Earlier this summer, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Jacob Mathias, otherwise known as the owner of LoveROMS and LoveRETRO, sites that notoriously hosted ROM files of retro Nintendo games. Immediately following the legal suit, both of the aforementioned domains were shut down to prevent further issue. Nintendo's legal action also had effects on other websites that had illegal content hosted on their servers, such as Emuparadise, which removed all download links shortly after the lawsuit was made public. Mathias and his wife, who were both charged on mass copyright infringement, plead guilty to the actions of trademark infringement and damages to Nintendo. They then entered settlement talks in order to find an agreeable amount of money to pay as reparations. Today, the final judgement for the case came in, showing that both Jacob Mathias and Nintendo had agreed for the former to pay $12,230,000 to the latter, over 12 million dollars.

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All copyrighted material owned by the couple must also be forfeited, and ownership of LoveROMs.com and LoveRETRO.co has been signed over to Nintendo of Japan.

Source

 

[Kubas_inko]

Becareful my friend, they may put a case on you for not buying their shit and damage their business.
People get sued for anything those days.

Ninty wouldn't go this far. Apple on the other hand...

 

[the_randomizer]

Man, am I glad I found the ROM sets to GBA, GB/C, NES, Snes and N64. Worth the 20+ GB of downloads.

 

[Exavold]

Nintendo just gave me another reason to pirate their games.

 

[TehCupcakes]

There should be a law (just like with music), that after xx years, it should be free to use and share.

There is. Video games are no different than music in that respect. It's just that the industry is too new and nothing is old enough to enter public domain yet.

 

[Deleted User]

That's kind of excessive.

 

[the_randomizer]

Copyrights last too long, 70 years should be half that for games, music, etc. It's not like they were going to do anything with them anyway, they're just like that bratty kid in Preschool who hoards all the toys so the others can't have them.

I feel like making some videos showcasing the games I downloaded and posting them all over just to piss them off.

 

[cvskid]

Torrents die if not seeded for a long time. NZB is the way to go no matter how old the file is you can always grab it depending of your retention. On the subject of buying older games. They are now classed as antiques and prices have gone up. how can average gamer play these older games when they are no longer made, expensive in physical form. Did the judge think about that. Take little samson on nes or snatcher on sega cd they are expensive in physical form.

Prices really do suck for retrogames in general these days. Takes the fun out of collecting. Makes you just want to buy the original hardware, buy flashcarts or burn games for them and call it a day.

 

[Kubas_inko]

There is. Video games are no different than music in that respect. It's just that the industry is too new and nothing is old enough to enter public domain yet.

How many years is it?

 

[Lazyboss]

We can alway sues ninty for damaging our health and wasting our time with their ports.

 

[linuxares]

He might even earn more than that on ads. Who knows?
Nintendo have full rights to do this, I'm even surprised it haven't happened before.

 

[nando]

Ninty wouldn't go this far. Apple on the other hand...

apple is less likely to sue their costumers than nintendo. apple offered free legit upgrades to pirated software.

 

[the_randomizer]

He might even earn more than that on ads. Who knows?
Nintendo have full rights to do this, I'm even surprised it haven't happened before.

Good luck paying the lawsuit, no one has that much money. Makes me glad I've downloaded ROMs and to stop paying for Switch Online.

 

[Kubas_inko]

apple is less likely to sue their costumers than nintendo. apple offered free legit upgrades to pirated software.

Please, don't try to make apple look better than they are. That's impossible. /s+-

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He might even earn more than that on ads. Who knows?
Nintendo have full rights to do this, I'm even surprised it haven't happened before.

You are joking right?

 

[Plstic]

Torrents die if not seeded for a long time. NZB is the way to go no matter how old the file is you can always grab it depending of your retention. On the subject of buying older games. They are now classed as antiques and prices have gone up. how can average gamer play these older games when they are no longer made, expensive in physical form. Did the judge think about that. Take little samson on nes or snatcher on sega cd they are expensive in physical form.

dude, usenet gets copyright take downs everyday. with torrents you can't really do that.

 

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

The text in the injunction is incredible.

https://torrentfreak.com/images/romsinjunc.pdf

g. Unfairly competing with Nintendo.

more than 99% of what nintendo took down is simply not attainable legally. It's not unfair if nintendo is simply not "competing".

And they wonder why people pirate their games...

 

[the_randomizer]

Right, "unfairly competing", look at all those lost sales from the games that they aren't selling on the eShop! What a revelation!

F*cking pantywaists.

 

[DarkOrb]

Then better release every single GB/GBC/GBA/N64 game in the eshop, or I will continue to pirate the s**t out of you, for the sake of game preservation! If Nintendo succeeds, then there will be irreversibly lost games in a few decades. Huge parts of our childhood memories will be destroyed for good. Gems like "Hugo", "Alfred Chicken", "Chip 'n Dale" will be no more! F* U Nintendo! Sorry, but I'm angry!

 

[nando]

Please, don't try to make apple look better than they are. That's impossible. /s+-

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You are joking right?

it's a fact. apples stand on piracy is to never treat their costumers like a criminal. they treat their employees like criminals, but not their customers.

 

[smf]

How did they even come up with the 12 million?

It was decided between them, so I imagine he looked at his bank balance and told them what he could afford to pay based on how much money he'd been making off all of you by selling pirated roms.

He probably still walked away with a large chunk of cash.

Meanwhile Nintendo haven't gone after every rom site, just the ones making obsene amounts of money from it.

What I can't work out is why the SJW are defending people making millions of dollars out of this, when there are ways of getting them for free. I guess it makes their balls feel bigger or something.

 

[the_randomizer]

Then better release every single GB/GBC/GBA/N64 game in the eshop, or I will continue to pirate the s**t out of you, for the sake of game preservation! If Nintendo succeeds, then there will be irreversibly lost games in a few decades. Huge parts of our childhood memories will be destroyed for good. Gems like "Hugo", "Alfred Chicken", "Chip 'n Dale" will be no more! F* U Nintendo! Sorry, but I'm angry!

Not gonna happen, I've already done just that and have zero regrets.

 

[xxNathanxx]

USA! USA! USA! Good old freedom prevails again thanks to the American legal system. On a less ironic note, I have no idea what exactly loveroms had on offer, but considering the name of the website didn't include 'nintendo', I suppose they had more than just thirty-five-year-old first-party Nintendo games. With that in mind, it's fascinating that Nintendo managed to proclaim and obtain actual ownership over the loveroms websites, suggesting that Nintendo is, in fact, the owner of all video games in history.

it's a fact. apples stand on piracy is to never treat their costumers like a criminal. they treat their employees like criminals, but not their customers.

The fact that they're part of all spying programs (that consider everyone to be a criminal) suggests otherwise.

 

[Xzi]

The law is always going to favor copyright holders, that's not at all surprising. The only surprising things about this case are that the guy didn't do more to keep his identity hidden, and that he didn't get taken down for this a lot sooner. These ROM sites have been around almost as long as I've been gaming.