Nintendo has filed a lawsuit through the federal court in the state of Arizona against the owner of 2 major ROM hosting sites, Jacob Mathias, and his Arizona-based company, Mathias Designs L.L.C. The company is being sued for unfair competition, as well as trademark and copyright infringement for featuring readily accessible retro ROMs, proprietary BIOS software, and copyrighted musical recordings and sounds.

This includes the copyrighted BIOS files for the Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Color, and Nintendo DS systems. Defendants also make a vast library of unauthorized copies of Nintendo’s copyrighted musical works

These contents are reportedly uploaded and maintained directly by Mathias's company on a regular basis. In the motion, Nintendo also claims that the defendant is profiteering off of the popularity and subsequent ad-revenue of his sites, with one site regularly reaching over 17 million visitors per month. This is popularity gained, of course, exclusively from providing Nintendo's copyrighted content, that being both in the form of software as well as copyrighted visual logos to advertise the content.

Under the count of "unfair competition", Nintendo claims that:

Defendants’ conduct constitutes unfair competition that is contrary to honest practice in commercial matters under Arizona common law. Specifically, Defendants have traded on Nintendo’s reputation for quality and integrity in order to pass off their unauthorized copies of Nintendo video games and other copyrighted works to consumers. By advertising these copies as genuine Nintendo products, Defendants have actively misled consumers about the true source of these copies.

Nintendo is seeking compensation of $150,000 in statutory damages, on top of up to $2,000,000 for the infringement of each Nintendo trademark. Because there are more than 140 copyrighted titles and 40 trademarks reportedly being infringed, this could possibly result in upwards of $100 million in damages when totaled. In addition, they are demanding that Mathias provide them information on the sources of any and all infringing material hosted on his sites. Of course, Nintendo also seeks to shut both sites down with this motion. Mathias himself has yet to publicly respond to the allegations.

Source

 

[smf]

Funny coming from the company who used publicly available NES ROMs on the Wii Shopping channel

If you think it's funny then you don't get it.

How cute of them, trying to stop ROM distribution on the internet

That is equivalent to "How cute of police trying to catch murderers". Does that mean they shouldn't try?

Ooh poor Nintendo, they must be clearly financially destitute from all those ROMs that they don't sell online.

When shall we all come round to steal your stuff?

 

[WhiteMaze]

What were they supposed to do? Let them host their games for free? Companies must protect their own stuff or they give free ground for people to do anything they want with them. Why do you think that Game Freak actively shuts down Pokemon fangames? For fun?

These idiots hosted a warez website in Arizona, something that you can't just swipe under the rug. Had they hosted it in Panama or another country where the authorities don't care, they would've gotten away with it. This is just playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.

If it wasn't for those meddling kids at Nintendo HQ

 

[FAST6191]

If you would be US based and hosted then you probably should have seen it coming. It is probably more surprising it took as long as it did.

How cute of them, trying to stop ROM distribution on the internet

Are they trying to stop everything including the hardcode or just make it harder for the "I followed a guide on a forum" set? The latter group are a far larger one and probably the bulk of the "losses" they make from such activities.

 

[Gon Freecss]

I wonder if there's any way they could win against Nintendo?

Seed Boxes in Russia and the Bay?

 

[APartOfMe]

If you think it's funny then you don't get it.



That is equivalent to "How cute of police trying to catch murderers". Does that mean they shouldn't try?



When shall we all come round to steal your stuff?

I think I found Reggie's GBAtemp account

 

[Chary]

Paradise already kinda got hit and lost most their Nintendo stuff. The one getting tagged now is kinda old, and hasn't been relevant in years honestly, at least to most looking for these kinda files. Sucks to be them.

 

[APartOfMe]

Paradise already kinda got hit and lost most their Nintendo stuff. The one getting tagged now is kinda old, and hasn't been relevant in years honestly, at least to most looking for these kinda files. Sucks to be them.

I was able to download some N64 stuff from paradise a few weeks ago, so I thought they're ninty games were back up. Guess I was wrong

 

[cvskid]

I was able to download some N64 stuff from paradise a few weeks ago, so I thought they're ninty games were back up. Guess I was wrong

Try to go for complete romsets if you can find them.

 

[Deleted User]

And now, the site is down! Got lucky and got one final download before the shutdown!

 

[Vieela]

And now, the site is down! Got lucky and got one final download before the shutdown!

Woah. The site just shut down like, some few minutes ago. Oh well.

 

[Deleted User]

Woah. The site just shut down like, some few minutes ago. Oh well.

Yeah, almost instantly!

 

[AlanJohn]

It's hilarious how even with Nintendo's anti piracy policies, they still use roms dumped by the community for their mini consoles or virtual consoles.

 

[Shadowfied]

Geez... you would think that these guys would go after people distributing the newer stuff..

You'd think, but they aren't interested in stopping piracy. Piracy increases sales. They just want money.

 

[SoCALCat]

Nintendon't is just big time But Hurt because of the Switch being hacked and mainly Switch game titles spreading like wild fire being posted available for download on the web for free.

I'm sure the majority of the people that own the SX Pro or OS are not going out of their way to purchase $40.00 to $60.00 Switch games since most of the people don't give a about whether or not their Switch gets banned or to be able to game online...

After all this years! It's funny on how all of the sudden Nintendon't is starting to crack the whip on all the websites that are providing their roms for download, especially the sites that are providing new Switch game titles...

I ain't worried about it! Since I currently know peep's that own every Nintendon't Handheld / Console / Hack Rom Collection that ever existed, along with a decent collection of Switch .XCI files.

Let the games begin! Good Luck! Nintendon't on trying to put out this big ass wild fire on preventing the roms from being posted online for people to download...

I guess since Nintendon't stocks have been plunging down for a quite sometime now. Their way to gain some ground is to turn around and sue.

Remember this! The wolf is always at the door...

 

[smf]

I think I found Reggie's GBAtemp account

How about no?

 

[Kilim]

yeah great, sue them so you can re-release a SNES classic for the fourth time

whenever i feel bad for pirating nintendo games they do something stupid that makes me relish the act even more

 

[Carnelian]

Shitendo should be sued by GameCube and Wii U buyers...

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

https://i.warosu.org/data/biz/img/0003/40/1400495334667.gif

 

[Zense]

So this happens right before they're releasing their online features on the Switch? I don't think stopping this site will have much impact, however through the lawsuit they might get info on how much traffic the site gets from streaming their roms, which financially might be interesting for them?

 

[Mnecraft368]

Shitendo should be sued by GameCube and Wii U buyers...

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

https://i.warosu.org/data/biz/img/0003/40/1400495334667.gif

Why gamecube?
I mean, Wii U I can understand... but the gamecube is good imo

 

[Carnelian]

Why gamecube?
I mean, Wii U I can understand... but the gamecube is good imo

Because they delayed Zelda for both console and did other bad thing to those consoles not because they sucks, i love both console you know.