Nintendo wants to have 8535 Yuzu forks taken offline on GitHub with a takedown request

Nintendo has reportedly filed a DMCA takedown request with GitHub to take down all forks of Switch emulator Yuzu. According to the developer platform, this concerns a total of 8,535 Yuzu repositories.

Nintendo appears to have submitted the DMCA request at the beginning of this week. The game maker writes in the request that the repositories “provide access to the Yuzu emulator or contain code based on it.” According to Nintendo, this source code can be used to circumvent the company's technological protection measures and play illegal versions of Switch games. According to Nintendo, almost all forks of the main repository would violate the company's copyright. GitHub therefore says that this request applies to all 8535 repositories on the platform that contain code from the emulator. The forks were not removed immediately. GitHub says it first gives developers time to adjust their repositories. They can also file a countersuit.

Nintendo sued the makers of the Yuzu emulator, Tropic Haze, in February for 'facilitating mass piracy'. The company wanted the emulator taken offline. A month later, this happened through a settlement that Tropic Haze reached with Nintendo. In addition to Yuzu being taken off the air, the makers also promised to pay the game company $2.4 million in damages. In March, the Switch emulator suyu was also taken offline by a DMCA request. That emulator was based on Yuzu, but according to the makers it did not contain piracy.

Nintendo is notorious when it comes to enforcing its copyright. The company has recently filed takedown requests against homebrew tools Lockpick and Lockpick_RCM, the Steam version of GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin, and all Nintendo-related content for Garry's Mod.