart of the entire emulation community. But despite legal arguments that sometimes cut at the very idea of emulation itself, members of the emulation development community I talked to didn’t seem very worried about coming under a Yuzu-style legal threat from Nintendo or other console makers. Indeed, those developers told me they’ve long taken numerous precautions against that very outcome and said they feel they have good reasons to believe they can avoid Yuzu’s fate.

Protect yourself

“I can assure [you], experienced emulator developers are very aware of copyright issues,” said Lycoder, who has worked on emulators for consoles ranging from the NES to the Dreamcast. “I’ve personally always maintained strict rules about how I deal with copyrighted content in my projects, and most other people I know from the emulation scene do the same thing.”

“This lawsuit is not introducing any new element that people in the emulation community have not known of for a long time,” said Parsifal, a hobbyist developer who has written emulators for the Apple II, Space Invaders, and the CHIP-8 virtual machine. “Emulation is fine as long as you don’t infringe on copyright and trademarks.”

Other hobbyist emulator makers take more serious precautions to protect themselves legally. “I always had some fear of Nintendo’s lawyers coming after my work, which is part of the reason I still keep it private,” said StrikerX3 of his work on a Nintendo DS emulator. “I’ve only released the emulator’s binaries to a handful of people, and only two others have access to the source code besides me.”

Just a little light console hacking...

Enlarge / Just a little light console hacking…

Aurich Lawson

And others feel operating internationally protects them from the worst of the DMCA and other US copyright laws. “I have written an NES emulator and I am working on a Game Boy emulator… anyway I’m not a US citizen and Nintendo can kiss my ass,” said emulator developer ZJoyKiller, who didn’t provide his specific country of residence.

Stick to the old stuff

Some of those potential legal precautions might seem a little insufficient on further inspection—a lack of copyrighted code in the emulator wasn’t enough to protect Yuzu from Nintendo’s legal sights, after all. Still, other emulator developers pointed out a number of differences in their projects that they felt set them apart.

Chief among those differences is the fact that Yuzu emulates a Switch console that is still actively selling millions of hardware and software units every year. Most current emulator development focuses on older, discontinued consoles that the developers I talked to seemed convinced were much less liable to draw legal fire.

“There is a difference between emulating a 30-year-old system vs. a current one that’s actively making money,” Parsifal said.

In a response on the Yuzu Discord, the development team wrote, “We do not know anything other than the public filing, and we are not able to discuss the matter at this time.” Multiple developers who work on Ryujinx, another prominent Switch emulator, have yet to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.

“The consoles I’ve worked on [such as the Nintendo 3DS] don’t really generate much revenue anymore,” one anonymous dev said. “It would be a waste of time to sue like they did Yuzu.”

“There is a difference between emulating a 30-year-old system vs. a current one that’s actively making money.”

Emulator developer Parsifal

Systems from before the turn of the millennium also often fall into something of a different legal category, developers pointed out, if their software and/or hardware was not protected by any encryption. That means emulators for those older systems don’t have to worry about falling afoul of the strict anti-circumvention portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Developers have also reverse-engineered open source BIOS and BootROM files for some classic systems, eliminating the need to distribute that copyrighted code or even ask users to provide it.

“For most [older] emulators, users don’t have to break copyright [or encryption], at all,” Lycoder pointed out. “A lot of talented people have worked on methods to dump [copyrighted] BootROMs, firmware, etc. out of original hardware, any user that owns an original system should be able to dump these files themselves.”

Legal differences aside, emulator developers also pointed out some major philosophical differences in working on consoles that are no longer being actively marketed. “In my opinion, emulating the Switch at the moment has nothing to do with preservation,” one anonymous developer told me. “The developers might be enthusiasts and passionate but they need to be very naive to think it’ll be used for lawful preservation and use.”

Emulation community expresses defiance in wake of Nintendo’s Yuzu lawsuit Read More »

how-strong-is-nintendo’s-legal-case-against-switch-emulator-yuzu?

How strong is Nintendo’s legal case against Switch-emulator Yuzu?

Emulation, gaming, hacks, lawsuit, legal, Nintendo, yuzu / /
The eye of Nintendo's legal department turns slowly towards a new target.

Enlarge / The eye of Nintendo’s legal department turns slowly towards a new target.

Aurich Lawson

Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC, the makers of the popular Yuzu emulator that the Switch-maker says is “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.”

The federal lawsuit—filed Monday in the District Court of Rhode Island and first reported by Stephen Totilo—is the company’s most expansive and significant argument yet against emulation technology that it alleges “turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others’ copyrighted works.” Nintendo is asking the court to prevent the developers from working on, promoting, or distributing the Yuzu emulator and requesting significant financial damages under the DMCA.

If successful, the arguments in the case could help overturn years of legal precedent that have protected emulator software itself, even as using those emulators for software piracy has remained illegal.

“Nintendo is still basically taking the position that emulation itself is unlawful,” Foundation Law attorney and digital media specialist Jon Loiterman told Ars. “Though that’s not the core legal theory in this case.”

Just follow these (complicated) instructions

The bulk of Nintendo’s legal argument rests on Yuzu’s ability to break the many layers of encryption that protect Switch software from being copied and/or played by unauthorized users. By using so-called “prod.keys” obtained from legitimate Switch hardware, Yuzu can dynamically decrypt an encrypted Switch game ROM at runtime, which Nintendo argues falls afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition against circumvention of software protections.

Crucially, though, the open source Yuzu emulator itself does not contain a copy of those “prod.keys,” which Nintendo’s lawsuit acknowledges that users need to supply themselves. That makes Yuzu different from the Dolphin emulator, which was taken off Steam last year after Nintendo pointed out that the software itself contains a copy of the Wii Common Key used to decrypt game files.

Just a little light console hacking...

Enlarge / Just a little light console hacking…

Aurich Lawson

Absent the inherent ability to break DRM, an emulator would generally be covered by decades of legal precedent establishing the right to emulate one piece of hardware on another using reverse-engineering techniques. But Yuzu’s “bring your own decryption” design is not necessarily a foolproof defense, either.

Nintendo’s lawsuit makes extensive reference to the Quickstart Guide that Yuzu provides on its own distribution site. That guide gives detailed instructions on how to “start playing commercial games” with Yuzu by hacking your (older) Switch to dump decryption keys and/or game files. That guide also includes links to a number of external tools that directly break console and/or game encryption techniques.

“Whether Yuzu can get tagged with [circumvention] simply by providing instructions and guidance and all the rest of it is, I think, the core issue in this case.”

Attorney Jon Loiterman

Through these instructions, Nintendo argues, “the Yuzu developers brazenly acknowledge that using Yuzu necessitates hacking or breaking into a Nintendo Switch.” Nintendo also points to a Yuzu Discord server where emulator developers and users discuss how to get copyrighted games running on the emulator, as well as publicly released telemetry data that shows the developers were aware of widespread use of their emulator for piracy (as the Yuzu devs wrote in June 2023, “Tears of the Kingdom is by far the most played game on Yuzu”).

While Loiterman says that “instructions and guidance are not circumvention,” he added that “the more layers of indirection between Yuzu’s software and activity and distribution of the keys the safer they are. The detailed instructions, the Discord server, and the knowledge of what all this is used for are at least problematic.”

“Whether Yuzu can get tagged with [circumvention] simply by providing instructions and guidance and all the rest of it is, I think, the core issue in this case,” he continued.

How strong is Nintendo’s legal case against Switch-emulator Yuzu? Read More »