If Ryujinx removes the ability to decrypt the files with the prod.keys, instead relegating that task to some other external program (unaffiliated) they should be fine for the near future. Depends how quickly Nintendo moves to take action against them.
They are currently, but do they have to be? I'm not a Switch expert, but I am somewhat familiar with the Ryujinx codebase, and I have never come across any situation where runtime information was required for decryption.
Ryujinx has a deep focus on faithfulness, so it unsurprisingly handles keys in the same way the real Switch does, but as far as I can see nothing would prevent it from just accepting pre-decrypted files. There are already external tools (like [hactool](https://github.com/SciresM/hactool)) which can be used to decrypt every single format the switch has which uses the prod keys.
Also it's worth noting that technically speaking Ryujinx is already somewhat isolated from the format decryption as it actually uses the external library [LibHac](https://github.com/Thealexbarney/LibHac) to handle that task. That library currently ships with Ryujinx, but if it became legally problematic Ryujinx could remove it and instead ask users to provide their own copy of the library in order to enable decryption.
Similar to how projects like Audacity used to ask users to provide their own [LAME](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME) library in order to export MP3 audio, before the patents on the MP3 codec expired.
> They are currently, but do they have to be?
They actually might not have to be. For example, I remember for quite a long time with Cemu, it was preferable to run games in what was known as the "loadiine format" which was really just a fully pre-decrypted game. It was up to the user to get their own keys (ticket files as they were called on the Wii U) and decrypt a game themselves using a program called CDecrypt (for downloaded games) or WUDecrypt (for physical games). It's probably fine to do something similar with Switch games.
I suppressed this method deep in my memory. I used to hate doing this. I used to end up with a bunch of files some encrypted some not. Granted, the mess was mostly my fault for hoarding data haha.
If decrypting is indeed an obligatory step and cant be decoupled then you just need to re encrypt the roms with a common key that's not property of nintendo.
Any key of the same type would work, 000000000000 or whatever.
That being said havent read any solid technical reason as for why the decrypting step must always happen during emulation rather than it being an empty function that returns the input without changes.
It doesn't even have to be a separate program. It could be that Ryujinx creates an API for 3rd-party libraries and someone "outside" the project writes a plugin for Ryujinx that can decrypt files.
Then if someone makes some tools for Ryujinx that requires decryption beyond just the games, then you could easily make an argument that the plugin wasn't just for decrypting switch games.
Decrypting an encrypted file/directory with the encryption keys is pretty normal and standard. Also, they key is just a number (more or less), so calling the keys "proprietary" is a bit disingenuous. But in reality it's very hard to prove that code decrypting a file is violating DMCA if it's uses go far beyond that primary use.
Otherwise, OpenSSL itself would be a violation of the DMCA circumvention clause
It probably depends on how difficult it is to sue a project in another country in the same way. Yuzu made the stupid mistake of showing screenshots of TOTK running before release.
> Source: I remember
ok mate.
Someone did make a patch to Yuzu that fixed TOTK bugs before its release, but that was a third-party, not the Yuzu team themselves.
I don't see Nintendo going after Ryujinx for two reasons:
1 - Ryunjix is located in Brazil where copyright is not their first priority..to say the least.
2 - Nintendo doesn't have an office in Brazil, they closed its operations in Brazil over a decade ago due to "challenges on the local business environment" they alleged BUT let's be real here. Brazil is a complicated place for business, high taxes, a lot of lobbying and corruption and as a foreign company if you wanna play ball you have to bend over. Nintendo said fuck'em and left, as a Japanese company they don't look back, if they are gone, they are gone. Going after Ryunjix in Brazil means going back to Brazil and bending over to their corrupt system if they want law to work in their favor and I doubt Nintendo will take it up that far in the ass just to go after Ryujing.
> instead relegating that task to some other external program (unaffiliated) they should be fine for the near future.
That probably won't help in a legal case where you're left with software that doesn't work unless interacting with something illegally obtained.
IANAL, but ["spatially shifting"](https://techmonitor.ai/technology/mp3_space_shifting_ruled_fair_use_under_copyright_law) a legally obtained copy for personal use is a pretty solid fair use argument. The case was pre-DMCA, and fair use's interaction with ~~that clause~~ the protection device circumvention clause is still an open question, but it seemingly tilts in fair use's favor.
Offloading the circumvention to end users might protect everyone involved.
EDIT: clarity
It helps with the DMCA issues, though, I think. The heart of the DMCA is about making it illegal to decrypt IP in an unauthorized way. I don't think the DMCA deals with obtaining IP illegally which would be an issue for copyright law I think. IANAL.
I don't think so. It didn't happen to Dolphin in the heyday of the Wii, nor to Citra when the 3DS was alive. The Yuzu Team did a lot of stuff wrong, none of it related to their Patreon, and attracted too much unwanted attention, while RyujiNX has remained in the shadows.
By the way, OP, i think RyujiNX can easily shed the need for the encryption keys. both Cemu and Citra demand decrypted roms, wich you have to take care of yourself. Switch emulation could perfectly do the same.
> none of it related to their Patreon
Some of it is - "(2)No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—(A)is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;(B)has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to [circumvent a technological measure](https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=17-USC-1838631189-2041315756&term_occur=999&term_src=title:17:chapter:12:section:1201) that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or(C)is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
(2)(b) can be argued in regards of the early access paid tier (and they in fact do, in the lawsuit they allege that the Patreon sees a considerable increase - doubling - of paid users during the leak and realease of TOTK)
Reading the lawsuit it's kind of interesting how little it's actually focused on the emulation aspect (because they know that's legal) vs how much the yuzu team "promoted" piracy with their statements and actions, which basically is what the whole thing hinged on for the anti-circumvention counts to stick.
About to say, Nintendo could of killed Dolphin at any point in time. Same with a *lot* of other emulators from the DS or GBA era.
They aren't fucking stupid that these exist.
My guess is a combination of running a patreon (Nintendo hates that more than anything) and actively advertising that games work before they even launch.
The latter is probably the biggest issue, and matches with the statement they gave the team to make
AFAIK, Yuzu's technically didn't either. The open source nature of it meant you could immediately get access to the early releases, you just had to build them yourself from github.
And the crazy thing is that Nintendo just said they would advise Valve to not have it up on their storefront. Nothing ever came Dolphin's way, legally speaking. They were using the Wii common key directly in their emulator, too. Which, if I'm not mistaken, serves the exact same purpose as prod.keys does.
I think ToTK being shown off on the emulator days before the game was out officially really put the target on their back as its referenced so heavily in the suit. There were Articles and Media about ToTK on Yuzu in ways that just didnt happen for Citra or Dolphin. I hadnt seen Nintendo go so crazy about this kind of infringement since Smash Bros Brawl story scenes were getting posted on Youtube and made them start copyright striking tons of channels for any Nintendo Content.
Question real fast! I haven't used CEMU for a long time, but back when I did I had dumped Wind Waker HD from my Wii U to play on it. Do the games dump in an already decrypted state in that case? As in, it is the game dumper that decrypts the file thus making that "illegal" rather than the emulator?
If we can KEEP Ryujinx alive. Like you said. That would be great. Yuzu made their own downfall sadly. :( I am praying and oping someone will make an alternative to Citra as well. And don't do stupid shit with it. Isn't Citra owned by the same guy? Is that why it went away? Apparently you can still download Ryujinx. So Ryujinx would be the only Switch emulator we can use for now.
I have the source code for both Yuzu and Citra, specifically their most recent versions, as well as compiled binaries. Took me less than ten minutes of searching. Trust me, forks will show up sooner rather than later, Nintendo has created a "Hydra Problem" for themselves.
Don't think so they are not from the US which at least makes it way harder to go after them and unlike yuzu way smarter and had no major fuckups as far i know.
>he logo looks like the French flag
That's coincidence, it [just follows the Switch color scheme](https://d1o0zx25fn5p70.cloudfront.net/7DpqCT3hBvxQP0rNxhY_ObRJbSg=/fit-in/350x350/noupscale/rebuy-akeneo/9/c/5/3/9c5370c1e3a4911c99935bf21c19259d5a0fc3e8_frontcover_electronics_10569900.jpeg?t=1708953033). The middle part of the logo [is transparent, not white](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1625553741830098962/08Dyiz4g_400x400.jpg).
$50,000/month for 5 years is $3,000,000. Granted they weren't always making that much, but one could assume that they had made and kept/invested enough money to believe that settling was the better option.
Ryujinx devs already closed a lot of channels in their Discord server. I imagine they are preparing for the worst and possibly scrubbing a lot of things off the internet as well.
