Walled garden platforms doing what walled garden platforms do I suppose…
Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers
Submitted 7 months ago by ayla@beehaw.org to technology@beehaw.org
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/11/24127545/discord-suyu-sudachi-server-shutdown-account-ban
Comments
Fluid@aussie.zone 7 months ago
tyler@programming.dev 7 months ago
This has nothing to do with being a walled platform. All these maintainers of all these lemmy servers would have to do the exact same thing if Nintendo came to them. And if they refused then Nintendo could go to the server host. And if that didn’t work you would end up in court. It has nothing to do with walled gardens and everything to do with Nintendo abusing dmca.
InfiniWheel@lemmy.one 7 months ago
And also the maintainers being too trusting. They openly discussed pirate ROMs in the server and such.
conorab@lemmy.conorab.com 7 months ago
It does have to do with being a walled platform though. You as the Discord server owner have zero control over whether or not you are taken down. If this was Lemmy or a Discourse server (to go with something a little closer to walled garden) that they ran, the hosting provider or a court would have to take them down. Even then the hosting provider wouldn’t be a huge deal since you could just restore backup to a new one Pirate Bay style. Hell, depending on whether or not the devs are anonymous (probably not if they used Discord), they could just move the server to a new jurisdiction that doesn’t care. The IW4 mod for MW2 2009 was forked and the moved to Tor when Activision came running for them so this isn’t even unprecedented.
Zworf@beehaw.org 7 months ago
All these maintainers of all these lemmy servers would have to do the exact same thing if Nintendo came to them.
yes but then the community would move to another lemmy host and it would turn into a game of whack a mole for Nintendo.
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 7 months ago
True but any other company with the size to do so would chuck the request in the trash until the court orders came.
RiQuY@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Walled garden, more ike walled room of 1m x 1m.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 7 months ago
Shrinkflation strikes again
wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
Discord sucks so much. I wish it wasn’t so popular.
acastcandream@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Every alternative I have tried has a few “big” communities that were active for about four days before completely collapsing on themselves. It’s not that there isn’t a viable alternative, it’s that there is literally no alternative it seems like.
wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
I’ve been tempted for the last year to begin work on designing an experience like IRC, but which includes voice chat and screen sharing capabilities. That’s my dream is a melding of a nostalgic chat protocol, with modern services.
xnx@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
The company sucks and it being closed source with shitty security and privacy policy but the software is still the best messaging, gaming, video/streaming experience if we’re being honest. Nothing has all the features and convenience when it comes to watching shows and gaming with friends. Theres also never been such an easy way for anyone to run their own irc/etc server with as many features and convenience/price as discord.
They are fulfilling a lot of needs and people won’t leave until something 10x better comes out and nothing is even at 1:1 quality in terms of video, voice, streaming, gaming. Some have messaging and history yes but not even bots and different channels/forums setup. Maybe MAYBE telegram if you’re a super user but and thats only for bots and chats no gaming, watching shows, etc
HawlSera@lemm.ee 7 months ago
What’s wrong with the privacy policy? Can’t they literally not see your messages unless you get reported?
imnapr@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
We need to go back to pre-discord and bring back forums man. Don’t get me wrong, discord has its uses, all my friends use it, but discord killing forums and websites was really bad for the internet as a whole. Like look at dolphin, made before discord, it has its own website, its own forums. Hopefully if Nintendo does ever come after dolphin they’ll at least be able to keep the website and forums up.
ben_dover@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
or, you know, lemmy? it’s not that much different from forum software, is browsable and federated
huginn@feddit.it 7 months ago
I mean Nintendo would nuke the forums too.
Their lawyers don’t fuck around. They’re as bad as Disney.
Unless you’re a forum hosted in someplace like the Netherlands or Russia you’re in range for Nintendo’s nukes.
tesseract@beehaw.org 7 months ago
You’d at least get a chance to migrate if you do daily backups.
Zworf@beehaw.org 7 months ago
The Netherlands is extremely docile to big business interests.
Kichae@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Discord has no uses that isn’t already covered by other options, though. Their biggest feature is publicity.
seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
You ppl dont remner how utterly tedious forums were. We hake karma-based systems nowadays, we cam move on
Kichae@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Karma is a net negative for actual community creation and meaningful discussion.
