Nintendo Wins $4.5 Million From a Reddit Mod Who Vanished

A Seattle federal judge awarded Nintendo of America $4.5 million on September 23, 2026, after James C. Williams never answered a Switch piracy complaint. Williams, known online as Archbox, had been a leading moderator of r/SwitchPirates, a Reddit board Nintendo said he helped grow to nearly 190,000 members.

U.S. District Judge Lauren King entered the award by default in Nintendo of America Inc. v. Williams, case 2:24-cv-00960-LK, in the Western District of Washington. The figure is the one Nintendo asked for in October 2025, even though the company told the court that sum was nowhere near enough to cover the harm.

Nintendo Gets the $4.5 Million It Called Inadequate

The judgment awards Nintendo $4,500,000 in statutory damages for copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2), plus a permanent injunction. King granted the company’s motion in full in a 22-page order granting default judgment and a permanent injunction dated September 23, 2026.

Nintendo of America, a Washington corporation, filed seven civil claims: willful copyright infringement, contributory infringement and inducement, circumvention of technological measures, two trafficking counts under the DMCA, breach of contract, and tortious interference with contract. For the money, it elected copyright statutory damages on 30 first-party Switch titles and skipped extra DMCA awards and attorney’s fees, calling that a “gesture of reasonableness.”

In the October 2025 motion, Nintendo wrote that “the amount of money sufficient to remedy NOA’s injury would be extremely difficult to quantify; but it is indisputable that such amount would be large.” It added that the sum at stake was “nowhere near an amount that would compensate NOA for the seriousness of Defendants’ conduct.” King still found $4.5 million reasonable, given the scale alleged, the willful-conduct findings, and Williams’s decision not to defend.

Williams’ egregious infringement activities merit substantial punishment here.

U.S. District Judge Lauren King, order dated September 23, 2026

The complaint treats the 30 titles as a sample, not the whole library. Nintendo alleged Williams reproduced and distributed “hundreds or thousands of copyrighted Nintendo game files,” and that the shops moved “thousands, if not hundreds of thousands,” of unauthorized copies.

A Limited Appearance, Then Silence

Nintendo’s lawyers tied the Archbox handle to Nintendo accounts in the name of James Williams in February 2024, then sent a cease-and-desist letter in March 2024 that he acknowledged. In April and May 2024 they exchanged emails in which he said he would retain a lawyer, then refused to confirm in writing that he would stop, according to the order. Nintendo alleged that after the letter he deleted GitHub activity and social posts and took shops down.

The complaint was filed on June 28, 2024. Williams, an Arizona resident, was served in August 2024 at a dwelling in Surprise, Arizona, that the court accepted as his usual place of abode after extra briefing. He did not file an answer. The clerk entered default on November 8, 2024.

He was not entirely unreachable. After Nintendo won leave to subpoena internet providers, attorney William R. Burnside appeared for the limited purpose of responding to a Google LLC subpoena and said the filing should not be treated as a general appearance. Burnside would not say whether Williams planned to defend the case. About 11 months after default, Nintendo moved for judgment and served the papers at the Surprise dwelling and by email.

King found personal jurisdiction in Seattle because Williams had agreed to Nintendo’s end-user terms in order to use the eShop. Those terms pick Washington law and the exclusive venue in King County, Washington. Because he never answered, the court took the well-pleaded allegations as true for liability. Default judgments are disfavored, King wrote, citing the Ninth Circuit’s Eitel factors, but a defendant who is served and stays silent does not get a trial.

THE ARCHBOX DOCKET

1. February 2024: Nintendo links the Archbox handle to James Williams Nintendo accounts.
2. March 2024: A cease-and-desist letter is sent and acknowledged.
3. June 28, 2024: Nintendo of America files the Seattle complaint.
4. August 2024: Williams is served in Surprise, Arizona.
5. November 8, 2024: The clerk enters default after he fails to plead.
6. October 2025: Nintendo moves for $4.5 million and a permanent injunction.
7. September 23, 2026: King grants the motion and the clerk enters judgment.

The path from a Reddit handle to a named defendant ran through Nintendo’s own account records, not through a public unmasking after judgment. The company already had him on paper when it sued.

How the Court Reached $150,000 per Game

Copyright owners can skip proof of actual lost sales and ask for statutory damages instead. Under federal law, the ordinary band is $750 to $30,000 per work. If the court finds the infringement was willful, it may raise the statutory maximum of $150,000 per work.

Nintendo asked for that willful cap on each of 30 games listed in Schedule A, and only those 30. King held that all four usual factors for a willful award pointed to the ceiling: unquantified profits and losses, Nintendo’s lost revenue, the public interest in the copyright statute, and willfulness. She noted that at “roughly $50 per game,” the price Williams himself used in a post, lost sales “could easily reach the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” which made the statutory maximum “not an unrealistic estimate” of actual harm.

HOW $4.5 MILLION WAS BUILT

Willfulness, in this circuit, means the defendant knew about the infringing activity or acted with reckless disregard or willful blindness. King pointed to Williams’s own posts. In one, he called himself a “pirate” who “[is]n’t going to give Nintendo $50 for a game.” In another on SwitchPirates, after a GitHub target was hit with a DMCA notice, he wrote that the group was adding other mirrors, “including posting to a Russian only fans scraper.”

The 30 titles are all Nintendo-published Switch games. The list runs from Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp to Yoshi’s Crafted World and includes Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Metroid Dread, Pikmin 4, Princess Peach: Showtime!, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Jack-in-the-Shop and the Dead Storefronts

Nintendo’s complaint said that since 2019 Williams had been, directly or indirectly, owner, manager, operator, creator, administrator, supplier, or overseer of several “Pirate Shops” that offered large libraries of Switch games for download. It said he used the moderator chair to point the 190,000-member board at those shops, to walk people through circumvention software such as signature patches, and to solicit “donations” of Nintendo eShop gift cards and game copies so more titles could be decrypted and added.

