Nintendo seeks to subpoena Reddit for details on piracy group members

[midian182]

In brief: Is there a more litigious company in the gaming world than Nintendo? Probably not. The Mario maker is once again going after those invovled with game piracy, including moderators and certain members of a popular subreddit. Nintendo is seeking to subpoena business records from Reddit (and other companies) to identify members.

Earlier this year, Nintendo filed lawsuits against two people accused of operating major hubs for hacked systems and games. One of the pair, James "Archbox" Williams, was allegedly the operator of several Pirate Shops offering huge libraries of pirated Nintendo games. He was also one of the moderators of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit, which has over 217,000 members. Nintendo won a default judgment after Williams failed to represent himself in court.

According to GameFile, Nintendo said that during its investigations of Williams, it became aware of multiple other online actors who appeared to have a role in the Pirate Shops.

The company is now seeking permission from the court to subpoena business records from internet domain companies Name Cheap, Go Daddy, and Tucows, as well as Cloudflare, Github, Discord, Google, and Reddit in the hope of identifying anyone who may be associated with Williams.

Referring to Reddit specifically, Nintendo claims there may have been other accounts active in the SwitchPirates community that were controlled by Williams or individuals who have worked alongside him.

The filing adds that the subpoenas are required to gain access to user records that could identify other moderators of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit and operators of the suspected piracy network.

"The purpose of all of the requested subpoenas is to seek relevant information that is necessary for NOA to pursue infringement claims," the filing reads.

Nintendo is only going after those associated with the Pirate Shops, not every member of the subreddit. This is about selling modded Switch consoles and cartridges, as opposed to emulation and ROMs, despite these incurring the company's wrath in the past.

In March, Nintendo launched legal action in US federal court against Tropic Haze, developer of Yuzu. It argued that the popular open-source Switch emulator violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Tropic Haze agreed to pay Nintendo $2.4 million and cease all operations.

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Nintendo seeks to subpoena Reddit for details on piracy group members

 

[NumberNine]

Do you think the Switch 2 might be able to fiinally run Breath of the Wild (originally for the Wii U) at 60 FPS?

Neither do I.

 

[Kashim]

Do you think the Switch 2 might be able to fiinally run Breath of the Wild (originally for the Wii U) at 60 FPS?

Neither do I.

No, because Nintendo is greedy. They will use hardware that is 4-5 generations behind everyone else and can be bought dirt cheap. Just so they can make a profit on every single Switch 2 console sold. They've been doing this trick for what... 20 years now?

Every other console maker loses money on the hardware (that they make up on software sales), but not Nintendo. They figured out they can fleece all the rubes with the Nintendo name and Mario/Zelda IP, so they'll never stop doing it. They could go back to a 3" monochrome screen like the Gameboy and the rubes would still buy it, because hey it's Nintendo!

 

[ZackL04]

In my opinion, they have every right to do what they have up to this point, but this it too far

 

[VariableSpike]

I guess they are within their rights to do it, and it ofc makes sense if they're not making money, but only Nintendo would get so particular about it to the point of hunting out mods of subreddits, clearly not understanding that its not like banning one place for it will scare the others

 

[unoficialoficial]

That behavior starts to look suspicious like the behavior of those patent trolls to me. It’s look like that they don’t make games primarily to be played, but rather with the intention of hunting for copyright infringements.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Do you think the Switch 2 might be able to fiinally run Breath of the Wild (originally for the Wii U) at 60 FPS?

Neither do I.

Got my son , the 2nd part , can't remember the name , he said it was laggy as hell. So maybe OK if family has a switch, but coming from a reasonable PC RTX3080 really notice it

 

[ChipBoundary]

What's amusing to me is that if you read the comments they don't try to argue whether or not Nintendo has the right to do this or not. All they do is criticize Nintendo for completely unrelated things. Don't get me wrong, I have said the Switch is a scam since the moment it was announced...but that doesn't change the fact that their property is their property.

 

[NumberNine]

What's amusing to me is that if you read the comments they don't try to argue whether or not Nintendo has the right to do this or not. All they do is criticize Nintendo for completely unrelated things. Don't get me wrong, I have said the Switch is a scam since the moment it was announced...but that doesn't change the fact that their property is their property.

Currently, the many switch games that can be emulated on PC provide a far superior gameplay experience compared to the actual console, excluding portability.

The console sucks, the controllers suck, and nintendo's approach to business sucks. The only quality aspect of the Switch experience is a subset of first party games from Nintendo which trickle out very slowly over time. That being the case, people will find a way to run these games at fulll speed even if they have to ditch Nintendo hardware to do it.

 

[Ashford]

I spent the 90s unable to afford software as a young person and made regular use of IRC servers running shady FTPs, kazaa etc before torrents became the way. Back then, you sometimes had to tweak the cracks provided or your settings to make your game work... maybe you needed to fool the game into thinking you had a disk with alcohol. (Software, not booze)

All of that led to me becoming the IT professional I am today, who can't afford to buy the software I want.

I knew what I was doing was wrong then, but like many young people I found rebellious ways to justify it. "Make demos!", "don't release **** unfinished like Rome 2", "yadda yadda, I'm too poor but I deserve access yadda yadda". I'm lucky I didn't get caught.

Stealing is still wrong now and can never be justified by your situation. That's how I feel. Have a good day everyone.

 

[Ashford]

I'm gonna add I've felt guilt about the really good games I've pirated over the years and in those cases I've often gone back and bought one (or multiple copies over the years) as my rigs evolved.

Just one of those things a guy does after he realizes he effed up and wants to sleep better at night.

 

[Inthenstus]

Every time I read these stories it makes me not like Nintendo more and more.

 

[ZedRM]

Nintendo needs to stop acting like goosestomping scum.

 

[Billybobjoey]

Do you think the Switch 2 might be able to fiinally run Breath of the Wild (originally for the Wii U) at 60 FPS?

Neither do I.

I'm sure it probably *could* given the expected hardware upgrade, however *will* Nintendo go back and update these old games for the new hardware? Maybe when pigs fly.