taizou @lion@computerfairi.es

Anyway sorry I've been dumping my thoughts about this case into this thread over the course of like 24 hours now. It will happen again

It would probably be useful if I'd posted this on Twitter where there's a whole load of hyperbole going round about this case and not much sober analysis but I also can't be fucked to deal with the responses I'd get on there so I'm not going to

I do think there's a fair chance if Yuzu had required decrypted ROMs they would've figured out some other grounds to attack it though. So I couldn't say another Switch / Switch 2 emu would be safe in the US if it had no decryption functionality. But as things stand I do think non-current-platform emulators are generally not at risk

Also the Patreon had nothing to do with it

Their case primarily hinged on their characterisation of Yuzu as a "circumvention device" by virtue of the fact that it decrypts Switch games at runtime as a core part of its functionality. This is not really a common factor for most older system emulators which either play games that were never encrypted in the first place, or require pre-decrypted ROMs (as Citra does). So I don't believe this case would've affected the standing of emulation in general even if it went to trial and they won

Another thing worth noting is that they didn't explicitly target Citra at all, despite the same lead dev, it was only mentioned once in the complaint as background context and not mentioned in the final judgement and injunction at all

Whether this was because they didn't believe they had as strong a case against it, or they just weren't bothered about pursuing an emu for a dead system, I don't know, but it does suggest Citra forks and other older system emus would not be in their crosshairs

Like ultimately this case wasn't about the money and probably not *really* about Yuzu itself either, given the timing the intent was probably to pre-empt any future attempt at Switch 2 emulation by the team and scare off anyone else from trying it

So I think it's important to figure out what's safe for emulation in the legal climate that exists & not just allow a general chilling effect to set in

I also noticed in the Yuzu case that the defendant is an LLC which I guess was used to manage the project and funding and (big "not a lawyer and not American" caveat here) I think that shields the individuals involved from personal liability? Meaning the LLC is liable for the 2.4mil they settled on, which it probably doesn't have, so in practice will just hand over whatever assets it has & then declare bankruptcy & the individuals get to walk away
That was a smart move if so

Might be a good time for any "risky" emulation projects (including any new forks) to think about detaching themselves from the US as much as possible. It's a big world and the DMCA only exists in one country

generations are fake, these articles were bullshit when they were talking about "millennials" and they're still bullshit now "millennials" are writing them

except the people writing them now are being paid a lot less! by the time it's "Gen Z" turn to write them they'll be post-editing AI for pennies

as ever the only divide that's real is the one created by a society that allows the rich to funnel ever increasing wealth towards themselves while whittling down the scraps thrown to the rest of us

i've left the "recommended by pocket" thing on in firefox until now because sometimes interesting stuff shows up & if it helps mozilla stay afloat then whatever so be it.
but lately it's bringing up so much Why Gen Z Blah Blah Blah type crap that i've just had to turn it off because i'm sick of seeing it every time I open a tab