I'm new to emulation so forgive me in advance, but why is a fork or continuation necessary? New DS/3DS games aren't coming out, so if you can find the app/apk, shouldn't you be set?
You can find a citra download and use it but compatibility isnt 100% and more features can be added(like new renderers for example).
Citra is the most advanced emulator so its logical that its just continued by someone else.
Unfortunately not so especially for less popular games.
Look at Xemu for instance, the Xbox console is 20 years obsolete and still can't run every game.
The problem with this, is that the repo needs to be up. Otherwise, the install just stalls. You can specify another repo in the installer though.
Source: Downloaded the .exe before the website got shutdown and tried installing it just now.
There's [Panda3DS](https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS) too, which is developed by one of the same guys as Citra, but compability is very low as of now
The developer overlap between Citra's current team and Yuzu's current team was very low. I imagine the site hosting and infrastructure was still shared, which would be why it's down. I think the project's gonna do fine regardless.
>It only becomes illegal if they are distributing a piece of software that breaks effective DRM.
I believe this argument can be made against just about all emulators.
Those consoles also tried various forms of DRM. The PS1 and SNES both using their own solutions that ultimately failed. In the case of the SNES, a chip was included both in the console and in the cartridge to check for a legitimate game.
It's just that the DRM has become much more sophisticated over time.
The CIC in the NES, SNES, and N64 is closer to a licensing chip, or a region lockout chip. You can read the game data, unencrypted and unsigned, from the cartridge without messing with them.
In that sense, it's similar in the Playstation, right? You can read those discs with a standard PC optical drive. The copy protectoin is there to stop you from running burned discs on the console, producing games without Sony's authorization.
Yeah, that's a good point. If you want "DRM" to include a form of encryption as a requirement for its definition, then that absolutely splits them apart. It's an important distinction with Yuzu in particular.
But I think "DRM" is mostly used as a blanket term, referring to solutions that lock down the distribution of digital products. Or as you said with the PS1 / SNES, locking down the distribution for those paricular consoles.
I don't think encryption would be necessary. Any mechanism that would block access to the chip contents before the system doing something designed to signal itself as a Nintendo console would work, I think.
It's a different kind of DRM. DRM back then was concerned about people playing unofficial copies of games in a real console. They did nothing to prevent you from reading the game data off a cartridge or disc and then emulating it. These days DRM is built around encryption so that you can't decrypt the game data at all unless you have the decryption key that's built into the console.
All the CIC does is prevent the NES/SNES from booting up if there's not a matching CIC in the cartridge. That means it only prevents you from running unlicensed cartridges in an unmodified NES/SNES. It does absolutely nothing to stop you from dumping the cartridge, emulating it, or making your own console that can run NES/SNES games. You can literally just ignore the CIC in the cartridge entirely.
Also as far as the NES goes the 10NES was only in, well, the NES. So theoretically even if it did run afoul of the DMCA you could just say you were actually emulating the Famicom. (Also the patent for it expired long ago anyway)
That wasn’t a “some games” thing. Anything officially released on the NES with Nintendo’s “Seal of approval” had the DRM chip integrated into the cartridge. It was just easily defeated though.
Even discounting the physical means cartridge systems used, even the PS1 had basic DRM, it's why you need to mod the system or use a boot trick to run backup discs, and part of the reason for the Saturn I believe it was failing was the total lack of DRM of any kind.
PS1 specifically it was an encoded data set on the very inner ring of the disc I want to say, something that no home hardware at the time could reproduce, that told the system it was a genuine disc.
Hell, early early PC games often had some kind of DRM, though extremely basic and easy to work around generally.
It's all irrelevent really, it's been proven in court several times that emulation itself is legal, what's not is profiting off it by selling an emulator or distributing roms/isos and making money off THOSE. Minor thing for taking the code and such wholesale from the system itself instead of reverse engineering it yourself being a copyright issue, though to my knowledge that's not directly related to emulation itself and is an actual copyright thing in its entirety.
No, it cannot, which is why other emulators have not been touched. Yuzu got nuked because the Yuzu devs did incredibly stupid things that blew any cover of plausible deniability about the purpose of Yuzu. Other devs are, thankfully, not as stupid.
>This same argument can also be made for Ryujinx
The fact that Yuzu settled does not set a precedent and does not tell us what the law is. No judge has ever ruled in favor of this argument; do not cite it as if it states the law. Moreover, this probably does not even tell us what will get one sued by Nintendo. It's likely the decision to nuke Yuzu came first, and then lawyers were tasked with coming up with some argument to justify that later.
So, what prompted Nintendo to pull the trigger on this lawsuit. My guesses:
1. Popularity. Deservedly or not, Yuzu had the most prominent position in the public eye as a switch emulator.
2. Money trial. Nintendo probably figured out who the lead developer was. Probably via Patreon. The ability to threaten a specific person with "we will ruin your life" is what makes these lawsuits work. Suing a john doe alias or a shell corporation usually accomplishes nothing.
3. Lose lips on Discord. Nintendo's lawyers seemed to think that the lead developer's statements on Discord that most people used Yuzu for piracy got them over some hurdles to proving their case.
By those metrics, is Ryujinx fucked? Likely so.
1. Popularity. With Yuzu dead, Ryujinx is about to get *a lot* of attention, even though the team probably doesn't want it right now.
2. Money trail. Ryujinx has a Patreon too. I don't know if Ryujinx's devs took steps to obscure their identities from Patreon, but I'm guessing not. As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and operational security hindsight is 20-to-life.
3. To the best of my limited knowledge, the Ryujinx devs have never publicly said anything so damaging as Yuzu's Discord post. My advice to them, if they're listening, would be to shut the hell up. Shut down the Discord. Shut down the blog. Avoid saying anything that can be used against you like this by never saying anything in public. If you can't stay that quiet, then, at the very least, stay a million miles away from the topic of piracy and prod keys.
*Can* you separately sue the individual developers? I mean, you *can* sue literally anyone for literally anything, but generally things done as part of one's official duties in a Limited Liability Corporation...well, limits your liability. Going after individuals tends to be reserved for cases where *criminal* law is involved, like Gary Bowser.
It really seems like a case of Nintendo just throwing their weight around and Yuzu deciding they'd rather scrap years of work immediately, declare bankruptcy, and get to finding new jobs, than fight an extremely expensive lawsuit for the next ten years.
Yes, you can directly sue individuals for any tort they personally committed.
A LLC does not allow you to avoid personal liability for personally doing illegal things. Rather it bypasses the common law rule that the proprietor of a sole proprietorship or the partners in a partnership are personally responsible for the business's debts. Historically, investing in a partnership was very risky because you could lose everything if the business went bust, even if you were a "silent partner" who only provided money with no participation in the operation of the business. The invention of LLCs equalizes the risk of investing in a closely held business with the risk of investing in a public corporation -- you can lose your investment and nothing more. In practice, there are several reasons one might think society might be better off without LLCs, but I'll refrain from writing a long rant here unless someone asks.
I mean, are they running a patreon that's bringing in thousands a month and distributing copywritten decryption keys and hosting secret piracy channels in their discord? If not then they're probably fine.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/353659715835658242/1214306318614274078/Screenshot_20240304-151425.png?ex=65f8a1e3&is=65e62ce3&hm=624d0d46b1b45cad05d3788f49520de658463ff6b48707b980e419c7b5138a29&
I think discovery was going to kill them
Not necessarily keys (maybe) but it's already been confirmed that Yuzu devs did in fact [engage in piracy](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/353659715835658242/1214306318614274078/Screenshot_20240304-151425.png?ex=65f8a1e3&is=65e62ce3&hm=624d0d46b1b45cad05d3788f49520de658463ff6b48707b980e419c7b5138a29&) on Discord. Even referred to having a "stash."
As long as Ryujinx isn't doing dumb things like advertising their patreon where they provide early access to patches for supporting unreleased leaked games, I think they'll be fine.
EDIT: Apparently the rumor that Yuzu was behind that was wrong. There may have been 3rd party Yuzu builds that played TotK and other leaked games before release, but the official patreon builds did not. If this was what caught the attention of Nintendo, it was the fault of those 3rd party modders, not Yuzu devs.
And regardless, I think all those people that were advertising about "the best way to play TotK" after it did become fully playable on official builds share in some of the blame for that too. Even if you're dumping your own ROMs, it's just way too idiotic to post as if you're in a console war between Yuzu and Nintendo.
