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

 

[Ty_]

that's why piracy is good, kids

Depends, it's not black and white. You have the example of the Cuphead Developers, who put out a decent game at a reasonable price, and mortgaged their house to pay for development. Feels unfair to pirate Cuphead unless it's for demo purposes.

Nintendo on the other hand I have zero sympathy for, same with Disney.

 

[Phenj]

Depends, it's not black and white. You have the example of the Cuphead Developers, who put out a decent game at a reasonable price, and mortgaged their house to pay for development. Feels unfair to pirate Cuphead unless it's for demo purposes.

Nintendo on the other hand I have zero sympathy for, same with Disney.

I'm talking about AAA companies, of course

 

[whateverg1012]

Now to wait for Nintendo to reupload these same roms and charge us for them.

 

[bi388]

Most people wouldn't mind it, if ninty still sold the games so that you can actually get them.

To be fair they are still selling most of them. Not on switch for some stupid reason, but most retro games people actually care about are on 3ds and wii u for sale.

That being said, obviously this is excessive.

 

[ChaosEternal]

You can thank Disney for that, I'm sure originally it was 20 years. They're massive hypocrites BTW, benefiting of public domain works while extending copyright themselves.

Regardless of how sure you are, you'd be (mostly) wrong. The Copyright Act of 1790 established a term of 14 years, but that could be extended another 14 if the author was still alive after the first term ended. The Copyright Act of 1831 changes this to 28 years for the first term. Hence, the only situation you are correct in is pre-1831 and only if the author didn't renew the copyright. Disney, obviously, had nothing to do with this as they weren't founded until 1923. If we're talking about more modern Copyright standards then perhaps Disney had a large role in things (I'd need to properly research it), but you seem to be implying that Disney had a hand in events that occurred nearly a century before it was founded.

 

[deinonychus71]

Fuck Nintendo.
As a matter effect I’ll always buy their console illegally so they loose money and never buy a game from them.

I wish Sega was still here and killed this Stupid Company that went downhill.

As you can see.. in life only the evil wins and the good people loose...

You do realize that the people you're trying to "hurt" have nothing to do with the corporate idiots who do that kind of thing... right?
Or is that yet another way to try and justify piracy?

 

[Windaga]

I get that some people feel they wouldn't need to pirate if Nintendo had all of their games in a massive catalogue that was up to date and fairly priced. And sure enough, I believe there are people that would love to use such a service.

But no one is believing everyone, or even a significant amount of people would just stop pirating if this was a real thing. There would always be an excuse.

"It's too expensive for what it is" - regardless of price.

"I shouldn't have to buy a Switch to play a 20 year old game."

"I owned it before, so I shouldn't have to pay for it again."

These guys got destroyed and its highlighting the downsides of the community. Not everyone who pirates is bad, and I genuinely believe if a readily available , fairly priced service existed, some of you would stop pirating.

Just not many. There will always be an excuse. This is just the world we live in, with the customers we live with. I love you guys, but this is crazy. There's no justification for this reaction. These guys got caught doing something illegal and got reamed for it. That's it.

 

[Ty_]

but you seem to be implying that Disney had a hand in events that occurred nearly a century before it was founded.

*Obviously* that's not what I meant

 

[smf]

You can thank Disney for that

Disney gets the blame, but that is fake news.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

 

[XDel]

How do they figure this is a loss in sales...
...how can they prove that the downloaders ever had any intention to purchase each and every one of those video games anyhow? Further more, the majority of the games on such sights are not even available in any form except used or unofficial repo, so when it all comes down to it, this is a bit extreme.

On that note, is it not a terrible fucking irony that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all had issues apparently with suicide attempts at their factories. So as a resolve, they merely put jump nets around the building to catch them.
Mind you, I do not know for sure, I was not there, I do not know the work conditions, pay, and so on first hand, but if what I have heard is true, then this it is pathetic to see the video game giants come down so hard on individuals, but do not come down hard upon their own lack of humanity.

Further more, even if these allegations were false, it is a fact that many of the scarce resources required to run our electronic devices such as the iPhone, are located smack down in the middle of war zones in Africa among other places, and in the business world, it is not in the least uncommon to pay off, or hire soldiers to protect business interest while warfare and blood shed is coming down hard upon those who live in the surrounding regions.

Meanwhile, we go to Wal-Mart and pick up the games, systems, and gadgets upon release, and when checking out at the cash register, we are asked if we would like to contribute to this humanitarian charity or that.

