Two years ago, Nintendo began a court battle against the warez-hosting website RomUniverse, suing its owner, Mathew Storman for damages. Storman defended himself on his own, without a lawyer, and attempted to dismiss the charges by claiming that he himself did not upload any ROMs to RomUniverse, therefore he was innocent. Now the verdict is in, with both Nintendo's lawyers and the presiding judge disagreeing, finding that Storman was responsible for the distribution of the illegal and infringing games on his site. Nintendo sought $15 million dollars in damages and legal fees, however, the US District Court Judge found this to be too harsh, instead fining Storman $35,000 per illegal ROM hosted on RomUniverse.

This added up to be $1.7 million. On top of that, Storman was hit with a charge of $400,000 in statutory damages, making the total amount a whopping $2.1 million. Nintendo also sought permanent injunction, though the Judge denied this, stating that Nintendo couldn't prove it had been irreparably damaged by the existence of RomUniverse, and that the company was not at risk, given the fact that the site has been permanently taken down.

The Court Grants Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment as to Plaintiff’s copyright infringement, unfair competition and Lanham Act claims, and awards Plaintiff $1,715,000 in statutory damages under the Copyright Act and $400,000 in statutory damages under the Lanham Act for a total of $2,115,000 in statutory damages.

Source: Courtesy of TorrentFreak

 

[CeeDee]

Oh god, oh god, what about the GaMeS pReSeRvAtIoN???

(cough cough, there are tons of rom sites out there, cough cough, full romsets are dirt easy to find)

 

[Hells Malice]

Legally I guess N is in the right

"Yeah I guess Nintendo is kind of in the right to literally defend the theft and distribution of their personal property"

Lmao stay derpy GBAtemp

Btw anyone thinking this was about the money...you clearly have no idea why this is done.

 

[Nerdtendo]

Sweet, 3 more romsites are gonna pop up. I've had best of luck using that "mania" site. Hope they're not next.

Mania is pretty great. Fastest and just consistent for me so far

 

[CompSciOrBust]

"Yeah I guess Nintendo is kind of in the right to literally defend the theft and distribution of their personal property"

Lmao stay derpy GBAtemp

Btw anyone thinking this was about the money...you clearly have no idea why this is done.

How else would you phrase it? Yes they have the legal right to sue people distributing their roms but that doesn't make it morally right. Slightly advantageous now but long term they're only shooting themselves in the foot by stopping people form playing their games. Game dev students (the same people who Nintendo will eventually hire and will be publishing games on their platforms) are encouraged to play old games to try to understand what makes them work so well, it's important to understand the history of your field. Overall this is more harmful to society than it is beneficial to Nintendo.

 

[Deleted User]

Realistically, I have no Moral High-Ground to preach to Nintendo from; I have ROMs but I also continue to buy Official.

The way I look at this type of News is to check which Websites are still available even though I've already downloaded ROMs I don't want lost. The eventuality is that most of the ones I recognise will be gone but others will pop up.

I could argue that, for some people, playing those ROMs before being able to buy Consoles did cement a love for the Nintendo Franchise, as was my case, but I fully understand the legality of the position.

The same could be said for a whole host of Windows Software in Asia, especially in Higher Education, that Students use through creative means and then pay for Licenses as Professionals.

This is probably why I've had this mindset of paying it back in future purchases ever since.

 

[ertaboy356b]

I guess they'll sue archive.org next.

 

[CanIHazWarez]

Legally I guess N is in the right but from a preservationist perspective Nintendo can get fucked. Games are an important part of our culture, they're works of art, and it should be ensured that future generations have some means to play them. It is unrealistic to expect the kids of today, future game developers who should be drawing from the past for inspiration to have the hardware and technical skills to dump a copy of a game that went out of production decades before they were born. Websites like this need to exist for the future of the gaming industry.

Nintendo used a scene dump of Mario Bros for the Wii's virtual console for god sake, even their own developers rely on these resources. But nah fuck em, they're distributing data that's prohibitively expensive to obtain today so sue them in to the ground.

