Jesse Keighin liked to stream Nintendo Switch games online before they were officially released and then gloat about it right in Nintendo’s face, according to a new lawsuit filed by the Mario maker in Colorado District Court earlier this week. “[I] can do this all day,” he allegedly wrote in a letter to Nintendo. The company has responded with a legal action that could cost him up to $7.5 million.
As first reported by 404 Media, the lawsuit accuses Keighin of streaming leaked Switch games, including this month’s Mario & Luigi: Brothership, ahead of release using emulation software as many as 50 times in the last two years. Nintendo is seeking $150,000 in damages for each instance of alleged copyright infringement.
“All of these streams were unauthorized and all compromise Nintendo’s legitimate prerelease marketing,” reads the legal complaint filed on November 6. “They also promote and encourage downloading of pirated copies of unpublished games. Defendant’s streams often consist merely of him playing Nintendo’s leaked games without commentary for extended periods of time.”
Recently, Nintendo has been on a renewed mission to crack down on emulation, leaks, and piracy, from people playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ahead of release on PC to fans sharing art book scans ahead of publication on Discord servers. This year alone, it killed two popular Switch emulators with legal threats that quickly shut them down.
But Keighin might not have elicited the full fury of Nintendo’s legal department had he not kept trolling the company. The lawsuit claims that shortly after the company had his monetized YouTube channel and other accounts shut down, the streamer told Nintendo he would help people find “newer and updated copies” of the abandoned Switch emulators to help them pirate games.
“LOVE YA’LL! CAPITALISM IS CANCER! MY CHANNEL IS BEING DELETED FOR SHARING GAMEPLAY VIDEOS! THIS IS YOUR REWARD!” Keighin wrote in one of his posts. If you haven’t heard of him before now, it’s probably because his social media accounts were small, and his reach was very, very limited. It certainly seems like his ongoing defiance of the Switch maker led the company to try and make an example out of him. Gary Bowser, who Nintendo helped nail for piracy years ago, owes the company millions he will likely never manage to repay.
“We can confirm that we filed a lawsuit against an individual who has engaged and continues to engage in clear infringement of Nintendo’s IP rights, as well as violations of our Game Content Guidelines,” a spokesperson for Nintendo said in a statement to Kotaku. “Nintendo is passionate about protecting the creative works of game developers and publishers who expend significant time and effort to create experiences that bring smiles to all.”
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