Nintendo Australia has won a recent lawsuit against an Australian company that was selling game copying devices to consumers. It was found that the distribution of these devices was illegal as it infringed Nintendo’s copyright and trademarks.
In September 2009, Nintendo filed proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against RSJ IT Solutions Pty Ltd which trades as GadgetGear – an online seller of gadgets. The action was taken due to the fact that the company was illegally distributing game copying devices, commonly known as R4 cards.
GadgetGear and its directors, Patrick Li and James Li, have now acknowledged that the device infringed Nintendo’s copyright and trademarks. As a result, GadgetGear and its directors have agreed to permanently refrain from importing, offering for sale and-or selling game copier devices.
The company will also have to pay Nintendo a total of $620,000 by way of damages and deliver all its stock of game copiers to Nintendo for destruction.
“Nintendo guards its intellectual property rights in order to protect the interests of its valued consumers, its own interests, and others in the games industry including independent content creation organisations, developers and publishing studios and all distributors of Nintendo products,” said Heather Murphy, public relations manager at Nintendo Australia.
“Nintendo will pursue those who attempt to jeopardise the gaming industry by using all means available to it under the law. In particular, Nintendo is currently contemplating bringing further actions against other sellers of game copying devices in Australia.”
Since 2008, Nintendo has taken over 800 actions in 16 countries to combat video game piracy. It has confiscated over a half a million Nintendo DS game copiers in this time.
“Piracy not only affects sales, it affects the price of video games and employment in the video game industry,” she said.
“Fewer sales of Nintendo’s hardware and software systems means fewer resources that Nintendo, its licensees, developers and publishers have to create and market new video game products which is ultimately to the detriment of video game enthusiasts. When there is a decrease in game development, there is also a decrease in the number of jobs in the industry.”