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Tag: game preservation

  • Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8,000 emulator-related DMCA takedowns

    Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8,000 emulator-related DMCA takedowns

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    Nintendo sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice for over 8,000 GitHub repositories hosting code from the Yuzu Switch emulator, which the Zelda maker previously described as enabling “piracy at a colossal scale.” The sweeping takedown comes two months after Yuzu’s creators quickly settled a lawsuit with Nintendo and its notoriously trigger-happy legal team for $2.4 million.

    GamesIndustry.biz first reported on the DMCA notice, affecting 8,535 GitHub repos. Redacted entities representing Nintendo assert that the Yuzu source code contained in the repos “illegally circumvents Nintendo’s technological protection measures and runs illegal copies of Switch games.”

    GitHub wrote on the notice that developers will have time to change their content before it’s disabled. In keeping with its developer-friendly approach and branding, the Microsoft-owned platform also offered legal resources and guidance on submitting DMCA counter-notices.

    Nintendo’s legal blitz, perhaps not coincidentally, comes as game emulators are enjoying a resurgence. Last month, Apple loosened its restrictions on retro game players in the App Store (likely in response to regulatory threats), leading to the Delta emulator establishing itself as the de facto choice and reaching the App Store’s top spot. Nintendo may have calculated that emulators’ moment in the sun threatened its bottom line and began by squashing those that most immediately imperiled its income stream.

    Sadly, Nintendo’s largely undefended legal assault against emulators ignores a crucial use for them that isn’t about piracy. Game historians see the software as a linchpin of game preservation. Without emulators, Nintendo and other copyright holders could make a part of history obsolete for future generations, as their corresponding hardware will eventually be harder to come by.

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    Will Shanklin

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  • Makers of Switch emulator Yuzu quickly settle with Nintendo for $2.4 million

    Makers of Switch emulator Yuzu quickly settle with Nintendo for $2.4 million

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    Tropic Haze, the popular Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator developer, appears to have agreed to settle Nintendo’s lawsuit against it. Less than a week after Nintendo filed the legal action, accusing the emulator’s creators of “piracy at a colossal scale,” a joint final judgment and permanent injunction filed Tuesday says Tropic Haze has agreed to pay the Mario maker $2.4 million, along with a long list of concessions.

    Nintendo’s lawsuit claimed Tropic Haze violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). “Without Yuzu’s decryption of Nintendo’s encryption, unauthorized copies of games could not be played on PCs or Android devices,” the company wrote in its complaint. It described Yuzu as “software primarily designed to circumvent technological measures.”

    Yuzu launched in 2018 as free, open-source software for Windows, Linux and Android. It could run countless copyrighted Switch games — including console sellers like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Wonder. Reddit threads comparing Switch emulators praised Yuzu’s performance compared to rivals like Ryujinx. Yuzu introduces various bugs across different titles, but it can typically handle games at higher resolutions than the Switch, often with better frame rates, so long as your hardware is powerful enough.

    Screenshot from the Yuzu emulator website showing a still from Zelda: Breath of the Wild with a blueprint-style sketch of the Nintendo Switch framing it. Dark gray background.

    A screenshot from Yuzu’s website, showing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Tropic Haze / Nintendo)

    As part of an Exhibit A attached to the proposed joint settlement, Tropic Haze agreed to a series of accommodations. In addition to paying Nintendo $2.4 million, it must permanently refrain from “engaging in activities related to offering, marketing, distributing, or trafficking in Yuzu emulator or any similar software that circumvents Nintendo’s technical protection measures.”

    Tropic Haze must also delete all circumvention devices, tools and Nintendo cryptographic keys used in the emulator and turn over all circumvention devices and modified Nintendo hardware. It even has to surrender the emulator’s web domain (including any variants or successors) to Nintendo. (The website is still live now, perhaps waiting for the judgment’s final a-okay.) Not abiding by the settlement’s agreements could land Tropic Haze in contempt of court, including punitive, coercive and monetary actions.

    Although piracy is the top motive for many emulator users, the software can double as crucial tools for video game preservation — making rapid legal surrenders like Tropic Haze’s potentially problematic. Without emulators, Nintendo and other copyright holders could make games obsolete for future generations as older hardware eventually becomes more difficult to find.

    Nintendo’s legal team is, of course, no stranger to aggressively enforcing copyrighted material. In recent years, the company went after Switch piracy websites, sued ROM-sharing website RomUniverse for $2 million and helped send hacker Gary Bowser to prison. Although it was Valve’s doing, Nintendo’s reputation indirectly got the Dolphin Wii and GameCube emulator blocked from Steam. It’s safe to say the Mario maker doesn’t share preservationists’ views on the crucial historical role emulators can play.

    Despite the settlement, it appears unlikely the open-source Yuzu will disappear entirely. The emulator is still available on GitHub, where its entire codebase can be found.

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    Will Shanklin

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