Well, that didn't last long did it. After a first release, GitLab have already pulled down the Nintendo Switch emulator suyu, due to a DMCA hit as a result of it being forked from yuzu which Nintendo shut down.
My understanding: Making emulators is legal. Valve helped produce Proton which is an emulator that runs Windows games on Linux (because their steam deck runs on Linux). Nobody is going to sue Valve for creating a way for people to play their Steam games on the steam deck.
Assisting people bypass copyright protections is not legal. Yuzu devs were sued for this reason, and not because they created an emulator. Nintendo had evidence of the devs working with pirates and helping people run known pirated software. They also were making a lot of money from doing this, which makes Nintendo’s claim even stronger since they can use that as proof of financial harm.
So long as devs only work on the emulator and do not assist people with running pirated games on it, they theoretically should be fine. Of course they could still get sued and I’m sure it’d be expensive even if it’s ruled they’re not doing anything illegal.
Proton is not an emulator, it’s a compatibility layer. They don’t try to emulate Windows system functions, they just translate Windows system calls.
They make a difference, legally, since compatibility layers don’t recreate any functionality from the original process, while emulation recreates the internal operations of the system.
Regardless, emulation is legal. I wonder about the legality of this DMCA; Yuzu is open source, so there’s no copyright infringement on their code, right? It’s licensed under an open source license. And there’s no Nintendo code being copied, nor Nintendo assets. I’m not a lawyer (or even American), but I think this is DMCA abuse.
My understanding: Making emulators is legal. Valve helped produce Proton which is an emulator that runs Windows games on Linux (because their steam deck runs on Linux). Nobody is going to sue Valve for creating a way for people to play their Steam games on the steam deck.
Assisting people bypass copyright protections is not legal. Yuzu devs were sued for this reason, and not because they created an emulator. Nintendo had evidence of the devs working with pirates and helping people run known pirated software. They also were making a lot of money from doing this, which makes Nintendo’s claim even stronger since they can use that as proof of financial harm.
So long as devs only work on the emulator and do not assist people with running pirated games on it, they theoretically should be fine. Of course they could still get sued and I’m sure it’d be expensive even if it’s ruled they’re not doing anything illegal.
Wine is not an emulator
It’s in the name, so Valve have nothing to do with this
Also emulators are a grey area that is up against a court system that is constantly moving more pro-corporate by the day
Proton is not an emulator, it’s a compatibility layer. They don’t try to emulate Windows system functions, they just translate Windows system calls.
They make a difference, legally, since compatibility layers don’t recreate any functionality from the original process, while emulation recreates the internal operations of the system.
Regardless, emulation is legal. I wonder about the legality of this DMCA; Yuzu is open source, so there’s no copyright infringement on their code, right? It’s licensed under an open source license. And there’s no Nintendo code being copied, nor Nintendo assets. I’m not a lawyer (or even American), but I think this is DMCA abuse.
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