Nintendo seeks to subpoena Reddit for details on piracy group members

In brief: Is there a more litigious company in the gaming world than Nintendo? Probably not. The Mario maker is once again going after those invovled with game piracy, including moderators and certain members of a popular subreddit. Nintendo is seeking to subpoena business records from Reddit (and other companies) to identify members.

Earlier this year, Nintendo filed lawsuits against two people accused of operating major hubs for hacked systems and games. One of the pair, James “Archbox” Williams, was allegedly the operator of several Pirate Shops offering huge libraries of pirated Nintendo games. He was also one of the moderators of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit, which has over 217,000 members. Nintendo won a default judgment after Williams failed to represent himself in court.

According to GameFile, Nintendo said that during its investigations of Williams, it became aware of multiple other online actors who appeared to have a role in the Pirate Shops.

The company is now seeking permission from the court to subpoena business records from internet domain companies Name Cheap, Go Daddy, and Tucows, as well as Cloudflare, Github, Discord, Google, and Reddit in the hope of identifying anyone who may be associated with Williams.

Referring to Reddit specifically, Nintendo claims there may have been other accounts active in the SwitchPirates community that were controlled by Williams or individuals who have worked alongside him.

The filing adds that the subpoenas are required to gain access to user records that could identify other moderators of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit and operators of the suspected piracy network.

“The purpose of all of the requested subpoenas is to seek relevant information that is necessary for NOA to pursue infringement claims,” the filing reads.

Nintendo is only going after those associated with the Pirate Shops, not every member of the subreddit. This is about selling modded Switch consoles and cartridges, as opposed to emulation and ROMs, despite these incurring the company’s wrath in the past.

In March, Nintendo launched legal action in US federal court against Tropic Haze, developer of Yuzu. It argued that the popular open-source Switch emulator violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Tropic Haze agreed to pay Nintendo $2.4 million and cease all operations.