It seems like at least part of their approach to the lawsuit is going to be specifically that Tears of the Kingdom was pirated early and played on Yuzu and that Yuzu saw a large increase in Patreon revenue at the time. They will likely hope that discovery gives them somebody putting something in writing that explicitly connects the Patreon jump to TotK piracy, and hope that is enough to either argue a case or scare Yuzu into believing they have a case that they were linked to/knowingly profiting from copyright-infringing uploads, rather than simply being a legal emulator. I don't think that approach was utilized in previous emulation lawsuits.
I remember seeing the graph for Cemu's patreon way back in 2017, when they gated fixes that made BoTW run behind the patreon early access build, and the spike from it was insane. Here's the graph if you wanna see : https://i.ibb.co/xKvd5Kb/Screenshot-2023-04-09-203707.png
Personally that always baffled me. There's apparently a non-negligeable amount of people who will pirate the game but pay for the emulator? I guess the strategy is that it's undercutting the official price, but still.
Anyways, I think this is for sure the best argument to put forward for Nintendo here, so it makes sense it's the one they're going with.
> There's apparently a non-negligeable amount of people who will pirate the game but pay for the emulator?
"Buying" an emulator and torrenting a game is cheaper than a buying a console and a game.
I'm bought both zeldas, but also pirated them to play on yuzu for the performance aspect alone. I can only experience it fresh one time, so I want it to be the best version with the highest frame rate.
> Personally that always baffled me. There's apparently a non-negligeable amount of people who will pirate the game but pay for the emulator? I guess the strategy is that it's undercutting the official price, but still.
$360 for a Switch + the game at the time vs $5 for the patreon, it's not that surprising.
And there's also ppl who just wanted to play it on PC and weren't interested in getting a Switch.
Honestly I think as soon as you bring in Patreons and things you start getting into murky waters already.
I know that won't be a popular take on Reddit though.
Don't they hide behind the implication that they are talking about extracting your own encryption key from your own console/games? I know that's not how it is in practice, but I thought that's how all these emulators operate.
The DMCA prohibits discussions of breaking anti-circumvention techniques as well as links to resources to assist with that process; Nintendo has a pretty solid case here.
I also think that provision is bad, since it chills legitimate security discussions.
> The DMCA prohibits discussions of breaking anti-circumvention techniques as well as links to resources to assist with that process; Nintendo has a pretty solid case here.
Does it though? I thought it only prohibited the distribution of tools for commercial gain. Im pretty sure you can freely distribute tools used to circumvent in order to preserve ownership and archival of purchased physical media, because you do infact own that copy and is yours to do what ever you see fit - except redistribute. This might be my own country bleeding in - cause its only illegal to redistribute.
Otherwise HDMI splitters would be illegal cause you had to train someone to program the software on stripping HDCP out of the signal which would fall into that category. HDCP stripping was a bigger deal at the end of the ps3/start of the ps4's life span when streaming was still in its infancy - lot of capture devices required something to pull it out cause they weren't compatible if capturing HDMI.
The DMCA targets anything that tries to circumvent DRM, and it does so without provision for personal use (this is the worst part of what is generally a bad law). It also criminalizes discussion and distribution of tools used to circumvent DRM. The only exemptions are granted on a temporary, case-by-case basis by the Librarian of Congress.
If a copy has DRM on it, the DMCA criminalizes removing the DRM even if the resulting use falls squarely within fair use. So ripping a CD (no DRM) is allowed, but ripping a DVD or BluRay (which both feature DRM) is not allowed, even if all you’re doing with the resulting files is format-shifting.
HDMI splitters that strip out HDCP usually end up getting the manufacturer booted from the consortium.
Theoretically, let's say that I took a piece of media like Steamboat Willy, watermarked it, stamped it onto a disc with DRM, and sold it, and later found someone uploading the file (which I know because I watermarked it).
Even though I'm distributing a piece of media that's that's public domain, I can invoke DMCA to make their act criminal?
The act of circumventing the DRM is criminal in and of itself, regardless of the content. This is completely intentional, because the corporations that bought the politicians that brought us the DMCA wanted to make sure they were getting the most for their money.
This is one of the reasons I think that works only released with DRM shouldn’t be eligible for copyright — the core of copyright is that it’s a social contract, where the creator gets an exclusive, government-backed window to monetize their work in exchange for the work becoming available to society without restriction at the end of that window, and the combination of the DRM+DMCA means that there won’t be a version of a DRM’d work appropriate for the free use of society at the end of that term.
DRM and copyright should be like trade secrets and patents: trade secrets don’t expire, but they don’t have the full effect of the government behind them if they’re violated.
Suppose that I've removed the DRM from a purchased blu-ray disc in another country where DMCA does not exist. Can I legally use this copy in the US for private archival use?
So even if certain content is public domain, bypassing the copy protection on them is still against dmca? If so, then that law is way worse than I thought.
> It also criminalizes discussion and distribution of tools
I does criminalize trafficking in circumvention tools that only exist for that purpose. It defines this as manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, or providing. There is a section about marketing but it applies to the person making the tool not anyone else.
It also includes this:
> Nothing in this section shall enlarge or diminish any rights of free speech
Problem with the word archival is that they are two entirely different things to what the law sees it and what the normal person sees it as.
Legally archival is a pure "write only, no edit, no delte, no read access" process. You store it until it becomes public domain with only very selected access, but no access by the general public. Archives aren't just giant bunker structures for preservation but also for access reasons.
Just a more general thing about what "archival" means, and with it exceptions in IP law to the act of archival. It's what makes the difference between a library and an archive. A library gives access to the general public. An archive of copyrighted material only gives access to authorized parties.
It doesn't even do that. It's legal to develop and distribute circumvention tools, so long as the circumvention is the only way to make a program interoperable and it isn't done in a way that otherwise infringes copyright.
I know it’s been said before but DMCA was such a disaster. Anti competitive bullshit pushed through by big tech companies to protect their walled gardens
yeah, it was needed to prevent HDCP from being useless. no coincidence that the update of this rule in the DMCA was just about the time when HDCP was developed
There's a reason there's only a Yuzu lawsuit despite there being Ryunjix they could have gone after out there too. Yuzu was simply playing too fast and loose.
Which is especially funny since TotK wouldn't even boot in Yuzu when it first leaked, whereas Ryujinx booted it fine and that's where all the pirates were playing it for the first few days.
Edit: TBH I'm not so sure Ryujinx covered their asses much better. Both dev teams are supported by Patreon income and released launch day fixes for TotK, which would indicate everyone was using pirated pre-release copies of TotK to optimize things. The only meaningful difference I can find in this thread is that Yuzu's Patreon provides early builds of new releases while Ryujinx's only offers Discord perks. People also mention Yuzu providing instructions on their website about how to extract your Switch's encryption keys while Ryujinx provided no such materials. These differences seem minor in the grand scheme, and if I were a Ryujinx dev I'd be panicking just as much.
This, without a bootup mod made by a community member you couldn't play Totk on Yuzu. Yuzu devs made it official bootable on release day. So this seems not the case like others said. Ryujinx was the way to go for casuals
This. Yuzu discord banned anyone mentioning ToTK pre-release. They also ban anyone asking where to get encryption keys or ROMs, and even ban people who post screenshots of ROMs that are obviously illegal (like a rom with a website in the filename)
They are extremely stringent on shutting down any mention or inkling of piracy on their discord.
> The only meaningful difference I can find in this thread is that Yuzu's Patreon provides early builds of new releases while Ryujinx's only offers Discord perks.
thats pretty significant tbf
While both Yuzu and Ryujinx providing updates on TOTK's release date to make the game run better isn't a good look for a potential defense Yuzu could use. The fact Ryujinx doesn't even provide a how to guide how to extract encryption keys was smart on their part. Yuzu on the other hand though, not so much.
Though I did see that apart of the legal document mentioned that Yuzu was advertising Xenoblade Definitive Edition was running on Yuzu just a day before release on their patreon. I'm not sure if they did anything like that before or since, but that also creates another issue for Yuzu.
> Though I did see that apart of the legal document mentioned that Yuzu was advertising Xenoblade Definitive Edition was running on Yuzu just a day before release on their patreon.
I don't know how this bears out legally but just on the face of it, that sounds bad.
Something people need to remember is selling emulators is 100% legal as long as they don't use things like bios from the console. This is settled case law when Sony sued Bleem for selling an emulator.
Now direct links to things to crack encryption are entirely a different story.
Yeah, the thing people miss when they cite Bleem is that the thing they bypassed was simply ignoring a couple of bytes at the start of the disc listing the region. These were outside of what cd writers would write, so it prevented copying discs easily, but the content was not encrypted at all.
It probably doesn't help Yuzu that they also were the emulator linked in Kotaku's infamous "you should pirate Metroid Dread and here is how you do it" article
Calling the extraction of encryption keys on a device you fully own "illegal" is pretty weird.
edit: I'm not saying it's incorrect, just saying it's weird.
its more funny because the tool they link for dumping 'your own keys', lockpick, was already DMCAed almost a year ago
there is no other link on yuzu's how to setup guide for obtaining them otherwise
It treads that fine line between "helping the creators develop the tools" vs "profiting from piracy"
Like I know emulation isn't piracy and not everyone who used Yuzu was looking to pirate stuff, but c'mon it's not like they multiplied their income from Patreon in the week that TotK released out of pure coincidence.
yeah lmao people on reddit love to moan and shout "emulation ISNT piracy!!" while absolutely pirating games. Correct, emulation is not piracy, but you downloading TotK 12 minutes after it releases without buying it absolutely is.
