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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[MrCokeacola]

Does that still apply? Since they ended the Creator's Program. I'm not into the YouTubesphere for that kind of stuff, so I dunno.

Never forgive, never forget.

 

[chrisrlink]

this is why I'm babying my OG switch and keeping my lite unhacked for NSO you guys better not brick your hacked switches or your gonna be in for a tough time to hack any switch

 

[Mrperson0]

SX OS isn't copyrighted material, right ? So, there's nothing illegal in it.

SX OS sells a license (which these mods likely come with) to use their OS, which comes preloaded with the sigpatches (or whatever they call it) required to install roms IIRC. That's promoting piracy. This is why atmosphere makes sure to never bundle sigpatches.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

Nintendo cannot (obviously) copyright a serie of numbers...

Actually I think they can. Wouldn't be the first time...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime

 

[kingaz]

1) It is an isolated case because it's one of the first and only times where there was an official legal response to it, there was only one court analyzing this case.

2) If it's not forbidden in the law, it is automatically accepted. Jailbreaking your console is still in a gray area because there's still no official law to make it illegal. The case you linked to was about adding jailbreaking as an exception, making it legal. Though, the case ended with a decline of the exception, making console hacking still in a gray area.

1) It wasn't a court analyzing this case. It was the Librarian of Congress, under the statutory authority granted by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, determining whether or not to grant an exemption to video game consoles. It isn't like court rulings where there are split opinions between the courts. This is effectively the law of the land.

2) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

This is the relevant law that makes jailbreaking expressly illegal, provided that no exemption has been granted. Give it a read.

The only thing that makes console hacking a gray area is the lack of enforcement over less explicit infringements. The law itself is quite clear.

Edit: As for your point about this applying to the US, the suit in question has been raised in the US. That being said, many other countries have similar legislation.

 

[PatrickD85]

Well ... this is going to spiral into;
- A] Nintendo is evil, f them for wanting to protect the ecosystem they created.
- B] SXOS cant be touched, they themselves are not doing anything bad.
- C] Everyone suddenly will be a lawyer with an expertise in the field of piracy protection, bypassing OS, user agreements and all that
- D] All of the above.

Ehhh ... Im going with D. Yes, that is my final answer.

As for my personal stance;
In regard to A; Nintendo has every right to take action on this. They created the Nintendo Switch ecosystem.
Modification of hardware and / or software voids both warranty and violates end user agreements in a lot of cases, probably if you really take the time to check them out you would have to agree on that.

In regard to B; well ... im not going into this as this will get flame comments from each and every angle. Im not here for that.
But short answer; it ain't vanilla legal for sure.

In regard to C; im not a lawyer, and in 98% of cases probably neither are the other people here. So let's not pretend we are.
But also let's not pretend we are ignorant people as well. In a LOT of countries what the device does is considered illegal. But there probably are some wonderful countries they can put up shop and call home base, which makes things a whole lot different when it comes to law.

And most important I guess; it's a never ending battle; there will always be something new.
Even IF they can take out TX, or their resellers, a new product could pop up ...
Simply put where people see a way to profit ... ways will be found to get to that profit ...one way or another ... just look at history.

 

[Deleted member 512337]

In regard to A; Nintendo has every right to take action on this.

they only have legal rights to take this down and nothing else.

 

[PatrickD85]

they only have legal rights to take this down and nothing else.

Well as noted that is my opinion.
You and everyone can have their own opinion on the matter, but that does not mean I have to agree with you or anyone on it.
As quite frankly it really boils down to law ... and besides that not being universal perhaps ... well see the rest of my post.

 

[Mrperson0]

Atmosphere isn't designed to run piracy but its manipulated to run it so it makes thier group liable for legal action.

lolwut, no, they aren't. Atmosphere folks aren't the ones manipulating it do this. This is like trying to suggest Nintendo could sue Sony or Microsoft because people can hack their consoles to run Nintendo games.

 

[Brayton1-7]

Oh what is this?
A device that offers users to do whatever the fuck they want with the device they purchased?
How is that illegal?

The device itself doesn't come with pirated content of any kind.
Consumers and users have the right to do WHATEVER THE FUCK they want with the device, it's not Nintendo's choice to make what the users do or don't with the Switch.

It's obvious they only seek to gain more money. Nintendo's well known for being greedy fucks, as they aren't losing shit giving how the Switch is selling by the millions.

