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

coppertj · Nov 14, 2018

Keep as anonymous as possible if your not dumping your friends carts for homebrew. PIA VPN and I'd suggest not evening downloading them on your wifi maybe a library's or schools. They ain't playing around anymore... I'm never downloading a switch rom again will use wain cart dumper for now on. I respect nintendos property not to be distributing it on a open network.

Grand-Master · Nov 14, 2018

Nintendo services are nothing compared to that of Sony and Microsoft, they will never reach them out!

CORE · Nov 14, 2018

Just because Nintendo has decided to try their hand at Emulation everyone that has being doing it for a decades before now has to stop it same as Streaming Services Netflix etc. Peeps been doing it for decades look at XBOX and Samba Share for one example the amount of money they loose from piracy is nothing compared to what they made same goes for Movies and Music and because people have made them rich they can tell you how to live take a look at Hollywood etc so called celebrities.

coppertj · Nov 14, 2018

CORE said:
Just because Nintendo has decided to try their hand at Emulation everyone that has being doing it for a decades before now has to stop it same as Streaming Services Netflix etc. Peeps been doing it for decades look at XBOX and Samba Share for one example the amount of money they loose from piracy is nothing compared to what they made same goes for Movies and Music and because people have made them rich they can tell you how to live take a look at Hollywood etc so called celebrities.

Sony after vampiricly draining bleem ps1 emulator through lawsuits gave the creator a job as head of PlayStation emulation. Don't ever see Nintendo doing that to a developer tbh.

SG854 · Nov 14, 2018

supersonicwaffle said:
Thank you for sharing this. Service is exactly what piracy is about. I remember reading studies on piracy that I can't recall 100% but they came to very interesting conclusions.

people have an unconscious limit of money they're willing to spend on entertainment, they're not spending less even when pirating

because people who pirate will spend about the same as they would if they wouldn't pirate they end up investing more into things like hardware, going to movie theaters, going to concerts, etc.

From a content producer's point of view, a better service is exactly the right response to mitigate this as has been demonstrated by Netflix or Spotify. No one ever talks about how Kodi / XBMC + pirated content has been THE definitive solution for a home entertainment a few years ago. Or how iTunes + pirated MP3s was really good.
Asking people to use a worse experience with more effort involved like keeping a library of physical media, having to search through it by hand, inserting the media into a "player device", having to seek through a DVD to pick up where you left off watching on a different device and such for the sole reason of it being the proper and legal way is just unreasonable. I know plenty of people who downloaded pirated copies of content they already had just because they didn't want to go through the hassle of seeking out a DVD and putting it into a drive or even going through transcoding a DVD.

The gaming industry will sooner or later arrive at the same conclusion as there's no way to stop piracy of retro games. If Nintendo isn't willing to do that then that's their loss.

Streaming pirated videos on Kodi is so low quality. Even ones that claim to be HD has artifiacts in the picture and bluriness to it.

Bluerays and official downloads and legit streams always had higher quality videos. And finding a good quality pirated copy is a hassle. I’ve been getting a worse experience with this, not the definitive solution at all.

Silent_Gunner · Nov 14, 2018

supersonicwaffle said:
Thank you for sharing this. Service is exactly what piracy is about. I remember reading studies on piracy that I can't recall 100% but they came to very interesting conclusions.

people have an unconscious limit of money they're willing to spend on entertainment, they're not spending less even when pirating

because people who pirate will spend about the same as they would if they wouldn't pirate they end up investing more into things like hardware, going to movie theaters, going to concerts, etc.

From a content producer's point of view, a better service is exactly the right response to mitigate this as has been demonstrated by Netflix or Spotify. No one ever talks about how Kodi / XBMC + pirated content has been THE definitive solution for a home entertainment a few years ago. Or how iTunes + pirated MP3s was really good.
Asking people to use a worse experience with more effort involved like keeping a library of physical media, having to search through it by hand, inserting the media into a "player device", having to seek through a DVD to pick up where you left off watching on a different device and such for the sole reason of it being the proper and legal way is just unreasonable. I know plenty of people who downloaded pirated copies of content they already had just because they didn't want to go through the hassle of seeking out a DVD and putting it into a drive or even going through transcoding a DVD.

The gaming industry will sooner or later arrive at the same conclusion as there's no way to stop piracy of retro games. If Nintendo isn't willing to do that then that's their loss.

