The never-ending legal battle that sees Nintendo face off against the latest copyright circumventing piracy device continues with two brand new lawsuits. On May 15th, Nintendo filed a couple of lawsuits involving entities responsible for reselling devices used for the "sole purpose of which is to hack the Nintendo Switch video game console in order to allow people to play pirated video games." The first lawsuit is against a group of websites and their respective "John Doe" owners, for anxchip.com, axiogame.com, flashcarda.com, mod3dscards.com, nx-card.com, sxflashcard.com, txswitch.com, and usachips.com, while the second suit specifically targets Tom Dilts Jr. and their company Uberchips.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTNORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIOWESTERN DIVISIONNINTENDO OF AMERICA INC.
Plaintiff
,v.
TOM DILTS, JR.
and
UBERCHIPS, LLC, d/b/a UBERCHIPS.COM

Plaintiff Nintendo of America Inc., by and through its counsel, on personal knowledge as to its own actions and on information and belief as to the actions, capabilities, and motivations of others, hereby alleges as follows:

What all these sites have in common is that they sell Team Xecuter's SX dongle, which allows users to bypass the protection on the Nintendo Switch in order to load custom firmware. Nintendo alleges that these products are used purely for piracy. In the past, Nintendo's taken on TX multiple times, perhaps most notably in 2018 where they won a lawsuit against several people who were selling hacked NES Classic systems and SX chips for the Switch on Offerup.

Nintendo is seeking compensation for "irreparable" damages to the company, as all of the websites have warehouses within the United States, and thus fall within the confines of the law. The monetary demands amount to $2,500 per violation of 17 U.S.C. 1201 (a DMCA provision), as well as $150,000 per violation of Nintendo's rights under the U.S. Copyright Act, in addition to possibly requesting profits the resellers received from selling the offending devices.

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[kingaz]

It isn't, the only way Nintendo can even legitimately make them illegal would be using SX's piracy marketing.
You can compare the switch hacking scene to the iOS jailbreak, where it was deemed legal for consumers to use their hardware to do anything, it was deemed legal for users to unlock their phones that they paid for and install the software they want on it..

One good argument would be that "it's circumventing copyright protection" which can easily countered by the preservation, archiving and just using the hardware that you paid for like you want to. Which is why nobody, even Apple used that in in the past... Can easily be countered. This argument could work because, again, SX is marketing it as a piracy device and Nintendo can always just sue them for promoting illegal activities on their behalf.

Because jailbroken cellphones were deemed to have legitimate uses, the practice was granted an exemption under the DMCA. Video game consoles, by contrast, were denied such an exemption under the DMCA.

You really should learn more about this stuff before you make such bold claims.

 

[mrgone]

who here is old enough to know who bung is

that is the followup question
my original bung xchanger is sadly broke, but my gbxcart still works

 

[NoNAND]

Well those are legitimate claims. Rom sites sell copyrighted nintendo software.

TX sells the means to play such software, but not the software itself.

Fair point. But who knows what Nintendo might do. They surely have a lot of lawyers behind them.

 

[Goku1992A]

You are talking about the "Dark Web"...which is deep end of the pool, while switch hacking is kiddy pool stuff legally. I really don't know what your point is by just shouting "dark web" as if you're so sinister and off the radar. This kind of stuff isn't what you go to "dark web" for, just order from China. Lmao.

lol I know I was just saying anything can be done if someone really want something... I dont know if the website was based in the US that's why they got sued but there are plenty places in China still sell RCM-Loaders and etc that enable piracy. Nintendo sueing the little guy solves nothing.

People dont realize that Nintendo would sue Atmosphere if they knew who they were. Atmosphere may not condone piracy but they left the door open.

 

[SaltyDog]

Curious how this will play out. The SX doesn't exactly sell with any preloaded games and the assertion that there is no legitimate use (like homebrew capabilities) is false.

Likely their goal is to tie these companies up in litigation. They won't have the time or money to fight it in court. Oddly enough, they'll dissolve and form a new company.

 

[HRudyPlayZ]

Because jailbroken cellphones were deemed to have legitimate uses, the practice was granted an exemption under the DMCA. Video game consoles, by contrast, were denied such an exemption under the DMCA.

You really should learn more about this stuff before you make such bold claims.

Except they didn't got denied. Though you're right, the exception only mentions cellphones. But you can still use that argument in court as no laws have been made on game consoles hacking (this is why it is considered a gray area). Hacking your consoles does have legitimate uses in the homebrew department, but there was no such case to add homebrewing as an exception yet...
Problem for this case is though, that SX used a bad marketing which means that their products can easily get deemed illegal as they're promoting the act of copyright circumvention...


Also EDIT: Technically, you could also argue that the Switch is also a tablet, which it is. Meaning that you could always fall in the legal territory by marking it as an exception x)

 

[JuanMena]

I think it's fine.
I don't have a Nintendo Switch... but I'm assuming that as well as the 3DS, when you first turn on the console and agree to the User License Agreement, you hereby accept that the use of illegal hardware and software is prohibited by Nintendo.

So... to the people claiming: "Nintendo go fuck yourself because I can do whatever I want with my console" then you're wrong by this User Agreement that you accepted when you turned on your console for the first time.

Does it matter? Yes, because it's an agreement that you (the user) have with Nintendo.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

Actually I think Nintendo has a pretty good case this time. If memory serves me correctly, SX OS includes proprietary keys that Atmosphere doesn't, keys that specifically enable piracy, and the keys themselves are Nintendo's property. So while they have a case against SX OS, I don't think they'd have a case against other dongle manufacturers like xkit's RCMLoader.

