Reddit moderator on the hook for $4.5M as Nintendo seeks damages for piracy

Nintendo is taking legal action against a Reddit mod who ran an online community, asking a court to order him to pay millions of dollars for allegedly coordinating websites that shared stolen copies of ￰0￱ gaming giant filed court documents asking for $4.5 million from James Williams, who went by “Archbox” ￰1￱ helped moderate a discussion board on Reddit where people talked about playing copied games on the Switch ￰2￱ company says this amount barely covers the damage caused by what he ￰3￱ papers show the company accuses Williams of breaking laws meant to stop people from getting around digital ￰4￱ allegation is that he made copies of Switch games and gave them to others without ￰5￱ company found Williams by looking at things he posted online and records from when he sent in devices for ￰6￱ tracked the online username back to someone living in ￰7￱ legal documents, which run 30 pages long, say Williams played a key role in setting up and keeping several websites running where people could get pirated ￰8￱ also allegedly helped create tools that let people bypass security measures so they could use these illegal ￰9￱ negotiations and vanishing evidence In March of last year, lawyers for the company contacted Williams and told him to stop his piracy ￰10￱ reports, according to their version of events, Williams admitted he broke the rules and said he would work with Switch to fix the ￰11￱ the company claims he never actually agreed to stop running the pirate ￰12￱ it asked Williams to put his promise in writing, he got hostile and stopped ￰13￱ long after that conversation, several of the pirate websites went ￰14￱ company says Williams erased or hid proof of his activities, including social media posts and his account on a site where programmers share ￰15￱ company tried one more time in May of last year, giving him a last chance to do what it ￰16￱ he did not, it filed its case in court the next ￰17￱ legal papers accused him of breaking copyright rules both directly and by helping others break ￰18￱ discovery reveals scope of operation Last November, a judge said the company could ask Williams’ internet providers for ￰19￱ company said its findings backed up its claims about his involvement in the piracy ￰20￱ legal filing states the company has suffered harm because of what Williams did and continues to ￰21￱ believes he made and shared hundreds or maybe thousands of copied Switch ￰22￱ the various pirate websites, it think he helped distribute anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of unauthorized game ￰23￱ company has also spent a lot of money trying to stop video game theft, including building protections into its products and investigating reports of ￰24￱ claims willful conduct and calculated actions The court papers argue there is no doubt Williams knew exactly what he was ￰25￱ own words and actions show he either knew he was breaking the law or ignored the rights of the copyright owner on ￰26￱ it is hard to figure out exactly how much money Switch lost, made worse by Williams refusing to take part in the legal process, the company now wants a judge to award it $4.5 ￰27￱ also wants an order stopping him from doing this in the ￰28￱ company says it is not trying to get extra punishment ￰29￱ is asking for $150,000 for each of the 30 game titles it believes he ￰30￱ company is also not asking Williams to pay for lawyer ￰31￱ case is part of a wider crackdown on piracy that has seen the gaming company pursue multiple legal actions against individuals and ￰32￱ company has previously taken action against accessory makers and has even subpoenaed platforms like Discord to identify people who leak game information, according to previous reports by ￰33￱ firm has also forced emulator projects offline as part of its effort to protect its games and consoles.

Don’t just read crypto ￰34￱ ￰35￱ to our newsletter. It's free .