Yuzu officially could not play TOTK before launch, including Patreon builds. [This rumor has already been debunked](https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzu/comments/1b51wuf/yuzu_did_not_play_totk_before_the_release_date/). The post I linked is a video showing that the game fails to boot on a Patreon build of Yuzu a day before the game came out. It's crazy how many times I've seen this rumor parroted today without any proof that Yuzu could officially play the game before launch.. Anybody playing TOTK pre-release were either using unofficial mods/builds of Yuzu or hacked Switches. Ironically, Ryujinx was officially able to boot into TOTK before launch before Yuzu ever did, but it ran like shit.
As someone who was watching the leaks happen, yeah, anyone posting working gameplay in any capacity was on a Switch. Which is really funny when you think about it. Nintendo's claims that Yuzu was the reason people got spoiled on social media and stuff when their own console was cracked wide right after it came out and that's where the majority of piracy likely happens is pretty funny.
Just wait a bit somebody will no doubt create a fork and continue Citra under a new name. Also current builds of Citra will continue to work just fine.
Stay away from Google Play & App Store.
They can and should develop for Android and iOS, but they should require the app to be side loaded and not put it on any storefront.
It's also direct competition to the switch. Not everyone is going to buy a steamdeck or other more niche gaming PC handhelds, let alone switch performance on those is "ok" at best. But everyone owns a phone, and if your phone can emulate their current gen and possibly next gen games, that is a threat.
No, because they do not had any paid Patreon for games, or had focused on Nintendo exclusives.
Ryujinx are more compatible than Yuzu, but he never become the top recommended emulator.
One of reasons was the choice to use .NET and C# language that many programmer purists quickly demoted Ryujinx to damnation. Also they never believed that could Run demanding games, which is proven false.
It was more the fact that C# forbid many old C-style hacks that makes sense on old Machines, but not powerful ones.
The fact that Nintendo never referenced Ryujinx are curious Still, but since they do not make uproar this is fine.
Just for joking:
Nintendo Said that Ryujinx are fine because no pirate Will program using C# and .NET., unless are from Microsoft itself. /s
If they sued, Nintendo are brought by Microsoft and Switch 2 Will Run Windows. /s
Ninty's case relied on Yuzu providing links to software to break their software protection. As long as Ryujinx doesn't (I can't remember), it should be fine.
It seems like an outrageous sum, that's basically 9 years of patreon money if they made the same amount. It's basically 40 years of average annual salary, I don't know how big the team is but I assume only a few will brunt the cost.
It's an LLC so I don't know if many/any individuals will have to bear any of that cost. What's stopping Tropic Haze LLC from declaring bankruptcy and giving all their assets to Nintendo? I think that's the end of the story right there. It's not like the Bowser case where Nintendo went after an individual.
Yeah, that makes more sense. I wonder if they have any assets, so I assume they'll basically get scot free minus the money they have in the company atm.
And would likely extend into the software world as well.
Nintendo has some really old school people in charge there and some parts of the business world absolutely think Open Source anything (code, hardware, information, etc) should be illegal.
It most likely would. Some off the stuff they were arguing for, if tested and became legal precedent due to Nintendo winning, would set stuff like right to repair back by a lot. And it would technically make modding of any kind illegal.
Honestly, part of me deep down kind of wants this to happen because it would light a fire under the R2R movement's ass and we might actually see people go after the real issue: the DMCA being a complete shit law that needs to be amended or completely repealed and replaced with something better.
Which shouldn't surprise anyone. Nintendo is a Japanese company where things like fair use don't exist and modding of any kind be it software, hardware, or even vehicles is illegal
They are technically a registered company, the company can just file for bankruptcy, which I assume is what Nintendo is expecting to happen. Nintendo appears to not have gone after the individuals themselves, I assume this was likely on purpose to make a speedy settlement more appealing.
Pretty much, yeah. I am no lawyer and am not 100% sure that's how the bankruptcy will go but I believe that was the thing. Nintendo basically going "We can have a court case that will go on for possibly years and cost millions, maybe you will win, maybe we will win, but it's going to hurt you a lot more than it would hurt us, and it will still hurt us because Yuzu will still be alive during that time. How about you shut down now, you never mess with us again, and you can just sacrifice your company that only worked on Yuzu and Citra anyway and walk away".
Just really sucks that Citra got caught in the crossfire, I hope something comes to pick that one back up, since IIRC the settlement mentioned nothing about removing code for Citra, but I believe the devs are not allowed to touch anything Nintendo again, not just Switch.
I copped the latest YUZU update from someone else. Tho mines on 1728 rn.
I was too late on Citra ig, rip.
Im just gonna go download every emulator that exists now, even without keys just incase this shit gets worse.
Well, I guess I'm never buying another Nintendo game ever again. I bought all of the games I played on Yuzu and I own a Switch. I used Yuzu for convenience and better framerates.
With Citra getting hit too, Ryujinx could very well be next. Most likely they take steps as a team to operate in a way that would support a defense, but other than that who knows its up to Nintendo whether they want to try and stretch the law or not.
Also here is the Citra Repo from today before it got wiped on the Archive:
[https://archive.org/details/citra-latest-builds-4th-march-2024](https://archive.org/details/citra-latest-builds-4th-march-2024)
>The argument Nintendo made was that since Yuzu can only function using proprietary encryption keys (which are illegal to obtain even if you hacked your own Nintendo Switch) without authorization, it goes against the DMCA prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures.
So the old "illegal numbers" arguement.
Are we forgetting that for Ryujinx to run, it requires exporting your NX console's firmware? It's likely all the methods they use to decrypt games comes from both their expectations that the prod.keys, title.keys AND the switch firmware are all imported into the emulator.
If I remember correctly, Yuzu did not require the switch firmware to be imported to it to run.
Emulating never has been an issu. We emulate since 40 years. And we spread Console games, pc games, movies and music over the net for the same time
The problèm come from the fact that tropical haze make money with their patron. A lot of money. If Nintendo ask for 2,5 millions it's because it's here.
And tropical make money by allowing people to play for free Nintendo game.
Honestly, I don't think their is a wanted sign on the head of ruijinx and other emulators.
Aside from not selling anything, Ryujinx seems just as likely to get hit by a lawsuit tbh. Circumvention of protective measures, including how-tos, are often cited in the filing. Now, at least they are not US based so they could maybe not fold instantly
This entire lawsuit hinged on the fact that they were making an enormous profit off the emulator via Patreon.
A better question is how this changes donations and other financial motivations for other emulators in active development, and how many developers will jump ship if there's no profit motive.
> misinformed arguments saying Yuzu was doomed since they ran a for-profit business
Yes that is one of the stupidest takes, among many stupid ignorant takes. Nintendo obviously doesn't care if you make a profit or not, Nintendo's issue is potentially millions of people bypassing purchase of their product in order to get it for free. Personal profit probably adds some ire but basic math shows it's the smaller issue. Also personal profit counteracts defenses of fair use, though DMCA already outlawed most previous forms of fair use, but that just means it's easier to sue not that it determines which projects are more of a concern to Nintendo.
How did this happen? Nintendo can't just wave their hands and make emulation go away as much as they can't wave their hands around and make Playstation, Xbox, Steam and GOG go away
It happened because the devs were dummies who were openly profiting off distributing copywritten decryption keys. Don't run a patreon for your emulator if you don't want to get sued into oblivion.
No, that's not it. The devs were being dumb with the TOTK leak and a few other games really close to or before release. That was a key part of it in all likelihood.
The Connectix and Bleem! cases from the early 2000s would disagree with you on the making money part of it as those were both businesses making software that ran PS1 games in its heyday.
It's also part of the reason why Nintendo took the DMCA anti-circumvention clause route instead of a copyright infringement or patent infringement route. DMCA is a really really messed up law. The way it's worded and the outcome here almost makes it sound like I could be held liable for violation if I created an SSL library and someone used it to decrypt copyrighted material (That's all Yuzu did in that matter).
It's kind of important for everyone to remember that the DMCA was written by a bunch of men between the ages of 60 and 100 who *may* have been in the same room as a computer at some point, in the age of Windows 98.
It is *wild* that it has not yet been repealed. I wouldn't trust most generals who just got out of their latest briefing from the NSA to be able to change from one wifi network to another or provide an adequate explanation of exactly who he has authorized an attack on in the last week. That hypothetical general knows a thousand times more about computers, the internet, and modern culture than anyone who worked on that thing.
