A Washington federal judge awarded Nintendo $4.5 million in a default judgment against Reddit moderator James Williams, known as “Archbox,” over alleged Switch-game piracy; a permanent order also requires him to shut down shops he allegedly ran.
Judge Lauren King ruled for Nintendo without a trial after Williams did not respond to the lawsuit. The court calculated the award as statutory damages of $150,000 for each of 30 copyrighted games; Nintendo’s allegations were accepted for the default and were not tested in an adversarial trial.
The injunction also reaches social-media accounts used for distribution on Reddit, Instagram, X and TikTok, and bars Williams from distributing, selling, uploading or advertising software or hardware used to bypass Nintendo’s copyright protections.
