Nintendo Suing Streamer For Allegedly Broadcasting “Pirated” Switch Games Ahead Of Official Release
Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against an individual who apparently “repeatedly streamed pirated and emulated” Switch games while also promoting “Switch emulators and other piracy tools” to his audience.
As highlighted by 404 Media, Jesse Keighin (known online as ‘EveryGameGuru’) reportedly “got under Nintendo’s skin” after he refused to comply with the video game giant.
Keighin is accused of escalating the situation by continuing to stream Switch games (including new titles before they were released), monetising his video content, and even “boasting” about his actions in a letter to the Japanese firm.
“On October 24, 2024, after certain platforms had taken down his unlawful streams as a result of Nintendo’s enforcement actions, he sent Nintendo a letter boasting that he has ‘a thousand burner channels’ to stream from and [he] ‘can do this all day,’” Nintendo says in its lawsuit.
The most recent example of this was last month when Keighin supposedly streamed Mario & Luigi: Brothership on “YouTube and other platforms”.
The lawsuit further claims he “streamed gameplay footage” of multiple new games on “at least fifty occasions” before they were even available to the public:
“On at least fifty occasions in the last two years, Defendant has streamed gameplay footage of pirated copies of at least ten different Nintendo games without authorization—all before those titles were released to the public”
According to the lawsuit, he also previously told Nintendo he would “actively help people find newer and updated copies” of popular Nintendo emulators, and has been accused of offering to help people play Switch games “on their PC” without having to buy official Switch hardware.
Nintendo is now “seeking $150,000 per infringement of its copyright” and factoring in “at least fifty occasions in the last two years” this adds up to a sum of $7.5 million.
