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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[Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee]

Probably Nintendo should focus on making games instead of porting WiiU library and charge $60 for it
honestly even investing for a hacked switch isn't worth it

I do not understand why there is not a single Call of Duty title available for Switch, given how popular the platform apparently is (judging by overall worldwide sales). Ports of any CoD title before Modern Warfare 2019 would definitely have been doable.

And I agree, Nintendo platform games are always too toooooooooooooo expensive. It's annoying. PlayStation does not have that problem, I mean it has that problem on PS Store but not for physical copies.

 

[Meepers55]

Can't wait to see how this one turns out.

 

[64bitmodels]

just stop nintendo... hackers are like hydras
sue one of them and 2 more will start reselling tx chips

 

[Clovus]

It's not purely for piracy. I hate it when people use that argument. You can use it for running other operating systems like Linux and Android which isn't illegal, while also using it for modding games, backing up your games and hundreds of other functions that come with all the Homebrew out there. Homebrew that doesn't use any copyrighted code and is licensed under general public licenses.

 

[64bitmodels]

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

I'm just here so i can get retroarch on my switch... it's the only reason i'm getting an sx lite
also how ironic, youre saying that while youre on a pirating forum
hell, you have over 600 posts
talk about hypocritical

 

[kg2]

I see alot of people defending Atmos. No piracy out of the box, blah blah. We know what it's used for, don't be gullible.
I'm curious, why does Nintendo not go after those that make sigpatches for Atmosphere?

 

[64bitmodels]

I see alot of people defending Atmos. No piracy out of the box, blah blah. We know what it's used for, don't be gullible.
I'm curious, why does Nintendo not go after those that make sigpatches for Atmosphere?

welcome to gbatemp
i just wanted to say that haha
and yeah, Nintendo should be suing the people making sigpatches

 

[Goku1992A]

@8BitWonder . @Mrperson0
Sigpatches make CFW such as atmosphere relevant removing the sigpatches would not only clear thier image but it will indeed decrease in popularity so in a way piracy keeps atmosphere alive. I'm not a saint because I myself pirate games but lets keep it real most people would have zero interest if they couldn't pirate games that is the highlight of CFW. You can emulate almost anything off your phone or PC.

The point is this SXOS and Atmosphere need each other if one fail they all fail just remember what I said.

 

[Tatsuna]

It's just some ol' role-play.

Nintendo does what it needs to do in order to be seen as an authoritarian business, conscious that in most countries this won't serve any purpose. They can protect themselves though by saying that they did all they could;
Pirates and distributors play the victim cards with which they strengthen their customers' allegiance -- helpful for the legal expenses, all the while the end-users choose on their own whether they want to hack their console or not. Some get scared and give up, some others stick with it;
Boards and sites fill their threads with messages and opinions (including myself right now) for days and days and everything ultimately comes full circle.

Just another day in our boring little world.

 

[8BitWonder]

The point is this SXOS and Atmosphere need each other if one fail they all fail just remember what I said.

Just how like Gateway and Luma3DS need each other, otherwise they'd both fail.

 

[fst312]

I can see where this is going
Hopefully they won't sue the atmosphere cfw makers..

I don’t think they can actually do that because doesn’t atmosphere actually need those patch files not actually made by them to actually run switch games. Unless they try suing them based on the homebrew browser to be able to play emulators but I can’t recall if they are the ones that even developed that for the switch.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

lol irreparable damages.
Selling SX devices isn't even illegal in most country and it's not because it is in Japan that they can impose their laws on the whole planet.

They just might be able to get you for copyright infringement though. Countries like the US enforce copyright pretty heavily, and bypassing DRM or even having the ability to do that is illegal there.

Bypassing copy protection mechanisms is illegal under both US and Mexican law (and these are far from the only countries that have such a provision).



Because of the DMCA (and equivalent laws in other countries), SX OS is quite illegal.

That depends on whether such country has a law (in this case it's the US, so it does) and whether or not it's actually enforced.

If SX allows you to bypass DRM then it's illegal in the US. That's why I don't get why people sell this stuff in the US. Let the guys in China or Hong Kong sell them with international shipping, since they're in a country where you're not gonna be punished just because something can circumvent DRM. I've seen online stores sell flashcarts and stuff in Canada as well, which makes a bit more sense since copyright laws aren't as strong up here (this is why you used to be able to find the "lawsuit guitars" up here, you're also unlikely to be punished for being sold or returning a counterfeit product up here because according to the relevant laws it's a crime to traffic them for sale or rent, I don't know if you'll actually be punished in the US, but we all know how the government organizations in charge of copyright related stuff there like to use severe scare tactics, YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR).

Now personally I don't think that they should be able to be sued and lose just because something can be used for piracy, the fault for that should be on the users end. After all even aluminum foil has been used to get into recovery mode.

 

[TunaKetchup]

Pretty lame for them to go after the resellers.

The resellers are just honest folk trying to make a buck. They didn't create the TX modchip.

Once again Nintendo going after family-run businesses instead of the root of the problem

Fuck you Nintendo.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Just how like Gateway and Luma3DS need each other, otherwise they'd both fail.

Gateway and Luma3DS are irrelevant to the Nintendo Switch

You need to take a symbolic logic class

It will teach you how to build arguments

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Pretty lame for them to go after the resellers.

The resellers are just honest folk trying to make a buck. They didn't create the TX modchip.