Seriously, I am amazed and disgusted as to why laws in certain countries defend companies over the rights of the consumers.
Shit like this shouldn't be happening anymore.

Fuck Nintendo ad infinitum.

There is terms of service and everything, but I get where you are coming from.

 

[Jayro]

fucking nintendo at it again. first it was fan made games than it was rom sites because they want you to pay $20/y to access 4 shitty OLD games each month and never release ANYTHING actual good instead of providing an actual VC. and now it's the actual chip sites... what will they try to shut down next? places that do repairs on their shitty under-powered consoles because people don't want to mail their shit to nintendo HQ where they sneakretly install the latest updates for you?!

NINTENDO

Don't forget the part where they've illegally renigged on their deal of new games every month. I'm pretty sure we have legalglegal to sue them since we're not getting everything we're paying for with the subscription.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

This is the fourth TX related lawsuit if I'm not mistaken, fifth if you include the legal request to block TXs site in the UK.

Also, SX OS isn't defendable from a legal perspective, there's large segments of Nintendo's own FS module in it, as well as fragments of their gamecard headers (look for LOTUS in the decompiles), which makes providing the software in any form illegal.

 

[DJ-Yoshiman]

So... who here actually has significant experience with law?

Raise your hand so I can pick you out from the crowd and give you a high five.

 

[Deleted User]

this is why i love my shield tv pro. google don't give a fuck what you do on android! got all the emus ready to go on the play store just install (and with roms) away you go

my uh switch runs android as well tho...so there’s that...

also for the folks thinking atmosphere team safe. No one is safe. Something I began to realize monitoring youtube. It’s not really so much revenue loss lately. It is a concerted effort to dumb people down. Most people don’t realize it. They literally don’t want people to hack or mod. Look at the mass amounts of garbage on the platform. But high level hacking /modding channels? Nothing but problems. Time to wake up folks. You may not like them but if you let the system take away this ability from you then none of us are safe...

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

 

[Kioku]

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.

Neither did the R4 and legitimate use meant nothing then.

It's a device that's been advertised to circumvent DRM and allow for piracy. No amount of "muh homebrew" is going to change the fact that (much like the R4) it's a device aimed at pirates.

Also, this seems to be aimed directly at resellers and not TX themselves. So, it's not like the mods are going to magically become unpurchasable.

 

[HarveyHouston]

If you're developing homebrew for a device, you have to make sure you're not doing anything outright illegal. The problem is that homebrew is a gray area, meaning that it can be used for both good and bad. Yes, it exploits the console in question, but for what purpose? If it is to run something you downloaded that is already free, or to mess around with something that you bought for yourself personally, that is considered fair use. Apparently, this company wanted to use these devices to run games unofficially that you are supposed to buy, but didn't. Under copyright laws, that's very much illegal.

I'm not against homebrew. I'm not against adding games by unofficial means. However, I encourage anyone who wants to play paid games in ways different than their intended means to always have a retail copy of the game, and keep proof (receipts, invoices, etc.) that you paid for a digital copy of the game legally. Yes, this even includes Rock Band.

 

[Dax_Fame]

I'd be shook. TX is at the front of the canon on this one.
Better get those chips out so they can get re'd and cloned before they're belly-up

@Chary 5 articles between your last? Did finally you start sleeping?

 

[Goku1992A]

@8BitWonder & @Mrperson0

Atmosphere and SXOS are all tied together you can pirate games on either one so Nintendo can sue either. The whole point is "enabling" you to do something this is what the lawsuit is about "enabling" No matter what CFW it is it enables you to run pirated games on it. Not one company I know wants you to have that type of access to the system.

Look at Xbox One as an example you have to pay $20 to access the DEV menu they dont care if you want to play retroarch and run code they already took your $ to do what you want... until the day someone actually find a way to pirate games they will take it away like how Sony did otherOS.

 

[8BitWonder]

@8BitWonder & @Mrperson0

Atmosphere and SXOS are all tied together you can pirate games on either one so Nintendo can sue either. The whole point is "enabling" you to do something this is what the lawsuit is about "enabling" No matter what CFW it is it enables you to run pirated games on it.

Atmosphere does not allow you to run pirated content.
Adding sigpatches to it, a user action that is outside of Atmosphere devs' control allows running pirated content.

SXOS does allow running pirated content, they package all necessary patches within their product and this is completely within their control.

It's pretty clear why they target SXOS and not Atmosphere, my friend.

 

[frankGT]

Go go Nintendo!
Time to squash some more cockroaches...