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Nintendo The Courts

Nintendo Switch Modder Faces Tech Giant in Court Without Lawyer (ign.com) 59

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
A Nintendo Switch modder has entered a legal battle against Nintendo without legal representation, Torrent Freak reports. Ryan Daly, alleged owner of Modded Hardware, denied all allegations in a lawsuit filed by Nintendo in July. Nintendo claims Modded Hardware offers hardware and firmware for creating and playing pirated games, as well as providing customers with pirated Nintendo titles.

The company filed suit after Daly allegedly ignored warnings to cease operations in March and May 2024. Daly's court response denies wrongdoing and ownership of the business. His defenses include fair use, invalid copyrights, and unjust enrichment. The Modded Hardware website is now password-protected.
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Nintendo Switch Modder Faces Tech Giant in Court Without Lawyer More

Nintendo Switch Modder Faces Tech Giant in Court Without Lawyer

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  • ...has a fool for a client.

    So far seems to check out.

    • Depending, this might end up being 'fine, you won, now try to collect'.

      I could make myself judgement proof very easily, as the courts only take excess income away, so they won't take my house or car away, they'll leave me enough money for food, medical care and insurance, etc...

      At which point, why bother paying for a lawyer? Let Nintendo waste their money assigning a legal team.

      • At which point, why bother paying for a lawyer?

        Because in the U.S., copyright infringement has become a crime punishable by imprisonment. The deeper the pockets you piss off, the more likely jail time becomes.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          This isn't a criminal trial, so chances of jail are slim to none. The FBI warning is for criminal acts.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Moryath ( 553296 )

            Also, it's pretty simple. The CrookLawyers at Nintendo are alleging he owns the website in question. He says he doesn't own or run the website in question.

            Nintendo are the ones who need to prove that he does.

            Additionally, when you see "Defendant is without sufficient information to either admit or deny the allegations of this paragraph, and on that basis, denies them" in a response, it likely translates to "this is marketing-speak masquerading as a legal argument, so it's utter fucking bullshit by Nintend

            • His whole rebuttal is hilarious. I don't think any lawyer could make this as fun as they do themselves.

              There is also "Defendant admits that he lives in Michigan and has used screen names from time to time" and " Defendant admits that this paragraph includes a partial recitation of the Copyright Act"

              If the actual trial is this well thought out, it will be a strong fight at the very least.

        • The deeper the pockets you piss off

          I like the system where the party making frivolous cases has to pay for both sides and the courts expenses.

          • The fee shifting provision in the Copyright Act of 1976 specifies that the prevailing party may get their legal fees paid. Section 505:"the court may award a reasonable attorney's fee to the prevailing party as part of the costs.”

        • As mentioned, this is a lawsuit, not a criminal trial. Nintendo would have to find a prosecutor willing to press criminal charges. With it being a civil trial, the only way for somebody to end up in jail would be contempt of court, and as long as the guy doesn't piss the judge off, that isn't going to happen.
          And the judge may be relatively kind to him representing himself if he gives a good reason like "I can't afford a lawyer", and the judge found the responses funny too.

          For example, any paragraphs that

          • Judges don't like pro se litigants because they make a mess of things due to not understanding court processes or the law. The judge is there to be a neutral arbiter of the law, not to do the work of either the plaintiff or defendant. The judge will most likely tell the defendant that if he doesn't understand something that he should hire a lawyer. Representing yourself in court is just asking to get bent over and reamed and because you dint understand procedural rules you're probably ruining your own chanc

            • Depends on the judge, as I said.
              "Can't find a lawyer willing to take the case for what I can afford, are you going to appoint one?" is an option.
              Assuming financials to match, that might get a headshake at Nintendo for bothering to sue a judgement proof person.

            • at appealing the verdict that gets shoved up your ass.

              I don't think you get what "judgement proof" really means.

              The courts could find me liable for $100M of offenses because I represent myself. I then proceed to ignore the judgement.

              Wages garnished? No wages to garnish.
              Force the sale of property? What property?
              Empty bank accounts/investments? There aren't any.

              Result? Keeping track of the judgement costs the company more than what is going to be paid on it.

              So they get the domain name, which, keep in mind, is only rented - so they have to pay the registrati

    • Worked out well for Manson.
    • He'll be learning the definition of pantsing [urbandictionary.com]
    • He's not a lawyer, though. He still may be a fool.

      • He's not a lawyer, though. He still may be a fool.

        True, though he is acting like one in court.

  • Self representing against Nintendo is ballsy! They have infinite lawyer money.

