Nintendo has sent a request to GitHub to block 8,535 repositories with forks of the Yuzu emulator. The request was made under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The projects are accused of circumventing the protection technologies used in Nintendo Switch consoles. GitHub has already complied with Nintendo's request and blocked the repositories with Yuzu forks.
Nintendo consoles use encryption of firmware contents and game files with cryptographic keys to prevent the launch of pirated game copies and protect against game copying. Nintendo owns or manages the copyright for the games on its consoles and is responsible for providing licenses for game distribution on its devices. The terms of use allow games to be played only on their gaming consoles and prohibit the use of unauthorized devices.
It is claimed that the Yuzu emulator and its forked repositories infringe Nintendo's rights, as they are specifically designed to bypass technical protection methods and illegally use extracted cryptographic keys to decrypt games and firmware. Even though the extraction of keys for decrypting games is the responsibility of users and is performed using third-party tools, the act of decrypting on the emulator side is viewed by Nintendo as illegal circumvention of technical protection measures, even if users use keys extracted from their own purchased copy (the terms of use prohibit creating copies for use on other platforms).
The Yuzu emulator was presented by Nintendo as a tool for turning personal computers into a means for widespread intellectual property infringement. At one point, the creators of the Yuzu emulator recklessly publicly mentioned that most users of the emulator employed pirated keys, and the Yuzu website contained instructions for extracting keys and discussed the need to transfer certain files from a hacked console, which Nintendo used as grounds to accuse the project of facilitating piracy and unauthorized copying of games. After a lawsuit was filed, the Yuzu developers agreed to a settlement that involved shutting down the project and paying Nintendo $2.4 million in damages.
Source: opennet.ru
