Nintendo Lawyer Discusses Game Piracy And Emulation Lawsuit Strategy

hero yuzu ryujinx strikes
Japan is a staunch ally of the United States and the two countries share many values. They don't agree on everything, though, and one of the most contentious areas between Japanese and American businesses is the matter of copyright. It may be hard to believe, but copyright law is much stricter in Japan than it is in the United States, and Japanese companies have radically different views on game modding and emulation.

As a perfect illustration of this point, we have a lecture from Koji Nishiura. Mr. Nishiura is a lawyer and serves as the Deputy General Manager of Nintendo's Intellectual Property Department. In this role, he oversees the company's efforts to protect its intellectual property, which includes a firm stance on addressing copyright infringement. This extends not only to traditional cases, such as unauthorized distribution or use of their games, but also to areas like fan-created games inspired by or utilizing Nintendo copyrights other fan works, as well as the use of emulators, which some might consider more nuanced or contentious.

nishiura koji nintendo lawyer
Nishiura Koji, Nintendo's Deputy General Manager of Intellectual Property. Photo: DenFamiNicoGamer

Nishiura outlined Nintendo's stance in his lecture, given to industry members at the Tokyo eSports Festa hosted by Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS), an agency roughly analogous to the American Entertainment Software Association. Speaking on behalf of Nintendo, Nishiura recounted tales of the gaming giant's successes in protecting its copyrights, including the dismantling of both of the most popular Nintendo Switch emulator projects last year.

In so doing, the attorney laid out Big N's specific stance on emulators. It's a bit more nuanced than you might expect, as while they don't have the protected status that they do in the United States, emulators are not strictly illegal, even in Japan. Nishiura explains that emulators can however become illegal depending on how they are used. According to Nintendo, when an emulator directly reproduces a program that is part of the game device it is emulating, it is copyright infringement. This is why most emulators rely heavily on reverse engineering and require users to produce their own copies of system firmware.

He also noted that emulators can become illegal if they disable what Japanese law refers to as "technical protection measures"—essentially, if they break encryption. While the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act has similar protections, even using similar nomenclature ("technological protection measures"), there are key differences in how the matter is treated on either side of the Pacific Ocean. Getting around encryption is distinct from cracking it in the United States, while in Japan both are considered "circumvention."

examples of unlawful copyright actions
Examples of forbidden acts under Japan's Unfair Competition Act. Click for a translated version.

While Nishiura didn't say this, a cynic might point out that Nintendo's aggressive assault on Switch emulators could be an effort to protect its bottom line specifically with regard to the Nintendo Switch's successor. The company has confirmed that the next-generation machine will be compatible in some fashion with extant Switch software, and it's easy to make the mental leap from "new machine plays old software" to "prevent old software from being played elsewhere."

We obviously weren't present at the Tokyo eSports Festa, so we have to go off of second-hand information gleaned from reporting like that of DenFamiNicoGamer's, but it's interesting to see Nintendo so explicitly define what makes an emulator illegal rather than allowing the public to believe that emulators simply are illegal. In fact, Nishiura specifically explains that emulators are not by their nature illegal—refreshing honesty from a company that is sometimes regarded as user-hostile by the community.