Nintendo sues leakers for £ 100,000 and wins Pokémon Sword / Shield

Pokémon Sword – Nintendo’s lawyers aren’t kidding (Photo: The Pokémon Company)

Two people who leaked information from a Pokémon Sword / Shield strategy game have been successfully prosecuted by Nintendo.

There are several reasons why Nintendo leaks tend to be much less common than other companies, and less accurate even when they do occur, and one of them is that Nintendo has some really good advocates – and that she is not afraid to use them.

Two people who can testify to this are David Maisonave and Bryan Cruz, who were found guilty of violating both the Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Washington Uniform Trade Secrets Act, when they deliberately disclosed pages of a guidebook. Pokémon Sword and Shield Strategy Game in 2019.

Maisonave worked for the US printing company LSC Communications and took photos of a number of pages that contained, at the time, undisclosed information – which he then gave to a friend who posted it on Discord.

Cruz was a member of the same Discord group and took the images and posted them more widely on the internet. As a result, he and Maisonave were found guilty and fined $ 150,000 (£ 107,000).

According to a Forbes reported at the time that The Pokémon Company hired “forensic experts” to find out who was behind the leak and even toyed with the idea of issuing subpoenas against Discord and 4chan, for have them reveal who their users were.

The case should not be confused with the Portuguese website FNintendo, where one of its critics leaked images of Pokémon Sword and Shield from a review copy sent to them, which led Nintendo to to sever all links to the website in perpetuity.

There is a clear morale in both of these stories and it’s not about messing around with Nintendo about the leaks or their intellectual property because they will try to sue you and they will probably win.