The verdict has been reached nearly a year after Nintendo filed a lawsuit against a Reddit moderator responsible for policing Switch console piracy. The proceedings did not end in favor of the defendant, which was not surprising since he did not even appear in court.
Image source: Nintendo
According to sources, Nintendo has officially been awarded $4.5 million in damages as part of the lawsuit. In it, the Japanese company accused Reddit user James Williams of copying and distributing pirated games and promoting piracy on the Switch platform. Nintendo also accuses Williams of creating, operating, maintaining and promoting piracy websites that released extensive libraries of games for the Switch console.
When the lawsuit was filed last October, Nintendo claimed it had suffered damages “Highly disproportionate to the seriousness of the defendant’s conduct”. At the time, the company said it was confident it could seek “millions of dollars” in damages for violating the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Since the company did not seek full compensation for its losses, its actions were “reasonable.”
Even before the Switch 2 was released, Nintendo faced serious piracy issues with its previous generation console, released in 2017. Nearly every major release, from The Legend of Zelda to Pokémon, has been available for download long before its official release. Nintendo has been trying to resolve the issue for years, regularly going to court. The company targets piracy websites, hackers, pirated software sellers, and players who play pirated games. Nintendo even worked with the FBI at one point to address piracy. The company justified its actions in the incident by citing losses from piracy of approximately $170 million.
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