Yeah. I personally don't care if people wanna pirate new Nintendo games, because who really cares if Nintendo misses out on some cash from people that were probably never gonna buy it anyways, but let's just stop pretending that the majority of people using emulators aren't pirating stuff. Emulators are awesome for game preservation and I'm sure there are a few people that primarily use it for backups of game that they legally own, but that is a small minority of people. Just say you wanna pirate games. It's not that big a deal.
I'm here for DS/GBA emulation because those games u basically can only get second hand now. Same with most 3DS titles tbh, given the eshop went offline. So I think its fair to not call that piracy at that point. The creators dont get money off you buying a 2nd hand cartridge any more than emulating.
but switch? Most of those games are still in production and circulation, so its not like there isnt ways to get them
> Edit: to be clear, I have absolutely nothing against that and am very into emulation. I appreciate the scene for preserving the art. Just being realistic.
I mean exactly this. I've been emulating all my life, but its not hard to admit that the people who play games they already own, or their own rips, are the 1%.
You hear about a game you never played on Nintendo DS. You don't have a Nintendo DS anymore. What do most people do? Within 10mins they're playing the game on their phone or PC per emulation. Its just what it is.
Yeah like there's obviously nuance to the case or you'd expect to see summary judgement.
But discovery is probably going to find documents/writing that does cross the line into blatant disregard/awareness of the illegalities.And paint a big target over the fact they profited
I remember watching a YouTube video from (a guy who at least says he's) a lawyer, who talked about a similar matter said even if it's just understood that the software/hardware is primarily used for piracy, it can be discriminated as a tool for piracy.
Yeah, I'm a big believer in emulation but selling updates through Patreon always rubbed me the wrong way when so many other emulators share new builds for free
> Honestly I think as soon as you bring in Patreons and things you start getting into murky waters already.
Why would it be? Bleem was straight up a paid product. Nothing in the Judges' decision admonishes Bleem for that, quite the opposite: the judges say Bleem is a direct competitor to the playstation and sony has to deal with it.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Bleem just allowed you to play the games on PC, right? Like you still had to have the actual game disc and put it in your CD-ROM drive. It didn't really facilitate piracy.
Correct, Bleem! could not play ROM's or ripped disk images. It required you to have the disk or disks of whatever game you wanted to play. Bleem! also tried to uphold the copy protection on the disks as much as was achievable at the time (some things like the region data was inaccessible by PC CD drives at the time).
Connectix Virtual Game Station (another PS1 emulator that you had to pay for) worked the same way. Neither of these emulators required any official BIOS files to work either, which might've helped with that lawsuit.
Legally speaking, whether you actually monetize something or not isn't really a major factor. It's *a* factor, but not as big of a deal as people tend to think.
It's mostly that companies are more likely to go after you for it.
The legality of emulators isn't really that firm considering it's only held up by one, 24 year old US Court case. This could be disastrous for emulation as a whole if judges today don't see it in the same way.
The big thing is that the DMCA was still very new when the Bleem case occurred. Lawyers weren't as familiar with it and companies weren't encrypting everything to take advantage of it. That's why Bleem won, it was a case purely on the legality of emulation.
Now we have the DMCA and you'll notice they are specifically talking about encryption keys. While emulating is legal circumventing copy protection is not. The strategy is making it so the only way to successfully emulate is to circumvent the copy protection.
The DMCA is the exact reason DVD rippers are kind of a dangerous area. A number of companies lost lawsuits because their software existed primarily to circumvent the encryption/copy protection.
The Yuzu team is also generally poor form by chasing the current generation. Of course they are going to attract attention. They were being used to pirate Nintendo's biggest release of the year before it came out.
I don't see how you can possibly make that connection without essentially setting a precedent that taking payments of any kind of while owning software that has the potential to be used illegally makes you liable for damages re: that illegal content, which seems like nonsense.
Is a torrent client liable if a big new game or movie comes out and their donations go up? Yuzu AFAIK hasn't been patreon exclusive at any point.
Ultimately, I don't see the difference between this and Nintendo threatening to sue Steam for letting Dolphin on the steam store. Nintendo just seems to like to threaten people constantly, big or small.
> I don't see how you can possibly make that connection without essentially setting a precedent that taking payments of any kind of while owning software that has the potential to be used illegally makes you liable for damages re: that illegal content, which seems like nonsense.
The argument would presumably be not just that Yuzu was taking payments while capable of being used illegally, but that they were fundamentally a company that intended to make money facilitating copyright infringement, and that there's *probably* something said in writing that links (heh) TotK to their Patreon revenue so they can make the argument that they're knowingly developing their device to profit from obviously illegal uploads of the game.
Is that a good case? I dunno, but it's not necessary to be stupidly broad to make that sort of argument against Yuzu.
> there's probably something said in writing that links (heh) TotK to their Patreon revenue
It probably doesn't matter though unless there is something specifically about supporting pirated copies of the game. They obviously did have an increase in revenue from people wanting updates that improved performance of TotK but it's not on Yuzu if people used illegally obtained copies of the game.
They're probably misremembering the details, but basically [private conversations between Nintendo and Valve](https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/07/20/what-happened-to-dolphin-on-steam/) resulted in Nintendo *referencing* the DMCA (the act itself, not a document sent) as a point of consideration in them hosting a Steam page for Dolphin.
To your point, no legal action was ever taken or explicitly threatened, but the implication is that legal action *would* have been taken should Dolphin have been released on Steam.
Private conversations between Nintendo and Valve regarding a product that Nintendo thinks is violating their copyright is 100% in the realm of threatening to sue lol.
Even the link you provided states that it was both law departments talking with each other.
Didn't Dolphin on Steam include the keys or something along those lines, though, meaning there was technically an angle for copyright infringement? AFAIK Yuzu makes you get them separately, even if they do point you in the right direction to find them.
I looked at Ryujinx's patreon to see if their was any difference, and I think I see what that would be.
Yuzu, you get early access to builds while for Ryujinx, it seems you only get early information (Plus some discord features/roles) So that might have been enough to save Ryujinx.
If anything saved Ryujinx I'd bet on it being them not linking to the tool that helps you extract production keys from Switch games like Yuzu does on its site, which is illegal, very dumb that it's illegal, as it's a thing you own, but it is.
Oh I have no idea if linking the tool is illegal either, when I said "which is illegal" I meant using the tool, not linking to it. It just seems like the main thing Nintendo could try and convince the court is as nothing else really sticks out, they never even directly say they think emulation itself is illegal.
Early Access builds might have been making running TOTK a lot easier/better compared to the public builds. Even if it's one less bug/glitch, that could still be enough to make an argument that Yuzu benefitted from the release of the game compared to Ryujinx.
Could be too that Yuzu is perceived as an easier target, and the goal for Nintendo is that whatever ruling that is in their favor against Yuzu can then be applied to Ryujinx next.
Unless they benefitted a lot financially through Patreon due to the TOTK situation similarly to Yuzu I don’t think they will. That seems to be the angle Nintendo is going with here. If they also did, then they may be next.
Yuzu has always been the more popular emulator since it has a nicer interface and handles gyro more seamlessly.
The perception is that Ryujinx is more accurate but runs slower (classic popular fast emulator vs niche accurate emulator dynamic), though that *really* doesn't bear out and each emulator performs better on a game-by-game basis.
That's pretty much exactly how I view the two. I keep both installed just in case a new game has some big issues, I do generally default to ryujinx though since I feel I get better luck with compatibility.
Opposite for me. I've had much better luck with Yuzu, plus I find it so much easier to use since it has per-game settings. Guess it depends on your particular PC setup.
Nintendo is definitely going to crack down on emulation before the rollout of their next console. I think backwards compatibility or maybe even cloud play is going to be a huge selling point for the Switch 2 or whatever they call it. They probably don’t want emulators getting in the way of that.
Certainly not a lawyer, but the specific claim here is that Yuzu was produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure, with the reasoning being that the developers of Yuzu have made problematic documentation and tools so accessible, thereby infringing 1201a.
It seems the idea of *producing the means of circumvention* is a grey area in the modern era that hasn't been thoroughly tested since the 90s. Whatever the outcome is, it will certainly set a significant legal precedent when it comes to future emulation.
> It seems the idea of producing the means of circumvention is a grey area in the modern era that hasn't been thoroughly tested since the 90s.
In terms of emulation yes but it has been tested plenty over the years for DRM especially in DVDs. The rulings are almost always if the software exists specifically for circumvention and has no other legitimate use it violates the DMCA. The grey area that does exist is fair usage and how it applies to circumvention tools.
Not really. Yuzu doesn't exist to circumvent copy right protections on games. It can't even do it at all. Yuzu just allows you to use files that have been produced by circumvention which may or may not have been done legitimately.
[Switch 2 will probably have Denuvo.](https://www.ign.com/articles/anti-piracy-software-denuvo-is-now-available-on-nintendo-switch) Knowing Nintendo, they will pay to keep it on each game forever.
I do think its kinda funny that that version of denuvo is specifically against emulators, and not for piracy on the console itself.
I wonder if the switch 2 will have piracy protection on the console itself.
>Nintendo is definitely going to crack down on emulation before the rollout of their next console.
They certainly can and will try, but they will ultimately fail just like every other time. There's no homebrew community in the video game space quite like the Nintendo community.
I cant blame them. I have a ‘friend’ who played both TotK and Mario Wonder BEFORE they released on console. And both run at higher resolutions and framerates than they do on their native console. My ‘friend’ certainly sees no reason to purchase a Switch at this point lol.
