Nintendo already has a reputation for being protective of its IPs, and the company won't care whether you're a respected company or a simple social networking platform user. In its latest lawsuit, the Switch maker aims to shut down piracy with its handheld's games.
Nintendo's At It Again
This time around, the video game giant is out to get two people with two lawsuits, both of which are linked to alleged piracy of Nintendo's games. One is the seller of modded Switches, and the other is simply a moderator accused of encouraging the practice.
The seller owns a business called Modded Hardware which reportedly sells MIG devices or flash carts. The modded switches will already have pirated games pre-installed within the device, and it will cost the buyer $670 as opposed to the original price of $300.
As it turns out, the company even reached out to the modder first before taking legal action, asking him to shut the operation down. While the owner agreed, he continued the business anyway and Nintendo had to sue.
The seller will now have to face the lawsuit for a preliminary injunction, statutory damages, confiscation of the modded devices, surrender of online accounts, and turning over paperwork associated with Modded Hardware.
The other has more of an indirect involvement. The moderator of r/SwitchPiracy, "Archbox" is accused of using his position to encourage other users to pirate games, where he sometimes leads users to a site where he sells pirated products, Kotaku reports.
"Defendant is the operator, overseer, and driving force behind several Pirate Shops, through which Defendant has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games," the lawsuit reads, adding that the moderator also offered assistance with Circumvention Software to access pirate shops.
Nintendo's lawyers managed to dig up a comment from Archbox on Reddit where he said: "Most of us who hacked our switch are, like you said, pirates and aren't going to give Nintendo $50 for a game." He reportedly also received a warning from Nintendo before pursuing legal action.
Others Went Down Without a Fight
Unlike the modder and the moderator who refused to fold, Switch emulator Yuzu decided just to settle when Nintendo filed a lawsuit against it. The video game company said that Yuzu was "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale."
It will pay the settlement charge of $2.4 million, as well as shut down the distribution of Yuzu's code or features, hosting of websites and social media, or anything else that is designed to circumvent Nintendo's copyright protection, as per The Verge.
Yuzu developer Bunnei posted a statement on Discord, apologizing for the situation. "[Y]uzu and its team have always been against piracy. We started the projects in good faith, out of passion for Nintendo and its consoles and games, and were not intending to cause harm."
In early March, the company put its code repositories offline, discontinued its Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and shit down its websites. "We hope our actions will be a small step toward ending piracy of all creators' works," the company concluded.
