DMCA as Platform Choke‑Point

Copyright takedowns on major code hosts can remove dozens or hundreds of repositories at once, not just individual files, effectively changing the availability of software tools (emulators, firmware) overnight. The action by a single rights holder cascades through developer communities, mirrors, and downstream services, revealing how legal notices become infrastructural selectors for software ecosystems. — This matters because it reframes copyright enforcement from a legal dispute into a de facto governance tool that shapes what tools, research, and preservation projects the public can access.