Nintendo DMCA takedown deletes over 8,500 copies of the Yuzu emulator

When news of Nintendo’s lawsuit against Yuzu first broke, users began preserving the emulator’s code by making copies and uploading it to places like GitHub. But now, a copy of Nintendo’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown request says that GitHub took action “against the entire network of 8,535 repositories, including the main repository.”

The request says that the repositories in question “offer and provide access to the Yuzu emulator or code,” adding that “yuzu illegally circumvents Nintendo’s technological protection measures and runs illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games.” Nintendo argues that Yuzu uses “unauthorized” versions of the cryptographic keys needed to run Switch games.

Nintendo’s legal team has been very busy over the past few months. In addition to taking down Yuzu and his clones, the company has also focused on the physics sandbox game. Garry Mod. The game’s developer confirmed in April that it received takedown notices from Nintendo, resulting in 20 years of Nintendo-related add-ons being removed.

Retro Nintendo console emulators, such as those now available on iOS, have largely avoided Nintendo’s wrath, likely because they are not emulating the console Nintendo currently sells.