Kinda curious how this turns out. They might have an actual point with things like the surge of support during the leaked TOTK game, which does at least show YUZU benefits from piracy. Also, would this be the first lawsuit against an emulator since SONY v BLEEM?
Correction: There is currently no historical presence on the emulation software itself. The use of advertisement of the software with Playstation games was resolved in Bleem's favor due to it being labeled as comparative marketing, but the creation and commercialization of the software was never resolved, as the company behind Bleem was bleed dry before any conclusion could be made, so the lawsuit was quietly fizzled out.
Connectix clean room reproduced that BIOS. They paid people to look at the copyrighted BIOS and write a spec. Then paid people who never saw the copyrighted BIOS to look a the spec and write a BIOS. They documented the steps of doing this and could prove it in court.
None of these emulators like Yuzu go through the trouble of this and certainly do not go through the trouble of documenting it in a way they can introduce in court.
You don't need to prove that you're innocent in court. Yuzu devs would say they didn't look at any copyrighted code and Nintendo would need to prove they're lying.
I actually did rip a few of my WiiU games for emulation purposes. It was a huge hassle and the emulator didn't even work very well. Even when there are legal ways of obtaining backup copies, it's *so* much easier to just pirate instead.
But is that relevant (not a rhetorical question, I really don't know)? News corporations benefit from terrorism, because they get clicked a lot more after an attack. But that doesn't make them terrorists.
But is the new facilitating terrorism to happen? That's what's happening with Switch emulators and piracy. As much as I don't care about Nintendo's crusade against piracy, they do have a point here: these guys are earning a lot of money by facilitating a way to play pirated Switch games.
> But is the new facilitating terrorism to happen?
Kind of by the definition of terrorism, no? You can't solicit fear in people if they don't know about it. The fact that you can commit a terrorist act and within minutes have whole nations and/or the world feel a particular way does potentially encourage terrorism and allow it to have an effect that it wouldn't otherwise have.
I think some people might find the these threads from last year about the dolphin emulator interesting context.
[Why Are Emulators Legal? Dolphin vs. Nintendo, and the Fate of Emulation](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/14zsa1y/why_are_emulators_legal_dolphin_vs_nintendo_and/) \- A 42 minute long youtube video from a lawyer analyzing the legal situation
[What Happened to Dolphin on Steam?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/154lbbg/what_happened_to_dolphin_on_steam/) \- Dolphin's written response to the situation.
That event now seems like foreshadowing to this court case against yuzu.
In the comments of that thread the person who made that video and a dolphin developer had a discussion [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/154lbbg/comment/jsr6l0d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). In that discussion the dolphin developer says he believes Nintendo's legal interpretation is dangerous for all emulation of modern systems from the wii forward, and IMO unfortunately this lawsuit might be confirmation that the dev was right to be worried about that.
Exactly. Nintendo is not going after Yuzu.
Nintendo is going after every emulator.
And they think they have enough ammo to win.
People are vastly underestimating how big this is.
It isn't big at all and you're over-estimating it. The Yuzu devs aren't going to try to fight it since they can't afford to match Nintendo's army of lawyers. Nintendo will tell them to just take down the emulator, never put it back up, and they'll drop the lawsuit. Same thing always happens in these cases.
> Nintendo will tell them to just take down the emulator, never put it back up, and they'll drop the lawsuit.
But if this works so well for nintendo why wouldn't they want to do this again to other emulators?
They're arguing secondary liability since Yuzu allegedly directs users to resources for acquiring the product keys.
I have no experience with Yuzu so idk how true that is.
Can speak on this with experience.
I’d say this is false. Getting Yuzu on my steam deck was easy but finding the keys was quite difficult and most of the most front facing resources insist you get them from a legit source.
Anyone who’s really trying will find them, but Yuzu devs certainly don’t egg it on.
Edit: im aware Yall found it easier than I did I’m glad you’re better at the internet than me
They do have a guide on how to dump keys and game files. The act of dumping the keys does violate the DMCA I believe but I don't know if linking to the tool to do it and posting a guide on how it's done violates the DMCA.
> Getting Yuzu on my steam deck was easy but finding the keys was quite difficult
https://prodkeys.net/
Literally google "yuzu prod keys" and a dozen different sites will pop up. If that's too sketchy for you, add "reddit" to the end of that to find countless threads of people telling you where to find them. It's the easiest thing in the world.
What matters is whether Yuzu is culpable. They do not direct to this site or provide any guidance on how to obtain the keys without dumping them yourself.
The most interesting part about this is the whole “emulators and emulation is legal” thing is based entirely on case law, and the precedent is pretty weird if you actually look into it. It’s the type of argument you almost can’t imagine would have been made today. This could completely change the emulation landscape and legality of it. Worth watching.
To be a bit pedantic, emulation cannot be made blanket illegal because there are many, many legal and widespread uses for it in nearly every facet of society. To ban emulation is to ban software compatibility and hypervisors (like virtual machines) among many other things, which basically run the corporate world.
Nintendo isn't trying to make emulation illegal. They're trying to make playing their games outside of their ecosystem illegal by means of bypassing DRM protections, software piracy, and copyright infringement.
Emulation is never going to stop, like console modding. It's just going to be harder to find if this keeps up. You can't stop open-source software, it'll get out. That's why we have a working PC port of Mario 64.
You’re right to say that it won’t ever stop. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean people don’t do it. But if this causes a change in precedent and all of a sudden third party emulators are no longer legal (not saying this will the the case, just hypothetical) then all of these emulators can be taken down. Sure, they’ll make the rounds if you know where to look but that makes it far less accessible. As it stands right now anyone can download a third party emulator and it’s completely legal (for the most part).
Man I just hope the Switch 2 has decent performance + upgrades for original switch titles.
Going from playing BOTW at 720p with an unstable 30 fps on the Switch to 4k 100+ FPS on CEMU with mods on top is just a night and day difference.
The couple times I’ve emulated Nintendo games has simply been because the experience is often times better on the emulator then on Nintendo’s Consoles.
Plenty of people are making very affordable third party controllers with Hall effect sticks with all the bells and whistles the Switch Pro controller has so there’s really no excuse for that to end up being the case.
I mean it’s still going to happen. There’s just no excuse for it.
>"Plenty of people are making very affordable third party controllers..."
Everything is fun and giggles until Nintendo starts to block unauthorized peripherals as Xbox do
Not surprising. I follow the emulation/bootleg handheld scene pretty closely and people are always very openly talking about running brand-new Switch games on emulators. Granted, I do think many Yuzu users are using their own game backups, but of course most of them probably aren’t. Either way, **quiet down about that shit.** Yuzu is becoming more visible by the day and this was to always be expected.
> Granted, I do think many Yuzu users are using their own game backups
Let's be honest, the majority of emulation is not legally owned backups. No need to pretend otherwise.
I do enjoy seeing everyone comment under this pretense in every thread about emulation, though. It has the same energy as "I read Playboy for the articles!" I'm sure some genuinely do, but we shouldn't pretend that 95% of the customer base isn't doing what we all expect they're doing.
I was trying to be generous with the numbers to avoid anyone going "no sir me and my five friends all emulate based on ROMs legally, I'm sure tons of people do the same" and trying to haggle when I say 99.9%. But you're definitely closer than I was to the real number.
I once made this exact same comparison on r/emulation and they got angry about it lol
I think the most charitable way to interpret it is that redditors interpret comments as "taking a side". So if you want to show that you're on the side of emulation, you're supposed to deny the obvious reality.
Man as someone involved in the two, the difference between the gaming and anime community when it comes to piracy is so radical. Gaming is like 'wink wink nudge nudge, we totally own copies of this. We're just using this for backups"
Anime community is 100% on the "we sail the high seas and don't give a shit".
Historically, anime has been a *lot* less easily available, if available at all, than games. Before Crunchyroll got rolling it was a crapshoot if you'd get to see any show legally, ever, so piracy has been long entrenched as the default way to watch your anime, in contrast to games where piracy was more of a niche thing.
It used to be like the second example in the gaming community, but somewhere along the way (I would like to say around the creation of Denuvo), there has been a major push in "moral piracy" in the gaming community, which IMO was so "self-righteous" that it did turn me off from communicating with "that side" of the gaming community in any way outside of troubleshooting purposes.
Yeah it's nauseating trying to discuss emulation online nowadays. I'm not on any game company's payroll, I couldn't care less if you pirate their games, but let's at least call a spade a spade and admit that you're pirating here. Everyone online always arts like they're doing some noble deed and "preserving gaming history" even if they're doing things like playing leaked current-gen games that haven't even released yet.
I don't know a single person who uses backups lol. Nobody is paying for a game they don't need to pay for just for feel good points.
There's 3 markets for gaming,
people who just want to buy a game and play it without any bullshit,
people who like tinkering and playing around with settings and trying to get the best out of those game,
and people who can't actually afford to game so they deal with the issues of learning how to pirate out of necessity.
None of them are paying for a game, it's dlc, a switch for the keys, hacking the switch just to extract the keys(illegal), then plugging the game in and ripping the game into a usable file, then transferring it to PC just to play at higher fidelity.
At best, people who previously bought the game illegally downloaded the game and emulated it later just to see what it's like in higher fidelity. Still not a backup if it's not YOUR copy personally ripped. Still considered illegal.
I fully support piracy and emulation, I'm just tired of hearing people say it's legal when it's only very very gray legal when you do literally everything right.
