- Discord has taken down all Suyu and Sudachi servers along with their lead developers' accounts.
- According to Discord, this is a standard DMCA takedown procedure caused by copyright infringement by these groups.
- However, Sudachi developer Jarrod Norwell claimed there were no warnings and that the group was not involved in any infringement activities.
It’s no secret that Nintendo is a strict company with a lawsuit-happy trigger finger. Recently, Nintendo defeated Yuzu in a court battle for making an emulator for Switch. In a further insult to injury, Discord has now shut down the servers for emulators Suyu and Sudachi along with their lead developers’ accounts. For those unaware, the aforementioned emulators above are forks of Yuzu.
While the news of the server shutdown is confirmed, the reason behind it isn’t. According to The Verge, Discord has not properly answered this matter as of yet. Remember that Yuzu was sued and disappeared on March 4th, but Suyu and Sudachi appeared immediately.
Discord director of product communications Kellyn Slone said to The Verge, “Discord responds to and complies with all legal and valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests.
“In this instance, there was also a court ordered injunction for the takedown of these materials, and we took action in a manner consistent with the court order”
While the developers in question got indefinite messages about sharing content that allegedly violates intellectual property rights, Discord told The Verge that it’s following its normal process for DMCA takedown requests.
However, it is possible that people were sharing Nintendo’s cryptographic keys, firmware, or even entire pirated games on these servers despite those commitments. Whatever the case may be, the servers no longer exist to prove anything.
Does DMCA Lead to Server Wipe?
Despite the DMCA rules being broken or possible infringement, Discord does not wipe out a server in one warning. According to Jarrod Norwell, a Sudachi developer,
“Their first email was that my account has broken the TOS, with no additional information.”
He further says that nothing illegal was happening at Sudachi, and they did not break any infringement rules. Discord vaguely mentioned the takedown as being related to intellectual property but, again, has not clarified its statement.
In an X (formerly Twitter) post, Norwell shows that the account disabled mail sent by Discord regarding violation of TOS. Norwell claimed that he or the Sudachi team always abide by the TOS.
Discord’s policy on copyright mentions that it is about content and not a group of people. A clear description of the infringing material and its location is required to remove copyrighted content. Platforms like Discord then take down the content. However, users can contest this takedown with a “counter-notice” claiming fair use or lack of infringement. Once a counter-notice is filed, Discord’s responsibility ends.
If the original complainant, like Nintendo, still believes infringement exists, they can use the counter-notice information to identify the user and potentially pursue legal action. In this case, the actions taken by Discord do not seem to indicate an infringement issue. Sudachi and Suyu communication servers were gone in a blink, it seems.
Of course, platforms like Discord do not have to give any reason to remove something from their platform. However, even if Discord saw any infringement in the content, it should not reflect on a server swipe. Whatever the case, this ties into Nintendo cracking down on developers with its latest round of takedowns.
What do you think of more Nintendo Switch emulators getting vanished from existence? Do you think Discord taking down Nintendo Switch emulator devs’ accounts and servers is fair? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
