An Uruguayan Civil Court Judge has ordered a man found guilty of counterfeiting Nintendo games to pay Nintendo $2.5 million in damages and legal expenses. The Court figured that the man in question and his three corporations were responsible for the sale and distribution of tens of thousands of phony Nintendo goods.
This all started back in 2001, when the National Board of Intelligence raided four shops and a warehouse, seizing seven truck loads of bogus Nintendo swag in Montevideo. A principal owner of the locations was identified and charged with trademark counterfeiting, though he was later given an unexplained executive pardon at the criminal trial.
Cut to the civil action, which claims that the counterfeiter's actions damage Nintendo's reputation. It took a long time, but Jodi Daugherty, NOA's senior director, anti-piracy, is quite pleased with the outcome:
A nice victory for Nintendo, to be sure, though I'm somewhat doubtful this will really send any kind of ripples through the pirate community.