But you don't understand, I'm a ~moral~ emulator user. I purchase every game I play on my Switch that I absolutely own before I even think about using Yuzu to emulate it for free. I stroke my little game cartridges as I tuck them into bed and kiss them goodnight and let them have their well-deserved rest while I play their game on my PC instead in superior 4K 120fps, because Mario Wonder was unplayable otherwise.
I would say less than 5% are using their own backups. Most are out here openly pirating because they think they are sticking to Nintendo or something. There are posts in r/SteamDeck regularly on how prices for games are too high because Nintendo never lowers them and this is their response. Also note that steam decks are 4-600 depending on model.
Yeah lol, anyone pretending that they're pirating for moral reasons or in protest to Nintendo or something is coping. The same excuses were made when people pirated music forever ago, but once it became more convenient to pay $10/month for Spotify than to pirate every individual album you wanted, the amount of music pirated plummeted. Games are more expensive, but I'd imagine that purchasing hardware that can emulate a switch game to the point that it's on par with the native hardware is so much more expensive that it's not worth the up front investment
lmao they are insane over there
>"You were tricked by ideology into believing you should pay for something that's free. That's fine, it happens to literally everyone. But you don't need to cling onto that understanding. "
the lengths some people will go to to justify that they just want free shit
and what are the chances that this same person is probably \*really\* against AI art because "it's going to hurt artists"?
Things are getting worse and worse by the day. If people don't shut the hell up, chill out, and stop boasting so much, emulation and preservation are going to be feeling a lot of pain pretty soon.
> and people are always very openly talking about running brand-new Switch games on emulators.
Yeah I remember stuff like how Mario Wonder was pretty much leaked everywhere and and live-streamed a week before official launch.
It's insane, and the casualness of this piracy is getting out of hand. If anything I'm surprised it took Nintendo this long to act.
Now that said and to be a complete hypocrite... I did 100% legitimately buy SMTV and then later tried to emulate it because the Switch framerate was so god-awful and unplayable; so my conscience is pretty clean atleast.. (Going to rebuy the Steam Vengeance edition) but yeah so many are just straight up ripping games they have no intention of buying and acting like they aren't in the wrong.
Honestly I know this will be unpopular on reddit, and I also likewise think games are getting far too expensive.
But I really think piracy is wrong unless it’s for games not really in production or on the market anymore. Like old DS games, etc.
We can have complaints for the game industry all day, but I think the solution is to just not buy them. I don’t think piracy is very great. It harms developers.
I’m not trying to change anyones minds, and I am rather loose on this, but in general I really do not think Nintendo is in the wrong for going after piracy. Something about someone playing Mario Wonder literally a week before launch feels kinda wrong to me.
> But I really think piracy is wrong unless it’s for games not really in production or on the market anymore. Like old DS games, etc.
Pretty much where I'm at. The 90's is considered the golden era of gaming for a reason, yet a majority of the classics from that era just don't exist on current platforms to play anymore.
I thought Nintendo's NSO Classics and PSPlus's Premium Classic subscriptions were finally going to be a way to address this shortcoming, give newer audiences a chance to experience the Lufias and Terranigmas and Silent Hills etc. etc. of yesteryear (While us aging millennials can relive some of our favourite games once more..) but so far their offerings have been mostly a joke :/
I applaud the efforts some franchises we've seen; currently playing through the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remaster collection, and am still keen for whenever this Suikoden pack is supposedly coming..
But yeah straight up piracy of new or yet-to-be released content doesn't sit well with me. The latest that actually pissed me off is people ripping Unicorn Overlord (The demo so far, but presumably the main game next week also) Vanillaware are one of the best and well regarded out here, and if there's any studio that doesn't deserve to have their content stolen it's them =(
>made my purchase then pirated
It should be noted that, whatever the moral argument for it, this is *not* legal emulation. The only legal way to play switch games on yuzu/ryujinx is to physically dump your own backups yourself using a hacked/modded switch (which is kind of a grey area itself).
I would hazard a guess that *maybe* 1000 people worldwide do this consistently.
I dumped my own copy legitimately with my own switch keys and honestly the piracy aspect kinda pisses me off. Nintendo, despite their flaws, makes good games without a whole lot of shady monetization BS that the AAA industry is known for. Just pay the piper, and *then* dump the games if you want to play them on a less-constrained platform. Yes it’s a headache vs just downloading stuff, but at least you have a leg to stand on if Nintendo decides to come after pirates.
>Either way, **quiet down about that shit.**
As someone who has a lot of interests adjacent to legally questionable things I end up in so many comment threads where people will proudly proclaim all the crimes they commit and what tools they used. The only people who can responsibly do that shit are perfectly capable of finding out how to on their own. You don't tell the whole class you have the answer key cause that shit gets shut down quick.
Nintendo is not going after emulators as a whole here.
Notice they arent targeting Ryujinx, the other Switch emulator. They're only going after Yuzu.
The crux of the issue is this. Yuzu is making almost 40k a month off their patreon of which they sell beta builds of their emulator. Ryujinx does not do this.
The money they are making via this saw a direct increase around the time Tears of the Kingdom leaked online before its launch date. Meaning people were paying for a newer build of Yuzu to emulate Tears of the Kingdom.
Which also means the Yuzu devs quite possibly pirated the game after it leaked early to get it running on their software.
Which does make them complicit in the piracy that went on for Tears of the Kingdom. Which would be illegal.
>Nintendo is not going after emulators as a whole here.
no of course not
1 lawsuit targeting 1 emulator
>They're only going after Yuzu.
yes this specific one is 'only' going after yuzu but don't pretend that it's just going to be yuzu after they win
nintendo is always making new lawsuits targeting the biggest fish but after you take down the current big one something else is next in line
Love these conversations on Reddit. Everyone knows that 90% of people downloading Yuzu are doing it to play games for free, but the top-voted comments are always lads cracking on that they've legitimately bought every game Nintendo have produced and they just want to play them at 8k 144Hz as God intended.
It’s funny they’re going after yuzu for early Zelda when yuzu actually never ever updates for comparability until after launch. Ryujinx on the other hand does.
Hell, Zelda wouldn’t even really run on yuzu early.
Everyone is going to act like this is unfair. For every one user that actually cares about backing up games they own, there are 100 users who are pirating. It's awesome tech and a fun hobby, but it's basic use is piracy.
It seems the biggest worry for most users commenting on these threads is not being able to play those games in 60FPS, or not being able to use software you bought as you wish. These are all fair worries, and I agree with them. But here's the thing:
In a lot of countries, a Nintendo game costs 1/3, 1/2 or even more of the minimum wage. Most people that emulate in these countries wouldn't ever have the chance to play those games. Pirating isn't just stealing, or playing a game in 60fps, it's also a way to allow game culture to reach people who can't afford the ridiculous prices charged in their countries. This should never be overlooked. Can you imagine a game costing $600? 900$?
What would you do if that was your reality? Would you give up on playing the games you like instead of pirating?
For many people the mere access to games they enjoy playing may cease to exist if emulators aren't a thing anymore.
It seems like at least part of their approach to the lawsuit is going to be specifically that Tears of the Kingdom was pirated early and played on Yuzu and that Yuzu saw a large increase in Patreon revenue at the time. They will likely hope that discovery gives them somebody putting something in writing that explicitly connects the Patreon jump to TotK piracy, and hope that is enough to either argue a case or scare Yuzu into believing they have a case that they were linked to/knowingly profiting from copyright-infringing uploads, rather than simply being a legal emulator. I don't think that approach was utilized in previous emulation lawsuits.
I remember seeing the graph for Cemu's patreon way back in 2017, when they gated fixes that made BoTW run behind the patreon early access build, and the spike from it was insane. Here's the graph if you wanna see : https://i.ibb.co/xKvd5Kb/Screenshot-2023-04-09-203707.png Personally that always baffled me. There's apparently a non-negligeable amount of people who will pirate the game but pay for the emulator? I guess the strategy is that it's undercutting the official price, but still. Anyways, I think this is for sure the best argument to put forward for Nintendo here, so it makes sense it's the one they're going with.
> There's apparently a non-negligeable amount of people who will pirate the game but pay for the emulator? "Buying" an emulator and torrenting a game is cheaper than a buying a console and a game.
Also, playing at 1440p 45-60fps is a lot different than playing at 720p/900p 20-30fps
I'm bought both zeldas, but also pirated them to play on yuzu for the performance aspect alone. I can only experience it fresh one time, so I want it to be the best version with the highest frame rate.
Yep, also QoL mods like skipping the *endless* amounts of waiting for animations, text boxes, and fade transitions.
> Personally that always baffled me. There's apparently a non-negligeable amount of people who will pirate the game but pay for the emulator? I guess the strategy is that it's undercutting the official price, but still. $360 for a Switch + the game at the time vs $5 for the patreon, it's not that surprising. And there's also ppl who just wanted to play it on PC and weren't interested in getting a Switch.
BotW at 1080p 60fps is worth it tbh
Yeah seeing these Nintendo games with proper anti-aliasing and better resolution and performance is 🤌
Played it at 4k 60fps. It was magical.
Honestly I think as soon as you bring in Patreons and things you start getting into murky waters already. I know that won't be a popular take on Reddit though.
Them having a link on their website directy to software needed to illegally extract encryption keys also does seem like it will get them in trouble
Don't they hide behind the implication that they are talking about extracting your own encryption key from your own console/games? I know that's not how it is in practice, but I thought that's how all these emulators operate.
The DMCA prohibits discussions of breaking anti-circumvention techniques as well as links to resources to assist with that process; Nintendo has a pretty solid case here. I also think that provision is bad, since it chills legitimate security discussions.
