It is an understatement to say that Nintendo has been engaging in a war on piracy. There are now 2 new examples of the company’s latest attempts to put an end to piracy. One of them, Nintendo says, is a Nintendo Switch modder enabling piracy. Another is the moderator of a Nintendo piracy Reddit group.
It has been confirmed that Nintendo is suing Ryan Daly, a modder who Nintendo claims runs a company called Modded Hardware. According to Nintendo’s lawsuit, they warned Daly in March to cease selling modded Switch consoles and MIG switches, which was enabling people to play pirated Switch games on unmodded hardware. Daly is also accused of offering a mail-in service where customers could send in their Switch consoles so they could be modded and receive pre-installation of pirated games. Nintendo alleges that Daly agreed to stop, but continued his activities anyway. Nintendo is accusing Daly of 6 charges, including copyright infringement and “trafficking in circumvention devices”.
Nintendo is also suing James Williams. Nintendo is accusing Williams of being “operator, overseer, and driving force behind several Pirate Shops, through which Defendant has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games”. Williams was also a moderator for the r/SwitchPirates group on Reddit, where he used the name Archbox and, according to Nintendo, became a place where Williams would direct users to his pirate shops, as well as providing technical advice on how people can mod their Switch consoles and play pirated games.
The lawsuit also says that Williams has openly acknowledged that what he was doing was illegal, and even says that he has openly called himself a “pirate” who refuses to pay for Nintendo’s games. Nintendo’s lawsuit says that Williams ran 4 pirate shops. Only 1 of them is still active. Nintendo is seeking financial damages for Williams, as well as an order to shut down his remaining pirate shops and associated social media accounts.
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