The creator of the Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu is being sued by Nintendo of America, claiming that his product “unlawfully circumvents the technological measures” that prohibit Switch titles from being played on other platforms. Although Yuzu has been there for a while we discussed utilizing it to power Pokémon: Let’s Go back in 2018 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was the game that truly made it popular among casual players. The Yuzu creators claimed to get the Switch-only game operating at full speed on most hardware with no hacks needed just one day after it launched.
Fans of Nintendo were thrilled about that, but Nintendo was not as excited. Tears of the Kingdom, which leaked ahead of release, is one example of a specific emulator, according to the lawsuit (which is available in full via Stephen Totilo on Scribd). Emulators are defined as pieces of software that allow users to unlawfully play pirated videogames that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device. Even though Yuzu took proactive measures to deter piracy on their Discord, Nintendo blamed the emulator.
The Intersection of Emulators and Copyright Law
The lawsuit stated,
“Infringing copies of the game that circulated online could be played in Yuzu, and those copies were successfully downloaded from pirate websites over one million times before the game was published and made available for lawful purchase by Nintendo. Many of the pirate websites specifically noted the ability to play the game file in Yuzu.”
Naturally, this is not the first time emulators have been accused of inciting piracy: in 1999, Sony filed a lawsuit against Connectix, the company that created the Virtual Game Station, a PlayStation emulator, alleging copyright infringement and other infringements on its intellectual property rights. The lawsuit was won by Connectix: In addition, the judge said,
“Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses,” but ruled that copyright law “does not confer such a monopoly.”
It’s unclear how the decision would proceed in the present, having been rendered in 2000, in the earliest days of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which became operative in the United States in 1998. Nintendo’s lawsuit blatantly ignores any possibility of using Yuzu lawfully:
“To be clear, there is no lawful way to use Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games because it must decrypt the games’ encryption.”
Nintendo’s Demands and the Potential Impact on Yuzu’s Creators
As a precaution, Nintendo also voiced their displeasure at Yuzu revealing details of Tears of the Kingdom, claiming that many fans of The Legend of Zelda were forced to avoid social media to prevent seeing spoilers and preserve their surprise and delight for the actual game release.
Although the complaint states that Yuzu’s injury to Nintendo is manifest and irreparable, it is nonetheless demanding compensation, which may include substantial monetary damages as well as a permanent injunction against the emulator and the surrender of the yuzu-emu.org website: Nintendo may choose to have the exact damages decided at trial, but it is requesting statutory damages of $2,500 for each infringement of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking sections and $150,000 for each infringement of its copyright.
To be clear, Nintendo will investigate this as far as it can and will demand that the creators of Yuzu pay any fine that is imposed: For his part in pirating Nintendo Switch and 3DS games, Gary Bowser was infamously fined millions of dollars (and served some jail time). Despite his well-reported financial difficulties after his release from prison, Nintendo is refusing to let it go.