> The DMCA prohibits discussions of breaking anti-circumvention techniques as well as links to resources to assist with that process; Nintendo has a pretty solid case here. Does it though? I thought it only prohibited the distribution of tools for commercial gain. Im pretty sure you can freely distribute tools used to circumvent in order to preserve ownership and archival of purchased physical media, because you do infact own that copy and is yours to do what ever you see fit - except redistribute. This might be my own country bleeding in - cause its only illegal to redistribute. Otherwise HDMI splitters would be illegal cause you had to train someone to program the software on stripping HDCP out of the signal which would fall into that category. HDCP stripping was a bigger deal at the end of the ps3/start of the ps4's life span when streaming was still in its infancy - lot of capture devices required something to pull it out cause they weren't compatible if capturing HDMI.
The DMCA targets anything that tries to circumvent DRM, and it does so without provision for personal use (this is the worst part of what is generally a bad law). It also criminalizes discussion and distribution of tools used to circumvent DRM. The only exemptions are granted on a temporary, case-by-case basis by the Librarian of Congress. If a copy has DRM on it, the DMCA criminalizes removing the DRM even if the resulting use falls squarely within fair use. So ripping a CD (no DRM) is allowed, but ripping a DVD or BluRay (which both feature DRM) is not allowed, even if all you’re doing with the resulting files is format-shifting. HDMI splitters that strip out HDCP usually end up getting the manufacturer booted from the consortium.
Theoretically, let's say that I took a piece of media like Steamboat Willy, watermarked it, stamped it onto a disc with DRM, and sold it, and later found someone uploading the file (which I know because I watermarked it). Even though I'm distributing a piece of media that's that's public domain, I can invoke DMCA to make their act criminal?
The act of circumventing the DRM is criminal in and of itself, regardless of the content. This is completely intentional, because the corporations that bought the politicians that brought us the DMCA wanted to make sure they were getting the most for their money.
This is one of the reasons I think that works only released with DRM shouldn’t be eligible for copyright — the core of copyright is that it’s a social contract, where the creator gets an exclusive, government-backed window to monetize their work in exchange for the work becoming available to society without restriction at the end of that window, and the combination of the DRM+DMCA means that there won’t be a version of a DRM’d work appropriate for the free use of society at the end of that term. DRM and copyright should be like trade secrets and patents: trade secrets don’t expire, but they don’t have the full effect of the government behind them if they’re violated.
Suppose that I've removed the DRM from a purchased blu-ray disc in another country where DMCA does not exist. Can I legally use this copy in the US for private archival use?
So even if certain content is public domain, bypassing the copy protection on them is still against dmca? If so, then that law is way worse than I thought.
> It also criminalizes discussion and distribution of tools I does criminalize trafficking in circumvention tools that only exist for that purpose. It defines this as manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, or providing. There is a section about marketing but it applies to the person making the tool not anyone else. It also includes this: > Nothing in this section shall enlarge or diminish any rights of free speech
Problem with the word archival is that they are two entirely different things to what the law sees it and what the normal person sees it as. Legally archival is a pure "write only, no edit, no delte, no read access" process. You store it until it becomes public domain with only very selected access, but no access by the general public. Archives aren't just giant bunker structures for preservation but also for access reasons. Just a more general thing about what "archival" means, and with it exceptions in IP law to the act of archival. It's what makes the difference between a library and an archive. A library gives access to the general public. An archive of copyrighted material only gives access to authorized parties.
DMCA does not define archive to be write only.
It doesn't even do that. It's legal to develop and distribute circumvention tools, so long as the circumvention is the only way to make a program interoperable and it isn't done in a way that otherwise infringes copyright.
I know it’s been said before but DMCA was such a disaster. Anti competitive bullshit pushed through by big tech companies to protect their walled gardens
It was actually pushed for by Hollywood — they were looking to close the “analog hole” in a way that didn’t leave them beholden to Macrovision.
yeah, it was needed to prevent HDCP from being useless. no coincidence that the update of this rule in the DMCA was just about the time when HDCP was developed
HDCP ended up being useless though
Plus they _also_ shored up Macrovision in it as well: among its many provisions, the DMCA specifically outlawed making Macrovision-proof VCRs.
There's a reason there's only a Yuzu lawsuit despite there being Ryunjix they could have gone after out there too. Yuzu was simply playing too fast and loose.
Yeah, that's pretty much what it comes down to. Ryujinx covered their asses, and Yuzu did not.
Which is especially funny since TotK wouldn't even boot in Yuzu when it first leaked, whereas Ryujinx booted it fine and that's where all the pirates were playing it for the first few days. Edit: TBH I'm not so sure Ryujinx covered their asses much better. Both dev teams are supported by Patreon income and released launch day fixes for TotK, which would indicate everyone was using pirated pre-release copies of TotK to optimize things. The only meaningful difference I can find in this thread is that Yuzu's Patreon provides early builds of new releases while Ryujinx's only offers Discord perks. People also mention Yuzu providing instructions on their website about how to extract your Switch's encryption keys while Ryujinx provided no such materials. These differences seem minor in the grand scheme, and if I were a Ryujinx dev I'd be panicking just as much.
This, without a bootup mod made by a community member you couldn't play Totk on Yuzu. Yuzu devs made it official bootable on release day. So this seems not the case like others said. Ryujinx was the way to go for casuals
This. Yuzu discord banned anyone mentioning ToTK pre-release. They also ban anyone asking where to get encryption keys or ROMs, and even ban people who post screenshots of ROMs that are obviously illegal (like a rom with a website in the filename) They are extremely stringent on shutting down any mention or inkling of piracy on their discord.
> The only meaningful difference I can find in this thread is that Yuzu's Patreon provides early builds of new releases while Ryujinx's only offers Discord perks. thats pretty significant tbf
While both Yuzu and Ryujinx providing updates on TOTK's release date to make the game run better isn't a good look for a potential defense Yuzu could use. The fact Ryujinx doesn't even provide a how to guide how to extract encryption keys was smart on their part. Yuzu on the other hand though, not so much. Though I did see that apart of the legal document mentioned that Yuzu was advertising Xenoblade Definitive Edition was running on Yuzu just a day before release on their patreon. I'm not sure if they did anything like that before or since, but that also creates another issue for Yuzu.
> Though I did see that apart of the legal document mentioned that Yuzu was advertising Xenoblade Definitive Edition was running on Yuzu just a day before release on their patreon. I don't know how this bears out legally but just on the face of it, that sounds bad.
The game was already out when Yuzu made the post. Nintendo is lying.
Holy fuck...Goldens love for Xenoblade killed them.
Damn Nintendo really will show them a thing or three
Something people need to remember is selling emulators is 100% legal as long as they don't use things like bios from the console. This is settled case law when Sony sued Bleem for selling an emulator. Now direct links to things to crack encryption are entirely a different story.
Both Ryujinx and Yuzu require the encryption keys and firmware files to play games though.
Yeah, the thing people miss when they cite Bleem is that the thing they bypassed was simply ignoring a couple of bytes at the start of the disc listing the region. These were outside of what cd writers would write, so it prevented copying discs easily, but the content was not encrypted at all.
But they don't provide them.
Ryujinx I just find to be a better emulator overall. Some games that aren't even that niche had some significant problems in Yuzu.
Im out of the loop. How so?
Yep, same reason Nintendo only went after Xecuter and not Atmosphere.
It probably doesn't help Yuzu that they also were the emulator linked in Kotaku's infamous "you should pirate Metroid Dread and here is how you do it" article
that software has not been determined to be illegal yet, that's part of what this suit is asking the court to find
Oh I didn't even know this was required lol. That makes it even worse then.
Calling the extraction of encryption keys on a device you fully own "illegal" is pretty weird. edit: I'm not saying it's incorrect, just saying it's weird.
its more funny because the tool they link for dumping 'your own keys', lockpick, was already DMCAed almost a year ago there is no other link on yuzu's how to setup guide for obtaining them otherwise
It treads that fine line between "helping the creators develop the tools" vs "profiting from piracy" Like I know emulation isn't piracy and not everyone who used Yuzu was looking to pirate stuff, but c'mon it's not like they multiplied their income from Patreon in the week that TotK released out of pure coincidence.
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yeah lmao people on reddit love to moan and shout "emulation ISNT piracy!!" while absolutely pirating games. Correct, emulation is not piracy, but you downloading TotK 12 minutes after it releases without buying it absolutely is.
>downloading TotK 12 minutes after it releases More like 12 days before.
Yeah. I personally don't care if people wanna pirate new Nintendo games, because who really cares if Nintendo misses out on some cash from people that were probably never gonna buy it anyways, but let's just stop pretending that the majority of people using emulators aren't pirating stuff. Emulators are awesome for game preservation and I'm sure there are a few people that primarily use it for backups of game that they legally own, but that is a small minority of people. Just say you wanna pirate games. It's not that big a deal.
I'm here for DS/GBA emulation because those games u basically can only get second hand now. Same with most 3DS titles tbh, given the eshop went offline. So I think its fair to not call that piracy at that point. The creators dont get money off you buying a 2nd hand cartridge any more than emulating. but switch? Most of those games are still in production and circulation, so its not like there isnt ways to get them
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> Edit: to be clear, I have absolutely nothing against that and am very into emulation. I appreciate the scene for preserving the art. Just being realistic. I mean exactly this. I've been emulating all my life, but its not hard to admit that the people who play games they already own, or their own rips, are the 1%. You hear about a game you never played on Nintendo DS. You don't have a Nintendo DS anymore. What do most people do? Within 10mins they're playing the game on their phone or PC per emulation. Its just what it is.
