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After Nintendo recently filed a lawsuit against the Yuzu team, it was pretty much inevitable this was going to happen wasn't it. The end of Yuzu is officially here.

Nintendo and Tropic Haze LLC (Yuzu) filed a joint motion for the court to enter Final Judgment and Permanent Injunction, so as I understand it's not quite final until the judge stamps it.

As a result the Yuzu team have announced their intention to shut everything down, and have agreed to pay Nintendo $2.4M USD in damages. As per the other document, Yuzu will also transfer the domain name used over to Nintendo and they have agreed to delete every single thing related to Yuzu that they have.

Writing in the yuzu Discord (and posted on X) the developer bunnei said:

Hello yuz-ers and Citra fans:

We write today to inform you that yuzu and yuzu’s support of Citra are being discontinued, effective immediately.

yuzu and its team have always been against piracy. We started the projects in good faith, out of passion for Nintendo and its consoles and games, and were not intending to cause harm. But we see now that because our projects can circumvent Nintendo’s technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to extensive piracy. In particular, we have been deeply disappointed when users have used our software to leak game content prior to its release and ruin the experience for legitimate purchasers and fans.

We have come to the decision that we cannot continue to allow this to occur. Piracy was never our intention, and we believe that piracy of video games and on video game consoles should end. Effective today, we will be pulling our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and, soon, shutting down our websites. We hope our actions will be a small step toward ending piracy of all creators’ works.

Thank you for your years of support and for understanding our decision.

Update 05/03/24: While "support of Citra" was a bit ambiguous, it's now confirmed Citra is also gone. The website is down and replaced with the statement, the GitHub is also gone.

Considering it's open source though, and has been out in the wild for some time now, it's unlikely this is truly the end because it's been so widely circulated. However, it will make it a lot harder for anyone seeking it out, and no doubt put off anyone from doing anything with Yuzu code they might still have.

For now, the Ryujinx project at least still exists and as far as I know hasn't had Nintendo come knocking — yet.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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96 comments
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Lachu Mar 5
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: LachuI do not known English well, so I do not understood everything. As I understood, they emulator allows to play games outside authorized (by Nintendo!) hardware. But, I do not seen anything related to piracy. They mention users use they emulator to piracy, but how? By playing games on PC? Perhaps, Nintendo should not have rights to restrict this. I only reminder, that British government, many years ago, discovered they cannot opens document created in old Office Suite. They decided to switch to OpenOffice, so MS decided to "standardize" (pheff) OOXML. What about case, when you cannot longer play "your" games, because your hardware were broken and cannot buy new?

Parts in the DMCA prohibits sale, distribution and manufacturing of software or hardware that circumvents digital protections. So the issue here is that the emulator circumvented Nintendo's DRM that they use to sell licenses for to for companies to allow them to release software for the platform. And this circumventium is more than "ignore to check", it involves using the encryption keys built into the Switch itself.
Ok, so problem was not a way to play games on PC, but release games on Nintendo hardware, without asking Nintendo for it. It is battle with moders. Even MS get money from modding XBox (Linux media player was very popular in early days of XBox).
F.Ultra Mar 5
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Quoting: Lachu
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: LachuI do not known English well, so I do not understood everything. As I understood, they emulator allows to play games outside authorized (by Nintendo!) hardware. But, I do not seen anything related to piracy. They mention users use they emulator to piracy, but how? By playing games on PC? Perhaps, Nintendo should not have rights to restrict this. I only reminder, that British government, many years ago, discovered they cannot opens document created in old Office Suite. They decided to switch to OpenOffice, so MS decided to "standardize" (pheff) OOXML. What about case, when you cannot longer play "your" games, because your hardware were broken and cannot buy new?

Parts in the DMCA prohibits sale, distribution and manufacturing of software or hardware that circumvents digital protections. So the issue here is that the emulator circumvented Nintendo's DRM that they use to sell licenses for to for companies to allow them to release software for the platform. And this circumventium is more than "ignore to check", it involves using the encryption keys built into the Switch itself.
Ok, so problem was not a way to play games on PC, but release games on Nintendo hardware, without asking Nintendo for it. It is battle with moders. Even MS get money from modding XBox (Linux media player was very popular in early days of XBox).