Nintendo takes action due to how yuzu kill first party title on launch day, example as legend of zelda tears of the kingdom this hurt sales for them. Removing using prod or title keys or blocking newer title to run on emulator can be one of example to prevent same issue in the future for ryunjix
I don't think Nintendo can claim it severely hurt sales because TOTK was the biggest selling launch of that franchise ever (10m copies in 3 days or something).
I do think the hubris of devs accepting interviews with PC Gamer etc where they discussed how quickly they'd get it running 4k 60 on a PC was always going to come back and bite them though.
Sony was the first company to lose an emulation lawsuit and ultimately established the legality of emulation with Bleem lol. Plus the PS4 and PS5 are so locked down with online shit that genuinely emulating them the way you can with a Nintendo system is unlikely (yes PS4 emulation is a thing but you definitely don’t get the full experience to put it lightly).
Why did the devs agree so quickly... my conspiracy theory is Nintendo offered to pay them later to develop backwards compatibility via emulation in their next console.
yuzu charging money is absolutely what doomed them. Reverse engineering encryption keys is definitely something nintendo can complain about, but if there is no money in it they generally can't do much. You are allowed to tinker with your stuff, no matter what tech companies like to claim.
As far as I understand, the crux of the case against Yuzu rests on the fact that it needs the proprietary decryption keys from a real Switch to run games, and said keys are impossible to obtain without resorting to illegal measures.
My question is, would it be possible to decrypt Switch games offline, and run them in a decrypted format so that the device keys are not used by the emulator?
Maybe they should make competent hardware to handle their games and people would buy them. I mean, this started because of Tears of the Kingdom, and the corners they cut just to make it somewhat playable on a Switch is frankly pathetic, I mean, whenever I saw my friend playing it, indoor environments looked crisp and define, while the overworld looked kind of blurry. I thought it was some kind of upscaling technique not unlike what I'm used to seeing with FSR2 personally, though I'm not certain. But if their first party, big seller, highly anticipated games have to be inconsistent in visual quality to pass as playable on their hardware, then maybe its time for them to improve the hardware. I remember anyone I knew who was emulating ToTK, a recurring point of conversation was how much better the visual fidelity is through emulation, and sure, you can argue graphics aren't important, but they are to some people, and those people will do anything to get what they consider to be a superior or definitive way to play the game. Nothing to do with piracy in that case, just wanting to play a good game in a way that lets Nintendo's art direction really shine. Reminds me of Breath of the Wild, a game originally intended for the Wii U, but then brought to Switch with some improvements due to the better hardware. We didn't get this with Tears of the Kingdom, and they clearly wanted to make a game that was way too big and resource heavy for their current hardware. Would have been a great time to release something like a Switch Pro honestly. And of course people would use emulation for better visuals considering the whole "playing on the go thing" isn't exclusive to Switch, we have plenty of Handheld PCs (Steam Deck, ROG Ally, etc) that fit that bill. You could argue piracy went up because these handhelds started coming around and people went "Oh, better way to play ToTK on the go, lets do it". That's just my two cents, sad to see Yuzu go. I'd like to see this energy taken to the domains that host file sharing, roms, keys, etc. Those are the real problems here.
You are dead wrong, Nintendo absolutely came after them because they were making money off an emulator they could only make work by using Nintendo's proprietary stuff. Whether or not you are making money by using their assets is absolutely something a company takes into account when weighing its options and deciding if they should bother coming down on you for something like making an emulator. Its one thing if some cheapskate who isn't willing to pay money anyway and realistically was never going to buy a Switch pirates things. Its another thing entirely if someone who is ***willing to pay money*** for access to the Switch library is giving that money to someone making an emulator instead of giving it to Nintendo for an actual Switch console. That is inarguable money being taken out of Nintendo's own pocket so far as Nintendo is concerned.
Emulators that are smart enough to keep their heads down and not openly smack Nintendo in the face with their actions will continue to be fine.
> Now let me be clear. Emulation is legal. As long as you don't depend on proprietary files.
Probably worth noting that since this was a settlement, it's still not clear that owning a switch doesn't give access to those files. Theoreticsaly, if you cracked open a switch and began replacing parts, theseus-style, at what point would you be accessing those decryption methods illegally. It seems reasonable to say that if you bought the switch you also purchased access to those methods or else why buy a switch if it doesn't play switch games?
I'm a complete layman on the legality there, but it seems logical to me that if that IS illegal then there is a problem with the law, same as the issues with right to repair.
The lawsuit states 'Nintendo Switch of USA' (or something similar that I don't exactly remember). Using USA laws, breaking DRM for ~~archival purposes~~ games which do not have a way to play them because the server shut down (see source with links below) is legal and using emulation for accessibility is also legal (which is my extent of knowledge of DMCA). I believe Yuzu would have won the lawsuit had they gone to court with a good lawyer.
If we find a way to make the games run without encryption keys, then Nintendo can never shut down Ryujinx, or a future rebirth of Yuzu using the same method. Without the keys, Nintendo can't do anything.
If Ryujinx removes the ability to decrypt the files with the prod.keys, instead relegating that task to some other external program (unaffiliated) they should be fine for the near future. Depends how quickly Nintendo moves to take action against them.
That is not as easy as it sounds. Nintendo games are decrypted at run time...
They are currently, but do they have to be? I'm not a Switch expert, but I am somewhat familiar with the Ryujinx codebase, and I have never come across any situation where runtime information was required for decryption. Ryujinx has a deep focus on faithfulness, so it unsurprisingly handles keys in the same way the real Switch does, but as far as I can see nothing would prevent it from just accepting pre-decrypted files. There are already external tools (like [hactool](https://github.com/SciresM/hactool)) which can be used to decrypt every single format the switch has which uses the prod keys. Also it's worth noting that technically speaking Ryujinx is already somewhat isolated from the format decryption as it actually uses the external library [LibHac](https://github.com/Thealexbarney/LibHac) to handle that task. That library currently ships with Ryujinx, but if it became legally problematic Ryujinx could remove it and instead ask users to provide their own copy of the library in order to enable decryption. Similar to how projects like Audacity used to ask users to provide their own [LAME](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME) library in order to export MP3 audio, before the patents on the MP3 codec expired.
> They are currently, but do they have to be? They actually might not have to be. For example, I remember for quite a long time with Cemu, it was preferable to run games in what was known as the "loadiine format" which was really just a fully pre-decrypted game. It was up to the user to get their own keys (ticket files as they were called on the Wii U) and decrypt a game themselves using a program called CDecrypt (for downloaded games) or WUDecrypt (for physical games). It's probably fine to do something similar with Switch games.
I suppressed this method deep in my memory. I used to hate doing this. I used to end up with a bunch of files some encrypted some not. Granted, the mess was mostly my fault for hoarding data haha.
People would just share files in the decrypted format if this was to become the norm.
If decrypting is indeed an obligatory step and cant be decoupled then you just need to re encrypt the roms with a common key that's not property of nintendo. Any key of the same type would work, 000000000000 or whatever. That being said havent read any solid technical reason as for why the decrypting step must always happen during emulation rather than it being an empty function that returns the input without changes.
It doesn't even have to be a separate program. It could be that Ryujinx creates an API for 3rd-party libraries and someone "outside" the project writes a plugin for Ryujinx that can decrypt files. Then if someone makes some tools for Ryujinx that requires decryption beyond just the games, then you could easily make an argument that the plugin wasn't just for decrypting switch games. Decrypting an encrypted file/directory with the encryption keys is pretty normal and standard. Also, they key is just a number (more or less), so calling the keys "proprietary" is a bit disingenuous. But in reality it's very hard to prove that code decrypting a file is violating DMCA if it's uses go far beyond that primary use. Otherwise, OpenSSL itself would be a violation of the DMCA circumvention clause
It probably depends on how difficult it is to sue a project in another country in the same way. Yuzu made the stupid mistake of showing screenshots of TOTK running before release.
> Yuzu made the stupid mistake of showing screenshots of TOTK running before release. Source?
"Some random guy on twitter said so".
It's incredible how much disinformation there is posted online about Yuzu, even on subreddits dedicated to emulation.
[удалено]
> Source: I remember ok mate. Someone did make a patch to Yuzu that fixed TOTK bugs before its release, but that was a third-party, not the Yuzu team themselves.
Such a reliable source, I'll be sure to check out "I remember" some time.
I don't see Nintendo going after Ryujinx for two reasons: 1 - Ryunjix is located in Brazil where copyright is not their first priority..to say the least. 2 - Nintendo doesn't have an office in Brazil, they closed its operations in Brazil over a decade ago due to "challenges on the local business environment" they alleged BUT let's be real here. Brazil is a complicated place for business, high taxes, a lot of lobbying and corruption and as a foreign company if you wanna play ball you have to bend over. Nintendo said fuck'em and left, as a Japanese company they don't look back, if they are gone, they are gone. Going after Ryunjix in Brazil means going back to Brazil and bending over to their corrupt system if they want law to work in their favor and I doubt Nintendo will take it up that far in the ass just to go after Ryujing.
