Nintendo wins legal case over ROM site, site owner ordered to pay $12 million in damages

godreborn · Nov 12, 2018

I've always been a Nintendo fan, but not so much after a recent phone conversation. I called to complain that three games wouldn't let me redeem coins (giving different errors), this is seventy cents of coins minds you, but it was the principle of the thing that was important. anyway, Nintendo seemed reluctant to give me those coins as if I was lying for a measly seventy cents. their fuck up, and I'm the one to pay for it. Nintendo has become, or perhaps always was, a greedy, very greedy company.

the_randomizer · Nov 12, 2018

Xzi said:
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.

Then maybe something needs to be done to make copyrights less dickish.

Kayot · Nov 12, 2018

I'm missing DS Games (5700 to 6000 and > 6400) as well as most of newer consoles such as Wii/PS2/PS3. I don't bother with Xbox anything. My DC collection is pretty complete.

Xzi · Nov 12, 2018

the_randomizer said:
Then maybe something needs to be done to make copyrights less dickish.

You might as well be asking to switch systems and reject capitalism as a whole. I'm right there with ya, but I still don't see it happening in my lifetime.

Rabbid4240 · Nov 12, 2018

And so Nintendo gangrapes the shit out of another innocent rom site and didn't get anything from it. Fuck you, nintendicks.

G0R3Z · Nov 12, 2018

It's pretty ridiculous really. A big one is people going "well, they're protecting their property". Just because a rom is on the SNES, it doesn't make it nintendo's property - It'd belong to the original developer, it was only licenced for the SNES by nintendo. A good 90% of these roms will never be seen again on any nintendo console again. I have complete romsets of All NES, SNES and N64, who the hell knows if I'll be able to find them online in 5 or 10 years time. I want to help to preserve that history, even slightly.

Rom sites can be pretty shady, but they are preserving a history that we as gamers care about.

smf · Nov 12, 2018

Xzi said:
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.

Nintendo have to learn about it first, it may be coincidence but he was about to introduce a new paid for subscription that meant you avoided adverts.

Xzi said:
These ROM sites have been around almost as long as I've been gaming.

I think you should differentiate from rom sites run for no profit, or at a loss, with ones set up to maximise profits. He negotiated to pay twelve million dollars, which means he had twelve million dollars from this.

the_randomizer said:
Then maybe something needs to be done to make copyrights less dickish.

It's currently pretty fair, any changes are likely to go the other way.

the_randomizer · Nov 12, 2018

*Proceeds to download even more ROMs just to piss off Nintendo*

They're too damn cowardly to release more first party games on their eShop, so why should I even support it?

McWhiters9511 · Nov 12, 2018

the_randomizer said:
Then maybe something needs to be done to make copyrights less dickish.

maybe you should instead go read up and understand on just how important copyright is. good luck having a functioning free market without it.

Rabbid4240 · Nov 12, 2018

These guys are like Italian cops
Except they beat up innocent rom sites without a reason.

Xzi · Nov 12, 2018

smf said:
Nintendo have to learn about it first, it may be coincidence but he was about to introduce a new paid for subscription that meant you avoided adverts.

I think you should differentiate from rom sites run for no profit, or at a loss, with ones set up to maximise profits. He negotiated to pay twelve million dollars, which means he had twelve million dollars from this.

I doubt he made twelve million in profit, that's just what Nintendo is claiming in damages, and that number may have come down from what it was initially. It was very stupid of him to attempt to profit off of Nintendo ROMs on top of everything else, though. Like I said, it was a miracle they didn't bring a suit earlier, and that move was obviously going to tempt fate a step too far.

chartube12 · Nov 12, 2018

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

I can’t speak for other countries, but in the US...After a 100 years like books, video game software titles IP rights expire without the ability to renew them. Of course most of us will be long dead by then. I know both sega and Atari talked about in 2007 rereleasing the sources code under the gpn 2.0 of their games after the 50 year mark. More then a decade ago. While sega pretty much remains the same company, Atari has changed ownership several times since then.

