A Washington federal court has ordered James C. Williams, a former prominent moderator of the Reddit community r/SwitchPirates widely known online by his alias "Archbox," to pay Nintendo $4.5 million in statutory damages. The ruling concludes a copyright infringement lawsuit initiated by the gaming giant earlier this year and delivers a decisive legal blow against high-profile operators of unauthorized software distribution networks targeting the Nintendo Switch console.
The sweeping default judgment, handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King, also includes a permanent injunction that legally bars Williams from distributing pirated video games, supplying circumvention tools, or encouraging others to utilize such software. Whether Nintendo will ultimately recover the substantial financial penalty remains uncertain, as the defendant chose not to respond to the allegations throughout the court proceedings.
Nintendo’s aggressive legal posture against piracy has long been a cornerstone of the company’s strategy to protect its intellectual property on the portable home console. The corporation relies on a steady stream of cease-and-desist letters and targeted digital takedown notices to disrupt unauthorized distribution networks. When those administrative measures fail to achieve compliance, the company routinely escalates matters by initiating formal legal action in federal courts.
In June 2024, Nintendo escalated its enforcement efforts by filing a comprehensive lawsuit in a Washington federal court against Williams, an Arizona resident operating under the moniker "Archbox." According to court documents, Nintendo accused the defendant of orchestrating and operating multiple online "pirate shops" that provided the public with access to vast libraries of unauthorized, pirated Nintendo Switch games.
Court filings detailed how Williams allegedly promoted these illicit repositories on the r/SwitchPirates subreddit, where he maintained a position as a leading moderator. Furthermore, Nintendo alleged that Williams actively assisted forum users with the installation of complex circumvention software designed to bypass the security architecture of the console. Investigators also pointed to instances where Williams solicited eShop gift card "donations" from community members, allegedly using the funds to acquire legitimate copies of newly released games. Those purchased titles were subsequently decrypted and uploaded to the public pirate shops for widespread unauthorized distribution.
Despite being formally notified of the litigation, Williams never filed an answer or otherwise responded to the formal complaint. This persistent unresponsiveness prompted Nintendo to formally request a default judgment in October, seeking the maximum statutory damages allowed under copyright law alongside a permanent injunction to halt his activities entirely.
Judge Grants Default Judgment
This week, U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King granted Nintendo’s motion for a default judgment in its entirety. In her written order, the judge emphasized that Williams was fully aware of the ongoing legal battle, noting that he had previously retained legal counsel specifically to object to an investigative third-party subpoena served on Google. Despite this early legal representation, Williams ultimately failed to file a formal response to the underlying complaint.
Williams’s extensive and candid activity on Reddit ultimately undermined any potential defense and was heavily cited in the final court order. The defendant’s public online statements clearly demonstrated that he was fully aware the games he was distributing were protected by copyright, yet he chose to continue his infringing activities regardless.
In one specific post highlighted in the court’s documentation, Williams openly identified himself as a pirate, writing that he simply was "not going to give Nintendo $50 for a game." Such remarks left the court with little doubt regarding the intentional and deliberate nature of the copyright violations.
$4.5 Million Damages Award
In its motion, Nintendo requested the statutory maximum of $150,000 per copyrighted work for a total of 30 distinct titles, a list that included blockbuster commercial hits such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Judge King accepted Nintendo’s calculation of the damages. Given that retail prices for major Switch titles hover around $50 each, the cumulative loss from widespread unauthorized distribution could easily scale into hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Consequently, the court found that the maximum statutory damages request represented a realistic estimate of the actual financial harm suffered by the company.
Because Williams’s online posts established that his infringement was entirely willful, the judge deemed the requested $4.5 million award to be fully appropriate, serving in part as a necessary financial deterrent. Judge King concluded that the egregious nature of the infringement activities warranted substantial punishment.
As noted in the court order, Nintendo elected not to pursue additional damages under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) or demand legal attorneys’ fees. The judge explicitly acknowledged this strategic decision as a gesture of reasonableness on the part of the plaintiff, noting that it weighed favorably in her determination to grant the maximum statutory damages available for copyright infringement.
Shops and Reddit Account Already Gone
Beyond the multi-million-dollar financial penalty, Judge King issued a comprehensive permanent injunction against Williams. The court order strictly forbids the defendant from distributing any pirated Nintendo games—extending far beyond the 30 specific titles named in the initial complaint—as well as any software utility designed to circumvent technological protection measures on Nintendo consoles and games.
Additionally, Williams is legally barred from encouraging other individuals to download pirated titles or circumvention utilities. To ensure compliance, the injunction mandates that Williams permanently disable all pirate shops under his control alongside any online accounts utilized to distribute or promote the infringing materials.
The operational scope of the injunction covers his primary Reddit account, as well as associated accounts on platforms such as Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, and Telegram that were allegedly employed to facilitate the infringement.
In practice, however, much of the digital infrastructure targeted by the injunction had already been dismantled. The Reddit account associated with the "archbox" username has been self-deleted, and the various pirate shops cited in the lawsuit were taken offline months prior, with most closures occurring shortly after Williams received a cease-and-desist letter from Nintendo in March 2024.
By pursuing the litigation, Nintendo stated its intention to definitively halt Williams’s operations while sending an unmistakable deterrent message to others engaging in similar unauthorized activities. Nevertheless, successfully recovering the $4.5 million judgment may prove exceptionally difficult in practice, particularly given the defendant’s continued lack of cooperation and unresponsiveness throughout the judicial process.
Because Williams chose not to contest the litigation, none of Nintendo’s legal assertions were formally tested through an adversarial trial. The federal court accepted the factual allegations contained in the complaint as true by default, resulting in a completely uncontested victory for the video game publisher.
This resolution stands in contrast to Nintendo’s parallel copyright enforcement lawsuit against Modded Hardware, which was filed on the exact same day in June 2024. That separate legal proceeding concluded earlier when the operator agreed to a $2 million settlement judgment to resolve claims involving the distribution of modified hardware and circumvention devices.
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