this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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I feel this was only a matter of time, as there is no legal way to dump your games, so emulating the Switch is a very gray area
Since when is it illegal to dump games? I understand distributing them being illegal but this is my own hardware, if I wanna dump BotW to my Deck I'm gonna dump it
In the USA if you are circumventing some digital lock (encryption) in order to create the backup, it is illegal. The DMCA fucked us out of our rights to an archival copy.
If anyone knows from a more technical perspective - where exactly would the DRM breaking come into play?
I think I understand correctly that to take (for example) a Switch cartridge and pull out the game on it in a way that it could be playable on an emulator involves breaking DRM somehow.
But if that requires cracking or decrypting, shouldn't it also be possible to pull a copy of the protected software off the cartridge? And have an actual unmodified backup of the software that couldn't be played in an emulator without modification, but could still be read by the original hardware?
Isn't that exactly what copy protection is supposed to prevent? If you can read data from the cartridge and then put it on some other medium that still works in original hardware then what you've done is copied the game.
Well I guess that's what I'm asking. It has to be stored as data in some format. It should be possible to get that data and not be able to do anything useful with it. Unless the storage on the cartridge itself has some additional hardware that needs to be bypassed (which would be the breaking DRM part). Or I guess the cartridge itself has something separate from the software data that isn't easy to imitate with a cartridge of your own.
I haven't paid attention to the details of how copy protection works since the PSX, which put some information in a physical area of the disk that couldn't be read or written to by consumer hardware.
From what I understand the dmca backup issue only comes into play when it involves emulation, yeah, because you either need to reproduce the decryption mechanism or bypass it, and both could be argued to be “circumvention of encryption” which comes into play on the DMCA stuff.
As far as I know, that would be legal. It’s the circumventing of the encryption that’s problematic. I am not a law stylist though.
Dumping games isn't illegal. Honestly them making it almost impossible should be illegal.
dunping games is drm breaking, and depends on which country you live in on whether its legal or not.
I don't understand why you are downvoted, we might not like it, but it's true. Circumventing drm is not legal.
The DMCA states: No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
And defines circumventing as: (A) to "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Which means that it doesn't even need to be good drm, a rot13 'encryption' is good enough.
Violations of the DMCA can be criminal and can result in prison time.
Dumping a game cart or digital download on switch cannot be done without circumventing drm, and is therefore, unequivocally illegal, unfortunately.
some people vote by emotion which I don't mind downvotes by any means, as long as theyre aware that thats kinda what reality is. Im pro dumping and extremely pro emulation, but im not gonna sit here and say that circumventing drm is legal in every country in the world.
It is legal to circumvent DRM in certain cases. Format shifting is one such case.
also iirc it doesnt cirvumvent the drm. it dumps the whole cart, including the drm itself.
There is no way to access the dump without circumventing the switch itself's encryption, as you need to do it on a modified switch and as far as I know the exemptions provided for DMCA are for scenarios where it's effectively impossible or extremely difficult to use the software in a non infringing way, (other exemptions are generally quite specific) which could be argued for out of circulation consoles and games, but would not stand for an in production generally available console and it's games.
I've never heard of exemptions for format shifting exemption for circumventing copy protection. I've heard it argued in the case of things like ripping a CD that has no copy protection in place though.
You aren't "circumventing the switches encryption" whatever that means. You're putting it in debug mode. Not to mention it being illegal to softmod your own hardware is insane.
And the same format shifting exemption applies to blueray which does have DRM.
Ok, first off, installing custom firmware on a switch involves a lot more than entering rcm, that's one step yes, but not the entire process. 'soft-modding' a release switch, uses a hardware exploit on tegra SOCs that allows the device to bypass (the encrypted) bootloader on the switch by way of injecting a custom payload in recovery (not debug) mode.
This isn't even an argument so I don't know you are saying this, it's settled in criminal and civil court, Doug Bowser went to jail for this exactly, specifically, conspiracy to circumvent, and trafficking circumvention tools.
Otherwise you should actually read the DMCA, I can't find any mention of format shifting broadly and exemptions provided are very specific.
I should add, it doesn't actually matter how good an attempt of DRM is for it to be illegal. The fact that Nintendo made a mistake in allowing the ability (through unintended use of the hardware) to enter rcm, does not magically make it legal. the DRM just needs to be a clear effort and intention.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's the reality of the world we live in.
Edit: can you actually provide any info on where you are getting that it's legal to crack blu ray encryption?
Actually that's incorrect. It falls under format shifting and is therefore legal
format shifting is not a globally recognized right, again, goes back into the situation where the laws vary globally
Fair, I thought you were the same user talking about the DMCA. You're correct that it varies based on laws.
basically it goes over the whole process in general, and each country enforces and has laws of various degress on it. For example, with console dumping and flashcarts int he US are deemed illegal. Nintendo has already sucessfully shut down some stores that offer modding services without even necessarily offering up the illegal goods. Flash cart companies online already go through lengths in order to help the customer "avoid customs" as flash carts legally speaking, aren't legal to buy in the U.S, and normally is supposed to be confiscated at the border. Not all agents are aware of it though as it's not as strictly enforced and known like drugs or weapons would be.
It's a field where not many want to challenge said law.
The software is perfectly legal.
Assuming USA:
The software can absolutely be declared illegal under DMCA and has already been done to the DVD decrytion software DeCSS. Nintendo would just have to convince the courts that the primary purpose of the software is to circumvent their DRM, and I doubt any lawyer would want to defend that when circumventing copy protection is absolutely happening.
Relevant DMCA passage:
The injunction that was granted: https://cryptome.org/dvd-mpaa-3-pi.htm
Court's findings and arguments for granting the injunction: https://cyber.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/filings/NY/0202-mem-order.html
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
Fair. Thank you for this write up. I love (/s) our pay to win legal system!
Nintendo's legal argument is that the encryption that is reverse-engineered to circumvent copy-protection is protected intellectual property.
Anyone can copy the contents of a switch ROM (more of a glorified SD card anyway) but the million-dollar question is whether their proprietary encryption can be broken legally.
Isn't the encryption algorithm open? That's what matters. It's AES, no?
... and if so, a key/password is not legally protected. Have Lexmark's bullshit to thank for that precedent.
You don't necesairally need to to dump a switch to emulate something with Yuzu. Look at all of the GBA games made today. Wii homebrew, etc.