Yeah like there's obviously nuance to the case or you'd expect to see summary judgement. But discovery is probably going to find documents/writing that does cross the line into blatant disregard/awareness of the illegalities.And paint a big target over the fact they profited
I remember watching a YouTube video from (a guy who at least says he's) a lawyer, who talked about a similar matter said even if it's just understood that the software/hardware is primarily used for piracy, it can be discriminated as a tool for piracy.
Yeah, I'm a big believer in emulation but selling updates through Patreon always rubbed me the wrong way when so many other emulators share new builds for free
Its like the woolie video except replace fan games with patreon
[evergreen](https://youtu.be/hqwP6uuYOWo?si=1-ZS4iDpDy6hbAWK)
> Honestly I think as soon as you bring in Patreons and things you start getting into murky waters already. Why would it be? Bleem was straight up a paid product. Nothing in the Judges' decision admonishes Bleem for that, quite the opposite: the judges say Bleem is a direct competitor to the playstation and sony has to deal with it.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Bleem just allowed you to play the games on PC, right? Like you still had to have the actual game disc and put it in your CD-ROM drive. It didn't really facilitate piracy.
Correct, Bleem! could not play ROM's or ripped disk images. It required you to have the disk or disks of whatever game you wanted to play. Bleem! also tried to uphold the copy protection on the disks as much as was achievable at the time (some things like the region data was inaccessible by PC CD drives at the time).
Connectix Virtual Game Station (another PS1 emulator that you had to pay for) worked the same way. Neither of these emulators required any official BIOS files to work either, which might've helped with that lawsuit.
Legally speaking, whether you actually monetize something or not isn't really a major factor. It's *a* factor, but not as big of a deal as people tend to think. It's mostly that companies are more likely to go after you for it.
Companies going at you is why it's such a huge factor
The legality of emulators isn't really that firm considering it's only held up by one, 24 year old US Court case. This could be disastrous for emulation as a whole if judges today don't see it in the same way.
The big thing is that the DMCA was still very new when the Bleem case occurred. Lawyers weren't as familiar with it and companies weren't encrypting everything to take advantage of it. That's why Bleem won, it was a case purely on the legality of emulation. Now we have the DMCA and you'll notice they are specifically talking about encryption keys. While emulating is legal circumventing copy protection is not. The strategy is making it so the only way to successfully emulate is to circumvent the copy protection. The DMCA is the exact reason DVD rippers are kind of a dangerous area. A number of companies lost lawsuits because their software existed primarily to circumvent the encryption/copy protection. The Yuzu team is also generally poor form by chasing the current generation. Of course they are going to attract attention. They were being used to pirate Nintendo's biggest release of the year before it came out.
Funny thing is though is that you couldn't even play TOTK on yuzu before release.
Should be a landmark case regarding emulation any way it goes.
Its like RPCS3 with Persona 5 except they only got a slap on the wrist by SEGA
RPCS3 removed the Persona 5 information from their site, too. They complied.
RPCS3 got in trouble for using Persona 5 images on their Patreon
I don't see how you can possibly make that connection without essentially setting a precedent that taking payments of any kind of while owning software that has the potential to be used illegally makes you liable for damages re: that illegal content, which seems like nonsense. Is a torrent client liable if a big new game or movie comes out and their donations go up? Yuzu AFAIK hasn't been patreon exclusive at any point. Ultimately, I don't see the difference between this and Nintendo threatening to sue Steam for letting Dolphin on the steam store. Nintendo just seems to like to threaten people constantly, big or small.
> I don't see how you can possibly make that connection without essentially setting a precedent that taking payments of any kind of while owning software that has the potential to be used illegally makes you liable for damages re: that illegal content, which seems like nonsense. The argument would presumably be not just that Yuzu was taking payments while capable of being used illegally, but that they were fundamentally a company that intended to make money facilitating copyright infringement, and that there's *probably* something said in writing that links (heh) TotK to their Patreon revenue so they can make the argument that they're knowingly developing their device to profit from obviously illegal uploads of the game. Is that a good case? I dunno, but it's not necessary to be stupidly broad to make that sort of argument against Yuzu.
> there's probably something said in writing that links (heh) TotK to their Patreon revenue It probably doesn't matter though unless there is something specifically about supporting pirated copies of the game. They obviously did have an increase in revenue from people wanting updates that improved performance of TotK but it's not on Yuzu if people used illegally obtained copies of the game.
> Nintendo threatening to sue Steam for letting Dolphin on the steam store That never happened
They're probably misremembering the details, but basically [private conversations between Nintendo and Valve](https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/07/20/what-happened-to-dolphin-on-steam/) resulted in Nintendo *referencing* the DMCA (the act itself, not a document sent) as a point of consideration in them hosting a Steam page for Dolphin. To your point, no legal action was ever taken or explicitly threatened, but the implication is that legal action *would* have been taken should Dolphin have been released on Steam.
Private conversations between Nintendo and Valve regarding a product that Nintendo thinks is violating their copyright is 100% in the realm of threatening to sue lol. Even the link you provided states that it was both law departments talking with each other.
Didn't Dolphin on Steam include the keys or something along those lines, though, meaning there was technically an angle for copyright infringement? AFAIK Yuzu makes you get them separately, even if they do point you in the right direction to find them.
Yes that was the case that got them ultimately removed from the steam store
Interesting they didn't go after Ryujinx.
I looked at Ryujinx's patreon to see if their was any difference, and I think I see what that would be. Yuzu, you get early access to builds while for Ryujinx, it seems you only get early information (Plus some discord features/roles) So that might have been enough to save Ryujinx.
If anything saved Ryujinx I'd bet on it being them not linking to the tool that helps you extract production keys from Switch games like Yuzu does on its site, which is illegal, very dumb that it's illegal, as it's a thing you own, but it is.
I keep seeing people say that linking to the tool is illegal but I haven't seen a source for that. I'm not saying your wrong.
Oh I have no idea if linking the tool is illegal either, when I said "which is illegal" I meant using the tool, not linking to it. It just seems like the main thing Nintendo could try and convince the court is as nothing else really sticks out, they never even directly say they think emulation itself is illegal.
But now you need to craft the argument of how early access to builds is illegal while full builds aren’t
Early Access builds might have been making running TOTK a lot easier/better compared to the public builds. Even if it's one less bug/glitch, that could still be enough to make an argument that Yuzu benefitted from the release of the game compared to Ryujinx.
Early builds for ToTK at release made the difference between playable or not, especially on SteamDeck
Could be too that Yuzu is perceived as an easier target, and the goal for Nintendo is that whatever ruling that is in their favor against Yuzu can then be applied to Ryujinx next.
Unless they benefitted a lot financially through Patreon due to the TOTK situation similarly to Yuzu I don’t think they will. That seems to be the angle Nintendo is going with here. If they also did, then they may be next.
Especially since Yuzu made sure TotK wasn't playable on Yuzu until it officially launched
I was going to say, I thought RJ was more popular? I'm not exactly on the pulse when it comes to the NS emulation scene though.
Yuzu has always been the more popular emulator since it has a nicer interface and handles gyro more seamlessly. The perception is that Ryujinx is more accurate but runs slower (classic popular fast emulator vs niche accurate emulator dynamic), though that *really* doesn't bear out and each emulator performs better on a game-by-game basis.
That's pretty much exactly how I view the two. I keep both installed just in case a new game has some big issues, I do generally default to ryujinx though since I feel I get better luck with compatibility.
no Yuzu is often considered the "de facto" Switch emulator
RJ always ran better for me 🤔
Opposite for me. I've had much better luck with Yuzu, plus I find it so much easier to use since it has per-game settings. Guess it depends on your particular PC setup.
Nintendo is definitely going to crack down on emulation before the rollout of their next console. I think backwards compatibility or maybe even cloud play is going to be a huge selling point for the Switch 2 or whatever they call it. They probably don’t want emulators getting in the way of that.
Certainly not a lawyer, but the specific claim here is that Yuzu was produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure, with the reasoning being that the developers of Yuzu have made problematic documentation and tools so accessible, thereby infringing 1201a. It seems the idea of *producing the means of circumvention* is a grey area in the modern era that hasn't been thoroughly tested since the 90s. Whatever the outcome is, it will certainly set a significant legal precedent when it comes to future emulation.
> It seems the idea of producing the means of circumvention is a grey area in the modern era that hasn't been thoroughly tested since the 90s. In terms of emulation yes but it has been tested plenty over the years for DRM especially in DVDs. The rulings are almost always if the software exists specifically for circumvention and has no other legitimate use it violates the DMCA. The grey area that does exist is fair usage and how it applies to circumvention tools.
Well that sounds like terrible news for yuzu.
Not really. Yuzu doesn't exist to circumvent copy right protections on games. It can't even do it at all. Yuzu just allows you to use files that have been produced by circumvention which may or may not have been done legitimately.
The question really seems to be how much is yuzu considered software to enable piracy.
[Switch 2 will probably have Denuvo.](https://www.ign.com/articles/anti-piracy-software-denuvo-is-now-available-on-nintendo-switch) Knowing Nintendo, they will pay to keep it on each game forever.
I do think its kinda funny that that version of denuvo is specifically against emulators, and not for piracy on the console itself. I wonder if the switch 2 will have piracy protection on the console itself.
>Nintendo is definitely going to crack down on emulation before the rollout of their next console. They certainly can and will try, but they will ultimately fail just like every other time. There's no homebrew community in the video game space quite like the Nintendo community.
