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Yuzu developers agreed to pay $2.4 million in damages to Nintendo to settle their lawsuit
(storage.courtlistener.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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The main link is to the motion paper. This is the link to the actual agreed-upon final judgment and injunction:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.56980/gov.uscourts.rid.56980.10.1.pdf
In short, Yuzu agreed to stop developing and distributing the emulator, cannot distribute source code, assign it to a new entity, encourage any IP violations, and must surrender their domain.
The findings also include admissions that the purpose of the Yuzu software was "primarily" designed to circumvent technical measures in violation of the DMCA.
So it appears Yuzu didn't "win" in any real sense. Nintendo got a chilling amount of damages, effectively their full injunction, and also some agreed-upon "findings of fact" that may serve Nintendo in future litigation to justify claims that emulators are "primarily" designed to circumvent technical measures and circumvent the DMCA.
This is bad.
Its bad for Yuzu/Tropic Haze. But it is "not bad" for emulation as a whole because there was no legal precedent.
If nintendo decides to continue to strong arm emulator teams into shutting down that is going to be really bad. But that is ALSO when activist orgs tend to get involved and foot the bill/provide lawyers because they want the precedent that prevents those kinds of lawsuits.
You think Nintendo is just going to stop? They can get an easy couple of million now by going after anyone with an emulator. I'm sure they could even go after discontinued console emulators too now they have a shitty service to play their old games.
No they can’t get an easy couple million from any emulator lol, only from emulator developers making millions of dollars from their emulator…which is basically only Yuzu.
Google Gary Bowser if you think not affording it means Nintendo won't go after them
That's not a counter-example...Team Xecuter also made millions of dollars and Gary was running various sites that explicitly promoted and helped people with piracy (much more directly illegal than anything Yuzu was doing). Whether Gary has the money to pay his plea agreement in his federal criminal case (not a mutually agreed upon settlement in a civil case like Yuzu) is irrelevant to my point that the only people getting in big trouble are the ones making a ton of money off of it.
Also it was only "an easy couple million" from Yuzu because they chose to settle the case immediately rather than fighting it. They certainly had the money to fight it if they had $2.4 million to pay in a settlement they agreed to, so I assume they were more across the line into illegal territory than it seemed or they wouldn't have folded so fast.