Nov 17, 2024 01:00:00

Nintendo's method for identifying users selling pirated games is a hot topic, with Reddit posts and official repair services leading to the discovery

In June 2024, Nintendo

sued James Williams for copyright infringement by selling pirated copies of Nintendo Switch games. Court filings reveal how Nintendo identified Williams' identity in the lawsuit.

How Nintendo found a possible pirate - by Stephen Totilo
https://www.gamefile.news/p/how-nintendo-found-archbox-switch

Nintendo cross-referenced reddit posts and hardware repairs to locate this Switch pirate | Eurogamer.net
https://www.eurogamer.net/nintendo-cross-referenced-reddit-posts-and-hardware-repairs-to-locate-this-switch-pirate

In 2023, Nintendo hired the law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp to begin investigating online stores selling pirated Nintendo Switch games. In this investigation, Nintendo focused on an account called 'archbox,' which was active in the piracy community ' SwitchPirates ' on Reddit in 2015.

Archbox was found posting on another subreddit, 'Midwestern University has a very good optometry clinic. Students see you, then doctors see you,' suggesting that the individual may have attended Midwestern University in Arizona.

It's unclear how Nintendo determined that 'archbox' was the same person as James Williams, but new court filings reveal that an employee in Nintendo's Product Lifecycle Management group was able to identify Williams.

In February 2024, Nintendo was aware of two email addresses belonging to a person named James Williams. An employee in the Product Lifecycle Management group entered this email address into Nintendo's repair tracking system, which revealed two repair requests from him and that he lived near Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Nintendo subsequently identified Williams as Archbox and sent him a signed cease and desist letter, in which Williams signed the cease and desist letter and promised to 'respond to and cooperate with any requests or demands' but denied 'infringing Nintendo's intellectual property.'

Nintendo reportedly returned the device Williams had requested repairs for two days before sending the cease and desist letter, but the court filing does not say what type of product it was.