Discord has deleted the accounts and servers of Nintendo Switch emulator developers

Discord has stopped supporting servers for Nintendo Switch emulators called Suyu and Sudachi, and also deleted the accounts of their main developers. Both emulators were based on Yuzu, which Nintendo filed a lawsuit against on March 4 for copyright infringement.

Developers Suyu and Sudachi have received vague messages that they are distributing content that is believed to infringe intellectual property rights. While Discord claims it is simply following its standard process for handling takedown requests that violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

DMCA takedown requests typically target specific data rather than people or companies, and Discord's policies are designed with this in mind. A legitimate takedown request must contain a description of the infringing content and its location. The platform then deletes the data, and users can restore it if they file a counter-notification that the content is not infringing. In this situation, Discord simply disabled the emulators, blocking their communication channels.

Nintendo isn't just targeting Switch emulators with its latest round of removals, but also some of the tools that help them. The company has filed DMCA requests to remove 27 forks of the Sigpatch updater on GitHub, as well as Lockpick_RCM, kezplez-nx, and Incognito_RCM, which help Switch owners and developers obtain encryption keys.