A $2.4 million settlement with Nintendo effectively put an end to the development of the popular Switch emulator Yuzu, but it’s not that easy to wipe a piece of software from the face of the internet. Nintendo is certainly still trying, though, as it’s just issued a massive DMCA takedown against thousands upon thousands of forks and clones of Yuzu.
GitHub, a site where software creators can host their applications and allow them to be expanded by other open source developers, just posted the details of a new DMCA takedown request from Nintendo. This one targets versions of Yuzu from developers other than the original team, including mirrors of the emulator, expanded alternate versions, and other forks and clones.
“Because the reported network that contained the allegedly infringing content was larger than one hundred (100) repositories,” GitHub says, “and the submitter alleged that all or most of the forks were infringing to the same extent as the parent repository, GitHub processed the takedown notice against the entire network of 8,535 repositories, inclusive of the parent repository.”
Nintendo’s continued action against derivatives of Yuzu is hardly surprising. The console giant still hasn’t managed to prove in court that Yuzu or any other emulator is illegal, but it’s made a very effective threat with the idea that Yuzu’s DRM-circumvention measures could be illegal. That’s left DMCA takedown requests as a very effective tool against emulator developers – a third-party site like GitHub is unlikely to deny a request from a company with the legal resources that Nintendo has.
There’s no small irony in the fact that Nintendo has already turned the Switch itself into a massive emulator.
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