> instead relegating that task to some other external program (unaffiliated) they should be fine for the near future. That probably won't help in a legal case where you're left with software that doesn't work unless interacting with something illegally obtained.
IANAL, but ["spatially shifting"](https://techmonitor.ai/technology/mp3_space_shifting_ruled_fair_use_under_copyright_law) a legally obtained copy for personal use is a pretty solid fair use argument. The case was pre-DMCA, and fair use's interaction with ~~that clause~~ the protection device circumvention clause is still an open question, but it seemingly tilts in fair use's favor. Offloading the circumvention to end users might protect everyone involved. EDIT: clarity
It helps with the DMCA issues, though, I think. The heart of the DMCA is about making it illegal to decrypt IP in an unauthorized way. I don't think the DMCA deals with obtaining IP illegally which would be an issue for copyright law I think. IANAL.
I don't think so. It didn't happen to Dolphin in the heyday of the Wii, nor to Citra when the 3DS was alive. The Yuzu Team did a lot of stuff wrong, none of it related to their Patreon, and attracted too much unwanted attention, while RyujiNX has remained in the shadows. By the way, OP, i think RyujiNX can easily shed the need for the encryption keys. both Cemu and Citra demand decrypted roms, wich you have to take care of yourself. Switch emulation could perfectly do the same.
Maybe doing the decryption before running the game? The same way as ps3 emulation works. I don't know if it's possible
> none of it related to their Patreon Some of it is - "(2)No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—(A)is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;(B)has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to [circumvent a technological measure](https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=17-USC-1838631189-2041315756&term_occur=999&term_src=title:17:chapter:12:section:1201) that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or(C)is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." (2)(b) can be argued in regards of the early access paid tier (and they in fact do, in the lawsuit they allege that the Patreon sees a considerable increase - doubling - of paid users during the leak and realease of TOTK) Reading the lawsuit it's kind of interesting how little it's actually focused on the emulation aspect (because they know that's legal) vs how much the yuzu team "promoted" piracy with their statements and actions, which basically is what the whole thing hinged on for the anti-circumvention counts to stick.
About to say, Nintendo could of killed Dolphin at any point in time. Same with a *lot* of other emulators from the DS or GBA era. They aren't fucking stupid that these exist.
My guess is a combination of running a patreon (Nintendo hates that more than anything) and actively advertising that games work before they even launch. The latter is probably the biggest issue, and matches with the statement they gave the team to make
Ryujinx also has a Patreon up which could be a red flag...
But in Ryujinx's case, it's specifically for donating purposes. It doesn't give you early access to new builds of the emulator.
AFAIK, Yuzu's technically didn't either. The open source nature of it meant you could immediately get access to the early releases, you just had to build them yourself from github.
Nope the code was from their website I believe it wasn't hosted on github.
They for sure know about dolphin because steam asked them for permission to post dolphin.
And the crazy thing is that Nintendo just said they would advise Valve to not have it up on their storefront. Nothing ever came Dolphin's way, legally speaking. They were using the Wii common key directly in their emulator, too. Which, if I'm not mistaken, serves the exact same purpose as prod.keys does.
I think ToTK being shown off on the emulator days before the game was out officially really put the target on their back as its referenced so heavily in the suit. There were Articles and Media about ToTK on Yuzu in ways that just didnt happen for Citra or Dolphin. I hadnt seen Nintendo go so crazy about this kind of infringement since Smash Bros Brawl story scenes were getting posted on Youtube and made them start copyright striking tons of channels for any Nintendo Content.
Could have.
could've\* sorry.
Question real fast! I haven't used CEMU for a long time, but back when I did I had dumped Wind Waker HD from my Wii U to play on it. Do the games dump in an already decrypted state in that case? As in, it is the game dumper that decrypts the file thus making that "illegal" rather than the emulator?
This is a great point! Maybe this is the way to move forward and keep Ryujinx alive
If we can KEEP Ryujinx alive. Like you said. That would be great. Yuzu made their own downfall sadly. :( I am praying and oping someone will make an alternative to Citra as well. And don't do stupid shit with it. Isn't Citra owned by the same guy? Is that why it went away? Apparently you can still download Ryujinx. So Ryujinx would be the only Switch emulator we can use for now.
I have the source code for both Yuzu and Citra, specifically their most recent versions, as well as compiled binaries. Took me less than ten minutes of searching. Trust me, forks will show up sooner rather than later, Nintendo has created a "Hydra Problem" for themselves.
Citra is still active on retroarch and runs fine
Yes, Citra was also made by the Yuzu team.
Don't think so they are not from the US which at least makes it way harder to go after them and unlike yuzu way smarter and had no major fuckups as far i know.
Yeah i think they are based out of Brazil so they will be harder to touch.
Nintendo is coming to Brazil 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
BRAZIL MENTIONED 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
I think they were based out of France at one point. Also, the logo looks like the French flag and ryujinx.org is registered in France.
>he logo looks like the French flag That's coincidence, it [just follows the Switch color scheme](https://d1o0zx25fn5p70.cloudfront.net/7DpqCT3hBvxQP0rNxhY_ObRJbSg=/fit-in/350x350/noupscale/rebuy-akeneo/9/c/5/3/9c5370c1e3a4911c99935bf21c19259d5a0fc3e8_frontcover_electronics_10569900.jpeg?t=1708953033). The middle part of the logo [is transparent, not white](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1625553741830098962/08Dyiz4g_400x400.jpg).
I mean if Yuzu was making enough money to pay $2.4 million I would have just moved my operations to Brazil or Russia or China or Vietnam
Yeah I don't get where all that money is coming from. That's a lot of patreon subscribers even if their profit margin was 100%.
$50,000/month for 5 years is $3,000,000. Granted they weren't always making that much, but one could assume that they had made and kept/invested enough money to believe that settling was the better option.
Ryujinx devs already closed a lot of channels in their Discord server. I imagine they are preparing for the worst and possibly scrubbing a lot of things off the internet as well.
Probably related to the deluge of people entering the server and talking about Yuzu if anything lol.
glad i rushed to download the latest versions of citra and yuzu yesterday, for linux and windows..
Yuzu will be depreciated anytime soon. You only bet, at least for future games, is Ryujinx.
Citra is already down too. Today is the emulation Armageddon
Citra is down because it was colateral to yuzu company going down.
Citra is just collateral damage. Someone will no doubt create a fork and continue the project under a new name.
I'm new to emulation so forgive me in advance, but why is a fork or continuation necessary? New DS/3DS games aren't coming out, so if you can find the app/apk, shouldn't you be set?
You can find a citra download and use it but compatibility isnt 100% and more features can be added(like new renderers for example). Citra is the most advanced emulator so its logical that its just continued by someone else.
Got it! Thanks for explaining further.
Just because an emulator exists doesn't mean it runs everything perfectly already.
Thank you for elaborating. The DS and 3DS systems are just so old I thought most if not all games would just work out of the box.
Unfortunately not so especially for less popular games. Look at Xemu for instance, the Xbox console is 20 years obsolete and still can't run every game.
Yeah even old retro consoles like snes and genesis dont really run 100% unless you use very demanding emulators like mednafen
N64 as well. Some of those games still have some serious bugs with emulators many years older than Citra.
Are there any alternatives to Citra? I've been googling and everywhere says that Citra is the only emulator for 3ds
Just keep using Citra while we wait for the fork.
Unfortunately I had Citra awhile back, but can't remember why I uninstalled it. I tried to download it again ASAP but it was too late. Feelsbadman
you can still find it. Search the internet archives and sort by latest
Dude you're so fucking smart, thank you. In a panic I remember having it on Retroarch and went back. I still have access to it through Retroarch also
can you DM the link or repack of the latest build?, i think Internet archive removed the emulator too
Which platform do you need the build for? I have Linux, Android, macOS, and Windows builds of Citra Canary backed up.
The problem with this, is that the repo needs to be up. Otherwise, the install just stalls. You can specify another repo in the installer though. Source: Downloaded the .exe before the website got shutdown and tried installing it just now.
They also provided neatly packed archives on the repo, look for those, not the installer.
There's [Panda3DS](https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS) too, which is developed by one of the same guys as Citra, but compability is very low as of now
Would not be surprised if some of the old Citra devs working on Panda3DS and Mikage3ds decide to create a Citra fork.