DdCno1@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I’ve used forums that had these things 20 years ago. This isn’t new.
PoliticallyIncorrect@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Centralization = easy censorship.
Syn_Attck@lemmy.today 7 months ago
Mass centralization. Old school forums like phpBB and SMF and vBulletin and new-school forums like self-hosted discourse are also centralized, but by one small user calling the shots, and it’s very clear immediately which forums are well-run. If a forum isn’t well-run with a good community, a ‘competitor’ will quickly pop up that is, and people will go to it. Sure, you have to have some tech skills but there are easy guides for all of it. Discourse is a simple docker image and it’s the best for features and engagement IMO.
Sure you have to sorry about DDoS attacks and staying patched, but you can use OVH or another host with a large infrastructure that had DDoS resistant servers. Or, god forbid, cloudflare.
Kedly@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I understand that Lemmy hates Discord, but this is FAR more of Nintendo being an asshat than it is Discord. I’m so far done giving Nintendo my money at this point
tesseract@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Yes it’s Nintendo. But it wouldn’t be this bad without Discord’s design that emphasizes centralization and corporate ownership of user data. Forums can at least be backed up and migrated elsewhere.
veniasilente@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Not to mention Discord is not forced to take communities down. There’s lots of stuff like right wing nutjob communities that are still up no issues. Discord is just sucking Nintendo dick, just like the communities that host solely on Discord are sucking Discord cock.
Kedly@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Tbf I think a lot of that is just the fault of people starting to use discord in ways it wasnt designed for. It works GREAT as a msn/skype/ventrillo type of program. Its just that people started using it for more than just that, and to my knowledge discord isnt super profitable yet, so I dont blame them for trying to accept any type of use people want to use discord for. Eventually it’ll need to at least break even profit wise.
acastcandream@beehaw.org 7 months ago
But they’re not a business they just love making games for real gamers!
Kedly@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Not sure if your sarcasm is towards me or towards someone who’d defend Nintendo, but tbh I’m getting tired of Mega Corps in general, so asshats like Nintendo who go above and beyond being a dick because they have the legal team to do so I’m just done giving money to. Indie workers/companies of all fields I’ll try and get money to, but I kind of just want to see the current crop of mega corps sink and not come back
Corgana@startrek.website 7 months ago
[deleted]Kedly@lemm.ee 7 months ago
If you read the article YES THEY DID, discord was served papers, and Discord acted on it
tesseract@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Ooh! I would like to hear from all those who were fervently vouching for Discord as a support channel for FOSS projects.
Perhaps the same might happen to a web forum or matrix channel. But at least you get an opportunity to backup and migrate.
Kedly@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I mean, my response earlier probably still works for those who’d prefer discord as a support channel to other Foss channels: This is far more of a Nintendo bad moment than it is a Discord bad. I doubt foss alternatives would have the lawyers to fight Nintendo better than Discord can. And while my mind immediately thought of a hydra anology that Foss might have, hasnt the hydra already activated anyways? Suyu is already jumping into different hosting mediums
Nia_The_Cat@beehaw.org 7 months ago
[deleted]azerial@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Same. They’re are so many foss options out there, why didcord?
violintech@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I loving all the discord hate here. I’ve never understood why people like it.
Rinox@feddit.it 7 months ago
I mean, it’s great for audio and video chats. What I never understood is why people started using discord as a forum, as documentation or as some kind of program (like, why is Midjourney on a public discord chat? It’s probably the worst possible interface).
Discord is excellent for chatting with your friends while playing games, and that’s it.
tissek@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
Convenient, easy to use, large user base, one point registration for multiple communities, tends to simply just work.
But is it the best? Nah. And their increased monetisation drives are annoying.
dan@upvote.au 7 months ago
one point registration for multiple communities,
Federation, or at least some form of single sign-on with arbitrary providers (like we used to do with OpenID), is a better way of solving this.
flashgnash@lemm.ee 7 months ago
It’s good enough and everyone has it and knows it
I’m not about to even attempt to ask someone in a game if they’ve got matrix because the answer is going to be no
thingsiplay@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I think it’s like Windows and Reddit. People don’t use it because they like or love it, but because most are there. Sometimes the only way to interact with the developers or find new people in an active community.
