Case 1:24-cv-00082-JJM-LDADocument 1Filed 02/26/24Page 37 of 41 PageID #: 37
122.Section 106 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 106, provides, in pertinent part, that the owner of a copyright under the Copyright Act has the exclusive right to reproduce its audiovisual works.
123.Plaintiff owns valid, registered copyrights in numerous games for the Nintendo Switch. For instance, Nintendo holds copyrights in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,[1] Animal Crossing: New Horizons,[2] and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.[3] Plaintiff expects discovery to reveal that many more of its copyrighted games have been infringed by Yuzu users and developers. Nintendo has not licensed its rights to the Defendant nor otherwise provided authorization for Defendant or its agents to exercise any of Nintendo’s exclusive rights in its copyrighted games.
124.On information and belief, Yuzu users have (1) dumped Nintendo games they have lawfully purchased and copied the game ROMs into Yuzu; and (2) obtained Nintendo games online from pirate websites and copied those game ROMs into Yuzu. Each such reproduction constitutes a violation of 17 U.S.C. § 501(a) for which Plaintiff is entitled to damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504 and injunctive relief under § 502.
125.Users make infringing copies of Nintendo’s copyrighted games on unauthorized platforms when they play those games on such platforms. Unauthorized copies of Nintendo games’ audiovisual content are made dynamically during Yuzu’s operation, including as the game content is decrypted. Additionally, Yuzu copies a game’s audiovisual assets if a user opts to dump the game’s “RomFS” directory, as described in paragraph 56 above. Defendant has knowledge of Yuzu users’ direct infringement and materially contributes to each of their acts of infringement because it designs and provides them with the technology that enables the play of unauthorized game copies on unauthorized platforms, i.e., Yuzu. Additionally,
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