This week, the Tokyo eSports Festa was held during which lawyers and IP leaders from Capcom, Koei, Sega, Konami, and Nintendo talked about a wide range of topics. One of those topics involved copyright and IP within the gaming industry. When it came to talking about the legality of emulators, patent attorney and deputy general manager of Nintendo's IP department, Koji Nishiura, said that emulators are technically legal.
The caveat lies in the fact that there are still several ways in which emulators can violate the law. According to the report by Android Authority (via Denfaminico Gamer), if Switch emulators bypass any of the "technical restriction measures" set in place for the Switch, that would open up the emulator makers to potential legal trouble.
This isn't really anything new. Emulation is technically legal in locations such as Japan and the United States. However, these emulators cannot bypass any "technological measure" that would allow the emulator to play pirated software. As Android Authority points out, though Nishiura was specifically talking about Japanese laws, this is also clearly outlined in the DMCA Section 1201(a)(1)(A).
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
Obviously, any emulator that directs people on where to obtain pirated games or other copyrighted material are also violating the law. This is allegedly what happened with Tropic Haze, the developer behind the Yuzu emulator for the Nintendo Switch. Team Haze was said to be internally sharing links or direct access to pirated Switch ROMs. Another popular Switch emulator, Ryujinx, was also forced to shut down later in 2024.
It's rather interesting that this news comes on the same day that we were made aware of a 58-year old man in Japan being arrested for selling modded Switch devices.
(Image via PCGamer)
