Here’s how the makers of the “Suyu” Switch emulator plan to avoid getting sued
Dev says project is "in a legal gray area we are trying to work our way out of..."
TL;DR:
"We wanted to fly under the radar at the start [...] It's already much more widespread than ideal for the current stage of development."
Which is how emulation worked the last 20 years. It flew under the radar because they weren't doing anything explicitly illegal, while also avoiding getting paid or having anything point at you.
Yuzu flew too close to the sun. I'm sorry, but they did. They very brazenly operated like they were challenging Nintendo. They werent just emulating games from last Gen but modern Gen games that just came out. Like it or not, that is taking money from Nintendo and it was obvious they were going to get the hammer.
For me I'm mad at them. Mad because their cavalier attitude made all emulation look the same as piracy, which it isn't. There's a clear dividing line and Yuzu came very close to labeling all emulation as piracy.
I got freaking crucified for this sentiment the day the news dropped.
They will avoid monetization
Funny: "suyu also needs to be a product. We need to find ways to monetise the project"
https://gitlab.com/suyu-emu/suyu/-/wikis/Contributor-License-Agreement-Policy
Could it be that they just copied the one in yuzus repo and hard-replaced the names? Three quote makes reference to 2019, which is very weird for a 2024 project, but would be more normal for the timeframe of yuzu
However, in order to compete with modern emulators in 2019 and beyond, suyu also needs to be a product.
One thing is for sure: no other fork will have a name this good.
Nuzu was a pretty good name even if it's already dead
bullied to death literally
I'd go with Yuza, the Korean version of the Yuzu fruit. Could be verbalized as "yowza."
I just hope the one for the next system is called tuzu lol
They could start by developing in the open and not in some shitty discord group.
the Suyu development team has decided to avoid "any monetization,"
Should of always been like that
of
*have
(Or "Should've")
Either emulation is legal and you're therefore okay with devs getting payment for tgeir labor or it's illegal and they need to keep as low a profile as they can
I hate people who try to be on both sides
Switch emulation would be 1/10th of where it is now without it.
Anyone trying to make money on a licensed IP they don’t own is in hot water.
Disagree. People deserve compensation for labor, and the Yuzu devs did good work. It's our laws that suck.
Ehhh.. it's ok if there's money involved but they definitely pushed it too far. However even if there was no money involved Yuzu made actions that shut them down.
Smart if you can self fund, but at the end of the day there's a lot of costs that people ignore when it comes to emulation or things in the space. Working with a group called Retroachievements.org (small plug) and they accept donations for server costs but that's it. Signed up for 1 dollar on Patreon and wanted to give them 10. They refused, which is a good sign.
Congratulations, you've shown everyone how dumb you are.
Sad_face.jpg I try not to be 👉👈
SueYou is an awesome name for N**tendo emulator
Still the same Contributor License Agreement as Yuzu to make proprietary versions. They've learned nothing.
well they're not completely proprietary...
ea is just latest master, merged with unspecified list of work-in-progress prs, and built together with custom branding.
there's zero proprietary code in it....
but you don't know what code specifically was used to build it.
well they’re not completely proprietary…
The point of a CLA is to eventually sell proprietary versions. There is objectively no need for a CLA in a fully FOSS/GPL application because the GPL already clarifies everything that's needed.
Edit: "suyu also needs to be a product. We need to find ways to monetise the project" Direct quote from https://gitlab.com/suyu-emu/suyu/-/wikis/Contributor-License-Agreement-Policy
This is one of the most clever names I've seen for an emulator.
Reminds me of sosumi, a Linux util for one-click MacOS virtual machines. Sosumi also happens to be the name of the alert/error sound in early MacOS.
Sosumi (the alert sound) was named due to Apple having a long running court battle with a music company called Apple Corps, link here.
So how long until Nintendo tries to claim copyright to the code that was previously open source and threaten to sue the Suyu team just to scare them into settling?
They'd face a mountain of opposition from the open source community at large.
Yuzu was licensed under the GPL. Even if Nintendo are the new owners of the Yuzu code, they cannot retroactively close-source the previously open code, per the license.