What's worse is when said player device's disc drive fails and stops reading the disc. *gives the three different silver slim PS2s and my (admittedly) 10+ year old GameCube the evil glare* Or when your parents toss out a fully functional NES when you go to move out because your school district was going to put you into a school notorious for its incidents and gang activity, because we weren't playing it anymore. Which was true to a certain extent, but it wasn't because the item wasn't worth something. (If anything, that's when retro stuff like that had value still, assuming we're not talking about Persona 2 Eternal Punishment on PS1 or something like that!) Shit like this is why people just buy a clone console, rip the games themselves if they want to be legit, or just find a ROM site and voila, the games are on their hard drive, free to be copied, backed up, and shared forever and ever practically. (I know there's decay of digital data, but c'mon)

Yeah, I'm not a fan of having multiple pieces of optical discs as much just because of how easy it is for something to go wrong that requires more work than just ordering a new PC part and emulating the same game on the PC, or just getting the PC port assuming said games' PC port isn't titled GTA4 or Saints Row 2!

AntDX316 · Nov 15, 2018

They had 17 million users monthly..

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

It's like downloading pirated software, if only a dozen people do it they won't crack down. The problem is they could be phishing for Cryptocurrencies not credit card information.

When it becomes wide spread like Napster companies sue. The thing is, when the person is alive and they have assets they can garnish wages. What do they do if the person died?

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

We don't even know Jacob Mathias's net worth. Could have made Millions off BTC. Could have won the big lotteries. $12M could be equivalent to a couple thousand in comparison to "average" people. I mean, when Michael Jordan sued some grocery store for $10M for a steak ad that only sold 2 or 3 coupons it caused the grocery store to shut down costing jobs. Things like this makes an impact for media coverage but the people who get "wrecked" by it are the same yesterday's news to many as the people who have issues from the Mexico Beach, FL Michael Hurricane and the CA Wildfires who come back to no house and not much other assets. There are people who are still renting w/ no homes so they would pretty much be on the same level..

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

I mean.. they probably sued for $12M but partnered with them secretly as NDA to actually make the games and then somehow make a profit through advertising or licensing with iOS, Windows, Google Play Android, etc.

the_randomizer · Nov 15, 2018

Again, I reiterate that piracy is not the same as theft. It's like I rent a book from the library or CD, I copy the contents and return the material like normal. Have I physically stolen it? Nope, as far as the library knows, it's good as new, but at my PC, I have a ripped copy of the CD. That's what the modern day definition of piracy is, sadly, Nintendo thinks it's outright theft, but it is a lost potential sale I guess. Funny coming from the people who use publicly available ROMs in the VC, I once compared Kirby's Dream Land 3 in an RPX rip, and matched its code 1:1 to a ROM file I found *shrug*.

CORE · Nov 15, 2018

Aslong as im not selling copies burned to disc or cracked executables it aint stealing.
At the same time a purchase was made to distribute in the first place give it some time during initial release before sharing so relevant sales can be accumulated and there you go money made those less fortunate with a pirate copy also credit the software popularity and in turn gets more sales and more freebies yes but most importantly POPULARITY.

the_randomizer · Nov 15, 2018

CORE said:
Aslong as im not selling copies burned to disc or cracked executables it aint stealing.
At the same time a purchase was made to distribute in the first place give it some time during initial release before sharing so relevant sales can be accumulated and there you go money made those less fortunate with a pirate copy also credit the software popularity and in turn gets more sales and more freebies yes but most importantly POPULARITY.

Agreed, and I think piracy issues are more a result of insufficient services provided than anything else, IMO. Nintendo is sitting on a goldmine, there is so much potential, and heck, having more old school games on the eShop could potentially sell more systems by that alone. Oh, but oh no, they had to squander this chance by being the over litigious morons they are.

I still find it very cathartic to see them shutting these sites down frantically in vain, all the while I get to enjoy thousands of Nintendo ROMs backed up on a undisclosed HDD.

boombox · Nov 15, 2018

That's far too much, and as people have said - it's mainly older generation ROMs which are difficult and sometimes near impossible to get hold of now with 3rd parties selling and not Nintendo - these are barely part of their profit margin. I understand they need to seek action, but this is an impossibly high price for 1 person.

defectiveshadow · Nov 15, 2018

What's with all the Nintendo hate? They didn't sue these guys for giving away roms for free. They sued them for running a business and profiting heavily.

That said, $12 million is excessive! I would have thought it would have been like $50K or something and a slap on the wrist. Especially if they made nowhere near that! This is like the LimeWire/Napster shit.