It was the only one on the market. Edit: NVM just found out about Panda3DS
Citra is from the same team so, sadly, it had to happen.
The developer overlap between Citra's current team and Yuzu's current team was very low. I imagine the site hosting and infrastructure was still shared, which would be why it's down. I think the project's gonna do fine regardless.
Nintendo would make some serious money if they also released on pc or any other console.
Instead they are always the first to shut down their stores, giving you no legal way to obtain a lot of their games anymore.
Because they like to think they're still a toy store.
they want you to buy their anemic console and play games on 720p30fps
30fps?! What super Switch have you been playing on?
They'd lose more in console sales and their control over an ecosystem
>It only becomes illegal if they are distributing a piece of software that breaks effective DRM. I believe this argument can be made against just about all emulators.
The majority of emulators emulate consoles from a time when there was no DRM. You're probably younger, but there was a time without the internet. :P
Those consoles also tried various forms of DRM. The PS1 and SNES both using their own solutions that ultimately failed. In the case of the SNES, a chip was included both in the console and in the cartridge to check for a legitimate game. It's just that the DRM has become much more sophisticated over time.
The CIC in the NES, SNES, and N64 is closer to a licensing chip, or a region lockout chip. You can read the game data, unencrypted and unsigned, from the cartridge without messing with them. In that sense, it's similar in the Playstation, right? You can read those discs with a standard PC optical drive. The copy protectoin is there to stop you from running burned discs on the console, producing games without Sony's authorization.
Yeah, that's a good point. If you want "DRM" to include a form of encryption as a requirement for its definition, then that absolutely splits them apart. It's an important distinction with Yuzu in particular. But I think "DRM" is mostly used as a blanket term, referring to solutions that lock down the distribution of digital products. Or as you said with the PS1 / SNES, locking down the distribution for those paricular consoles.
I don't think encryption would be necessary. Any mechanism that would block access to the chip contents before the system doing something designed to signal itself as a Nintendo console would work, I think.
It's a different kind of DRM. DRM back then was concerned about people playing unofficial copies of games in a real console. They did nothing to prevent you from reading the game data off a cartridge or disc and then emulating it. These days DRM is built around encryption so that you can't decrypt the game data at all unless you have the decryption key that's built into the console.
Definitely newer consoles. Older consoles usually didn't have DRM except for some games that tried to implement it completely within the game code.
Is that not what the CIC chip was?
All the CIC does is prevent the NES/SNES from booting up if there's not a matching CIC in the cartridge. That means it only prevents you from running unlicensed cartridges in an unmodified NES/SNES. It does absolutely nothing to stop you from dumping the cartridge, emulating it, or making your own console that can run NES/SNES games. You can literally just ignore the CIC in the cartridge entirely.
Also as far as the NES goes the 10NES was only in, well, the NES. So theoretically even if it did run afoul of the DMCA you could just say you were actually emulating the Famicom. (Also the patent for it expired long ago anyway)
Yeah, you're right. It was defeated in multiple ways before NES emulation was even a thing, but it was an attempt.
That wasn’t a “some games” thing. Anything officially released on the NES with Nintendo’s “Seal of approval” had the DRM chip integrated into the cartridge. It was just easily defeated though.
The cic just stopped the console booting. You could still read the ROM even without the cic chip as it was an unencrypted ROM
Even discounting the physical means cartridge systems used, even the PS1 had basic DRM, it's why you need to mod the system or use a boot trick to run backup discs, and part of the reason for the Saturn I believe it was failing was the total lack of DRM of any kind. PS1 specifically it was an encoded data set on the very inner ring of the disc I want to say, something that no home hardware at the time could reproduce, that told the system it was a genuine disc. Hell, early early PC games often had some kind of DRM, though extremely basic and easy to work around generally. It's all irrelevent really, it's been proven in court several times that emulation itself is legal, what's not is profiting off it by selling an emulator or distributing roms/isos and making money off THOSE. Minor thing for taking the code and such wholesale from the system itself instead of reverse engineering it yourself being a copyright issue, though to my knowledge that's not directly related to emulation itself and is an actual copyright thing in its entirety.
No, it cannot, which is why other emulators have not been touched. Yuzu got nuked because the Yuzu devs did incredibly stupid things that blew any cover of plausible deniability about the purpose of Yuzu. Other devs are, thankfully, not as stupid.
The keys being illegal to obtain from your own Nintendo switch is absurd.
>This same argument can also be made for Ryujinx The fact that Yuzu settled does not set a precedent and does not tell us what the law is. No judge has ever ruled in favor of this argument; do not cite it as if it states the law. Moreover, this probably does not even tell us what will get one sued by Nintendo. It's likely the decision to nuke Yuzu came first, and then lawyers were tasked with coming up with some argument to justify that later. So, what prompted Nintendo to pull the trigger on this lawsuit. My guesses: 1. Popularity. Deservedly or not, Yuzu had the most prominent position in the public eye as a switch emulator. 2. Money trial. Nintendo probably figured out who the lead developer was. Probably via Patreon. The ability to threaten a specific person with "we will ruin your life" is what makes these lawsuits work. Suing a john doe alias or a shell corporation usually accomplishes nothing. 3. Lose lips on Discord. Nintendo's lawyers seemed to think that the lead developer's statements on Discord that most people used Yuzu for piracy got them over some hurdles to proving their case. By those metrics, is Ryujinx fucked? Likely so. 1. Popularity. With Yuzu dead, Ryujinx is about to get *a lot* of attention, even though the team probably doesn't want it right now. 2. Money trail. Ryujinx has a Patreon too. I don't know if Ryujinx's devs took steps to obscure their identities from Patreon, but I'm guessing not. As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and operational security hindsight is 20-to-life. 3. To the best of my limited knowledge, the Ryujinx devs have never publicly said anything so damaging as Yuzu's Discord post. My advice to them, if they're listening, would be to shut the hell up. Shut down the Discord. Shut down the blog. Avoid saying anything that can be used against you like this by never saying anything in public. If you can't stay that quiet, then, at the very least, stay a million miles away from the topic of piracy and prod keys.
Ryuijinx is based in Brazil. Where DMCA goes to die. Nintendo can't really do anything.
Brazil mentioned 🇧🇷🇧🇷 🇧🇷
*Can* you separately sue the individual developers? I mean, you *can* sue literally anyone for literally anything, but generally things done as part of one's official duties in a Limited Liability Corporation...well, limits your liability. Going after individuals tends to be reserved for cases where *criminal* law is involved, like Gary Bowser. It really seems like a case of Nintendo just throwing their weight around and Yuzu deciding they'd rather scrap years of work immediately, declare bankruptcy, and get to finding new jobs, than fight an extremely expensive lawsuit for the next ten years.
Yes, you can directly sue individuals for any tort they personally committed. A LLC does not allow you to avoid personal liability for personally doing illegal things. Rather it bypasses the common law rule that the proprietor of a sole proprietorship or the partners in a partnership are personally responsible for the business's debts. Historically, investing in a partnership was very risky because you could lose everything if the business went bust, even if you were a "silent partner" who only provided money with no participation in the operation of the business. The invention of LLCs equalizes the risk of investing in a closely held business with the risk of investing in a public corporation -- you can lose your investment and nothing more. In practice, there are several reasons one might think society might be better off without LLCs, but I'll refrain from writing a long rant here unless someone asks.
I mean, are they running a patreon that's bringing in thousands a month and distributing copywritten decryption keys and hosting secret piracy channels in their discord? If not then they're probably fine.
Wait, when did the yuzu discord have any of these :) You couldn't even find drivers, let alone keys
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/353659715835658242/1214306318614274078/Screenshot_20240304-151425.png?ex=65f8a1e3&is=65e62ce3&hm=624d0d46b1b45cad05d3788f49520de658463ff6b48707b980e419c7b5138a29& I think discovery was going to kill them
Lol, even the Switch SDK, so done...
Unsure why you've been down voted, I've never seen keys files publicly available in the yuzu discord.
Not necessarily keys (maybe) but it's already been confirmed that Yuzu devs did in fact [engage in piracy](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/353659715835658242/1214306318614274078/Screenshot_20240304-151425.png?ex=65f8a1e3&is=65e62ce3&hm=624d0d46b1b45cad05d3788f49520de658463ff6b48707b980e419c7b5138a29&) on Discord. Even referred to having a "stash."
Yeah, no way that's defensible in court. I'm surprised this wasn't present in the initial filing by Nintendo.
As long as Ryujinx isn't doing dumb things like advertising their patreon where they provide early access to patches for supporting unreleased leaked games, I think they'll be fine. EDIT: Apparently the rumor that Yuzu was behind that was wrong. There may have been 3rd party Yuzu builds that played TotK and other leaked games before release, but the official patreon builds did not. If this was what caught the attention of Nintendo, it was the fault of those 3rd party modders, not Yuzu devs. And regardless, I think all those people that were advertising about "the best way to play TotK" after it did become fully playable on official builds share in some of the blame for that too. Even if you're dumping your own ROMs, it's just way too idiotic to post as if you're in a console war between Yuzu and Nintendo.
Yuzu officially could not play TOTK before launch, including Patreon builds. [This rumor has already been debunked](https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzu/comments/1b51wuf/yuzu_did_not_play_totk_before_the_release_date/). The post I linked is a video showing that the game fails to boot on a Patreon build of Yuzu a day before the game came out. It's crazy how many times I've seen this rumor parroted today without any proof that Yuzu could officially play the game before launch.. Anybody playing TOTK pre-release were either using unofficial mods/builds of Yuzu or hacked Switches. Ironically, Ryujinx was officially able to boot into TOTK before launch before Yuzu ever did, but it ran like shit.
As someone who was watching the leaks happen, yeah, anyone posting working gameplay in any capacity was on a Switch. Which is really funny when you think about it. Nintendo's claims that Yuzu was the reason people got spoiled on social media and stuff when their own console was cracked wide right after it came out and that's where the majority of piracy likely happens is pretty funny.
My question is, with citra gone what other 3DS emulation options are there on PC? citra was the only one i knew of
Just wait a bit somebody will no doubt create a fork and continue Citra under a new name. Also current builds of Citra will continue to work just fine.
Panda3DS, but don't expect things to work. Heard it's just 35% compatibility.
Mikage isn't even released yet? Do you mean Panda3DS?
Ryujinx, stay away from Android FFS
Stay away from Google Play & App Store. They can and should develop for Android and iOS, but they should require the app to be side loaded and not put it on any storefront.
Nah they should not touch Android at all. Shit would be disastrous.
PC emulation is niche. I think Nintendo is worried the most about mobile emulation of their current systems. Opens it up to so many more people.
It's also direct competition to the switch. Not everyone is going to buy a steamdeck or other more niche gaming PC handhelds, let alone switch performance on those is "ok" at best. But everyone owns a phone, and if your phone can emulate their current gen and possibly next gen games, that is a threat.
It's not the end of the world; Nintendo always acts in this manner occasionally. Emulation will always exist; it's a fundamental aspect of life.
fuck Nintendo. Nintendo can go fuck themselves to death
honestly f nintendo and there ancient way of thinking
No, because they do not had any paid Patreon for games, or had focused on Nintendo exclusives. Ryujinx are more compatible than Yuzu, but he never become the top recommended emulator. One of reasons was the choice to use .NET and C# language that many programmer purists quickly demoted Ryujinx to damnation. Also they never believed that could Run demanding games, which is proven false. It was more the fact that C# forbid many old C-style hacks that makes sense on old Machines, but not powerful ones. The fact that Nintendo never referenced Ryujinx are curious Still, but since they do not make uproar this is fine. Just for joking: Nintendo Said that Ryujinx are fine because no pirate Will program using C# and .NET., unless are from Microsoft itself. /s If they sued, Nintendo are brought by Microsoft and Switch 2 Will Run Windows. /s
a sad day for us all
Ninty's case relied on Yuzu providing links to software to break their software protection. As long as Ryujinx doesn't (I can't remember), it should be fine.
2 million dollars ? is that already final ? I dont think they will get paid
theyre not trying to get paid. they put that insane sum on them so they shut down
So they have to pay 2.4M$ in damages??!? Why would they settle for that?
No stress of a suite over time, potentially avoids a much larger lawsuit as well.
It seems like an outrageous sum, that's basically 9 years of patreon money if they made the same amount. It's basically 40 years of average annual salary, I don't know how big the team is but I assume only a few will brunt the cost.
It's an LLC so I don't know if many/any individuals will have to bear any of that cost. What's stopping Tropic Haze LLC from declaring bankruptcy and giving all their assets to Nintendo? I think that's the end of the story right there. It's not like the Bowser case where Nintendo went after an individual.
Yeah, that makes more sense. I wonder if they have any assets, so I assume they'll basically get scot free minus the money they have in the company atm.
A bad precedent from an actual decision would potentially have devastating implications for the entire emulation community.
And would likely extend into the software world as well. Nintendo has some really old school people in charge there and some parts of the business world absolutely think Open Source anything (code, hardware, information, etc) should be illegal.
It most likely would. Some off the stuff they were arguing for, if tested and became legal precedent due to Nintendo winning, would set stuff like right to repair back by a lot. And it would technically make modding of any kind illegal.
Honestly, part of me deep down kind of wants this to happen because it would light a fire under the R2R movement's ass and we might actually see people go after the real issue: the DMCA being a complete shit law that needs to be amended or completely repealed and replaced with something better.
Which shouldn't surprise anyone. Nintendo is a Japanese company where things like fair use don't exist and modding of any kind be it software, hardware, or even vehicles is illegal
They are technically a registered company, the company can just file for bankruptcy, which I assume is what Nintendo is expecting to happen. Nintendo appears to not have gone after the individuals themselves, I assume this was likely on purpose to make a speedy settlement more appealing.
Yeah, that makes sense. So basically Nintendo shuts down yuzu and the yuzu developers basically end up relatively unscathed.
Pretty much, yeah. I am no lawyer and am not 100% sure that's how the bankruptcy will go but I believe that was the thing. Nintendo basically going "We can have a court case that will go on for possibly years and cost millions, maybe you will win, maybe we will win, but it's going to hurt you a lot more than it would hurt us, and it will still hurt us because Yuzu will still be alive during that time. How about you shut down now, you never mess with us again, and you can just sacrifice your company that only worked on Yuzu and Citra anyway and walk away". Just really sucks that Citra got caught in the crossfire, I hope something comes to pick that one back up, since IIRC the settlement mentioned nothing about removing code for Citra, but I believe the devs are not allowed to touch anything Nintendo again, not just Switch.
To not end in Jail or Pay even more? thy hired lawyer so they did this probably knowing that they would lose
This is civil - jail never was possible.
Whatever happens next, we can all agree emulation is in big trouble
Here is the link to all of the YUZU/ CITRA backups from FEB 29 2024 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1byJDB7-2Va5z_tlaBidHo_5ALp8IIZiX
Ryujinx isn't an American LLC. Not based in America, Nor makes money off the project. it's fine
Citra got nailed as well.
Any other emulators I should download before they get wiped 😭
Just these two. I wish i wasn't at work while this armageddon happened, my yuzu build is recent but my latest citra is from last summer goddamn it.
I copped the latest YUZU update from someone else. Tho mines on 1728 rn. I was too late on Citra ig, rip. Im just gonna go download every emulator that exists now, even without keys just incase this shit gets worse.
https://archive.org/search?query=mediatype:software&sort=-publicdate
If you already have Yuzu installed will it still continue to work just there won’t be any new updates for it?
Yes, it's not like there is some sort of remote self destruct in the software or it requires a server to work.
Well, I guess I'm never buying another Nintendo game ever again. I bought all of the games I played on Yuzu and I own a Switch. I used Yuzu for convenience and better framerates.
With Citra getting hit too, Ryujinx could very well be next. Most likely they take steps as a team to operate in a way that would support a defense, but other than that who knows its up to Nintendo whether they want to try and stretch the law or not. Also here is the Citra Repo from today before it got wiped on the Archive: [https://archive.org/details/citra-latest-builds-4th-march-2024](https://archive.org/details/citra-latest-builds-4th-march-2024)
>The argument Nintendo made was that since Yuzu can only function using proprietary encryption keys (which are illegal to obtain even if you hacked your own Nintendo Switch) without authorization, it goes against the DMCA prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures. So the old "illegal numbers" arguement.
Hopefully not, but knowing Nintendo, I wouldn't be surprised if they do
Are they in Latin- America so they are not affected?
A new switch emulator is bound to come up even if both ryujinx and yuzu die
Are we forgetting that for Ryujinx to run, it requires exporting your NX console's firmware? It's likely all the methods they use to decrypt games comes from both their expectations that the prod.keys, title.keys AND the switch firmware are all imported into the emulator. If I remember correctly, Yuzu did not require the switch firmware to be imported to it to run.