Once again Nintendo going after family-run businesses instead of the root of the problem

Fuck you Nintendo.

Not really. They're selling something that's illegal in the US (because it can bypass copy protection) so they're being sued. They know what they're selling. It's not like they're buying or making 3D printed jigs and selling them for cheap.

 

[TunaKetchup]

Not really. They're selling something that's illegal in the US (because it can bypass copy protection) so they're being sued. They know what they're selling. It's not like they're buying or making 3D printed jigs and selling them for cheap.

And like I said. these are family-run businesses

They didn't create the modchip and suing them won't stop the modchip

Nintendo is like an angry kid looking to make anybody pay

 

[64bitmodels]

Probably Nintendo should focus on making games instead of porting WiiU library and charge $60 for it
honestly even investing for a hacked switch isn't worth it

I swear to god if i hear another "MAkIng WIi U PortS Is baD!!!1111!!!" sentence i'm going to go on a killing spree
the console literally failed, not many people played the games on there!!
If the wii u was a success you wouldnt be seeing ports on switch! It's not that hard to understand people!!!
not everyone, hell, nearly no one wants to spend 300 dollars on a mediocre console that failed and has a very low playerbase just to play 1 game!! that's what these ports are for!!

 

[tivu100]

And like I said. these are family-run businesses

They didn't create the modchip and suing them won't stop the modchip

Nintendo is like an angry kid looking to make anybody pay

Me no lawyer, but by that logic, anyone can sell weed and get away since they ain't the one who grow plants and manufacture the end product, nor they use it on themselves.

Promoting, and distributing may be what is being implied here.

Edit: Without US/NA distributors, buyers would be more skeptical paying someone overseas to ship it. Reputable overseas distributors again would be on blacklist. Remember you're purchasing prohibited items, so when you can't rely on credit card/Payapal protection. Add trade war, pandemic, and you see it quite a hassle to buy the modchip from overseas without being scammed. Without easy access to modchip, there would be less modchip users = Nintendo's aim.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

And like I said. these are family-run businesses

They didn't create the modchip and suing them won't stop the modchip

Nintendo is like an angry kid looking to make anybody pay

Nintendo knows that it won't stop the modchip, that's not possible at this point, and trying would be like pissing in the wind. What they want is to stop the individual resellers they can get while getting some cash, and hoping it'll scare everyone else to keep them from selling it. It doesn't matter that it's a family owned business, because it's an illegal product to begin with, and they're knowingly selling it.

Remember when Nintendo sued the first guy to upload an ISO of New Super Mario Bros. Wii for a cool million? They knew it wasn't going to stop people from downloading that ISO, they wanted to stop sites from hosting it and stop other uploaders. They know they can't stop the end user, and they know it's a waste of time to try to sue everybody hosting the ISO, that's why they go after a big but feasible target, they want to scare everyone else.

For the record I don't think things like this should be illegal any more than I think a cable splitter should be illegal. It's the end user who can use it to pirate, though a lot of people will just use it for homebrew (I'm considering a second switch just for homebrew and rom hacks of games I own, also Skyrim mods), just like how a lot (dare I say most) of the people buying cable splitters in the early and mid 2000s were doing it because the cable company would only give you one box for one TV included in the price of your package.

I swear to god if i hear another "MAkIng WIi U PortS Is baD!!!1111!!!" sentence i'm going to go on a killing spree
the console literally failed, not many people played the games on there!!
If the wii u was a success you wouldnt be seeing ports on switch! It's not that hard to understand people!!!
not everyone, hell, nearly no one wants to spend 300 dollars on a mediocre console that failed and has a very low playerbase just to play 1 game!! that's what these ports are for!!

Disagree here. Some games get ported because they did well. (Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition anyone?) The first party titles did sell pretty well. Super Mario 3D Wolrd sold 5.84M units, New Super Mario Bros. U sold 5.8M, Mario Kart 8 sold 8.45M. They're not porting their first party games because they didn't do well. They're doing it because they sold very well. Guess which first party titles didn't do to well? The remakes of GameCube and Wii games. The people who really wanted to play the new Mario and Zelda games (before all of the BoTW delays) got the Wii U. The first party support was pretty good at first, but Nintendo really shot themselves in the foot by not making a new main 3D Mario game for it (3D World was like a better version of 3D Land, Wii got Galaxy 1 and 2), delaying Breath of the Wild so much that it became a Switch launch title with a Wii U version, no Fire Emblem, and no decent Pokémon spin off (Rumble doesn't count, GC got Colosseum and XD, Pokken was cool but it was a fighting game with a limited roster). Also no decent Kirby game.

 

[8BitWonder]

And like I said. these are family-run businesses

They didn't create the modchip and suing them won't stop the modchip

It doesn't matter if the business is family-run, that doesnt make breaking the law ok.

Obviously Nintendo won't be able to eliminate all providers, but pursuing imminent distributors in countries where that kind of product is illegal would be plain stupid not to take advantage of.

Gateway and Luma3DS are irrelevant to the Nintendo Switch.

I see that neither allusion or sarcasm are your strong-suit.
Don't worry, you'll understand those some day.

 

[tivu100]

@RedBlueGreen

I edited, and adding point to my last post.

What I can see is by stopping onshore distributors, there would be no easy access to modchip thus less buyers. Dealing directly with overseas sellers is risky, especially for prohibited items.