For anyone living in the United States, buying a RCM Loader just got much more difficult.

As you may have heard, Nintendo filed a lawsuit in November 2020 against Vietnamese resident Le Hoang Minh, who manufactured RCM Loaders and sold them on Amazon under the name "Winmart". This came after a DMCA takedown request from Nintendo, resulting in Amazon taking down his listings. Le disputed the request, allowing him to resume selling the devices. Nintendo called this an abuse of the DMCA's counternotification system, since Le lives in Vietnam, where any consequences for wrongly disputing DMCA takedowns are unenforceable. Due to this, Nintendo sought an injunction by a U.S. court. After the lawsuit was filed, Le did not respond to it, nor did Le enter discussions with Nintendo. This led Nintendo to seek a default judgment.

According to Nintendo, here is why the product is illegal:

Once this circumvention has occurred, the unauthorized CFW modifies the authorized Nintendo Switch operating system, thereby allowing users to obtain and play virtually any pirated game made for the Nintendo Switch. All of this happens without authorization or compensation to Nintendo or to any authorized game publishers

On April 15, 2021, the U.S. court to which Nintendo brought the case has ruled in favor of Nintendo's request for a default judgment. Any online store selling RCM Loaders is now prohibited from shipping them to the U.S.

Nintendo is seeking a total of $2,500 in damages (down from their original request for $2,500 per violation) in an effort to not drag the litigation out much longer:

This request for a $2,500 award is intended to be very conservative and does not reflect anything close to the full amount of damages Nintendo could reasonably seek from Defendant,” the company writes.

Nintendo could…credibly seek a separate award for every device Defendant sold — almost certainly many devices, given that Defendant’s RCM Loader device was available online for many months. However, rather than attempt to quantify Defendant’s total sales, Nintendo seeks to facilitate an efficient resolution of this case through entry of judgment awarding damages for a single § 1201 violation.

The injunction also applies to "any and all products, services, devices, components or parts thereof” that circumvent Nintendo's security measures. Does this mean that Le Hoang Minh (and anyone working with him) can't even sell paperclips?

Source (courtesy of TorrentFreak)

 

[FAST6191]

Aw I thought it would be fun but just a default judgment.

Anyway curious to see it all going down in the US like this. Normally they are the last place as we watch the dance play out again in the various countries in Europe, Japan or Australia.

 

[CeeDee]

Good luck seeing this ban fully enforced - I'm sure it'll be easy enough to get ahold of an RCM loader if ya want one, albeit through more shady storefronts than Amazon. Maybe AliExpress or somethin'

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

Oh God can Nintendo stop bitching around with their ip. The cfw doesn't provide pirated games, just software which doesn't make you play pirated games. Nintendo is just whining about security even though they've already won. They sue an pointlessly arrested man. It's sad how companies act, however normal rcm jogs won't be banned as it's also used for troubleshooting

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Oh wow polls

 

[Hells Malice]

Nintendo: Does something extremely obvious that any company would do to protect their products from piracy
GBAtemp: WAAAH WAAAAH NINTENDO BAD WAAAH WAAAH I'M THE VICTIM WAAAAH WAAAH

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

Nintendo: Does something extremely obvious that any company would do to protect their products from piracy
GBAtemp: WAAAH WAAAAH NINTENDO BAD WAAAH WAAAH I'M THE VICTIM WAAAAH WAAAH

I AM THE VICTIM I JUST WANT TO USE THEMES WAH WAH

 

[CeeDee]

Nintendo: Does something extremely obvious that any company would do to protect their products from piracy
GBAtemp: WAAAH WAAAAH NINTENDO BAD WAAAH WAAAH I'M THE VICTIM WAAAAH WAAAH

A lot of the anti-Nintendo crowd makes Nintendo's actions out to be the end of the world, when in most of these cases... if you want an RCM loader, you'll probably still be able to get one. Same deal with fangame C&D orders or ROM site shutdowns. Not the end of the world, in my opinion, Nintendo's doin' the Nintendo thing to protect their property / appease their shareholders, and you can still get your thing if you try hard enough.

I AM THE VICTIM I JUST WANT TO USE THEMES WAH WAH

You CAN use themes! Black... or white?

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

Oh God can Nintendo stop bitching around with their ip. The cfw doesn't provide pirated games, just software which doesn't make you play pirated games. Nintendo is just whining about security even though they've already won. They sue an pointlessly arrested man. It's sad how companies act, however normal rcm jogs won't be banned as it's also used for troubleshooting

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

Oh wow polls

Let's be real here, you put cfw on your console for piracy

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

And that's fine, i cfwed my 3ds for piracy, but just don't try to act like you cfw consoles for other reasons, you aren't fooling anybody

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

Let's be real here, you put cfw on your console for piracy

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

And that's fine, i cfwed my 3ds for piracy, but just don't try to act like you cfw consoles for other reasons, you aren't fooling anybody

I have a (probably) patched switch.....

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

A lot of the anti-Nintendo crowd makes Nintendo's actions out to be the end of the world, when in most of these cases... if you want an RCM loader, you'll probably still be able to get one. Same deal with fangame C&D orders or ROM site shutdowns. Not the end of the world, in my opinion, Nintendo's doin' the Nintendo thing to protect their property / appease their shareholders, and you can still get your thing if you try hard enough.

You CAN use themes! Black... or white?

I want cfw for a slightly darker theme

 

[CeeDee]

I have a (probably) patched switch.....

Oh, so you wish you could! Nice.

 

[shanefromoz]

Oh well i will just use my usb-c to usb-c lead and my mobile phone

 

[CeeDee]

Oh well i will just use my usb-c to usb-c lead and my mobile phone

Yeah, that's another reason why this ruling isn't a huge deal - there are other ways to inject payloads.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Let's be real here, you put cfw on your console for piracy

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And that's fine, i cfwed my 3ds for piracy, but just don't try to act like you cfw consoles for other reasons, you aren't fooling anybody

Er, no. Piracy is already disincentivised by the online ban - which means losing access to the eShop and the NSO paywall.
I, for one, use CFW for game patching and EdiZon cheats and save file backups (and FTPD for save editing using my computer).

 

[Nix_Lon]

What did you expect from Nintendo?
At this point, I'm not surprised that they took action, just surprised that it took them years to take immediate action.

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

Oh, so you wish you could! Nice.

My switch is probably patched as I got 0x0000 on fusse test but a forum told me it might be because I didn't use Zadig but who knows

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What did you expect from Nintendo?
At this point, I'm not surprised that they took action.

True, they never give up

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

Er, no. Piracy is already disincentivised by the online ban - which means losing access to the eShop and the NSO paywall.
I, for one, use CFW for game patching and EdiZon cheats and save file backups (and FTPD for save editing using my computer).

My absolute lack of knowledge of the switch scene is really showing right now

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

My absolute lack of knowledge of the switch scene is really showing right now

I have a (probably) patched switch and I know everything about the scene

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I really want to link a loader I found on Amazon but I feel it's going to be taken down

 

[Louse]

Let's be real here, you put cfw on your console for piracy

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

And that's fine, i cfwed my 3ds for piracy, but just don't try to act like you cfw consoles for other reasons, you aren't fooling anybody

i like playing quake.

also thanks nintie. now everyone is gonna find like 10 other leaky holes in your box

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

This reminds me of a poll I made about them abusing copyright.

I think I was right to rig the answers

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Nintendo's request for a default judgment.

What the heck is a default judgement?