Atemu

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

“copied the game ROMs into Yuzu” Yuzu is not a VM or other container and the ROMs are simply stored on disk in their original dumped form… Yuzu doesn’t “store” or “contain” any games.

ROMs are indeed copied “into Yuzu”. They must be loaded into Yuzu’s memory in order for Yuzu to execute their code or render their assets. In copyright law, even loading something to memory constitutes a “copy”.

Also, almost every emulator is a VM; do you think those ARM instructions are running on your x86 processor and its desktop OS kernel natively?

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

Yuzu doesn’t include any form of tooling that breaks encryption

You cannot state that with certainty. That’s the problem.

Yuzu does indeed include a method to use the Switch’s production keys (which you must dump yourself) to decrypt the games. Whether this constitutes effective DRM is not a question that can easily be answered and must be decided by a court on a case-by-case basis.
This will be what the case will hinge on: Is Ninty’s scheme effective DRM?

I would say no because symmetric encryption with a publicly known key may aswell be no encryption at all but that’s not my decision to make.

They aren’t facilitating it, the user has to provide all of that chain of the emulation on their own.

Um, no. The emulator is doing the decryption on its own. All the user does is provide the prod keys and unmodified ROM.

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

That’s rather clear evidence that they dumped their own ROM and distributed that. Since they own the rights to that ROM, they’re not distributing it illegally though. They can dump and distribute their ROMs all they want; they own the rights to them.

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

You can download and view the latest Yuzu source code for free and do practically whatever you want with it (GPLv3), including building and running it.

What paying via Patreon provides you is access to early access builds of the software. You’re paying for the convenience of them compiling the latest version of the software for you.

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

They’re using the DMCA to say that because Yuzu lets someone circumvent their encryption (which is illegal, but shouldn’t be), that’s the same as Yuzu circumventing their encryption.

Yes, yes they are. That’s how the DMCA works. It’s mental.

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

It’s illegal to circumvent copy protection under the DMCA (something I wholeheartedly disagree with), but it’s not illegal to make something that can be used to circumvent copy protection.

It is explicitly illegal to produce any thing whose purpose it is to circumvent DRM:

(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

I’m telling you, that law is mental.

In fact, there are exemptions to that provision and one of them states that circumventing copy protection in order to play a video game using assistive technologies is legal.

Could you point that specific exception in the law? I can’t find it.

Link for convenience: www.govinfo.gov/content/…/PLAW-105publ304.pdf

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

The dumps are just that: Dumps; 1:1 copies.

The tools don’t decrypt anything; that happens within Yuzu. Why else would users need to provide the prod keys to Yuzu?

Atemu, 8 miesięcy temu

The actual text for reference:

Video games in the form of computer programs, embodied in lawfully acquired physical or downloaded formats, and operated on a general-purpose computer, where circumvention is undertaken solely for the purpose of allowing an individual with a physical disability to use software or hardware input methods other than a standard keyboard or mouse.

That explicitly only applies to physically disabled people. Yuzu is not specifically targetted at providing a different input method (at all) and certainly not solely for the physically disabled.

That exception is not relevant to this case.

Atemu, rok temu

That’s hilarious!

Atemu, rok temu

Super Paper Mario for the Wii also has a mechanic like that. You’re in a 2D paper world (obviously) but you have the ability to temporarily turn 90°; walking through enemies and opening the possibility to i.e. pass some walls.

Atemu, rok temu

for a somewhat decent price.

Well, that’s the thing: With the additional cost of games, it’s not really more affordable. You cannot use the hardware for anything but expensive games.

With just 5 games, that’s already $100 more than the same games on PC would have cost.
Depending on how many games you’re going to buy, you could spend hundreds more on the PC’s hardware and it’d still be cheaper overall.

Atemu, rok temu

I was wondering what Twitter had to do with gaming…

Atemu, rok temu

Given this is Nintendo, I highly doubt this code would be portable to the new console.