Lockpick receiving attacks from Nintendo. Is this the end of Nintendo emulators?
Nintendo has resumed its offensive. The Japanese game company reportedly issued takedowns for Lockpick, a homebrew project that enables users to give up their own digital keys from their Switch consoles and load them on emulators like Ryujinx and Yuzu for PC. Nintendo recently took down the multiplayer mod made for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s emulated PC version.
The information was provided by developer Simon Aarons, who had modified Lockpick. Additionally, Nintendo sent him a DMCA, which he shared on Twitter. Nintendo claims in the lawsuit statement that Lockpick enables users to get around the Switch console’s security features and promotes the infringement of copyright by making it possible for unlicensed Switch titles to be playable on altered consoles or other systems. Here is the tweet he posted:
Nintendo has just issued multiple DMCA takedown requests to GitHub, including for Lockpick, the tool for dumping keys from YOUR OWN Switch, which is absolutely ludicrous – pirates aren't gonna be sourcing keys from their own consoles!https://t.co/QePiLPTjmm
— Simon Aarons (@ItsSimonTime) May 4, 2023
Surprisingly, as many people have pointed out, Lockpick is right now the sole legal method of emulating Switch titles because all it does is let you move your console’s digital license to another system, such as a PC. Nintendo may be making emulator users hunt for pirated keys in the future by taking down Lockpick.
Nintendo users don’t seem too happy about this, as user @Mors mentioned in a Twitter post:
this is ridiculous. this is quite literally the only legal way to emulate switch games, dumping your OWN keys
im now forced to obtain keys in illegal ways to emulate my own games thanks nintendo https://t.co/RWBcYJH8zE
— Mors (@MorsGames) May 5, 2023
Although the Lockpick repository is still accessible for now on GitHub, it could not be long until GitHub agrees with the takedown request. The developers of Skyline, an Android Switch emulator, have already stopped work on the project in order to avoid any possible legal issues as a result of Nintendo’s actions. On their channel on Discord, the Skyline team published the following message:
“It is with great sadness that we bring you this news. Recently, Nintendo has issued a DMCA takedown notice against Lockpick RCM which will likely come into effect on Monday, Lockpick is a core part of legally dumping keys from the Switch. They claim that it circumvents their copy protection (TPMs) and therefore violates their copyright. We find ourselves in a position where we are potentially violating their copyright by continuing to develop our project, Skyline, by dumping keys from our own Switches.
We want to take this opportunity to thank our community for their years of support. The development of Skyline has been an amazing journey, and we are grateful for all the support we have received from our users. We understand that the emulator is not where we ultimately wanted it to be, but we could not have made it this far without your dedication and enthusiasm. We hope that our community understands the difficult position we have been placed in, we thank you all for everything Skyline was and wish it didn’t have to end so abruptly…”
All Nintendo emulators might be taken down
These actions are probably caused by the last week’s leak. The Legends of Zelda: Tears of the New Kingdom was leaked and playable on PC emulators, way ahead of its release on May 12th. We really hope that this is not the end of all Nintendo emulators, but signs really point in that direction.
