Nintendo's Latest Piracy Lawsuit Hits Switch Modding Company After It Refused to Shut Down
Nintendo’s stream of lawsuits targeting alleged Nintendo Switch pirates has continued, but the latest defendant doesn’t seem too concerned about the colossal company’s threats.
As reported by TorrentFreak, Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against modding company Modded Hardware, alleging it “not only offers the hardware and firmware to create and play pirated games” but also provides “customers with copies of pirated Nintendo games.”
But the lawsuit comes after Nintendo allegedly offered Modded Hardware owner Ryan Daly an opportunity to walk away. The gaming giant reached out to Daly in March 2024, according to the suit, and both parties agreed that Modded Hardware’s business would stop.
It continued to operate as normal, however, and a final warning in May 2024 allegedly didn’t go anywhere either. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit with a federal court in Seattle, Washington seeking an immediate closure of Modded Hardware and damages.
It is only because of products and services such as those sold by Defendant that illegal marketplaces distributing pirated games exist and thrive.
“Typically, when a customer purchases a hacked console or the circumvention services, Defendant preinstalls on the console a portfolio of ready-to-play pirated games, including some of Nintendo’s most popular titles such as its Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid games,” Nintendo’s lawsuit claimed.
“Indeed, because pirated Nintendo Switch games cannot be used or created without a hacked console and related software and hardware, it is only because of products and services such as those sold by Defendant that illegal marketplaces distributing pirated games exist and thrive.”
Nintendo also filed a lawsuit against James Williams, known online as Archbox, for an alleged connection to several online “pirate shops” that see illegal copies of Nintendo games sold.
“Defendant is the operator, overseer, and driving force behind several pirate shops, through which Defendant has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch game,” Nintendo claimed. It also referenced the SwitchPirates Reddit community and noted Williams’ presence there as a moderator, claiming they helped grow it to nearly 190,000 members and have posted thousands of comments since 2019.
“Defendant’s posts have included, by way of example, messages directing users to the pirate shops; soliciting ‘donations’ of Nintendo eShop gift cards for the purchase of games (or even soliciting copies of Nintendo Switch games themselves) to be copied and then distributed on pirate shops; and offering technical advice and encouragement to other users about how to use the pirate shops, how to download and install circumvention software, and how to play pirated copies of Nintendo Switch games,” the lawsuit claimed.
“Defendant is well aware that his conduct is unlawful and infringes Nintendo’s intellectual property rights. Indeed, Defendant has bragged publicly that he is a ‘pirate’ who ‘[isn’t] going to give Nintendo $50 for a game.'”
Nintendo has consistently taken legal action to protect its copyrighted content. A takedown request in May 2024 saw it target 8,500 copies of Switch emulator Yuzu after the emulator itself was taken down two months prior. Its initial lawsuit against creator Tropic Haze said the $70 game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo’s premiere video game release of 2023, had been pirated one million times before it was even released.
Other successful lawsuits include those against game file sharing website RomUniverse, which was ordered to pay $2.1 million in damages to Nintendo in 2021, while a similar case saw it receive more than $12 million in damages in 2018. It also blocked GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin from releasing on PC game platform Steam.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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