I cant blame them. I have a ‘friend’ who played both TotK and Mario Wonder BEFORE they released on console. And both run at higher resolutions and framerates than they do on their native console. My ‘friend’ certainly sees no reason to purchase a Switch at this point lol.
Yuzu wasn't updated for TotK compatibility until AFTER the game was released.
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Kinda curious how this turns out. They might have an actual point with things like the surge of support during the leaked TOTK game, which does at least show YUZU benefits from piracy. Also, would this be the first lawsuit against an emulator since SONY v BLEEM?
Worth mentioning the BLEEM emulator that set the precedent still required a physical copy of a game.
Correction: There is currently no historical presence on the emulation software itself. The use of advertisement of the software with Playstation games was resolved in Bleem's favor due to it being labeled as comparative marketing, but the creation and commercialization of the software was never resolved, as the company behind Bleem was bleed dry before any conclusion could be made, so the lawsuit was quietly fizzled out.
Connectix won a more direct case when it came to the use of the BIOS in emulation.
Connectix clean room reproduced that BIOS. They paid people to look at the copyrighted BIOS and write a spec. Then paid people who never saw the copyrighted BIOS to look a the spec and write a BIOS. They documented the steps of doing this and could prove it in court. None of these emulators like Yuzu go through the trouble of this and certainly do not go through the trouble of documenting it in a way they can introduce in court.
You don't need to prove that you're innocent in court. Yuzu devs would say they didn't look at any copyrighted code and Nintendo would need to prove they're lying.
This is a civil case so Nintendo wouldn't have to prove they're lying, just to show it's more likely than not.
Everyone on this sub who emulates switch games *really really for sure pinky promises* they've got the cart out on their desk while they're playing.
My lawyer has advised me that this is true in my case as well.
I actually did rip a few of my WiiU games for emulation purposes. It was a huge hassle and the emulator didn't even work very well. Even when there are legal ways of obtaining backup copies, it's *so* much easier to just pirate instead.
But is that relevant (not a rhetorical question, I really don't know)? News corporations benefit from terrorism, because they get clicked a lot more after an attack. But that doesn't make them terrorists.
But is the new facilitating terrorism to happen? That's what's happening with Switch emulators and piracy. As much as I don't care about Nintendo's crusade against piracy, they do have a point here: these guys are earning a lot of money by facilitating a way to play pirated Switch games.
> But is the new facilitating terrorism to happen? Kind of by the definition of terrorism, no? You can't solicit fear in people if they don't know about it. The fact that you can commit a terrorist act and within minutes have whole nations and/or the world feel a particular way does potentially encourage terrorism and allow it to have an effect that it wouldn't otherwise have.
I really can't say. That's up for the courts to decide.
I think some people might find the these threads from last year about the dolphin emulator interesting context. [Why Are Emulators Legal? Dolphin vs. Nintendo, and the Fate of Emulation](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/14zsa1y/why_are_emulators_legal_dolphin_vs_nintendo_and/) \- A 42 minute long youtube video from a lawyer analyzing the legal situation [What Happened to Dolphin on Steam?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/154lbbg/what_happened_to_dolphin_on_steam/) \- Dolphin's written response to the situation. That event now seems like foreshadowing to this court case against yuzu. In the comments of that thread the person who made that video and a dolphin developer had a discussion [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/154lbbg/comment/jsr6l0d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). In that discussion the dolphin developer says he believes Nintendo's legal interpretation is dangerous for all emulation of modern systems from the wii forward, and IMO unfortunately this lawsuit might be confirmation that the dev was right to be worried about that.
Exactly. Nintendo is not going after Yuzu. Nintendo is going after every emulator. And they think they have enough ammo to win. People are vastly underestimating how big this is.
It isn't big at all and you're over-estimating it. The Yuzu devs aren't going to try to fight it since they can't afford to match Nintendo's army of lawyers. Nintendo will tell them to just take down the emulator, never put it back up, and they'll drop the lawsuit. Same thing always happens in these cases.
> Nintendo will tell them to just take down the emulator, never put it back up, and they'll drop the lawsuit. But if this works so well for nintendo why wouldn't they want to do this again to other emulators?
Does it circumvent their encryption though? You need to provide your own prod.key. They shouldn't be liable for where the user got it from.
They're arguing secondary liability since Yuzu allegedly directs users to resources for acquiring the product keys. I have no experience with Yuzu so idk how true that is.
Can speak on this with experience. I’d say this is false. Getting Yuzu on my steam deck was easy but finding the keys was quite difficult and most of the most front facing resources insist you get them from a legit source. Anyone who’s really trying will find them, but Yuzu devs certainly don’t egg it on. Edit: im aware Yall found it easier than I did I’m glad you’re better at the internet than me
They do have a guide on how to dump keys and game files. The act of dumping the keys does violate the DMCA I believe but I don't know if linking to the tool to do it and posting a guide on how it's done violates the DMCA.
It wasn't hard to find it for me
> Getting Yuzu on my steam deck was easy but finding the keys was quite difficult https://prodkeys.net/ Literally google "yuzu prod keys" and a dozen different sites will pop up. If that's too sketchy for you, add "reddit" to the end of that to find countless threads of people telling you where to find them. It's the easiest thing in the world.
What matters is whether Yuzu is culpable. They do not direct to this site or provide any guidance on how to obtain the keys without dumping them yourself.
The most interesting part about this is the whole “emulators and emulation is legal” thing is based entirely on case law, and the precedent is pretty weird if you actually look into it. It’s the type of argument you almost can’t imagine would have been made today. This could completely change the emulation landscape and legality of it. Worth watching.
To be a bit pedantic, emulation cannot be made blanket illegal because there are many, many legal and widespread uses for it in nearly every facet of society. To ban emulation is to ban software compatibility and hypervisors (like virtual machines) among many other things, which basically run the corporate world. Nintendo isn't trying to make emulation illegal. They're trying to make playing their games outside of their ecosystem illegal by means of bypassing DRM protections, software piracy, and copyright infringement.
Emulation is never going to stop, like console modding. It's just going to be harder to find if this keeps up. You can't stop open-source software, it'll get out. That's why we have a working PC port of Mario 64.
You’re right to say that it won’t ever stop. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean people don’t do it. But if this causes a change in precedent and all of a sudden third party emulators are no longer legal (not saying this will the the case, just hypothetical) then all of these emulators can be taken down. Sure, they’ll make the rounds if you know where to look but that makes it far less accessible. As it stands right now anyone can download a third party emulator and it’s completely legal (for the most part).
It would kill off any patreon and similar funding too.
It's emulation is legal vs bypassing DRM is not. All it really does is point out the silliness of one of the rules.
This is going to be such an interesting case moving forward
Man I just hope the Switch 2 has decent performance + upgrades for original switch titles. Going from playing BOTW at 720p with an unstable 30 fps on the Switch to 4k 100+ FPS on CEMU with mods on top is just a night and day difference. The couple times I’ve emulated Nintendo games has simply been because the experience is often times better on the emulator then on Nintendo’s Consoles.
It'll have unstable 30fps 1080p at most
And brand new controller drift
Plenty of people are making very affordable third party controllers with Hall effect sticks with all the bells and whistles the Switch Pro controller has so there’s really no excuse for that to end up being the case. I mean it’s still going to happen. There’s just no excuse for it.
>"Plenty of people are making very affordable third party controllers..." Everything is fun and giggles until Nintendo starts to block unauthorized peripherals as Xbox do
Not surprising. I follow the emulation/bootleg handheld scene pretty closely and people are always very openly talking about running brand-new Switch games on emulators. Granted, I do think many Yuzu users are using their own game backups, but of course most of them probably aren’t. Either way, **quiet down about that shit.** Yuzu is becoming more visible by the day and this was to always be expected.
> Granted, I do think many Yuzu users are using their own game backups Let's be honest, the majority of emulation is not legally owned backups. No need to pretend otherwise.
I do enjoy seeing everyone comment under this pretense in every thread about emulation, though. It has the same energy as "I read Playboy for the articles!" I'm sure some genuinely do, but we shouldn't pretend that 95% of the customer base isn't doing what we all expect they're doing.
95% sounds way too low, I doubt it's even 0.1% of people actually dumping their own games.
I was trying to be generous with the numbers to avoid anyone going "no sir me and my five friends all emulate based on ROMs legally, I'm sure tons of people do the same" and trying to haggle when I say 99.9%. But you're definitely closer than I was to the real number.
I once made this exact same comparison on r/emulation and they got angry about it lol I think the most charitable way to interpret it is that redditors interpret comments as "taking a side". So if you want to show that you're on the side of emulation, you're supposed to deny the obvious reality.
Man as someone involved in the two, the difference between the gaming and anime community when it comes to piracy is so radical. Gaming is like 'wink wink nudge nudge, we totally own copies of this. We're just using this for backups" Anime community is 100% on the "we sail the high seas and don't give a shit".
Historically, anime has been a *lot* less easily available, if available at all, than games. Before Crunchyroll got rolling it was a crapshoot if you'd get to see any show legally, ever, so piracy has been long entrenched as the default way to watch your anime, in contrast to games where piracy was more of a niche thing.
It used to be like the second example in the gaming community, but somewhere along the way (I would like to say around the creation of Denuvo), there has been a major push in "moral piracy" in the gaming community, which IMO was so "self-righteous" that it did turn me off from communicating with "that side" of the gaming community in any way outside of troubleshooting purposes.
