Nintendo Battles Major U.S. Game Piracy Operation
U.S. Dist. Judge John Coughenour, Seattle, issued a temporary restraining order late last week to stop the import and sale of cheaply designed game systems containing pirated copies of Donkey Kong and many other Nintendo games. Calling it “the largest piracy problem” that it has faced in the U.S., Nintendo of America (NOA) said it believed the piracy operation had cost it “millions of dollars.”
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NOA sued the Wash. companies What’s On and SER last month along with their executives and employees, claiming they were all involved in the piracy operation. In its suit, NOA asked for a temporary restraining order and claimed that What’s On and SER were selling the illegal devices -- known as “Power Player,” “Powerjoy,” “Super Joystick” and “Superjoy,” among other names -- at Northgate Mall in Seattle and various other malls across the U.S., in kiosks often located near stores that sold authentic Nintendo products.
NOA said the devices were sold for $10 each wholesale and then sold to consumers for $40-$70. It said when the infringing device -- designed to look just like the company’s old Nintendo 64 controller -- was connected to a TV, the user was “able to access and play over 50 illegally-copied Nintendo games.” It said the games were “unchanged from the original, authentic versions, except that in many instances the copyright and trademark notices have been removed from the originals and, in some games, the titles have been removed.” NOA noted that some of the pirated games were recently re-released in its Classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Series. Other pirated titles included Donkey Kong 3 and Super Mario Bros.
The company said it had received “tips from more than 400 of its loyal fans” about the piracy operation. After Coughenour ordered that U.S. marshals seize the counterfeit systems at shopping mall kiosks, NOA said it was “supporting numerous federal criminal investigations and U.S. Customs has seized tens of thousands of the infringing devices upon their entry into the country, all of which are assumed to be headed to malls across the United States for illegal sale.” The devices are believed to have been made in China.
Nintendo said it also urged mall management companies to immediately close kiosks that were selling the illegal devices. Locations selling the devices in Wash. went by the names Power Player, Virtual Games and Virtuality. NOA said the devices were also sold at a Safeguard Self- Storage location in Kent, Wash.
NOA Anti-Piracy Dir. Jodi Daugherty called the action “one of many steps Nintendo is taking to protect its creative rights and to combat the growing international problem of product piracy.” She said her company was “confident that mall management companies around the nation will provide their complete cooperation.” NOA said it had information identifying kiosks selling the illegal devices at malls in more than 40 states.
A hearing on a preliminary injunction is set Thurs. In his ruling, Coughenour said he issued the temporary restraining order, in part, because NOA was likely to succeed in showing that the defendants were using counterfeits of Nintendo’s trademarks and that the devices contained illegal copies of Nintendo games. He said it appeared the defendants, who distributed and marketed the devices, “will continue to carry out such acts unless restrained by order of the court.”