This exactly. When I started reading your post, I even thought "yeah, and Nintendo has even used/sold pushed ROMs themselves." But you meat me to it.

 

[scoobydude51]

if you are charging for ROMs, you deserve to be sued.

 

[mr allen]

Video game preservation is one thing, but he was directly profiting off of piracy. That's a massive no no.

 

[the_randomizer]

I bet he would've been less likely to face litigation if it didn't sell the ROMs like a dumbass. Oh well lol.

 

[Deleted member 532471]

Let's all pretend to hate piracy now, while we browse this illegal console modding forum

Grr curse you pirate scum, Nintendo has the right to ruin your life for ever
How dare you make people happy on sales they wouldn't make! Grr grr


It's braindead, but it's the kind of comment the masses approve apparently, being a Brand's pet is cool now
Let's validate each other's performative "virtuous" tantrums with likes

 

[x65943]

35k per rom... He only hosted 49 roms?

My guess is that these 49 ROMs were the only first party Nintendo games - and that Nintendo did not seek damages for 3rd party games (I am not sure they would be legally allowed to do so either)

 

[Kwyjor]

Storman defended himself on his own, without a lawyer, and attempted to dismiss the charges by claiming that he himself did not upload any ROMs to RomUniverse, therefore he was innocent.

Remember way back when all the ROM sites had a message saying "You have to delete these ROMs within 24 hours of downloading them or it will be illegal!!!" Those were the days.

Not tryna to justify the site or anything, but what damage did Nintendo really suffer tho? It's not like they're trying to sell the games themselves, from my perspective they lost $35,000 each on games they aren't actually making money on anymore.

I'm sure the arguments have been made many millions of times over by now. Perhaps you could say that people occupying themselves with older games will be less likely to spend money on new games?

 

[x65943]

Remember way back when all the ROM sites had a message saying "You have to delete these ROMs within 24 hours of downloading them or it will be illegal!!!" Those were the days.

I'm sure the arguments have been made many millions of times over by now. Perhaps you could say that people occupying themselves with older games will be less likely to spend money on new games?

I remember a certain site saying something like
"You agree to only download these ROMs if you already own a physical copy of the game"

And another one said something like

"You agree that if you are a federal officer you will not browse this website or download any files"
Maybe coolroms (?) back in the day

 

[Urbanshadow]

I also agree on this, I mean, you're just posting them, not modifying them or anything...
I don't get Nintendo...

Nintendo is, and has for years, trying to settle a legal precedent where a ROM site whatever the size or wether it sells the roms or charges its users, stores the roms or simply redistribute third party hosted content is instantly fulminated to the ground after simply pointing them with the finger (cease and desist).

They will keep doing absurd to more absurd legal claims until they transform sharing your private collection of original games, purchasing a flashcard or dumping your games and let some friends play with them into felonies with a couple of prison months and some steep fee. Until all freedom regarding videogame content is gone and left for good.

Nintendo is the TOP 1 undisputed handler of "You are only purchasing your right to play, you don't own the content" bullshit. Also at least in TOP 3 of "If you can redistribute (i.e. physically move an original cartridge over a table surface) the games, you only will do so by our terms and only in the channels we will let you to, at intervals we decide and if you could at all".

It is sickening to the core and it hurts every kind of customer.

 

[phonemonkey]

Hoo boy

 

[MiiJack]

Oh no, Never heard of that site. Anyway.

 

[Alkéryn]

ok, i'm not anti piracy but what a dumb move to not hire a lawyer.

 

[x65943]

ok, i'm not anti piracy but what a dumb move to not hire a lawyer.

Brought to you by the same man who believed he could sell ROMs and get away with it

 

[Alkéryn]

Brought to you by the same man who believed he could sell ROMs and get away with it

oh man, i should get the popcorn.
well i didn't know that thing so i just assumed it was just another website to download roms lol.
if you have to pay half of the point is lost.