CORE · Nov 15, 2018

Nintendo Hate are you kidding soon you wont be able to sell tents because peeps are outside trying to catch pokemon and Nintendo now sells poketents anyone caught distributing well here we are.

the_randomizer · Nov 15, 2018

CORE said:
Nintendo Hate are you kidding soon you wont be able to sell tents because peeps are outside trying to catch pokemon and Nintendo now sells poketents anyone caught distributing well here we are.

I mean, granted, I get why they do it, to protect IP. What I don't get, is why they're trying to protect games that aren't even their IP, like say third party games. Many companies of those games are either merged or defunct, in fact, most of those games don't even generate revenue for Nintendo at all. They're like that bratty preschool kid who hoards all the cool toys, not because he wants them, but only because he doesn't want anyone else to have them. They do it out of spite and nothing more.

jpmcruiser · Nov 15, 2018

Dude fuck that holy shit, like I get cracking down on piracy but you don't need to have them pay 12 million goddamn dollars over something like this

PalomPorom · Nov 15, 2018

The only people who profit from retro games are those high balling eBay bastards

Sent from my toaster running Rebug

TheMajesticMrL · Nov 15, 2018

I like how no one actually looked this up

https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-wins-12-million-from-pirate-rom-site-operators-181112/
"We can only speculate but it’s possible that Nintendo negotiated such a high number, on paper, to act as a deterrent for other site operators. In practice, the defendants could end up paying much less."

It is highly doubtful Nintendo would actually demand this much money from these people. They don't need it, nor would any common person be able to pay it.
Chill the fuck out and don't blindly hate Nintendo for something that is very likely not going to actually happen.

the_randomizer · Nov 15, 2018

TheMajesticMrL said:
I like how no one actually looked this up

https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-wins-12-million-from-pirate-rom-site-operators-181112/
"We can only speculate but it’s possible that Nintendo negotiated such a high number, on paper, to act as a deterrent for other site operators. In practice, the defendants could end up paying much less."

It is highly doubtful Nintendo would actually demand this much money from these people. They don't need it, nor would any common person be able to pay it.
Chill the fuck out and don't blindly hate Nintendo for something that is very likely not going to actually happen.

Yeah, well, the same to those who blindly defend Nintendo's shitty handling of eShop and three NES games per month.

Alex4nder001 · Nov 16, 2018

NeoSlyde said:
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...

How on earth are you gonna buy a console ILLEGALLY? I don’t think it’s possible unless you steal one from the factory or buy a clone or counterfeit. I’m a huge digital pirate myself, but hardware piracy? Is that even possible?

TheMajesticMrL · Nov 16, 2018

the_randomizer said:
Yeah, well, the same to those who blindly defend Nintendo's shitty handling of eShop and three NES games per month.

can't tell if this is supposed to be a jab at me or not but if it is I never mentioned that in my post so
I don't see a problem with eShop as it as though, could use games with more quality imo I guess, but I agree the replacement for Virtual Console sucks but at this point I've accepted it because it's not worth getting annoyed about. I've also never seen anyone blatantly want the NES games per month though so Idk where that came from.

Point is people need to not be like "omg I hate you Nintendo!!!!!!!!!! never buying ur stuff again!!!!!!!" when this lawsuit, again, is almost certainly not going to force these people to pay fucking $12 million in recompense. Like that article said, it's probably just a scare tactic for other ROM sites. This has happened with lawsuits in the past before, not necessarily Nintendo ones, but it has. But it's obvious Nintendo is sick and tired of people pirating their games and want it to stop, I get that. They are a company and need to protect their property. The question there that people will have is, if they want pirating to stop, why don't they release the games again? Well most of the games already are on consoles like the Wii U and 3DS which still have working eShops. But conversely, the PSP has had some of its games commonly pirated and emulated for years and sales of those games on both the platform itself and Steam haven't been hurt nearly as much as most people would think. So then, why does Nintendo care so much about protecting their games from being pirated and emulated? I dunno, I'm not an expert, I never claimed to be, I don't have all the answers.

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

3:16

Well-Known Member

Hail Mary

Crazy Cool Cyclops

New Member

The Temp's official fox whisperer

3:16

The Temp's official fox whisperer

Well-Known Member

Member

3:16

The Temp's official fox whisperer

Active Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

The Temp's official fox whisperer

Part-time thug

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum