Nintendo filed a lawsuit Wednesday against an Amazon Marketplace user who was allegedly selling devices called RCM loaders. Used to help people jailbreak their Switch, shutting these down is the latest in the company’s efforts to stop players from pirating its games.
As first reported by Polygon, the lawsuit against reseller Le Hoang Minh seeks “relief for unlawful trafficking in circumvention devices in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).” In addition to having the Seattle District Court order Minh to stop selling the devices, Nintendo also wants $2,500 in damages for each one already sold.
“Piracy of video game software has become a serious, worsening international problem,” Nintendo’s lawyers write (without offering any further detail), arguing that the RCM loaders and other devices like them are are a big contributor to that. While jailbreaking a Switch isn’t necessarily itself against the law, pirating games is, and devices whose primary purpose is to facilitating that are also prohibited. The loaders aren’t hard to find on Amazon and other resellers, but it’s essentially the code the loaders are running to jailbreak the Switch that people buy them for and which Nintendo wants to stop the spread of.
According to the legal complaint Nintendo filed, the company originally sought to have Minh’s listings removed from Amazon by issuing DMCA-related takedowns, but Minh filed a counter-notification with Amazon to keep the listings up, forcing Nintendo to take the matter to court.
Source: Nintendo Continues Cracking Down On People Selling Switch Hacks
Just because a device can somehow be used for jailbraking doesn’t mean it always is. A bit like a phone can be used to plot a bank heist, but that isn’t the sole purpose of a phone.
Robin Edgar
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