
Nintendo and Amazon are seeking a default judgement on a joint lawsuit filed back in October 2023 against sellers alleged to have sold fake Nintendo products on Amazon. (Thanks, Polygon.)
The plaintiffs filed documents in the US earlier this week requesting a default judgement awarding $7 million in statutory damages against third-party sellers accused of selling $2 million worth of counterfeit Nintendo gear, including amiibo and game carts. Summonses were served to the defendants but they failed to respond, according to new court documents.
According to those documents, each of the 27 Nintendo trademark infringements results in total potential statutory damages of a minimum of $27,000 to a maximum of $54 million. The $7 million figure proposed was arrived at by tripling "the aggregate sales of the counterfeit products", which the doc cites as "conservative, reasonable, and in line with other awards in this District".
Nintendo is famous for deploying its legal eagles, of course, and given the number of fake amiibo cards, mini consoles, soundtracks, figurines, and other non-official Nintendo products for sale on Amazon and elsewhere, you can see why they'd be keen to deter others.
Maybe they should crack out the steamroller again like they did in the Netherlands back in the '90s.
[source polygon.com]
Comments 27
Amazon and fake products name a more iconic duo.
@Hapless IKR?
I was expecting to see Nintendo v. Amazon, but no, somehow Amazon is portraying themselves as a victim? How much of your ill-gotten gains have you given back to Nintendo, as restitution?
I see from the original article that Nintendo DS cartridges are included among these which is unfortunate as Nintendo isn't currently (hope that will change at least on Switch 2) providing an official way to access those games... of course, anything not official should be labelled as such first and foremost - fingers crossed that's the reason why Nintendo and Amazon went after these and that the former will leave alone reproduction cartridges for no longer officially supported systems etc.!
@Hapless You can't have one without the, other.
@JohnnyMind
Wait right there, I need to go dig out that clip of J. Jonah Jameson laughing. Be right back.
@Hapless
Have a better one:
amazon and tax avoidance
Amazon absolutely sucks now. No quality control in anything they sell and in fact have traded in known brands for Chinese knock offs in a tonne of situations.
It is no surprise that fakes were sold on there, but given how many emulators loaded with roms you can buy on amazon I'm surprised to see Nintendo in a joint suit with a company complicit in selling pirated goods.
But I guess this is the corporate hell hole we live in now.
Aren't they, like, 10 years late for going after these amiibo counterfeits?
I'm not saying this because they probably don't sell amiibo like they used to, but because I remember reading about amiibo counterfeits in early 2015.
@Medic_alert Probably easier to sue the bootleggers alongside Amazon, than it would be to sue Amazon itself lol.
Even if Amazon were liable, it'd be impossible for Nintendo to successfully do it. Especially considering Bezos probably now has special protection given he was in the front row at the president's inauguration alongside the other tech oligarchs.
@Lone_Beagle Amazon is not just selling their own stuff. It's also a marketplace where other companies can sell their products and Amazon handles some of the boring stuff like transactions, website maintenance etc.
So if a company sells fake amiibos for super cheap prices then Amazon loses sales from the official amiibos (that are also more expensive).
@Dr_Lugae they are definitely liable - at least under UK law they would be, they are acting as an agent of the seller and are just as liable.
I totally take your point about being a difficult target though and it was likely a joint decision after Nintendo asked a few pertinent questions of the team at Amazon.
Amazon really pulling the “we’re all looking for the guy responsible for this!” meme!
A shopkeeper that stocks, and makes money from, counterfeit goods would get told off. Amazon (and Temu and co) seem to just keep getting rewarded with a chunk of money both if they are caught and if they aren’t!
I should grab an Allmiibo before long then!
I mean.. Yeah, duh.
If you're dumb enough to sell merch of other people's IP you should probably expect that. Always thought it's scummy as hell how people will sell buttons, stickers and s*** like that at cons because I seriously doubt anyone of those people pay those rights holders to be allowed to do that.
while i have pretty much zero respect for copyright law, i am glad to see nintendo take action against people who are defrauding their customers. not everyone buying these products realises theyre fake, after all. i do hope this includes those awful "amiibo coin" things that are just cheap nfc tags covered in resin, as those cost literal pennies to make and are marketed to people who think duping amiibo is some mystical mysterious hacking magic instead of something any smartphone can be used to easily accomplish
@Hapless
Fakes and fleabay
Does this include the lil cards I get instead of the statues for way cheaper?
@Crecca yes. Those are counterfeit amiibo.
@Ryu_Niiyama ***** I like the cards way better. If Nintendo really hates them so much they should make them themselves.
@Crecca Technically they do. Animal crossing Amiibo are mostly cards. I get where you are coming from. I have the nfc cards as backups to my favorite physical amiibo because it is easier to scan them. But I do also own the legit amiibo as well.
I think the cards are ok. Who has the space and money to buy figurines, that do not show their future benefits? It's quiet an ass-move of Nintendo tbh
@Ryu_Niiyama the only ammibos I got were for tears of the kingdom and smash bros and I got all the cards. I don't play animal crossing so I didn't know that, but yeah the only statue one I have it of wolf link cuz it came with the hd twilight princess on Wii u. They take up too much space
@sportvater I prefer the cards
@Crecca That they do. The smash set alone puts one in the 80 plus character range, then I have all the FE, Zelda, Xenoblade and most of the splatoon, monster hunter, Mario and Kirby lines. The only ones I don’t have many of are the animal crossing line although I have like 10 of the non card ones. Also missing some of the novelty ones like boxboy and giant yarn yoshi (I have the little ones). Plus a few duplicates (a few folks gave me extra Ryu ones because it is my IRL nick name) and player 2 versions. I had to buy a dresser to keep them in. I do hope that eventually Nintendo makes card packs for those that didn’t/couldn’t keep up with the series. They were expensive enough buying them and normal price (I am proud to say I only bought 3 off of scalpers) but if folks tried to build a full collection now? Yeah good luck. So Nintendo making their own cards would be a good compromise.
@sportvater the problem is counterfeit is counterfeit. Nintendo doesn’t see a dime of the money made on their IP. While I do think they should release a cheaper card line for others that missed out, the counterfeit cards sorta poisoned the well because they can undercut Nintendo since they are just stealing from Nintendo anyway and it goes back to the games are a luxury fact. Amiibo have less use than ever now because Nintendo tried to even the playing field for those that didn’t buy them so they will likely simply phase it out over time than switch to card format. They aren’t required to play games. (I love them because they mean less grinding. Time is money as they say. The unlocks were cool during the wiiu era as well. )
Amiibo are there to get the money of those that can afford them. Which is the point of any product. Any exclusive product actually wants to be harder to obtain to keep whales on the hook. (Yes I am one of those whales so it worked on me).
@Ryu_Niiyama yeah I just have one cabinet for all my consoles and stuff, the cards are perfect I just have them in a box next to my Wii u
@Ryu_Niiyama yeah man the cards are great I have them right next to the switch ready to go. No dresser required LMAO
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