3 Count: Nintendo Lawsuits

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Nintendo Sues ‘Modded Hardware’ and r/SwitchPirates Moderator ‘Archbox’

First off today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that Nintendo has filed a pair of lawsuits in a Washington federal court targeting two groups it accuses of pirating or enabling piracy of their games.

The first group is against the team behind Modded Hardware. That company makes and sells modded versions of Nintendo consoles that enable the playing of pirated games. According to Nintendo, the company’s head had previously agreed to shutter operations but failed to do so, prompting the lawsuit.

The second lawsuit is against Jason Williams, also known as Archbox. He is accused of running a series of pirate shops that sell users access to software for playing pirated Nintendo Games. He also moderates the r/SwitchPirates subreddit, which has nearly 190,000 members. In both cases, Nintendo seeks unspecified damages and injunctions barring further infringement.

2: Tech Companies Battle Content Creators Over Use of Copyrighted Material to Train AI Models

Next up today, Anja Karadeglija at The Canadian Press reports that, in Canada, Access Copyright petitioned the federal government to address the “information asymmetry” between them and AI platforms.

Access Copyright represents various copyright holders in Canada, including writers, artists and publishers. They claim that one key challenge in addressing the rise of AI is that AI companies are not transparent about how their models are trained. Referring to such models as a “black box” they asked the government for greater transparency.

It’s the latest request in a slew of Canadian organizations seeking clarifications on how AI models are trained and the exact rules surrounding such training. AI companies have said maintaining that information would be “infeasible.”

3: Trump Sneaker Knockoffs Spark Lawsuit Over Copyright Infringement

Finally today, Zoë Richards at NBC News reports that 45Footwear LLC has filed a lawsuit against a group of unnamed defendants it accuses of selling knockoffs of former President Donald Trump’s sneaker line.

The company designed and produced the shoes, which launched in February. They claim that the defendants are selling imitations of the shoes, violating their trademark and copyright protection.

They seek $2 million in damages for “each and every use” of their marks and $25,000 for each copyright violation.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.