Nintendo has won a lawsuit against a streamer who pirated games and livestreamed them ahead of their release dates.
The pirate, Jesse “EveryGameGuru” Keighin, infamously wrote to Nintendo “boasting” that he had “a thousand burner channels” to stream from and threatened to continue to use them, saying he could “do this all day.” “You might run a corporation, but I run the streets,” he wrote on social media at the time. He has now been ordered to pay $17,500 in damages.
Last November, we learned Nintendo had sued a gamer for streaming pirated Nintendo games such as The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom before their official release date. Nintendo filed a lawsuit in a Colorado court against Keighin accusing him of not only streaming 10 Nintendo games before they came out, but telling his viewers how to obtain them. The list includes The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and Mario & Luigi: Brothership.
According to the lawsuit, Keighin obtained and streamed leaked Nintendo games at least 50 times since 2022, and provided links to the Yuzu and Ryujinx emulators for viewers. Nintendo alleged these actions amounted to “trafficking” in illegal “circumvention devices,” and insisted they caused “millions of dollars” worth of damage through “lost video game sales.”
According to TorrentFreak, however, the court did not agree to issue an injunction against anonymous “third parties” or order the “destruction” of the devices Keighin uses to circumvent Nintendo’s piracy systems, saying the demand was “unclear” and “unreasonable” without knowing who those third parties were or what the circumvention devices specifically are.
An injunction against Keighin was granted, though, preventing him from “infringing Nintendo’s copyrighted works, including by streaming, and from trafficking in Switch emulators, Nintendo’s proprietary cryptographic keys, or other software or technologies that circumvent Nintendo’s technological protective measures.”
Keighin reportedly did not prepare a defense nor any objections, and the judgment is now final.
Earlier this month IGN reported Nintendo was suing a Reddit moderator and alleged Switch pirate for $4.5 million, claiming the figure is “nowhere near an amount that would compensate Nintendo of America for the seriousness of the Defendant’s conduct.”
The conduct Nintendo references is the alleged “DMCA anti-trafficking violations” of James “Archbox” Williams, a moderator on the Switch Pirates subreddit who is accused of copying and distributing pirated Nintendo Switch games. Nintendo tracked down the alleged Switch pirate last year using a combination of Reddit posts and repair orders.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.