In a new wave of GitHub takedowns
In Nintendo’s ongoing battle against emulation, it has apparently wiped out more than 400 Switch emulator repositories in a “single-day GitHub sweep”.
As reported by TorrentFreak, Nintendo filed seven DMCA anti-circumvention notices “in one coordinated campaign” earlier this week. It targets forks of Yuzu, copies of the Suyu emulator, and Skyline.
The repositories now display a takedown notice detailing how the accused projects are designed to circumvent technological protection measures:
The reported repositories offer, link to, or otherwise provide access to Nintendo Switch emulators…Nintendo Switch emulators are primarily designed to play Nintendo Switch games. Specifically, these Nintendo Switch emulators illegally circumvent Nintendo’s TPMs in order to run illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games.
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Nintendo Switch games are encrypted using proprietary cryptographic keys (prod.keys) which protect against unauthorized access to and copying of the copyrighted games.
During operation, the emulators at the reported repositories necessarily use unauthorized copies of these cryptographic keys to decrypt unauthorized copies of Nintendo Switch games, or ROMs, at or immediately before runtime without Nintendo’s authorization.
Thus, they are primarily designed to and unlawfully “circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under” the DMCA, and distribution of these emulators constitutes unlawful trafficking in technology that is “primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access” to copyrighted works.
Here’s what exactly has been targeted in this latest round of DMCA takedowns by Nintendo (GitHub via TorrentFreak):
| Project | Targets |
|---|---|
| suyu (yuzu successor) | 311 repos (full network) |
| Skyline (Android, independent) | 29 repos (full network) |
| yuzu fork | 14 repos (full network) |
| yuzu (Android port) | 8 repos (full network) |
| yuzu (Early Access build 4176) | 21 forks listed |
| MonoNX (C#-based) | 17 forks listed |
| yuzu fork | Parent only |
Nintendo originally took legal action against Yuzu in 2024, Ryujinx shut down months later, and Skyline halted development in 2023 due to potential legal risks. Earlier this year, Nintendo also targeted multiple emulators and repositories on GitHub.
As noted by the source, “getting these emulator repos removed from GitHub is the easy part” but “keeping the code offline is a bigger challenge, as forks may reappear faster than the notices can remove them”.