Zworf@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Yeah me either. It spies on your computer, they ban third-party clients. It’s owned by bytedance. When I use the web version it kicks me out every day and I have to log in again.
I don’t mind it being around but I really hate the way open source projects (e.g. Home Assistant) use it as their only platform for collaboration.
Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Guess what? This will make them stronger. Suyu’s GitLab repo was already DMCA’d, after that they set up their own Forgejo instance. They also get their website running again (It was down for a few days, I don’t know the reason) and they’re now strong and independent. Moving away from Discord will only increase their independence.
Zangoose@lemmy.one 7 months ago
Suyu died though. Right now the only actively maintained Yuzu fork is Sudachi, which is only maintained by a single person.
Apparently there was some drama about the Yuzu devs using code which came from a switch SDK as a basis for emulator code, which kind of poisons the whole codebase.
Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Suyu died though.
What makes you think so?
Apparently there was some drama about the Yuzu devs using code which came from a switch SDK as a basis for emulator code, which kind of poisons the whole codebase.
But if this was in Yuzu, it’s also present in every other fork, right? Also, was this a leaked Nintendo SDK or something 3rd-party?
tesseract@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I wonder if the codeberg site is vulnerable to such laws. I think they operate from the EU.
Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
They’re based in Germany, so it should be fine. But I think they said at some point that they don’t want any trouble with DMCA code.
Cube6392@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Germany specifically
thingsiplay@beehaw.org 7 months ago
That happens if a single company controls the community (Reddit, Discord) and its closed source on top of it…
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
Maybe they should have picked any of the available chat options that aren’t totally proprietary?
ulkesh@beehaw.org 7 months ago
What I find hilarious is that these are just minor hiccups. The emulation scene has existed for a long time and will continue to exist for a long time. None of these recent measures will do anything to stop it as long as the emulator devs aren’t trying to make money off Nintendo IP.
penquin@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I don’t get why we are always running after our abusers, we have so many FOSS alternatives to this shit. And please don’t hit me with that “discord has more users” bullshit. I’m so sick of these fuckers abusing their powers.
acastcandream@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Every FOSS alternative to discord I’ve seen is basically a sea of dead servers
TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 7 months ago
Revolt also actively discourages you from self hosting because they want to get the network effect going, and you can’t do that if everything is splintered.
I have yet to find a Discord alternative, and I’ve looked a few times.
BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Anyone arguing “Discord has more users” on here can just be reminded that Reddit / Twitter has more users than their fediverse alternatives, and yet here they are on Lemmy, and probably Mastodon too.
A better world is possible.
TehPers@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Everyone here is saying not to use Discord, but what are they expecting the server admins to do after moving off Discord when Nintendo’s lawyers send them a letter? Like sure, hate Discord, but the problem here clearly lies with Nintendo.
Corgana@startrek.website 7 months ago
but what are they expecting the server admins to do after moving off Discord when Nintendo’s lawyers send them a letter
…Not… kick them out? Discord doesn’t kick out extremist groups. This seems comparatively mild. I think they had a reasonable expectation to be left alone.
dmalteseknight@programming.dev 7 months ago
I am guessing noone is suing discord for hosting these groups were Nintendo might be threatening a lawsuit for hosting these devs.
So not a matter of morals but self-preservation.
TehPers@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Is the expectation that Discord will risk spending potentially millions in court with Nintendo to protect a single community? From their perspective, it’s easy to see why they’d just bend over.
Discord’s response was extreme, and that is inexcusable. I’m not trying to defend them here. The core problem here though is Nintendo harassing these developers to try to stop these projects. They could have easily been kicked out by any other platform, or sent a C&D if they tried to self-host one.
Kichae@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Host the project in a country where IP laws don’t give Nintendo any teeth.
heluecht@pirati.ca 7 months ago
DrM@feddit.de 7 months ago
I don’t see people hating discord for it, just pointing out that it was a bad choice from the beginning
TehPers@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I agree there are probably better options out there, but scrolling through the comments, I had seen a lot of discussion about Discord and not nearly as much on Nintendo. I was hoping to stir up more discussion on Nintendo’s involvement.
