GitHub just dropped its 2025 transparency report, and the numbers are stark: the platform removed a record 47,228 projects last year due to copyright claims. That's the highest number of takedowns in its history, driven by a surge in both standard DMCA notices and more aggressive anti-circumvention claims.
Developer policy update: Intermediary liability, copyright, and transparency - The GitHub Blog
GitHub Reports DMCA Takedown Record and Surging Anti-Circumvention Claims * TorrentFreak
GitHub accepts two main types of copyright complaints. The first is the standard DMCA takedown notice, where users can request the removal of infringing content. The second is a DMCA anti-circumvention notice, which targets projects designed to bypass copyright controls or restrictions.
Take March 2025, for example. Nintendo filed a single anti-circumvention notice targeting Nintendo Switch emulator repositories, which resulted in the removal of over 4,300 repos in one sweep.
Nintendo's single notice wiped out 4,238 emulator-related repos at once - GIGAZINE
Anti-circumvention claims are skyrocketing
Data from the GitHub Transparency Center shows just how fast these anti-circumvention claims are growing. In 2015, there were just 18. That number jumped to 365 in 2022 after GitHub updated its DMCA form to include clearer questions about circumvention. By 2025, it hit a record 645—a 41% increase from the year before.
The broader takedown picture
A separate chart breaks down DMCA takedown notices by half-year. The vertical axis shows processed notices, while the horizontal axis shows the number of projects removed. The second half of 2025 alone saw 1,354 notices processed and 29,267 projects taken down—both all-time highs.
For the full year, GitHub processed 2,661 takedown requests and removed 47,228 repositories.
Why a recent Supreme Court ruling matters
In its blog post announcing the report, GitHub pointed to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Cox Communications and a group of music companies. The record labels had sued the ISP, arguing it profited from piracy by failing to completely terminate repeat infringers. The Court ruled that simply continuing to provide service to subscribers suspected of infringement isn't enough to establish liability for aiding copyright infringement.
GitHub says this ruling "helps avoid liability theories that would make it difficult for intermediaries (including GitHub) to survive and operate. For developers, this legal certainty underpins innovation, collaboration, and the continued availability of neutral infrastructure that enables legitimate activity like GitHub."
Supreme Court rules that merely providing service doesn't constitute aiding infringement in copyright case - GIGAZINE
Detailed repositories related to DMCA takedown notices are publicly available on GitHub. This comes as the platform makes other significant policy shifts, like pausing new Copilot Pro subscriptions to manage service quality for existing users.