If they tried that and it looked like they could set a precedent, it could spell serious trouble for other GPL projects like the Linux kernel. And they've got some serious financial backing.
I mean, many thought the same of Yuzu.
In reality, Nintendo doesn't want to go to court. They didn't want to go to court vs Yuzu. They just wanted a settlement so they can 100% control the narrative. That's traditional Japanese corporation 101. Yuzu's case was never actually about piracy, copyright infringement, or anything else.
I would not be shocked to see Nintendo either attempt to un-GPL the code, claim some sort of copyright over forks, or even to maliciously inject new code in an attempt to gain access to user IP addresses and just send out letters to every Yuzu user. Nintendo really is that petty, look at what they did to Gary Bowser. They will 100% go after other emulators like this now that they know the developers will just give up in a week.
You know what's a really good defence: Not being based in the fucking US.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
"Suyu currently exists in a legal gray area we are trying to work our way out of," contributor and Discord moderator Sharpie told Ars in a recent interview.
The Suyu project arose out of "a passion for Switch emulation" and a desire not to see "years of impressive work by the Yuzu team go to waste," Sharpie said.
But that passion is being tempered by a cautious approach designed to avoid the legal fate that befell the project's predecessor.
The Suyu devs have also been warned against "providing step-by-step guides" like the ones that Yuzu offered for how to play copyrighted games on their emulator.
Those guides were a major focus of Nintendo's lawsuit, as were some examples of developer conversations in the Yuzu Discord that seemed to acknowledge and condone piracy.
Suyu, by contrast, is taking an extremely hard line against even the hint of any discussion of potential piracy on its platforms.
The original article contains 297 words, the summary contains 154 words. Saved 48%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
All that needs to be asked of them is "are you willing to pay the court costs associated with Nintendo taking you to court, and then the millions of dollars to Nintendo if you lose?". If not then they shouldn't even touch it, because Nintendo will come after them.
Nah it's pretty easy to kill litigation before it starts if things step up. If you receive a cease and desist and don't want to fight it, you can shut it down and never look back. If you're served paperwork with a court date, the initial hearings can get the lawsuit thrown out if there are no grounds for a case on intellectual property infringement, one of which is "non-profit". In fact, a lot of people would argue that Yuzu was completely in the right to do what they did despite having a link to their patreon, but at that point the courts might decide either way and litigation costs money.
but at that point the courts might decide either way and litigation costs money.
It also sets a precedent which makes it easier for Nintendo and other companies to sue open source developers. It would have been bad for everyone in the emulation community if they went to court and lost.
if there are no grounds for a case on intellectual property infringement, one of which is “non-profit”.
These guys have said right from the get go that they're trying to profit off it though. Whoopsies.
Also the fact that its the exact same code that Yuzu ran, which just settled with nintendo for millions of dollars, is going to influence any future cases.
but at that point the courts might decide either way and litigation costs money.
Yeah so like I said - they have to be prepared to fight nintendo or just shut it down almost immediately.
They are still running afowl of the anti circumvention rules in the dmca. Just saying you have to provide your own keys isn't enough.
A switch emulator that wants to be safe from nintendo has to have no capability of circumventing the copyright protection mechanisms nintendo employs.
Look at vlc for inspiration. It can play blurays, it can't circumvent the copyright protection of blurays. But if you provide the keys and the library that decodes the content then it can play them just fine. This keeps vlc safe.
ok but how does the bluray library stay safe? its still a similar problem. for piracy sites, a lot of them seem to deal with it by just having it be hosted in a country that doesnt care enough to shut them down.
Like you already pointed out there are ways for the library to stay safe, the important point is being disconnected from the emulator.
This appears incorrect. Multiple emulators have ways to circumvent the copyright protection mechanism. None of them are being hit. Dolphin legit has the keys in their package. It's why Steam didn't platform them, but Nintendo knows and Dolphin is not changing. It would be literally the cost of the letter to get Dolphin to change. Nintendo hasn't even sent that letter.
What Yuzu did wrong was outside of "anti circumvention rules" that you seem afraid of.
That's assuming the Suyu team is based on the USA, where the DMCA can screw them over. As they're hosting their code on GitLab istead of GitHub, it may hint they got this covered.
