Nintendo Lawsuit Demands $4.5 Million Settlement From Reddit Mod Who Sold Switch ROMs, Insists Figure Is 'Nowhere Near' an Amount That Would Compensate 'For the Seriousness of the Defendant's Conduct'

Nintendo is suing a Reddit moderator and alleged Switch pirate for $4.5 million, claiming the fig is "nowhere adjacent an magnitude that would compensate Nintendo of America for the seriousness of the Defendant's conduct."

The behaviour Nintendo references is the alleged "DMCA anti-trafficking violations" of James "Archbox" Williams, a moderator connected the Switch Pirates subreddit who is accused of copying and distributing pirated Nintendo Switch games.

As IGN reported astatine the time, Nintendo tracked down the alleged Switch pirate utilizing a operation of Reddit posts and repair orders and sued Williams for allegedly violating its integer copyrights by selling pirated copies of Switch games. It was capable to find him via an online probe that traced Archbox to an code successful Arizona.

Now, successful caller tribunal papers spotted by Polygon, Nintendo has filed a 30-page ailment accusing Williams of being "directly progressive successful creating, operating, promoting, supporting, and/or maintaining respective different Pirate Shops," arsenic good arsenic the "Circumvention Software to facilitate wide usage of the Pirate Shops."

Nintendo said it reached retired to Williams successful March 2024 with a cease and desist, and claimed the suspect "acknowledged his behaviour violated NOA's rights and stated helium would enactment with NOA to fulfill demands." But the megacorp alleged that Williams "did not, however, hold to cease his conduct," denied engagement with the "pirate shops," and erstwhile NOA requested helium corroborate successful penning that helium would comply with NOA’s demands, "he became combative and uncooperative."

Shortly thereafter, a fig of the pirate shops became inaccessible arsenic the suspect "deleted oregon hid grounds applicable to NOA's claims," Nintendo said, including galore of his societal media posts and his GitHub account. After the institution tried again successful May 2024 to springiness Williams "a last accidental to comply," it past filed a ailment against the idiosyncratic successful June, claiming nonstop and indirect copyright violations. When the tribunal gave support for Nintendo to attack Williams' net work providers successful November 2024, the steadfast claimed the find "corroborated Williams' involvement."

"NOA has been, and continues to be, damaged arsenic a nonstop and proximate effect of Williams’ conduct," the filing explained. "NOA has crushed to judge that Williams has engaged successful the infringing and unlawful reproduction and organisation of hundreds oregon thousands of copyrighted Nintendo Switch Games, and that done the assorted Pirate Shops, helium has distributed oregon facilitated the organisation of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of unauthorized copies of specified Nintendo Switch Games. NOA besides has expended and continues to expend important resources to halt oregon stem video crippled piracy, including done developing, implementing, and updating its TPMs and policing and investigating reports of piracy specified arsenic Williams’.

"Furthermore, determination tin beryllium nary question that Williams’ behaviour was willful, and that his willfulness is sufficiently alleged by the Complaint. In immoderate event, Williams’s ain statements and actions are well-documented, and afloat enactment that Williams really knew his behaviour was infringing oregon other acted with 'reckless disregard for, oregon willful blindness to, the copyright holder's rights.'"

The institution said that due to the fact that of the "difficultly successful assessing the precise magnitude of existent damages suffered by NOA, exacerbated by Williams’s deliberate default and refusal to enactment successful discovery," it is present seeking judgement successful favour of Nintendo for a monetary grant of $4.5 cardinal and an injunction, but says it is not seeking "statutory damages windfall oregon punitive award," but "only" $150,000 for each rubric it believes Williams infringed the copyrights of, of which determination are 30. It is besides not pursuing recompense for its ineligible costs.

Photo by BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP via Getty Images.

Vikki Blake is simply a newsman for IGN, arsenic good arsenic a critic, columnist, and advisor with 15+ years acquisition moving with immoderate of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's besides a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her astatine BlueSky.