Basically yes, plus that even if the user had to extract the keys from their local Switch there was nothing stopping people from sharing that key or from any one extracting their key and then reselling the Switch but keep using the extracted key. I don't know for sure but it is also possible that the emulation allows for game files to be distributed (aka piracy) freely while the Switch only allows bought copies to be played.
tuubi Mar 5
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Quoting: poiuzWouldn't this argument legitimate all open source license violations?

I don't see how. Downloading or sharing open source software doesn't violate its license.
Vinouch Mar 5
Don't close door too fast. Yuzu was open source.
Here is a fork among others: https://github.com/yuzu-mirror/yuzu
F.Ultra Mar 5
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Quoting: Guest
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI would recommend that the next people who take the code and continue developing it under a different name, host it in some place like the EU and have some kind of region lock where they don't allow downloads from places with DMCA-type anti-digital-lock-tampering laws. Of course, since the code is open and all some people will then mirror it in other places and it will become available around the world--but that will not be the core project's fault, as they will be taking due measures to prevent it.

EU is a terrible idea as it is under US jurisdiction being US vassal states. The EU has gone after piracy before (Sweden, Italy, Germany). Russia/Belarus/China are much better about it, especially now
But this isn't about piracy. Oh, sure, they can say they were "enabling" piracy, but the key issue is that they allegedly enabled the piracy by enabling tampering with a "digital lock" (encryption, DRM et cetera). Such tampering is forbidden under the DMCA, and there are similar provisions in other countries. But it's entirely legal in the EU, is if anything a consumer right.

And while the EU is definitely under the US thumb in terms of geopolitics, their regimes in terms of laws around computing and telecommunications are really quite different, whether it's about privacy, competition or "intellectual property", and the EU shows no signs of interest in harmonizing their approach with the US one.

I was under the impression that the EU would bow head to US based, DMCA takedown orders?

Moreover, I am skeptical of the "pro-consumer claims" that people have of the EU. I heard that some crack scene groups got sent to prison in Germany for tampering with Denuvo, if anything thats anticonsumer

No that is not at all how things work. The DMCA is only legal inside the US, the EU have a (in some areas) similar EUCD so if a US firm wants to file a "DMCA" on a EU based entity then they have to actually file it as a EUCD so they have to change their filings to match the laws of the EUCD.

No EU country is under the US jurisdiction and none of the EU states are US vassal states. That e.g the Pirate Bay was sued in civil court in Sweden have zero to do with the US and more to do with the fact that copyright laws exists in most countries on earth and that from long before the US was even a state.

In fact the Pirate Bay got one of the best defence lawyers available especially since the system works so different over here (over here the looser always pays the entire costs for both sides so there exists very few US like cases where the case is drawn out to drain the other sides resources).

If you think that EU is not US vassal states, you should go watch the videos of Professor Mearsheimer where he talks about how US dictates policy for EU. It kind of works like the Mongolian Imperial model, where they would not bother their vassals and gave them a degree of autonomy until they needed something from them. Same thing here. This is why for example, Germany shot its own industry in the foot by boycotting Russian energy or not saying anything when the US blew up Nordstream 2.

https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-asks-eu-for-iptv-torrents-piracy-support-services-crackdown-220408/

Here's an example of the MPA acting in the EU to shut down IPTV services. There are also APAA actions. There is also a DMCA takedown procedure in the EU:
https://www.dmca.com/FAQ/European-DMCA-Takedown-process

So yes, US jurisdiction expands to the EU. How could it not, when the US literally has troops in Europe? You think that the US would let Europe act independently on issues it deems of vital importance (and protecting US business is of vital importance to it)?

If you follow your own link on the DMCA you'll read the exact same thing regarding the EUCD that I wrote in the post that you are now arguing with.

No, US jurisdiction does not apply in the EU (the US having troops in Europe due to NATO have zero to do with legal jurisdiction, this is a huge non sequitur), the US did not blow up Nordstream 2 (all evidence so far points towards Ukraine, Ukraine supporters in eastern Europe or false flag by Russia).