 

[HRudyPlayZ]

I think it's fine.
I don't have a Nintendo Switch... but I'm assuming that as well as the 3DS, when you first turn on the console and agree to the User License Agreement, you hereby accept that the use of illegal hardware and software is prohibited by Nintendo.

So... to the people claiming: "Nintendo go fuck yourself because I can do whatever I want with my console" then you're wrong by this User Agreement that you accepted when you turned on your console for the first time.

Does it matter? Yes, because it's an agreement that you (the user) have with Nintendo.

Nope. In most countries, EULAs aren't very effective anyways. Plus, please note that those EULAs apply to the use of online services, warranty and other things considered a service. It cannot apply to a product, like you cannot do a thing like "By buying and using this product, you agree to give me 90% of your revenue" and you could also argue that CFWs reset the EULA file anyways and that you never accepted those terms (which Nintendo doesn't have a proof otherwise as you reinstalled a FW).

 

[JayPea]

who here is old enough to know who bung is

I still have my Doctor V64 (with memory upgrade!). For some reason I have the adapter on my desk at the moment lol

Before anyone points it out, yes it's orange. I went through a phase of taking my kit apart and custom spraying everything so I ended up with a powder blue N64, with a sunset yellow V64. No, I don't know why, either.

 

[HRudyPlayZ]

Actually I think Nintendo has a pretty good case this time. If memory serves me correctly, SX OS includes proprietary keys that Atmosphere doesn't, keys that specifically enable piracy, and the keys themselves are Nintendo's property. So while they have a case against SX OS, I don't think they'd have a case against other dongle manufacturers like xkit's RCMLoader.

They do but not for those keys, Nintendo cannot (obviously) copyright a serie of numbers...
Though, they still have a good case as Nintendo will probably use the argument of the "piracy marketing".

 

[kingaz]

Except they didn't got denied. Though you're right, the exception only mentions cellphones. But you can still use that argument in court as no laws have been made on game consoles hacking (this is why it is considered a gray area). Hacking your consoles does have legitimate uses in the homebrew department, but there was no such case to add homebrewing as an exception yet...
Problem for this case is though, that SX used a bad marketing which means that their products can easily get deemed illegal as they're promoting the act of copyright circumvention...


Also EDIT: Technically, you could also argue that the Switch is also a tablet, which it is. Meaning that you could always fall in the legal territory by marking it as an exception x)

https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...ht-protection-systems-for-access-control#h-22

As far as I know, this was the most recent ruling done for jailbreaking video game consoles *specifically.* And as you might notice, the library of congress rejects homebrew as an argument to grant an exemption.

Note that there were later DMCA exemptions granted for video game preservation, but that's outside of the purview of our discussion.

Edit: In their 2015 review, the Library of Congress reaffirmed the 2012 ruling.

 

[GoldenBullet]

We shouldn't be mad or even surprised about this. 70% of the people buying these and even the ones hacking their consoles are doing so to pirate games.

 

[hippy dave]

that is the followup question
my original bung xchanger is sadly broke, but my gbxcart still works

My Doctor MGD3 card has Prince of Persia for gameboy colour on it, annoyingly I must have just left it with one game rather than a multi choice menu, and now I can't reflash it...

 

[Jayinem81]

who is old enough in here to know who liksang was?

Liksang was awesome, bought a lot of cool peripherals from there.

 

[huma_dawii]

Nintendo is so anti-consumer... what is wrong with them. They end up selling more overpriced Switches anyway...

My pre order got cancelled and now I don't know how TX is going to go about this... I guess I shouldn't have sold my hackeable Switch lol (I sold it because it I got a V2 Switch and TX chip was going to be my way out).

Long story short, Fuck You Nintendo.

 

[Amadren]

To be fair, if nintendo were making a better console, I won't buy an SX Lite at all. I'm just gonna be using it for emulators and probably android + stadia because I love the format of the console and I'm used to it. If they gave us that from the beginning, maybe less people would buy hardware to hack ?

 

[Goku1992A]

We shouldn't be mad or even surprised about this. 70% of the people buying these and even the ones hacking their consoles are doing so to pirate games.

Almost everyone uses CFW to pirate games if things were so peachy you wouldn't be hearing "my sigpatches dont work" lol. Nintendo is wasting time, resources , and money that can be used to develop kick ass games. They already have a good retaliation ring which is the banwave so all of this is pointless.

Not everyone is going to use the modchip such as the fuse-glee and I don't see people risking voiding their warranty on this anyway. Give SXOS their bone and just accept that security wasn't great. This isn't going to stop game sales because Animal Crossing and Pokemon Sword/Shield and Zelda still sold record breaking numbers despite the games getting leaked.

 

[Enryx25]

"Nintendo is EvUL because they won't let me pirate games!!!!111!!"
Fuck most of you

 

[GoldenBullet]

Almost everyone uses CFW to pirate games if things were so peachy you wouldn't be hearing "my sigpatches dont work" lol. Nintendo is wasting time, resources , and money that can be used to develop kick ass games. They already have a good retaliation ring which is the banwave so all of this is pointless.

Not everyone is going to use the modchip such as the fuse-glee and I don't see people risking voiding their warranty on this anyway. Give SXOS their bone and just accept that security wasn't great. This isn't going to stop game sales because Animal Crossing and Pokemon Sword/Shield and Zelda still sold record breaking numbers despite the games getting leaked.

Yes but even though that people are going to be banned, that is still a loss in revenue as a lot of nintendo games are offline based anyways. Unfortunately for the people that really just want to customize their switch or do more legal things, they are in the very small minority. If you want to be mad at someone, people should be mad at TX for allowing backup loading, and everyone that asks for it.