GitLab takes down Nintendo Switch emulator suyu due to the DMCA

Quoting: LoftyHow is it different from emulating lets say a 20yr old PS2 game ? perhaps fundamentally it is not that far apart, but the developer is not losing money on sales for a start, the hardware is well and truly out of action and there is no effective DRM to bypass or machine to crack. Maybe that's just semantics.

Strictly speaking, the two are not mutually exclusive. The common rhetoric is that users should buy the Switch, hack it so it can dump game archives for cartridges they insert, and then for the user to purchase the game and dump it. Nintendo doesn't lose out on any sales this way.

What is the proportion of people doing that? That's a completely different story.

Some PS1 discs were protected by Libcrypt in 1998. Circumventing that today would still fall afoul of Section 1201 of the DMCA, no two ways about it.

all i can say is, the people behind suyu are very prepotent

Isn't all this very much besides the point? A large corporation managed to take down an OPEN SOURCE project by using a copyright legal mechanism infamous for easy abuse.... the problem is not emulation it's the legal precedent set.

And given how the FSF is currently being run by large corporations.... does anyone have any real confidence that they will even look at this as a GPL principle matter?

What's next? Some third party takes down LibreOffice because it infringes upon OpenOffice? Or because it clearly copies MSOffice? There are much larger concerns at play here than merely the emulation controversy.

Quoting: ElectricPrismDear Nintendo:

SELL YOUR GAMES ON STEAM. PIRACY IS A SERVICE PROBLEM. STOP CUTTING OFF YOUR NOSE TO SPITE YOUR FACE FANS.

PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO BUY YOUR STUPID WALLED GARDEN HARDWARE.

That is all.

LOL.

You want MORE monopoly in the software distribution space? Games on Steam do not get pirated? 130+ million people who bought the Switch are not people? Keep dreaming.

Quoting: rambo919Isn't all this very much besides the point? A large corporation managed to take down an OPEN SOURCE project by using a copyright legal mechanism infamous for easy abuse.... the problem is not emulation it's the legal precedent set.

There was no legal precedent set here. There was a settlement with the company behind about stuff that technically wasn't about emulation. And this one reads like nothing more than Gitlab being scared and removing the repo before Nintendo comes knocking.

I'm guessing the suyu people had already set up their private git repo, so probably nothing more than a minor inconvenience. And considering their dmca button, I doubt they're tied to the US.

Quoting: LoftyNot that i ever want to side with a giant mega corporation but i can kind of understand the perspective on switch emulation, i mean people are emulating games that are practically day one release on emulators, sometimes games that have been leaked. And there was a whole highly visible monetary aspect to it too. Emulation is meant for game preservation and nostalgia (edit* i stand corrected.. not exclusively) It's not very nostalgic emulating a current gen game on non supported hardware and it's not a game that needs preserving whilst its still on immediate sale.

The whole name of this project is obviously a troll towards Nintendo too so their reaction was to be expected.

Emulation will continue though. one way or another, which is great.

No one forced Nintendo to release a console using outdated tablet hardware and stick for it for a decade. This problem is entirely home made by nintendo.

Article updated.

Ksudyu.

But in Japanese, or something.

Who allows whom burn the books? Destroying all copies of source code is censorship.

Quoting: LoftyNintendo make money off of selling hardware and of course a few of their exclusive IP's. You being able to emulate switch on PC won't hurt them one bit, but everyone else doing it with consummate ease en-mass & on a steam deck in higher quality which is just a much better switch like platform would and eventually probably will destroy Nintendo.

Maybe, but that's not the customer's problem. Businesses are not entitled to abusive business models simply on the basis that they wouldn't be able to make money on non-abusive business models. That's why we have antitrust laws, child labour laws, product safety laws and on and on. So if the question is "Should businesses have the right to dictate what hardware I use to run software I bought from them?" the answer does not hinge on whether they will lose money from not being able to do it. Nor does it have anything to do with whether they put some kind of encryption on it to enforce their ability to so dictate, even if there's a law with a clause that says it's illegal to circumvent their encryption.

And there is an answer to the question. The answer is "No, businesses should not have that right. If I buy something, I should be able to do anything I want with it that isn't illegal for real reasons unconnected with that business' ability to exploit me." In fact, the whole thing where when you buy software you are claimed to have "licensed" it and have to click on a EULA is bullshit from start to finish. I don't sign a EULA when I buy a TV, even though it probably has software in it.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 22 March 2024 at 4:25 pm UTC