Nintendo continues to aggressively combat piracy and has filed two more lawsuits.
These are directed at a person named Ryan Daly, who runs a shop called Modded Hardware, and at James Williams aka Archbox, the moderator of the SwitchPirates subreddit.
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Nintendo goes to court again
How TorrentFreak reported that Nintendo had already contacted Daly in March 2024 and threatened to sue him if he did not stop selling modded Switch consoles and MIG Switches (which allow copied games to be played on unmodified hardware).
Daly agreed to this but continued to sell the devices. In the meantime, he claimed to be looking for a new lawyer. Nintendo was obviously not satisfied with this and has now filed a lawsuit, alleging, among other things, “trading in circumvention devices” and copyright infringement.
He not only sold mods, but also modded consoles for interested parties and then installed copied games on them. Nintendo now wants to claim damages and the closure of his website. He is also said to have “NOA [Nintendo of America] all circumvention devices, hacked consoles, and any other physical or digital copies of materials that infringe NOA's rights.”
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James Williams is not only the moderator of the aforementioned subreddit, but according to Nintendo he is also “the operator, supervisor and driving force behind several pirate shops through which the defendant offered extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games”.
“The Defendant became a leading (if not the most important) moderator of the SwitchPirates Reddit community, helping to grow it to nearly 190,000 members. Since 2019, the Defendant has posted thousands of comments and messages in the SwitchPirates Reddit group. For example, the Defendant's posts included messages directing users to the pirate shops […] and other users provided technical advice and encouragement to use pirate stores, download and install circumvention software, and play pirated Nintendo Switch games.”
Three of these shops have now closed, but a fourth is still active. Nintendo also refers to public comments from him in which he stated that he did not want to give Nintendo any money for his games.
Williams is also being asked to pay damages and to close all of his shops and all associated social media accounts.