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Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu
(news.bloomberglaw.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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FWIW you can lawfully play pirated games, so that means nothing.
Case in point there is some evidence that Nintendo might have used a dumped and illegally distributed version of Super Mario Bros. in their Wii Virtual Console
That’s a funny one too me, because they are the original source when you dig your way down, so how are they doing anything wrong there?
Yeah it’s someone else’s work… which isn’t there’s anyways… so isn’t it always nintendos then?
It’s illegal if you don’t own the rom or decoded it with their keys. If you have the physical copy of the game, and a way to decrypt it, it’s not illegal to play the rom on an emulator.
So it’s not illegal, it becomes illegal when you don’t have the physical copy, or decode it with their stuff.
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.
I'm no legal expert but Nintendo's argument seems to surround a video game emulator being a tool whose primary use is to facilitate illegal circumvention of DRM and piracy. Nintendo's use of emulation for a legal means to resell their games on another platform, could suggest otherwise. The possible use of a ROM illegally distributed by a 3rd party as inputs in a legitimate Nintendo emulator (though Nintendo denies this) could help separate the issues between ROMs and emulation, because Nintendo's emulator isn't used for piracy.
Nintendo could use a copy of the freely available Yuzu to emulate Switch games on their rumored Switch 2, if they were so inclined, and it would be a legitimate use case.