this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024

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Yuzu developers agreed to pay $2.4 million in damages to Nintendo to settle their lawsuit (storage.courtlistener.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

68 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Everyone in the emulation scene can breathe a sigh of relief.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

The main link is to the motion paper. This is the link to the actual agreed-upon final judgment and injunction:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.56980/gov.uscourts.rid.56980.10.1.pdf

In short, Yuzu agreed to stop developing and distributing the emulator, cannot distribute source code, assign it to a new entity, encourage any IP violations, and must surrender their domain.

The findings also include admissions that the purpose of the Yuzu software was "primarily" designed to circumvent technical measures in violation of the DMCA.

So it appears Yuzu didn't "win" in any real sense. Nintendo got a chilling amount of damages, effectively their full injunction, and also some agreed-upon "findings of fact" that may serve Nintendo in future litigation to justify claims that emulators are "primarily" designed to circumvent technical measures and circumvent the DMCA.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is bad.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Its bad for Yuzu/Tropic Haze. But it is "not bad" for emulation as a whole because there was no legal precedent.

If nintendo decides to continue to strong arm emulator teams into shutting down that is going to be really bad. But that is ALSO when activist orgs tend to get involved and foot the bill/provide lawyers because they want the precedent that prevents those kinds of lawsuits.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Interesting. Wonder what that means in terms of github. Yuzu isn't technically distributing the source, is Nintendo taking ownership of it? What stops someone from forking the repo? Who is "yuzu" that's paying this bill?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Presumably forks remain public on Github at their own risk, but Nintendo may shift to a DMCA removal policy now that are about to have a judgment.

The judgment has two sections, one for people who have "privity" and more direct relationships with Tropic Haze, and another for "all third parties acting in active concert and participation with" Tropic Haze. The latter enjoins only sharing code and decryption keys. So it certainly sounds like this was drafted to capture, in the Court's order, people who don't have a relationship but are code-forking.

Nintendo doesn't have nearly as clean legal leverage for randos and individuals that don't have a company built around this emulator, but I actually predict they'll do GitHub DMCA removals on forks based on a broad reading of the injunction.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Why is this a sigh of relief? Nintendo has bullied an emulator's dev team and got $2.4 millions out of it. If I was an emu dev, I certainly would not be happy with this news.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Nintendo went after a emu dev team that was actively (and demonstratively) enabling piracy for something they are currently selling. On top of that, the dev team is making significant money off of that work, to the tune of 30k/mo. Every other dev is probably thinking "finally, the other shoe drops on this obvious outcome", most avoid making money off it, and also avoid current systems, both for just this reason. The relieving part is Nintendo's argument isn't about the emulator specifically, ~~there's nothing in the injunction stopping yuzu from continuing~~, and a settlement means no legal precedent.

Edit: Read more, the settlement includes stopping development.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

My thoughts too, quite the opposite.

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[–] [email protected] 143 points 8 months ago (12 children)

Im not a lawyer, but is this really good news? Isnt this just setting a precedent that Nintendo can shake down any emulator developer for ~2.4m any time they feel like it? So small developers are basically screwed?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean, small developers who set up a money-making pateron based on an emulator for a currently sold system, without providing a way to pull your own system info or games from carts (and is therefore heavily reliant on piracy of things currently being sold by the parent company to run) is basically screwed, but this isn't news, and pretty much every other emu dev would run away screaming from such a setup.

They really put themselves in this boat, but since that money-making pateron is a thing, they're probably wiping those tears with dollar bills.

[–] [email protected] 86 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Isnt this just setting a precedent.

Not a legal precident, it was settled which means there was no ruling.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's still encouraging them.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

It's good news in the sense that this won't be setting a new legal precedent surrounding emulation. Nintendo's case argued that the means by which cryptographic keys were obtained was in violation of the DMCA, which is an untested angle that could have dire legal ramifications for many other emulators if it were upheld in court.

On top of this, the Yuzu devs were a bit too brazen with their attitude towards piracy, and after consulting their lawyers they must have realized they have no legal ground to stand on. Any other emulator that runs a tighter ship in regard to copyrighted material (like most do) wouldn't be in such trouble. Nintendo wouldn't have a case with almost all other emulators, Yuzu in particular was giving them a lot to work with.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think this is the best outcome that could currently happen. If they got a ruling it's very possible that Nintendo would win. That would probably cascade through the entire emulation scene and bring down countless other projects.

(Disclaimer: I'm not American and I'm not very knowledgeable in the American court system. Feel free to correct/inform me if I'm misunderstanding or missing information on this statement.)

Edit: just realized they had to take everything down aswell, that very much sucks.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah.

The Yuzu devs were basically going to lose unless they got the most tech savvy judge/jury in existence AND all of Nintendo's lawyers had food poisoning for a few months straight.

But the Yuzu devs losing in an actual court case would create precedent that would be a lot harder for all the other, more cautious, devs to dance around.

So... yay for Goliath smacking the shit out of David? I guess?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Yeah, all things considered this might be the best case scenario for this to play out, short of Yuzu somehow winning in court. It sucks to see Yuzu shut down, but the risk of new legal precedent surrounding emulation was far more concerning. At least Yuzu's source code will still live on.

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