Four shop names appear in the case papers.

SHOPS NAMED IN THE COMPLAINT

• Jack-in-the-Shop: Listed as one of the storefronts that went dark after the March 2024 cease-and-desist letter.
• Turtle in the Shop: Named with Jack-in-the-Shop as an early shutdown after that letter.
• NekoDrive: Also identified as closing in the same March 2024 wave.
• LiberaShop: Still up when the June 2024 complaint was filed, then closed shortly afterward.

By the time King signed the injunction, there was little left to padlock. The Archbox Reddit account had been self-deleted, and the shops named in the complaint had been offline for many months, most of them since the 2024 letter. The judgment still orders Williams to “immediately disable access” to any shops he operates or controls, and to the social and chat accounts used to push them.

Running a public ROM counter under a known handle, then asking a 190,000-member board for eShop cards to feed it, is what turned a piracy forum into a named civil defendant. The downloads were the product. The Reddit post history was the exhibit list.

The Ban Covers Discord, Telegram and TikTok

The money judgment is only half of the paper. The injunction binds Williams and anyone acting under his direction or control, including agents, subsidiaries, representatives, and employees. It is not a ban on the 190,000 people who once subscribed to the subreddit.

He may not keep offering pirate Switch shops, distribute or market circumvention software that breaks Nintendo’s access controls, push unauthorized copies of Nintendo games (the 30 listed titles and others), or encourage the public to grab that software or those files or to breach the Switch and Nintendo Account terms. To carry that out, he must shut off shops and any Instagram, X, Reddit, TikTok, Discord, Telegram, e-commerce, or other channel used to move the files or the tools.

Contempt is the enforcement path if he stands those services back up. The order does not require Nintendo to prove a fresh lost sale first. It also does not, by its terms, collect the $4.5 million. That is a separate money judgment Nintendo would have to enforce against assets, wages, or accounts, including in Arizona, where he was served.

The same June 28, 2024 filing wave included a parallel case against Modded Hardware, a shop accused of selling circumvention gear. That operator later agreed to a $2 million judgment rather than try the complaint. Williams took the other fork: no answer, then the statutory ceiling on 30 works.

Bowser Has Paid $175 of $14.5 Million

Nintendo has used large civil numbers against Switch piracy rings before. Gary Bowser, a Team Xecuter salesman, pleaded guilty in a criminal case and also resolved a civil suit. Between restitution and the civil consent judgment he was ordered to pay $14.5 million, made up of $10 million on the civil side and $4.5 million in restitution. His plea said he personally made about $320,000 over seven years, against “tens of millions of dollars” in group sales.

He was sentenced to 40 months and released after 14 months plus pre-trial time. In 2023 he said he had been paying Nintendo $25 a month from prison wages, $175 in total, and that after release the company could take 25 to 30 percent of his gross monthly income. At that clip the $14.5 million does not clear in a working life. Bowser, then in his fifties, said he would pay what he could.

THREE NINTENDO PIRACY AWARDS

Williams never put a defense on the record, so there is no sworn account of what the shops took in or what he still holds. The $4.5 million is a judgment, not a wire. Nintendo can try to collect it. Bowser’s file is the reminder that a Nintendo number can sit on a docket for years while the monthly slice stays small.

King’s order already notes that the shops and the Archbox Reddit account are gone. The live piece of the win is the injunction, which follows Williams onto any new Discord, Telegram, or shopfront he tries to stand up under his control. The $4.5 million is the figure Nintendo asked for after saying it was not enough, and the figure it received because the other chair in the courtroom stayed empty.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Archbox Case a Criminal Prosecution?

No. Nintendo of America Inc. v. Williams is a civil copyright and DMCA case in the Western District of Washington. The seven counts are civil claims for infringement, circumvention, trafficking, breach of contract, and tortious interference. The docket does not include a criminal indictment, a prison term, or a restitution order of the kind entered against Gary Bowser in the Team Xecuter prosecution.

Does the Injunction Bind r/SwitchPirates Members?

It binds James C. Williams and people acting under his direction or control, including agents and employees. King’s order does not name the nearly 190,000 subscribers as defendants and does not, by itself, outlaw reading or posting on a subreddit. What it stops is Williams offering shops, circulating circumvention software, pushing unauthorized copies, or encouraging those acts, and it requires him to cut off the accounts and servers he used for that work.

Can Nintendo Add DMCA Damages After This Judgment?

Not in this case as it now stands. Nintendo told the court it was forgoing DMCA statutory damages and attorney’s fees as a “gesture of reasonableness,” and the September 23, 2026 judgment awards only the $4,500,000 copyright figure plus the injunction. A final judgment on those elections is the end of the damage request in this action, unless a later court proceeding reopens it, which this docket does not do.

How Does Nintendo Collect $4.5 Million if Williams Has No Assets?

The judgment is a money award that Nintendo can try to enforce in Washington and, after domestication, in Arizona, where Williams was served. Tools in a typical collection fight include wage garnishment, bank levies, and liens, all limited by state exemption rules. Bowser’s consent terms capped Nintendo at 25 to 30 percent of gross monthly income and had produced $175 by 2023. Nothing in the Williams judgment sets a payment plan or finds that he has (or lacks) collectible assets.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a completed civil judgment and related public court papers. It is informational only and is not legal advice, a prediction of collection results, or a guide to copyright, DMCA, or judgment-enforcement practice. Readers with questions about a lawsuit, an injunction, or a money judgment should consult a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction before acting. Figures, docket events, and payment histories reflect the court filings and named interviews cited here and may change if a party later moves to amend, collect, or appeal.