Hacker Bowser Will Pay Nintendo $10 Million in Lawsuit

Member of Team Xecuter, Gary “GaryOPA” Bowser has agreed to pay Nintendo $10 million after pleading guilty to federal piracy charges in October. The settlement, filed December 6, was the result of Bowser aiding Team Xecuter in the design and sale of devices made to bypass Nintendo Switch security. These devices made it possible for players to play pirated games.

The massive settlement comes after Nintendo has worked for years to take down Bowser and his associates. Team Xecuter, known for their jailbreaking mods, got onto Nintendo’s radar when the group began selling a modchip that helped gamers hack their Switch consoles and download pirated games. Bowser, along with two others involved, were indicted by the US District Court with federal charges in September 2020. Gary Bowser could now be facing jail time after pleading guilty.

Bowser hasn’t only agreed to pay Nintendo the $10 million. The Team Xecuter associate also agreed to hand over any and all online registries or domain names linked to the jailbreaking group. Additionally, the settlement forbids Bowser from ever “directly or indirectly” infringing on Nintendo’s copyrights or intellectual property. This even includes creating emulations of the company’s games.

As seen in the Tweet above, the settlement reads, “This permanent injunction is binding against Defendant worldwide, without regard to the territorial scope of the specific intellectual property rights asserted in the Complaint of the above-captioned case, and may be enforced in any court of competent jurisdiction wherever Defendant or his assets may be found.”

Recently, Nintendo has been diligent about protecting its property, even going after several popular ROM websites. Many of these sites have taken to changing their names or removing all of their ROMs in an effort to avoid lawsuits from the company. Some sites have been sued for millions of dollars in damages as Nintendo has made examples of them, underlining their zero-tolerance policy for piracy and any mods to its games.

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