Nintendo cracks down on Switch game piracy, seeking information disclosure from Google and Reddit to identify suspects 

Nintendo, through its subsidiary Nintendo of America (NOA), filed a lawsuit against a Reddit moderator back in June this year. The defendant was James Williams, who went by the username Archbox on the Reddit Community r/SwitchPirates. In a follow-up to this case, Nintendo is reportedly seeking information from 8 tech companies, including Google and Reddit, so that they can identify multiple online accomplices who were allegedly running pirated software shops with Williams. 

The Nintendo lawsuit against an r/SwitchPirates Reddit Community moderator

In the June case, Nintendo claimed that Williams advertised stores where pirated Nintendo games could be obtained, was involved in operating his own pirate shops, and gave technical advice to those wishing to play pirated copies. Nintendo sued him for damages, winning the case by default judgement as Williams cut off contact and failed to represent himself in court. However, due to this, Nintendo was unable to obtain a sworn statement from the defendant. 

On November 28, a document was filed with the District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle, USA) in which Nintendo seeks permission to subpoena multiple tech companies in its search for persons pirating Nintendo games. As stated in the document, “The purpose of all of the requested subpoenas is to seek relevant information that is necessary for NOA to pursue infringement claims.” 

During the course of their initial investigation, Nintendo “became aware of multiple other online actors who appeared to have a role in the Pirate Shops.” but did not have enough information to identify them. Therefore, they are requesting subpoenas from multiple tech companies. 

The list consists of 8 Internet service providers including Google, Reddit and Discord, as well as website host GoDaddy. Nintendo is requesting a limited scope of information from the companies’ business records, specifically information that can be used to identify and confirm account holders and payment sources, as well as access statistics and traffic for the pirate shops’ websites.  

The documentation also referred to the 190,000+ member subreddit r/SwitchPirates, which was moderated by Williams. It mentions that “Nintendo has reason to believe that other accounts active in the SwitchPirates community may also have been controlled by Defendant, or else reflect other individuals who have worked alongside Defendant.” It seems that Nintendo’s next move will be to pursue those who were involved in the operation of pirated game software shops alongside Williams. 

Written by Verity Townsend based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-11-28 19:17 JST)