All this in combination with you bringing up Mearsheimer only tells me that you are posting Russian conspiracy theories.

If you read the link I sent it says:

"DMCA.com is qualified to go to work on behalf of copyright and content owners." this means that EU upholds US copyright claims/law.

US having troops in Europe as part of NATO is precisely what I mean lol. The entire point is to both be a "defensive" alliance and act as an implied threat to European countries to stay within the desired boundaries that the US sets. Its very similar to the Warsaw Pact in that regard. In fact the US has an extensive regieme change history in both Europe, amongst allies and abroad as well.

The US did blow up Nordstream 2, its fairly well known by now. See this investigation by pultizer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

If you also account for the fact that Sweden did an investigation, said they know who did it but then covered it up further lends credence to Seymour's idea. Ukraine does not have the capability to blow up the pipeline. And it doesn't make sense for Russia to blow up their own pipe/money maker, and Russians are rational actors unlike as is commonly portrayed.

Point is this, EU is not really an independent actor and will do what they are told by the US. We have seen this multiple times, with Huawei bans (although neither UK nor German probes found anything of concern), Russian gas bans and if needed with piracy as well.

Sorry but you are utterly confused (or deliberately obtuse). DMCA.com is a company that specialises in takedowns the world over, that they have named their company DMCA doesn't mean that they use the DMCA outside of the USA, it only means that they have decided to call their company this. Cheesus.

And no the actual evidence from the Swedish Navy points directly to Ukrainians or Russians, Ukrainians due to the people that hired the boat that allegedly conducted the attack and Russia due to them having placed lots of navy ships there inside Swedish waters just before the attack.

The major problem with the USA angle is that the USA had nothing to gain from blowing it up, the USA had already convinced Germany et al to stop using it so Nordstream was defacto a dead project already (thanks to the pipe being not used the explosion wasn't bigger than it was). The only ones having a reason to do it is #1 Ukraine to retaliate against Russia and #2 Russia to cry wolf.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 5 March 2024 at 4:47 pm UTC
M@GOid Mar 5
While this is not a endorsement for Nintendo's behavior, I thought it was common sense you don't create a emulator for a videogame still on sale, or else the manufacturers will send their minions after you.

There are a lot of emulators and even commercial products for previous Nintendo consoles, and I don't see Nintendo going after those.

Like others said above, I think it was pretty dumb of those guys for not only making a emulator for the Switch so soon, but establishing a company based on it. Is like painting a target in their foreheads.


Last edited by M@GOid on 5 March 2024 at 5:12 pm UTC
poiuz Mar 5
Quoting: tuubiI don't see how. Downloading or sharing open source software doesn't violate its license.
We're talking about "piracy" (i.e. license violations), so obviously by using it in violation of the license.
tuubi Mar 5
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Quoting: poiuz
Quoting: tuubiI don't see how. Downloading or sharing open source software doesn't violate its license.
We're talking about "piracy" (i.e. license violations), so obviously by using it in violation of the license.
Well that's a stretch. You might as well compare piracy to car theft. We're talking about crime after all.
Pengling Mar 5
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Quoting: M@GOidThere are a lot of emulators and even commercial products for previous Nintendo consoles, and I don't see Nintendo going after those.
Nintendo went after Citra as part of this, too - the Nintendo 3DS has been out-of-production since September 2020, repair-services for it ended in March 2021 (which was earlier than originally intended - they ran out of parts early, apparently), and the digital-download eShop was closed in March 2023, which led to numerous digital-only games locked to this console being lost to time.

They also recently went after Dolphin, which covers the GameCube and Wii, which went out of production in 2009 and 2013 respectively.
poiuz Mar 5
Quoting: tuubiWell that's a stretch.
I don't understand what you mean.

Quoting: tuubiYou might as well compare piracy to car theft. We're talking about crime after all.
That doesn't help me in understanding. I'm really talking about license violations (e.g. using Linux without providing the source code).
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