Dominator211 · Nov 12, 2018

this is why i hacked my console for bullshit like this. i believe we should all do it because Nintendo is just being insane at this point

Cubuss · Nov 12, 2018

Nintendo is fucking gangster,

DarkIrata · Nov 12, 2018

Ok, let me get this straight. Around 90% of the people which posted to this thread are butthurt over a sued by nintendo rom page, which most of them doesn't even knew before? From where i get the information? Read the thread that was made when the lawsuit started.
What makes it even better how all of you prise rom downloads and hating on Nintendo for DOING THERE JOB SO THEY DOEN'T GET SUED FOR TRIPPEL THE AMOUNT. How the fk people forget that gbatemp also once hosted roms and stoped it to become a place to talk / share about stuff like homebrews, news and so on.

Now let me explain how basic copyright in most use cases work.
Bob developes something. Bob has full rights on what he developed. He publishs it by himself on a way how he makes profit out of it. 50 Years passes. Bob never selled the main rights to what he created, but never updated trademarks or similar things. Other people can make somethign similiar and share it for free, BUT THEY CAN NOT SHARE THEY EXACT THING, A COPY, of what Bob made. They don't have the rights on it.
If Bob shared the rights with Alice who published it for him and get a part of the earnings, good for Bob. But when the contract ends, Alice has not anymore the rights to sell Bobs creation, even if Bob would still make profit out of it. Since Alice doesn't have any legal rights to share it anymore, they can't republish it anymore and need to make a new deal with bob.

Ffs, there are reasons why Nintendo doesn't throw around with Roms and Emulators. They still have to protect the rights from the original creators.

Tldr;
People made shit for money, if you have a problem they make use of there rights, go beat someone up and look how it will workout for you.

Goood sometimes this page....

EDIT: Oh and the high amount to pay. Probably calculated by downloads per rom * rom price and some other things. His own fault. He knew what he was doing. So don't say it is Nintendos fault.

ThoD · Nov 12, 2018

the_randomizer said:
Then maybe something needs to be done to make copyrights less dickish.

I agree, copyrights last FAR too long for nowadays' standards! If I remember correctly it's life of creator plus 45 years with minimum having to be 70 total or something like that even though with the sped up world we live in it should never be more than 30... 20 is actually the most reasonable, if you haven't done anything in 20 years, it's your fault and if you have, you had plenty of time to make money off of it! It's really annoying wanting to make commercial fan-made games based on certain series but not being able to just because the assholes at Disney bribed the entire US government to raise the limit:/

nando · Nov 12, 2018

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

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

You are joking right?

it's a fact. apples stand on piracy was to never treat their costumers like a criminal.

xxNathanxx said:
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.

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

right. like unlocking iphones for the fbi. come up with actual examples are shut up. you can hate apple but they are far better than petty ass nintendo.

brickmii82 · Nov 12, 2018

He'll just end up filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy to discharge the judgment.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/will-bankruptcy-get-rid-lawsuit-judgments.html

I think @kongsnutz had to do the same thing.

smf · Nov 12, 2018

Xzi said:
I doubt he made twelve million in profit, that's just what Nintendo is claiming in damages,

They wanted $100 million, he himself came up with the offer of $12 million. It was his idea to settle before the case was heard.

It wouldn't make sense for him to agree to pay more than he'd made.

Xzi · Nov 12, 2018

smf said:
They wanted $100 million, he himself came up with the offer of $12 million. It wouldn't make sense for him to agree to pay more than he'd made.

I doubt they would've taken less than ten mil regardless of how much he had actually made. His lawyer isn't going to match up to their team of lawyers. This was a statement suit more than anything. Nintendo knows there are still millions (if not billions) of complete ROM set copies floating around out there, but they will come after you if you host them without anonymity and/or try to profit off them.

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