Pretty sure they would consider this “format shifting”, which is not a valid exception to bypassing copy protection
Comment on Nintendo Targets YouTube Accounts Showing Emulated Games
dan@upvote.au 1 month agoit’s legal to dump that game to a PC and play it on a Switch emulator, right?
Depends on where you live.
In the USA, section 117 of the copyright act lets you create a copy for archival/backup purposes only. What I’m unsure about (and don’t know if there’s any relevant caselaw) is whether bypassing copy protection to create the copy violates the DMCA.
The equivalent Australian copyright law explicitly states that you can use the backup copy instead of the original one. The US law doesn’t (all it says is that you can make an archival copy, not how you can use the archival copy), so it’s a grey area.
archomrade@midwest.social 1 month ago
Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I don’t see any way you could argue a video game isn’t computer software. It literally just is.
dan@upvote.au 1 month ago
Nintendo could try make up something like “it’s not computer software since the Switch is a console, not a computer” or something like that. Not a great argument, but they have good lawyers and could probably convince a court that it’s true.
phx@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
But the game is running on a computer with the emulator which still strongly lends to it being software
helpmyusernamewontfi@lemmy.today 1 month ago
I think I somewhat recall during the peak Wii U disaster era, during shareholder meetings Nintendo would call the games for the system “Software”. So, that’d definitely backfire on them I’m sure