Since November 2024, streamer Jesse Keigin, known online as EveryGameGuru, has been in legal battle with Nintendo to stream pirated material. Cagin, who repeatedly mocked the company throughout the trial, once said he could “do this all day.” However, the final decision reported TorrentFreak proved that he actually couldn't do it – a federal judge in Colorado ordered Kagin to pay Nintendo $17,500 in damages.
This lawsuit is not surprising, as Nintendo has never been shy about taking legal action when it comes to copyright infringement. Of them claim against Palmyre for violating the Pokémon franchise uninstalling Yuzu emulatorThe company's position has always been very clear. According to the original judge's recommendation“In at least fifty cases [Keighin] broadcast live gameplay footage of at least ten different games without permission and before the games were released to the general public.”
The recommendations include games such as Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood, Pikmin 4and many other games that were pirated and streamed before. When Nintendo received the removal notice, he did not back down, but instead advised his viewers to continue supporting him on loco.gg if his other accounts were suspended. Whenever Keigin was removed from the platform due to his content, he would simply create a new account, at one point emailing Nintendo saying, “I have a thousand recording channels.”
The lawsuit concerned not only the streaming itself, but also Kegin’s open advertising of emulators and pirated game keys. Throughout this entire debacle, it seemed like the streamer had come to view itself as some sort of Robin Hood-esque figure, challenging the big corporation on behalf of the little guy. In a social media post mentioned in the recommendation, Keigin said he “can't wait for new games to be streamed and given away for free.”
Keigin ignored numerous attempts to serve the lawsuit on him, and the case ultimately continued without him through a default judgment, a legal action taken when the defendant is not a party to the case. Cagin was ordered to pay all damages, but the three-part injunction included in the lawsuit was only partially affirmed. An injunction preventing him from infringing Nintendo's copyrights was approved, but both an injunction against unnamed aiding “third parties” and an order to “destroy all circumvention devices” were denied.
As draconian as Nintendo was in this case, frankly, things could have gone a lot worse for Keigin – a company that is currently embroiled in $4.5 million lawsuit over Reddit mod. Given the fairly low amount the video game company was seeking, this lawsuit was more aimed at fighting piracy than recovering lost profits. In one of Kegin's social media posts shared by TorrentFreakthe streamer said: “You can run a corporation. I rule the streets,” but all that matters is who rules the courtroom—historically, Nintendo always wins.
