Michigan gamer ordered to pay $2m to Nintendo after he caused 'irreparable harm' to the tech giant
A gamer from Michigan has been ordered to pay $2 million to Nintendo after he caused ‘irreparable harm’ to the firm.
This comes after the tech giant filed a lawsuit against Ryan Daly from Flint, Michigan, who was known for running the website Modded Hardware.
The Switch modder represented himself in court, where the case dove into his website, which sold devices that could be used for piracy purposes in order for people to rip games into digital files and run them without the original cartridge.
Last year, Nintendo issued Daly with a warning to close his business in March 2024.
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However, when the gamer ignored this, the company took action by filing the lawsuit at a Washington federal court.
Daly’s defence included things like invalid copyright and allowances for fair use, but this proved to be fruitless.
Daly was found by the court to have sold devices that enabled piracy as well as hacked consoles and mod chips that caused the firm ‘significant and irreparable harm’.
This is because he allowed pirated copies of popular games to be created, distributed and played ‘on a massive scale’.
The man’s website has since been shut down and his domain was ordered to be handed over to Nintendo.
Daily will be forced to pay the gaming giant a whopping $2 million in damages and now has a permanent injunction that prevents him from sharing documentation or information related to modifying consoles.
Nintendo is known for being aggressive when it comes to their approach in tackling pirated content.
In another case, a man became the first person to ever be arrested in Japan after he sold modded Switch consoles.
After being found guilty by the Kochi District Court, Fumihiro Otobe, was fined and handed a suspended prison sentence.
The man admitted his crime when he was initially charged, saying: “I was curious if people would think I was great for selling modified machines.”
On April 14, Otobe was found guilty of infringing on Nintendo's trademark rights and other violations and sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for three years.
He was also required to pay a fine of ¥500,000 ($3,500).
Although, it looks like the man got off lightly after another case in the US resulted in a 40 month prison sentence and an order to pay Nintendo a whopping $14.5 million.
This came after Gary Bowser was arrested in the Dominican Republic on 11 felony counts of piracy.