Nintendo asks for $4.5 million default judgment against ex-Reddit mod accused of pirating thousands of games — "Archbox" allegedly asked for donations for faster access to his stolen library

Nintendo is infamous for its stringent stance against any kind of copyright infringement, to the point where even fan-edits have gotten people in trouble. So, when the company tells you to stop illegally distributing games, you should probably listen. But that doesn't seem to be the case for "Archbox," who served as the primary moderator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit for some time, before he was charged last year for selling pirated games.

Originally reported by Nintendo Everything, the company is now seeking a $4.5 million default judgment because the defendant never showed up for the court proceedings. Archbox, whose real name is James Williams, is popular in the Switch modding community. He reportedly ran several pirating sites, along with "shops" — such as JITS — where games are available to download on jailbroken Switch consoles. James not only tested Nintendo's patience pertaining to its intellectual property, but committed the cardinal sin of piracy while doing so: charging money for it.

"Since 2019, Williams has been either directly or indirectly the owner, manager, operator, creator, administrator, supplier, and/or overseer of several online Pirate Shops, and has worked to actively promote these Pirate Shops to communities consisting of many thousands of individuals," reads the official filing.

According to online discussion, James asked for donations to give access to "pro" subscriptions, where people would be able to download games a lot faster, likely with uncapped speeds. Those who often sail the seas know never to hide pirated content behind a paywall, because that then constitutes grounds for a lawsuit. Nice-guy Nintendo even first warned James by sending a cease-and-desist through a law firm last year, but he reportedly never responded.

The lawfirm, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, investigated a number of online piracy storefronts and identified James as one of the leading kingpins, who was then located through email addresses tied to repair orders in Surprise, Arizona (yes, that's a real city). This happened before the Switch 2 was announced, which meant that Nintendo was more rigorously protecting the now-outdated console. But the company likely has more than enough lawyers and resources to keep an eye on any platform where it sees its products being pirated.

Nintendo argues that Archbox has illegally distributed "thousands, if not hundreds of thousands" of games so far, and wants to recoup the amount it lost out on. Despite $3.2 billion in profits last year (from a $10.8B revenue), the company "... respectfully requests that the Court enter a default judgment in favor of NOA [Nintendo of America] and against Williams for a monetary award of $4,500,000."

That's the latest development in the ongoing lawsuit, and if James doesn't respond anytime soon, it would be fair to assume that the court will grant this request.

To be fair, it's hard to find a lot of sympathy for someone who was allegedly profiting from pirated games. We certainly haven't heard Williams' side of the story yet. But that would require showing up in front of a judge and Nintendo's lawyers, something Archbox has seemingly been unwilling to do so far.

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