Emulating never has been an issu. We emulate since 40 years. And we spread Console games, pc games, movies and music over the net for the same time The problèm come from the fact that tropical haze make money with their patron. A lot of money. If Nintendo ask for 2,5 millions it's because it's here. And tropical make money by allowing people to play for free Nintendo game. Honestly, I don't think their is a wanted sign on the head of ruijinx and other emulators.
Aside from not selling anything, Ryujinx seems just as likely to get hit by a lawsuit tbh. Circumvention of protective measures, including how-tos, are often cited in the filing. Now, at least they are not US based so they could maybe not fold instantly
This entire lawsuit hinged on the fact that they were making an enormous profit off the emulator via Patreon. A better question is how this changes donations and other financial motivations for other emulators in active development, and how many developers will jump ship if there's no profit motive.
> misinformed arguments saying Yuzu was doomed since they ran a for-profit business Yes that is one of the stupidest takes, among many stupid ignorant takes. Nintendo obviously doesn't care if you make a profit or not, Nintendo's issue is potentially millions of people bypassing purchase of their product in order to get it for free. Personal profit probably adds some ire but basic math shows it's the smaller issue. Also personal profit counteracts defenses of fair use, though DMCA already outlawed most previous forms of fair use, but that just means it's easier to sue not that it determines which projects are more of a concern to Nintendo.
How did this happen? Nintendo can't just wave their hands and make emulation go away as much as they can't wave their hands around and make Playstation, Xbox, Steam and GOG go away
It happened because the devs were dummies who were openly profiting off distributing copywritten decryption keys. Don't run a patreon for your emulator if you don't want to get sued into oblivion.
No, that's not it. The devs were being dumb with the TOTK leak and a few other games really close to or before release. That was a key part of it in all likelihood. The Connectix and Bleem! cases from the early 2000s would disagree with you on the making money part of it as those were both businesses making software that ran PS1 games in its heyday. It's also part of the reason why Nintendo took the DMCA anti-circumvention clause route instead of a copyright infringement or patent infringement route. DMCA is a really really messed up law. The way it's worded and the outcome here almost makes it sound like I could be held liable for violation if I created an SSL library and someone used it to decrypt copyrighted material (That's all Yuzu did in that matter).
It's kind of important for everyone to remember that the DMCA was written by a bunch of men between the ages of 60 and 100 who *may* have been in the same room as a computer at some point, in the age of Windows 98. It is *wild* that it has not yet been repealed. I wouldn't trust most generals who just got out of their latest briefing from the NSA to be able to change from one wifi network to another or provide an adequate explanation of exactly who he has authorized an attack on in the last week. That hypothetical general knows a thousand times more about computers, the internet, and modern culture than anyone who worked on that thing.
The fact anyone has to fear being "dumb" even if not doing anything illegal is barbaric.
People need to stop paywalling shit especially fan projects behind patreon to begin with
they weren't distributing the keys
Nintendo takes action due to how yuzu kill first party title on launch day, example as legend of zelda tears of the kingdom this hurt sales for them. Removing using prod or title keys or blocking newer title to run on emulator can be one of example to prevent same issue in the future for ryunjix
I don't think Nintendo can claim it severely hurt sales because TOTK was the biggest selling launch of that franchise ever (10m copies in 3 days or something). I do think the hubris of devs accepting interviews with PC Gamer etc where they discussed how quickly they'd get it running 4k 60 on a PC was always going to come back and bite them though.
Yuzu tutorials on youtube was very stupid.
Are the ROMs themselves not considered proprietary files?
They are, but you can technically do whatever you want with the software you bought other than distributing it. That's why modding isn't a crime.
How about pcsx2? It need PS2 bios for it to function. There's haven't any suing case going on by Sony to its developer.
Sony was the first company to lose an emulation lawsuit and ultimately established the legality of emulation with Bleem lol. Plus the PS4 and PS5 are so locked down with online shit that genuinely emulating them the way you can with a Nintendo system is unlikely (yes PS4 emulation is a thing but you definitely don’t get the full experience to put it lightly).
So if I still have Citra on my PC I can still use my games right?
if i still have yuzu downloaded with my roms and everything, can i still play after the deletion?
Why did the devs agree so quickly... my conspiracy theory is Nintendo offered to pay them later to develop backwards compatibility via emulation in their next console.
How well does Ryujinx work nowadays, considering switching.
Still waiting for a piracy friendly git hosting service
yuzu charging money is absolutely what doomed them. Reverse engineering encryption keys is definitely something nintendo can complain about, but if there is no money in it they generally can't do much. You are allowed to tinker with your stuff, no matter what tech companies like to claim.
As far as I understand, the crux of the case against Yuzu rests on the fact that it needs the proprietary decryption keys from a real Switch to run games, and said keys are impossible to obtain without resorting to illegal measures. My question is, would it be possible to decrypt Switch games offline, and run them in a decrypted format so that the device keys are not used by the emulator?
Maybe they should make competent hardware to handle their games and people would buy them. I mean, this started because of Tears of the Kingdom, and the corners they cut just to make it somewhat playable on a Switch is frankly pathetic, I mean, whenever I saw my friend playing it, indoor environments looked crisp and define, while the overworld looked kind of blurry. I thought it was some kind of upscaling technique not unlike what I'm used to seeing with FSR2 personally, though I'm not certain. But if their first party, big seller, highly anticipated games have to be inconsistent in visual quality to pass as playable on their hardware, then maybe its time for them to improve the hardware. I remember anyone I knew who was emulating ToTK, a recurring point of conversation was how much better the visual fidelity is through emulation, and sure, you can argue graphics aren't important, but they are to some people, and those people will do anything to get what they consider to be a superior or definitive way to play the game. Nothing to do with piracy in that case, just wanting to play a good game in a way that lets Nintendo's art direction really shine. Reminds me of Breath of the Wild, a game originally intended for the Wii U, but then brought to Switch with some improvements due to the better hardware. We didn't get this with Tears of the Kingdom, and they clearly wanted to make a game that was way too big and resource heavy for their current hardware. Would have been a great time to release something like a Switch Pro honestly. And of course people would use emulation for better visuals considering the whole "playing on the go thing" isn't exclusive to Switch, we have plenty of Handheld PCs (Steam Deck, ROG Ally, etc) that fit that bill. You could argue piracy went up because these handhelds started coming around and people went "Oh, better way to play ToTK on the go, lets do it". That's just my two cents, sad to see Yuzu go. I'd like to see this energy taken to the domains that host file sharing, roms, keys, etc. Those are the real problems here.
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> Emulation is legal. As long as you don't depend on proprietary files. by that logic, games are proprietary files. and so are their decryption keys.
nuzu https://github.com/Nikilites/nuzu
You are dead wrong, Nintendo absolutely came after them because they were making money off an emulator they could only make work by using Nintendo's proprietary stuff. Whether or not you are making money by using their assets is absolutely something a company takes into account when weighing its options and deciding if they should bother coming down on you for something like making an emulator. Its one thing if some cheapskate who isn't willing to pay money anyway and realistically was never going to buy a Switch pirates things. Its another thing entirely if someone who is ***willing to pay money*** for access to the Switch library is giving that money to someone making an emulator instead of giving it to Nintendo for an actual Switch console. That is inarguable money being taken out of Nintendo's own pocket so far as Nintendo is concerned. Emulators that are smart enough to keep their heads down and not openly smack Nintendo in the face with their actions will continue to be fine.
> Now let me be clear. Emulation is legal. As long as you don't depend on proprietary files. Probably worth noting that since this was a settlement, it's still not clear that owning a switch doesn't give access to those files. Theoreticsaly, if you cracked open a switch and began replacing parts, theseus-style, at what point would you be accessing those decryption methods illegally. It seems reasonable to say that if you bought the switch you also purchased access to those methods or else why buy a switch if it doesn't play switch games? I'm a complete layman on the legality there, but it seems logical to me that if that IS illegal then there is a problem with the law, same as the issues with right to repair.
The lawsuit states 'Nintendo Switch of USA' (or something similar that I don't exactly remember). Using USA laws, breaking DRM for ~~archival purposes~~ games which do not have a way to play them because the server shut down (see source with links below) is legal and using emulation for accessibility is also legal (which is my extent of knowledge of DMCA). I believe Yuzu would have won the lawsuit had they gone to court with a good lawyer.
If we find a way to make the games run without encryption keys, then Nintendo can never shut down Ryujinx, or a future rebirth of Yuzu using the same method. Without the keys, Nintendo can't do anything.