If anyone civilization has made itself worthy of fire and brimstone, that would be this technological, global, bull shit that we're in the middle of now.

 

[brickmii82]

How do they figure this is a loss in sales...
...how can they prove that the downloaders ever had any intention to purchase each and every one of those video games anyhow? Further more, the majority of the games on such sights are not even available in any form except used or unofficial repo, so when it all comes down to it, this is a bit extreme.

On that note, is it not a terrible fucking irony that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all had issues apparently with suicide attempts at their factories. So as a resolve, they merely put jump nets around the building to catch them.
Mind you, I do not know for sure, I was not there, I do not know the work conditions, pay, and so on first hand, but if what I have heard is true, then this it is pathetic to see the video game giants come down so hard on individuals, but do not come down hard upon their own lack of humanity.

Further more, even if these allegations were false, it is a fact that many of the scarce resources required to run our electronic devices such as the iPhone, are located smack down in the middle of war zones in Africa among other places, and in the business world, it is not in the least uncommon to pay off, or hire soldiers to protect business interest while warfare and blood shed is coming down hard upon those who live in the surrounding regions.

Meanwhile, we go to Wal-Mart and pick up the games, systems, and gadgets upon release, and when checking out at the cash register, we are asked if we would like to contribute to this humanitarian charity or that.

If anyone civilization has made itself worthy of fire and brimstone, that would be this technological, global, bull shit that we're in the middle of now.

Join me in Team Joker, where we just wanna see the world burn!

 

[H1B1Esquire]

Geez....imagine what SEGA would do to char-char if they knew she "borrowed" "Ow The Edge" for Gamecube.

Good times.

 

[Kioku]

I honestly don't understand the butthurt going on around here... They screwed up.. of their own apparition.. Got caught.. and are now facing the consequences of their actions. "Burrr Nintendo being assholes!" It never ceases to amaze me how bad the entitlement is around here.. Not to mention the fact that some of you are using this as an excuse to pirate. Oi vey.

 

[brollikk]

I honestly don't understand the butthurt going on around here... They screwed up.. of their own apparition.. Got caught.. and are now facing the consequences of their actions. "Burrr Nintendo being assholes!" It never ceases to amaze me how bad the entitlement is around here.. Not to mention the fact that some of you are using this as an excuse to pirate. Oi vey.

yep I agree. the guy took a huge risk running a site like that.

 

[the_randomizer]

I honestly don't understand the butthurt going on around here... They screwed up.. of their own apparition.. Got caught.. and are now facing the consequences of their actions. "Burrr Nintendo being assholes!" It never ceases to amaze me how bad the entitlement is around here.. Not to mention the fact that some of you are using this as an excuse to pirate. Oi vey.

What pisses me off the most, is that they defend the IP, but don't provide any legal avenue for most of their library. They're sitting on a goldmine, and won't do anything, but give us a piss poor selection on Switch. If only they would have more robust eShop.

 

[DinohScene]

LOL @ everybody crying "fuck you nintendo"
It's their IP, they got the right to take action against those that infringe it.

Piracy is bad n what not.
Site owner knew this.

 

[the_randomizer]

Piracy is bad, sure, but I still don't care about older games being pirated

*Plays the 100+ ROMs on the Super NT*

Maybe he should've been more anonymous and made a fake name.

 

[Euphonique]

12 Million Dollars?! Are you serious?!
I loved Nintendo because they were not such dumbass, greedy bastards like Sony.. But now..? I think this will be the last console from them.
You can‘t even buy most of their old nostalgic games.. You have to pirate, if you want to play them.
And yes.. It was illegal to distribute them. But I can‘t help.. 12 million is really cruel and I feel sorry for him and his wife. They destroyed their life.

 

[Kioku]

LOL @ everybody crying "fuck you nintendo"
It's their IP, they got the right to take action against those that infringe it.

Piracy is bad n what not.
Site owner knew this.

Exactly! It doesn't matter that some of you disagree with this. They were well within their rights to do this, and the site owners knew *or SHOULD have known* the repercussions this was going to bring.

 

[smf]

How do they figure this is a loss in sales...
...how can they prove that the downloaders ever had any intention to purchase each and every one of those video games anyhow?

They obviously can't prove every single case. They therefore have to take a view.

It would certainly not achieve justice if the court said "because you can't prove every case, we'll assume none of these are lost sales."

You also can't prove in a murder case that the person wouldn't have died spontaneously at the exact same moment if you hadn't shot them.