Discord’s reaction may be unreasonable, but it isn’t ridiculous to see them bend over for Nintendo when they’re faced with hosting a smaller community (relatively speaking) or becoming a target of Nintendo’s lawyers. Had they been on another platform (self-hosted or not), Nintendo would have likely persued them all the same. Also, as far as I’m aware, the developers themselves believe that they are within the law. The issue comes from Nintendo disregarding the law and harassing them anyway.
veniasilente@lemm.ee 7 months ago
You can blame both corporations, you don’t need to suck any corpo cock. Nintendo sends the takedowns in the first place, which sure is Nintendon’t, and Discord heeds them despite otherwise profiting from those communities and without allowing any sort of measure.
TehPers@beehaw.org 7 months ago
You can blame both corporations
I don’t remember saying otherwise. I just found it odd that everyone was talking about Discord (at the time of posting), and there was very little discussion around Nintendo’s involvement in encouraging (and participating in) such toxic behavior.
without allowing any sort of measure.
This is what I find unacceptable in Discord’s case. Options should have been given to the devs/server admins.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Problem? These devs are exposing themselves to the corporate legal eye. Have whatever opinion you want, but they are playing in the bear enclosure at the zoo.
I obviously don’t love corporate fuckery, but I acknowledge it is pretty clear. If you fuck with a company with a huge legal team, even tangentially, even if you believe you are not infringing on anything, you could be wrong in their eyes, and they might nuke your project.
Fizz@lemmy.nz 7 months ago
I see discord is entrenched enough where they dont need to care about their users.
Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com 7 months ago
It was nice while it lasted I guess, now to begin the slow search for another private community for the friend group to very slowly migrate to.
dan@upvote.au 7 months ago
now to begin the slow search for another private community for the friend group to very slowly migrate to.
Just don’t pick another proprietary platform again.
tooLikeTheNope@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Discord is trash anyway, move onto Matrix already
jarfil@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Time to restore a backup on a different hosting provider… what, Discord doesn’t let export backups, or self-host it? Well, shouldn’t have relied on Discord then.
BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 7 months ago
i think thats a little extreme, cant they just remove the content and block them? also why does discord have weapons of mass destruction in the first place?
lowleveldata@programming.dev 7 months ago
I’m sure all these companies have similar policy that they can stop hosting your things if they don’t like to
ChallengeApathy@infosec.pub 7 months ago
Time for them to move over to Matrix.
onlinepersona@programming.dev 7 months ago
Just wait, they’ll move to Matrix, get legally attacked if they’re hosting in a copyright friendly jurisdiction, and say “fuck it, we’re going to the darkweb”, and Nintendo won’t be able to do shit.
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 7 months ago
Something something Drake meme Discord/IRC…
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 7 months ago
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Both Suyu and Sudachi began as forks of Yuzu, the emulator that Nintendo sued out of existence on March 4th. Developers of Yuzu’s forks also claimed they were changing the code further, among other practices, in an effort to avoid pissing Nintendo off. But it’s possible that people were sharing Nintendo’s cryptographic keys, firmware, or even entire pirated games in these servers despite those commitments. Even if Suyu and Sudachi were infringing, Discord’s policy does not suggest it would permaban, much less nuke entire servers, on the first offense. Discord did not answer questions about whether these users were repeat copyright infringers, had received any previous warnings, or were forwarded any takedown requests. Nintendo isn’t just targeting Switch emulators with its latest round of takedowns but also some of the tools that aid them: it sent DMCA takedown requests to GitHub to remove 27 forks of the Sigpatch Updater, as well as Lockpick_RCM, kezplez-nx, and Incognito_RCM, which help Switch owners and developers obtain encryption keys. — Saved 79% of original text.
algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
Good, stop using Discord to host your shit
jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 7 months ago
Especially Open Source stuff.
dan@upvote.au 7 months ago
I genuinely don’t understand why some open source communities rely so heavily on Discord.
Pietson@kbin.social 7 months ago
The article says the code was not hosted on discord. Even if it was, the code does not infringe on any Nintendo copyright. Having a grudge against discord doesn't make it fair to victim blame
tesseract@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Discord hosted the community, not the code. And that community is now destroyed without even a chance to backup. And Discord can absolutely be blamed because people were warning that this would happen. This is as much a result of Discord’s centralized design as it is of Nintendo’s greed. Now the community has to be reestablished on a new platform from scratch.