Nintendo Switch game modding is illegal. – Gabriel Sieben

Note: I am not a lawyer – but hear me out.

Considering the recent squabble between Pointcrow and Nintendo, almost everyone has heard of the “DMCA Takedown.” The DMCA is a huge (and arguably unconstitutional and 70% stupid) law that has a ton of sections, with Section 512 dealing with takedowns.

However, there’s another section in the DMCA many people don’t know: DMCA Section 1201. It deals with what it calls “Technological Protection Measures.” The Library of Congress summarizes the section:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), codified in part in 17 U.S.C. § 1201, makes it unlawful to circumvent technological measures used to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works, including copyrighted books, movies, video games, and computer software. Section 1201, however, also directs the Librarian of Congress, upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights following a rulemaking proceeding, to determine whether the prohibition on circumvention is having, or is likely to have an adverse effect on users’ ability to make noninfringing uses of particular classes of copyrighted works. Upon such a determination, the Librarian may adopt limited temporary exemptions waiving the general prohibition against circumvention for such users for the ensuing three-year period.

So, there you have it, in short. Breaking any digital lock / TPM, without an exception being created during the rule-making every three years, is illegal. Even for fair use cases, like repairing a tractor, or jailbreaking your smartphone. DMCA Section 1201 takes precedence before any “Fair Use” claim.

You might ask – wait a minute, jailbreaking my iPhone is illegal? Well, it actually used to be, but an exception was created for jailbreaking smartphones and tablets. However, guess what doesn’t have an exception yet: video game consoles. Well, they do have one exception – you can break digital locks, only to replace a broken disk drive, as long as you then put the digital lock back afterwards.

So, believe it or not, modding your Nintendo Switch in any capacity, under DMCA 1201, is actually illegal in the United States. Distributing tools for doing so is also illegal. There is historical precedent for DMCA 1201 enforcement as well. RealNetworks lost a lawsuit for DMCA 1201 violations when they made DVD ripping software, and Psystar went bankrupt partially from violating DMCA 1201 for making macOS run on unapproved hardware by bypassing Apple’s lockout.

This leaves Pointcrow and game modders like him in a quandary, legally, before even getting into copyright issues, or whether Nintendo’s Terms of Use (which say no reverse-engineering) are enforceable. How did he obtain a copy of the game to start modding? There’s only two ways:

• Piracy (Copyright infringement – illegal)
• Jailbreaking his Switch to get a game dump (DMCA 1201 – illegal)

So, before even talking about whether he’s violated Nintendo’s copyrights, or violated Nintendo’s Terms of Service that came with the game, he could have committed a crime with up to five years in prison and $500,000 in criminal penalties. (Which is also why anyone saying, “but he was clearly Fair Use, Nintendo is just using illegal DMCA takedown notices!” doesn’t know what they are talking about – this exact thing what DMCA takedowns were originally designed for!)

You might also be thinking right now, “but wait a minute, what about where it started? With NES and SNES modding?” Well, curiously enough, that’s not a DMCA 1201 violation because the NES and SNES don’t have encrypted ROMs or qualifying TPMs. This is also why you can rip a CD with your computer legally (because it has no encryption), but cannot legally rip a DVD in most cases despite the encryption algorithm being breakable with just 7 lines of Perl.

Welcome to the United States, land of “freedom.”