hack seller.Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against Amazon seller, Le Hoang Minh, for circumventing Nintendo’s copyright protections by selling an RCM Loader that essentially hacks into the Nintendo Switch to jailbreak it, as reported by Polygon. This gives users the ability to easily pirate games. This lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday, is just the latest in a line of many from the company against hack sellers.“Plaintiff Nintendo of America Inc. brings this action against Defendant Le Hoang Minh, d/b/a Winmart for circumvention of a technological protection measure that controls access to a copyrighted work and trafficking in devices intended to circumvent technological protection measures,” a court document reads.
Nintendo calls video game piracy a “serious, worsening international problem” in the court filings and details how RCM Loaders bypass its security systems on the Switch. The company is asking for courts to stop Minh from selling the RCM Loaders and for $2500 in damages for each infringement.
Nintendo sent a DMCA notice to Minh, but they filed a counterclaim and because of that, Amazon was required to re-list Minh’s RCM Loader until Nintendo filed an infringement lawsuit, which the company then did. It’s presumed that Minh is selling RCM Loaders that use Team Xecuter software to bypass Nintendo’s security as the software associated with the RCM Loaders in question is SX OS, which is a Team Xecuter software.Team Xecuter members, Gary Bowser and Max Louarn, were arrested this year and charged with 11 felony counts in relation to trafficking in illegal hardware and software like SX OS, according to The Verge. The specific listing from Minh that Nintendo is suing over is no longer present on Amazon, but RCM Loaders still appear on the site.
This lawsuit is yet another in Nintendo’s long line of lawsuits fighting against illegal uses of its software and hardware. It issued lawsuits to multiple emulator sites in 2018 and won $12 million from them later that year. It recently sued a TikTok influencer for infringing upon Nintendo copyright for attempting to trademark her Pokemon-inspired username and for using Pokemon in her merch.
Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.
