Nintendo is not a joke with piracy. In July 2024, we knew that the Japanese company behind the popular licenses Mario or Zelda had brought legal actions against two people, one of them is a moderator of the R/Switchpirates subraination.
Today, Nintendo is more precise in its intentions, and claims 4.5 million in defective title. The firm explains that James Williams, better known by the Archbox pseudonym, sold “thousands” to hack copies of the switch games, while making the piracy of the console to draw a juicy business.
Emulation and fine edge with illegality
The Reddler had not responded to Nintendo’s complaint in 2024 and never appeared to the judicial invitation, says the complaint. The result is a request for abundant damage.
Very popular among the community of Modders, which develop tools to avoid antipiratic procedures or modify a device to add characteristics, James Williams is a new example of the judicial war that Nintendo launched against piracy for two years.
Knowing quite little for emulation, the company had eliminated very popular emulators: Yuzu, Dolphin, but also Sumi and Ryujinx. This made it possible to run Switch, Wii U, Wii, Game Cube or Nintendo 64 PC games (or on a steam deck, for example), sometimes with sensitive improvements in graphics or fluidity.
But it was paid at the expense of hacking very real. Because to function, these emulators required “keys” that James Williams would have sold in a thousand piracy. I would have announced it in Reddit, but also on specialized platforms such as Discord.
Even if you are holder of a game that we emulate, the border with illegality is particularly well. The download of a “ROM” (a copy of the game) cannot be considered a backup copy with respect to the law, as confirmed by Antoine Chéron, a lawyer specialized in digital in ACBM Avocats, to Tech & Co.
On the other hand, the use of an emulator is not illegal in itself. It is above all that we do with him what it can be. A game may have fallen into the “abandonment” field, but the cases remain weird, and in the case that they oppose James Williams to Nintendo, these were exchange games, therefore, they were not included in this denomination.
Source: BFM TV