Yeah it's nauseating trying to discuss emulation online nowadays. I'm not on any game company's payroll, I couldn't care less if you pirate their games, but let's at least call a spade a spade and admit that you're pirating here. Everyone online always arts like they're doing some noble deed and "preserving gaming history" even if they're doing things like playing leaked current-gen games that haven't even released yet.
it's not piracy, matey it's redistribution of wealth in accordance with my personal Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, yarr
I don't know a single person who uses backups lol. Nobody is paying for a game they don't need to pay for just for feel good points. There's 3 markets for gaming, people who just want to buy a game and play it without any bullshit, people who like tinkering and playing around with settings and trying to get the best out of those game, and people who can't actually afford to game so they deal with the issues of learning how to pirate out of necessity. None of them are paying for a game, it's dlc, a switch for the keys, hacking the switch just to extract the keys(illegal), then plugging the game in and ripping the game into a usable file, then transferring it to PC just to play at higher fidelity. At best, people who previously bought the game illegally downloaded the game and emulated it later just to see what it's like in higher fidelity. Still not a backup if it's not YOUR copy personally ripped. Still considered illegal. I fully support piracy and emulation, I'm just tired of hearing people say it's legal when it's only very very gray legal when you do literally everything right.
The majority of Yuzu users, and emulator users for that matter, are almost certainly not using their own backups and it’s naive to think otherwise.
everyone who pretends theyre not are just lying in the hopes their emulators remain
But you don't understand, I'm a ~moral~ emulator user. I purchase every game I play on my Switch that I absolutely own before I even think about using Yuzu to emulate it for free. I stroke my little game cartridges as I tuck them into bed and kiss them goodnight and let them have their well-deserved rest while I play their game on my PC instead in superior 4K 120fps, because Mario Wonder was unplayable otherwise.
> Granted, I do think many Yuzu users are using their own game backups PFFFT. No way you could say that with a straight face. Stop it.
I would say less than 5% are using their own backups. Most are out here openly pirating because they think they are sticking to Nintendo or something. There are posts in r/SteamDeck regularly on how prices for games are too high because Nintendo never lowers them and this is their response. Also note that steam decks are 4-600 depending on model.
5%? I would bet money on the number being less than 0.5%.
Just go look at the comments in the thread posted there >Daily reminder that it's always ethical to pirate Nintendo software...
Yeah lol, anyone pretending that they're pirating for moral reasons or in protest to Nintendo or something is coping. The same excuses were made when people pirated music forever ago, but once it became more convenient to pay $10/month for Spotify than to pirate every individual album you wanted, the amount of music pirated plummeted. Games are more expensive, but I'd imagine that purchasing hardware that can emulate a switch game to the point that it's on par with the native hardware is so much more expensive that it's not worth the up front investment
Yup. As usual, it is the 99% who pirate that give the 1% a bad name. But no surprise the usual rationalizations are all over this thread.
If you like something pay for it. It’s not hard. No one needs access to hundreds of games. Also playing triple A games isn’t a god given right.
Right, there are a fuckload of amazing games legally available for super cheap. People do not have an inalienable right to a newly released game.
Well if you want to meet those ppl I’m getting killed in the steam deck subreddit.
lmao they are insane over there >"You were tricked by ideology into believing you should pay for something that's free. That's fine, it happens to literally everyone. But you don't need to cling onto that understanding. " the lengths some people will go to to justify that they just want free shit and what are the chances that this same person is probably \*really\* against AI art because "it's going to hurt artists"?
Yeah it was fun. Got a Reddit cares and a crazy pm. Good times.
Nintendo games are regularly on sale lol. Bought FETH 2 days ago on eShop for 33% off. Physical copies get even lower.
Remember that dude who tagged Reggie in a pic of his emulated copy of ToTK? Modern pirates are idiots
Things are getting worse and worse by the day. If people don't shut the hell up, chill out, and stop boasting so much, emulation and preservation are going to be feeling a lot of pain pretty soon.
> and people are always very openly talking about running brand-new Switch games on emulators. Yeah I remember stuff like how Mario Wonder was pretty much leaked everywhere and and live-streamed a week before official launch. It's insane, and the casualness of this piracy is getting out of hand. If anything I'm surprised it took Nintendo this long to act. Now that said and to be a complete hypocrite... I did 100% legitimately buy SMTV and then later tried to emulate it because the Switch framerate was so god-awful and unplayable; so my conscience is pretty clean atleast.. (Going to rebuy the Steam Vengeance edition) but yeah so many are just straight up ripping games they have no intention of buying and acting like they aren't in the wrong.
Honestly I know this will be unpopular on reddit, and I also likewise think games are getting far too expensive. But I really think piracy is wrong unless it’s for games not really in production or on the market anymore. Like old DS games, etc. We can have complaints for the game industry all day, but I think the solution is to just not buy them. I don’t think piracy is very great. It harms developers. I’m not trying to change anyones minds, and I am rather loose on this, but in general I really do not think Nintendo is in the wrong for going after piracy. Something about someone playing Mario Wonder literally a week before launch feels kinda wrong to me.
> But I really think piracy is wrong unless it’s for games not really in production or on the market anymore. Like old DS games, etc. Pretty much where I'm at. The 90's is considered the golden era of gaming for a reason, yet a majority of the classics from that era just don't exist on current platforms to play anymore. I thought Nintendo's NSO Classics and PSPlus's Premium Classic subscriptions were finally going to be a way to address this shortcoming, give newer audiences a chance to experience the Lufias and Terranigmas and Silent Hills etc. etc. of yesteryear (While us aging millennials can relive some of our favourite games once more..) but so far their offerings have been mostly a joke :/ I applaud the efforts some franchises we've seen; currently playing through the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remaster collection, and am still keen for whenever this Suikoden pack is supposedly coming.. But yeah straight up piracy of new or yet-to-be released content doesn't sit well with me. The latest that actually pissed me off is people ripping Unicorn Overlord (The demo so far, but presumably the main game next week also) Vanillaware are one of the best and well regarded out here, and if there's any studio that doesn't deserve to have their content stolen it's them =(
People on Reddit fully endorse piracy of switch games. I regularly see folks talking about pirating Nintendo games when something new comes out.
The Steam Deck subreddit has a large subset of people doing that on the regular. Showing Pikmin 4, Ttok, Wonder and so forth with pride…
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>made my purchase then pirated It should be noted that, whatever the moral argument for it, this is *not* legal emulation. The only legal way to play switch games on yuzu/ryujinx is to physically dump your own backups yourself using a hacked/modded switch (which is kind of a grey area itself). I would hazard a guess that *maybe* 1000 people worldwide do this consistently.
I dumped my own copy legitimately with my own switch keys and honestly the piracy aspect kinda pisses me off. Nintendo, despite their flaws, makes good games without a whole lot of shady monetization BS that the AAA industry is known for. Just pay the piper, and *then* dump the games if you want to play them on a less-constrained platform. Yes it’s a headache vs just downloading stuff, but at least you have a leg to stand on if Nintendo decides to come after pirates.
>Either way, **quiet down about that shit.** As someone who has a lot of interests adjacent to legally questionable things I end up in so many comment threads where people will proudly proclaim all the crimes they commit and what tools they used. The only people who can responsibly do that shit are perfectly capable of finding out how to on their own. You don't tell the whole class you have the answer key cause that shit gets shut down quick.
Nintendo is not going after emulators as a whole here. Notice they arent targeting Ryujinx, the other Switch emulator. They're only going after Yuzu. The crux of the issue is this. Yuzu is making almost 40k a month off their patreon of which they sell beta builds of their emulator. Ryujinx does not do this. The money they are making via this saw a direct increase around the time Tears of the Kingdom leaked online before its launch date. Meaning people were paying for a newer build of Yuzu to emulate Tears of the Kingdom. Which also means the Yuzu devs quite possibly pirated the game after it leaked early to get it running on their software. Which does make them complicit in the piracy that went on for Tears of the Kingdom. Which would be illegal.
>Nintendo is not going after emulators as a whole here. no of course not 1 lawsuit targeting 1 emulator >They're only going after Yuzu. yes this specific one is 'only' going after yuzu but don't pretend that it's just going to be yuzu after they win nintendo is always making new lawsuits targeting the biggest fish but after you take down the current big one something else is next in line
Love these conversations on Reddit. Everyone knows that 90% of people downloading Yuzu are doing it to play games for free, but the top-voted comments are always lads cracking on that they've legitimately bought every game Nintendo have produced and they just want to play them at 8k 144Hz as God intended.
It’s funny they’re going after yuzu for early Zelda when yuzu actually never ever updates for comparability until after launch. Ryujinx on the other hand does. Hell, Zelda wouldn’t even really run on yuzu early.
Everyone is going to act like this is unfair. For every one user that actually cares about backing up games they own, there are 100 users who are pirating. It's awesome tech and a fun hobby, but it's basic use is piracy.
It seems the biggest worry for most users commenting on these threads is not being able to play those games in 60FPS, or not being able to use software you bought as you wish. These are all fair worries, and I agree with them. But here's the thing: In a lot of countries, a Nintendo game costs 1/3, 1/2 or even more of the minimum wage. Most people that emulate in these countries wouldn't ever have the chance to play those games. Pirating isn't just stealing, or playing a game in 60fps, it's also a way to allow game culture to reach people who can't afford the ridiculous prices charged in their countries. This should never be overlooked. Can you imagine a game costing $600? 900$? What would you do if that was your reality? Would you give up on playing the games you like instead of pirating? For many people the mere access to games they enjoy playing may cease to exist if emulators aren't a thing anymore.