Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC, which oversees the development of the open-source Yuzu project that develops the Nintendo Switch game console emulator. Nintendo demands compensation for damages caused by launching pirated games using the emulator, and an injunction against the development, promotion and distribution of the Yuzu emulator, which allows you to run games outside of Nintendo Switch devices.
In order to prevent the launch of pirated copies of games and protect against copying games, Nintendo consoles use cryptographic keys to encrypt the contents of the firmware and game files. Nintendo owns or manages the copyright to games for its consoles and is responsible for providing licenses to distribute games for its devices. The terms of use of the games allow you to run exclusively on your game console and prohibit the use of unauthorized devices.
According to the lawyers of Nintendo, the use of the emulator leads to illegal circumvention of methods of technical protection of access to content that is subject to copyright. To run the game in the Yuzu emulator, you must have keys to decrypt the game files. Despite the fact that the extraction of keys for decrypting games falls on users and is performed using third-party tools, the very fact of decryption on the side of the emulator is perceived by Nintendo as an illegal bypass of technical protection measures. Even if the user uses keys extracted from their own purchased copy, this violates the terms of use that prohibit creating copies to run on other platforms.
Nintendo also states that the distribution of the emulator creates a favorable environment for the distribution of pirated copies, since the emulator allows you to run games not only on the console, but also on any computer. Yuzu is seen as a tool that turns ordinary computers into a vehicle for massive infringement of Nintendo's intellectual property and copyrighted products.
The lawsuit mentions that one of the developers of Yuzu publicly mentioned that most users of the emulator use pirated keys, and the Yuzu website has instructions for extracting keys (prod.keys) from their consoles and provides links to tools for obtaining keys and unauthorized copying of games to run on another device. The Yuzu guide also mentions that for games to work correctly, you need system files copied from the hacked Nintendo Switch console.
With these examples, Nintendo shows that the developers of Yuzu were initially aware of the use of their program to circumvent protection and their activities can be considered as promoting piracy. Moreover, Nintendo is ready to prove that the developers of Yuzu violated the DMCA law, while working on the emulator, receiving keys from the hacked console and copying games to run in the emulator.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a pirated copy of which became available a week and a half before the official release for the Nintendo Switch and was downloaded more than a million times, is an example of the profit lost due to Yuzu. 20% of links to pirated downloads of this game explicitly mentioned running in the emulator. The fact that Yuzu developers have benefited from the introduction of pirated copies is evidenced by the rapid growth of participants who supported Yuzu in Patreon at the time of the appearance of the pirated copy, as participants in Patreon are given the opportunity to access early builds of new versions of Yuzu.
Last summer, Nintendo has already achieved the removal of the Dolphin emulator from the Steam catalog under the pretext of violating the US Copyright Law in the Digital Age in the project. The reason for the deletion was that the Dolphin code base included a data encryption key for Nintendo Wii consoles, which was made publicly available after the information leak in 2008. Prior to this, after a complaint from Nintendo, the Lockpick and Lockpick_RCM repositories on GitHub were blocked, which developed utilities for extracting keys and operating system components from Nintendo Switch game consoles. Unlike Dolphin and Lockpick, the Yuzu project does not distribute keys or extract them, but requires them to run games and provides instructions with links to key extraction tools.
In order to prevent the launch of pirated copies of games and protect against copying games, Nintendo consoles use cryptographic keys to encrypt the contents of the firmware and game files. Nintendo owns or manages the copyright to games for its consoles and is responsible for providing licenses to distribute games for its devices. The terms of use of the games allow you to run exclusively on your game console and prohibit the use of unauthorized devices.
According to the lawyers of Nintendo, the use of the emulator leads to illegal circumvention of methods of technical protection of access to content that is subject to copyright. To run the game in the Yuzu emulator, you must have keys to decrypt the game files. Despite the fact that the extraction of keys for decrypting games falls on users and is performed using third-party tools, the very fact of decryption on the side of the emulator is perceived by Nintendo as an illegal bypass of technical protection measures. Even if the user uses keys extracted from their own purchased copy, this violates the terms of use that prohibit creating copies to run on other platforms.
Nintendo also states that the distribution of the emulator creates a favorable environment for the distribution of pirated copies, since the emulator allows you to run games not only on the console, but also on any computer. Yuzu is seen as a tool that turns ordinary computers into a vehicle for massive infringement of Nintendo's intellectual property and copyrighted products.
The lawsuit mentions that one of the developers of Yuzu publicly mentioned that most users of the emulator use pirated keys, and the Yuzu website has instructions for extracting keys (prod.keys) from their consoles and provides links to tools for obtaining keys and unauthorized copying of games to run on another device. The Yuzu guide also mentions that for games to work correctly, you need system files copied from the hacked Nintendo Switch console.
With these examples, Nintendo shows that the developers of Yuzu were initially aware of the use of their program to circumvent protection and their activities can be considered as promoting piracy. Moreover, Nintendo is ready to prove that the developers of Yuzu violated the DMCA law, while working on the emulator, receiving keys from the hacked console and copying games to run in the emulator.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a pirated copy of which became available a week and a half before the official release for the Nintendo Switch and was downloaded more than a million times, is an example of the profit lost due to Yuzu. 20% of links to pirated downloads of this game explicitly mentioned running in the emulator. The fact that Yuzu developers have benefited from the introduction of pirated copies is evidenced by the rapid growth of participants who supported Yuzu in Patreon at the time of the appearance of the pirated copy, as participants in Patreon are given the opportunity to access early builds of new versions of Yuzu.
Last summer, Nintendo has already achieved the removal of the Dolphin emulator from the Steam catalog under the pretext of violating the US Copyright Law in the Digital Age in the project. The reason for the deletion was that the Dolphin code base included a data encryption key for Nintendo Wii consoles, which was made publicly available after the information leak in 2008. Prior to this, after a complaint from Nintendo, the Lockpick and Lockpick_RCM repositories on GitHub were blocked, which developed utilities for extracting keys and operating system components from Nintendo Switch game consoles. Unlike Dolphin and Lockpick, the Yuzu project does not distribute keys or extract them, but requires them to run games and provides instructions with links to key extraction tools.
