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Comment by EMIRELADERO | Hacker News Reader

Is it your position that no entity should ever try to challenge a big company's interpretation of the law, however ridiculous it may be? At that point, why even have a judicial system?

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Because the last time it was litigated in the US, the good guys won. But SCEA v. Bleem was over 20 years ago, and there's no guarantee that the courts won't roll back protections for emulation development.

NoA is notoriously vindictive & litigious, and they have more money than the Dolphin devs. Even though Sony lost the case, the lawsuit ruined Bleem. It's not outside the realm of possibility that Nintendo will try to do the same thing to Dolphin, Ryujinx, Yuzu, etc.

So when a bigcorp says jump you expect everyone to just do so?

I think the point is, you’re welcome to place yourself in Nintendos crosshairs, and we’ll cheer you on as you pit your billions against Nintendos billions, fighting for a favorable ruling.

Dolphin developers apparently are not in a position to pit billions against Nintendo. Can’t blame them either.

It’s an expensive theory to test. I would imagine most OSS projects or their contributors are not in a financial position to get to court, let alone see the trial to a conclusion.

I don’t know what to do about it, but it seems we’ve fell into aristocracy of ruling corporations.

That's what advocate and civil rights organizations are for. I bet the likes of the EFF would be very interested in taking this case. It aligns with their incentives to take down the DMCA.

If EFF is very interested, they can find a way to test it themselves. But here, even with EFF's help the developers would be still exposed to risk. EFF is not able to say "we'll fight this for you, pay 100% of expenses and your time's worth, and go jail instead of you if things turn really bad".

The main point is that it's not a good survival strategy for a hobbyist project that may draw the ire of a big company: even if the companies legal action is completely frivolous, it can easily destroy the project (basically the only option they actually have is enough public outcry to get the company to back off due to the bad publicity). Generally speaking laying low is the better option. It sucks, and it's a big problem with the current judicial system, but it is the status quo. It would take someone able and willing to put some serious resources into a risky bet to change that.

Sometimes it's just better to settle for good enough, or in this case pretty damn good.

But no, some of you want the most convenient way. Only this time, that's painted a massive target on the back of what you want.

Every interaction with IP law is a total gamble and if you lose you are gone forever. It's best to take as few gambles as possible

Many people agree but don't have the resources or are risking too much if they try.

If you think you can make a difference, the world will welcome you.

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