Nintendo's continued fight against Switch game piracy continues, as it's now set its sights on a Nintendo Switch piracy subreddit which was recently highlighted in a lawsuit against an alleged pirate.
It was back in June (thanks, TorrentFreak) that Nintendo first filed a lawsuit against James Williams, also known as 'Archbox.' It alleged that he had "been involved in creating, operating, and promoting (and assisting others to create, operate, and promote) a network of unauthorized online 'shops' (nicknamed 'freeshops') which offer to the public extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games for download." At the time, it called him "an active and prominent member of the Reddit community r/SwitchPirates," and according to a new report from Game File, it sounds like the company is planning further investigation into the subreddit itself.
In a new court filing, it's stated that an "extensive and diligent investigation into the operation, ownership, and control of the Pirate Shops, including efforts to determine the identity of Defendant Williams" previously took place, in which "we learned various details about the Pirate Shops and about Defendant's involvement in them." One of these things, it's claimed, is that the "Defendant was the primary moderator of the 'SwitchPirates' Reddit community." What's more, it adds, "we also became aware of multiple other online actors who appeared to have a role in the Pirate Shops," but it wasn't able to identify or locate them at the time.
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I think this is what pisses me off the most. If you own an IP you should have a requirement to make it available. If you don’t, you lose the copyright.
The point of copyright is to allow you the exclusive right to sell a product so you can make money off producing it. If you stop selling it, there’s no reason to protect that right anymore.