“GitLab received the DMCA takedown notice from the rights holder’s representative and followed our standard process outlined here,” spokesperson Kristen Butler told us edge.
Suyu is a fork of Yuzu, and Nintendo successfully sued the emulator, but that doesn’t mean Nintendo now owns the rights to the Yuzu code – or is it even Nintendo at all?Nintendo didn’t necessarily win the rights to Yuzu code in the settlement, and GitLab didn’t disclose that edge Nintendo is behind this incident.
Instead, as you can see in the email above (one of several shared in Suyu’s Discord, as well as an email posted earlier by Overkill.wtf), whoever sent the removal request is trying to Yuzu is suspected of violating DMCA 1201 by circumventing Nintendo’s technical protection measures. Oh, and maybe they’re also subtly threatening GitLab with illegal trafficking (also part of DMCA 1201).
I’m not a lawyer, but a couple of lawyers told me two years ago, Effective Technically, a DMCA takedown request should include “a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed,” and DMCA 1201 is not the same as DMCA 512, which covers takedown requests.
Furthermore, Suyu claims that it does not contain the same circumvention measures as Yuzu.
But these lawyers also told me that being valid or invalid doesn’t necessarily matter because a platform like GitLab doesn’t have to host anything it doesn’t want to. It’s probably not worth putting off an invalid DMCA takedown request to protect something you probably don’t want to protect at all – especially if the alternative might be Nintendo filing an actual lawsuit against you.
GitLab did not immediately respond to a question about whether disabling user accounts is company policy forward Give them the opportunity to remove their items or submit a DMCA counter-notification. The company’s online manual doesn’t explain why GitLab might decide to block or ban a user from its platform; only that “we may disable a reported user’s access or terminate their account in appropriate circumstances.”
Su Yu seems to have found a new home. About an hour ago, its leader wrote: “I will definitely host a copy of the code.” By this time, another member had cloned the repository to git.suyu.dev.