As reported by The Verge, the developers of the Yuzu-derived Nintendo Switch emulators Sudachi and Suyu have had their Discord accounts banned and servers wiped. The developers themselves appear to be operating in the gray area left by the settlement between Yuzu and Nintendo, but their presence on the platform was nevertheless terminated because of that settlement.
What makes this story opaque is that other Yuzu-connected emulator communities on the platform remain unaffected, including the Ryujinx community, which is Pepsi to Yuzu's cola in the Switch emulator space The Verge reports that the Nintendo/Yuzu settlement allows developers unaffiliated with the original Yuzu team to use and modify the open source GPL v3 code in their own emulator projects.
In reality, however, everything is probably too close to offending Big N for Discord to be comfortable with; in a statement to The Verge, a Discord representative said, "Discord has met and complied with all legal and valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act requirements ". In this instance, the court has also issued an injunction against the takedown of these materials, and we have addressed the matter in a manner consistent with the court order."
The company stated.
This statement seems to imply that there was a new DMCA request by Nintendo regarding these servers, but the court order in question probably refers to the settlement between Yuzu and Nintendo. No matter what brilliant legal logic is trotted out for Sudachi and Suyu, the iron law of platform ownership still reigns supreme.
While it is always frustrating to see the emulation community suffer such a loss, especially when one looks at the letter of the law, which may go too far, Discord has a clear motive to put Nintendo's wishes above those of the emulator developers, and this uproar is a clear indication of how the platform Another useful example of how the platform should be used and viewed.
The Discord server feels private, like a chat between friends, but it is not as secure as communication on Signal or Telegram. what you say on the Discord server is more like a private communication with a friend, It should be considered more like posting on social media.
Also, as user ToothlessFTW points out on r/pcgaming, the Discord server may not be the best place for this kind of project in the first place: "Discord can nuke any server it wants with the click of a button and all I'm really glad that the large number of software developers out there have decided to use Discord as an exclusive hub instead of a forum, even though they can turn it off."
[14I feel like I have to hit the sign that PCG Associate Editor Lauren Morton put up here in 2022.
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