    • That might be why he's self-representing. Any lawyer taking on Nintendo is in for a big effort and wants to know they will get paid. The only way a lawyer would probably take this case is if they thought it was so strong that they might recover legal fees from Nintendo. Otherwise they could end up with an insane number of hours for which they can't collect payment.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        Large corporations hire lawyers as full time staff, and do as they're told by the company. It's possible that nintendo only hired an outside law firm for this, but it's unlikely given their size and legal agenda(s).

    • On the other hand, it is possibly the only way for an individual to afford to take on a corporation.

      There better be a clear legal argument and the guy better be a quick study, though. Judges may respect the law and your right to defend yourself, but typically that respect for the law means you don't get much leeway for not being a trained lawyer.

    • Self representing against Nintendo is ballsy! They have infinite lawyer money.

      That may actually be an argument for self representing. At this point this man is going to get legally sodomised. You have the choice of bending over and taking it, or bending over and taking it along with getting a large legal bill.

  • ...but lose the war as gamers clearly see them as evil

    • Re:Nintendo may win the battle... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rinnon ( 1474161 ) on Tuesday October 08, 2024 @01:05PM (#64849037)

      ...but lose the war as gamers clearly see them as evil

      I have my doubts about that.

      1. The Nintendo Switch is the third best selling console of all time, behind the Nintendo DS and the PS2.

      2. Nintendo doesn't target "gamers" in the way that Xbox or PS does. Sure they're happy to have gamers buy their stuff, but they target families who want a Nintendo specifically, not a "game system".

      3. Do "gamers" categorically think Nintendo is evil? Some do. Some don't. I'm not going to speculate on the percentage other than to refer you to my first point.

      4. Is chasing down websites and threatening them with legal action for taking part in projects that (allegedly) contribute to the piracy of their IP even evil? Evil seems a strong word here. You might disagree with their actions, or the actual impact of these projects on their revenue/IP rights, but "evil" seems like it should be reserved for something a bit less... you know.

      • Me personally, I want my games working for decades by whatever means necessary. Old NES and SNES systems are still repairable but newer consoles are relatively fragile.

        There are games that I took so long to get around to, that I'm playing them on emulators with better controllers. But I own the game disc.

        Nintendo in these last several months have looked very bad to me as a consumer. They can talk big, but if they start going after things that can be used for game preservation, that's where I mentally dr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BigZee ( 769371 )
        This whole idea that Nintendo is evil is pretty dumb if you ask me. Nintendo is a company that makes money by making game systems and games. What it's doing is protecting its assets. I actually think Nintendo had been pretty reasonable when it came to emulation in the past. However, developers crossed the line when they decided that a current gen system was fair game. If Sony or Microsoft were having to deal with a similar situation (current gen exclusives being played on PC or other unsupported systems) th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        2. Nintendo doesn't target "gamers" in the way that Xbox or PS does. Sure they're happy to have gamers buy their stuff, but they target families who want a Nintendo specifically, not a "game system".

        Erm, no... Nintendo targets gamers. They're the only console trying to reach the console market, which are gamers. Sony/MS are targeting Dudebros, not gamers, with consoles that are trying to ape gaming PCs but doing a terrible job of it. That's why the new PS5 Pro Money Grubbing Limited Edition that we've made 500,000 of is selling for more than an entry level gaming laptop and almost as much as a decent entry level gaming desktop (and it's still a loss leader). A Dudebro buys the latest COD Clone or Gener

    • gamers dont care about this

  • Probably totally different but what happened when McDonald's tried to prosecute some pamphleteers for libel turned out to be one of the longest court cases (10 years) in UK history. It essentially became the defendants new jobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
  • it made it a crime to circumvent any copy protection. Like those shirts with the bit of python or perl needed to decrypt a DVD and how they were, under the DMCA, illegal.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Like those shirts with the bit of python or perl needed to decrypt a DVD and how they were, under the DMCA, legal.

      FTFY. The whole point of those shirts was that they were NOT illegal.

  • Copyright is way to long to start with but ignoring that, there should be a requirement that the copyright material actually enters the public domain when the copyright expires. For a book that is simple but for a game that is tied to a console that requires much more. So if Nintendo lacks the ability to play games in full the way they were released they should lose the copyright. If the BBC has lost Doctor who recordings then they shouldn't be able to claim copyright. If the music industry has lost the
  • The lawsuit is a civil one, which means they very likely lack actual proof of him owning anything but the domain name. I wonder if the plan is to deny everything and see what happens.

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