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

 

[Subtle Demise]

Why should they? That isn't how the law works (and has to work).

They don't need to prove the number of times it was downloaded either, that would put too much of a burden on the plaintiff.

It's enough to know that significant numbers of visitors accessed the site where copyright infringing files were available.

There is a cap on damages, so it can work both ways.

Wow, so the plaintiff doesn't even have the burden of proof in civil cases. No wonder there are so many frivolous lawsuits these days. In my opinion, you should only be able to sue for provable monetary damages. The legal team should have to do some actual work. They shouldn't be able to just say "Look, they put this shit up here, and their website seems to be relatively popular, so we are entitled to maximum restitution." To me, that's bullshit. I imagine the courts also require more proof from the plaintiff when the defendant is a corporate entity, so it's a double standard.

 

[SG854]

Wow, so the plaintiff doesn't even have the burden of proof in civil cases. No wonder there are so many frivolous lawsuits these days. In my opinion, you should only be able to sue for provable monetary damages. The legal team should have to do some actual work. They shouldn't be able to just say "Look, they put this shit up here, and their website seems to be relatively popular, so we are entitled to maximum restitution." To me, that's bullshit. I imagine the courts also require more proof from the plaintiff when the defendant is a corporate entity, so it's a double standard.

Doesn’t sites have a download counter. The top 10 downloads and it will tell you how many times a game has been downloaded. That’s what i’ve seen on a few rom sites.

 

[LingFox]

Nintendo is worse than Apple.
Hopefully this will bite them back hard, because it's a pretty dangerous example they set up.
and hopefully some donkey servers are still up with their roms dumps.

 

[KnifeCat]

ouhf… 12 million dollars!

 

[Subtle Demise]

Doesn’t sites have a download counter. The top 10 downloads and it will tell you how many times a game has been downloaded. That’s what i’ve seen on a few rom sites.

Even if not, according to smf, they don't even have to prove that a single person downloaded any of the files, they are allowed to assume it was millions.

 

[the_randomizer]

Man, look at all those lost sales from those games that were never on the eShop. Poor Nintendo must be hurting bad, huh?

 

[godreborn]

maybe if the switch had vc... I bought mega man x3 and 7 on the eshop for the wii u, since those games cost like $100 apiece for the snes. I have the rest of the collection in cartridge form. if only my pos retron 5 worked correctly...

 

[SG854]

Even if not, according to smf, they don't even have to prove that a single person downloaded any of the files, they are allowed to assume it was millions.

I remember seeing a few Nintendo games downloaded up in the millions on a few sites.

So 5 dollars for VC price, times for example 1,000,000 downloads that’s 15 million for one game. Snes were 8 dollars and Super Mario World is a really popular game.

If you include all games then the guy got off easier. It could have been worse then what was settled.

 

[the_randomizer]

maybe if the switch had vc... I bought mega man x3 and 7 on the eshop for the wii u, since those games cost like $100 apiece for the snes. I have the rest of the collection in cartridge form. if only my pos retron 5 worked correctly...

Should've got a Super NT, those actually last long That, with a flashcart and you're golden.

 

[godreborn]

I like to keep the experience as genuine as possible aside from the system itself, so I want to buy cartridges if possible. the most expensive one I have was $25.

 

[Exaltys]

Should've got a Super NT, those actually last long That, with a flashcart and you're golden.

Ideal situation is a SNES with an upscale. Flashcart that has the whole library on it and you have you real collection stored nicely or displayed.

 

[codezer0]

What a load of hot garbage.
At this point, the only nintendo systems that make sense to buy, are only those that can be modified to run more games and homebrew. A stock Nintendo system is unbelievably limited by comparison.

 

[djnate27]

Could've saved himself a lot of grief, just by heeding my avatar's caption!

 

[Kioku]

They also offered a premium service as well for direct downloads. I seriously don't understand why you're acting like they're not in the wrong. They're making money off of piracy. This isn't some half assed forum post using 3rd party links to some shitty host. Oi vey. I feel like some of you never actually visited the site and just assume.

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

Ideal situation is a SNES with an upscale. Flashcart that has the whole library on it and you have you real collection stored nicely or displayed.

Or... The SuperNT.. Which works just as well as a frame meister..

 

[Exaltys]

Or... The SuperNT.. Which works just as well as a frame meister..

For convenience and usability, sure. I'm talking in strictly collectors sense. If we aren't talking collecting actual games I'll just stick to higan and be done with it.

 

[Subtle Demise]

I remember seeing a few Nintendo games downloaded up in the millions on a few sites.

So 5 dollars for VC price, times for example 1,000,000 downloads that’s 15 million for one game. Snes were 8 dollars and Super Mario World is a really popular game.

If you include all games then the guy got off easier. It could have been worse then what was settled.

That's only because apparently there are limits to how much you can legally sue someone for. They basically asked for the maximum and got it.

They also offered a premium service as well for direct downloads. I seriously don't understand why you're acting like they're not in the wrong. They're making money off of piracy. This isn't some half assed forum post using 3rd party links to some shitty host. Oi vey. I feel like some of you never actually visited the site and just assume.

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


Or... The SuperNT.. Which works just as well as a frame meister..

Yeah, profiting off of piracy is immoral and stupid, and they do deserve to get sued for that, but did they even break $1 million in subscriptions, let alone 12 million? Was any of it actual profit, or did it just offset hosting costs? There are a lot of unanswered questions about that one. I still disagree with the 12 million judgment, not that it matters.

 

[godreborn]

They also offered a premium service as well for direct downloads. I seriously don't understand why you're acting like they're not in the wrong. They're making money off of piracy. This isn't some half assed forum post using 3rd party links to some shitty host. Oi vey. I feel like some of you never actually visited the site and just assume.

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


Or... The SuperNT.. Which works just as well as a frame meister..

the price of the framemeister is just insane. I guess that's due to it being discontinued. I'd use an snes if the price of that thing wasn't so high. I don't want to use a flash cart either. if I did that, I might as well just use an emulator and one of those usb game pads in the shape of the original controller.

 

[wiewiec]

I have little hope that this 12 million $ is for online servers, because Nintendo is very sad about dislikes under their videos

 

[Exaltys]

the price of the framemeister is just insane. I guess that's due to it being discontinued. I'd use an snes if the price of that thing wasn't so high. I don't want to use a flash cart either. if I did that, I might as well just use an emulator and one of those usb game pads in the shape of the original controller.

For new platformers that are similar to older SNES era games I use a USB adaptor on one of my old SNES controllers connected to my PC.

 

[smf]

Wow, so the plaintiff doesn't even have the burden of proof in civil cases.

civil cases don't have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. This isn't a frivolous case.

Even if not, according to smf, they don't even have to prove that a single person downloaded any of the files, they are allowed to assume it was millions.

It was his intent to provide the copyright violating files to his 17 million visitors a month. It's not up to Nintendo to prove how many actually downloaded it.

If he kept logs that the court would accept then he could offer that as mitigation.

Each page has a view counter, so they can determine how many times the box copyright & trademark were violated. For SMB3 it was over 1.8 million views.

You could probably argue fair use for the box and trademark, if he wasn't also providing the roms.

That's only because apparently there are limits to how much you can legally sue someone for. They basically asked for the maximum and got it.

They didn't get the maximum. I believe the maximum was $100 million.

I still disagree with the 12 million judgment, not that it matters.

The $12 million was a settlement agreed between Jacob and Nintendo, the court just formalised it so that if he breaks any of the conditions then he is in contempt of court rather than Nintendo having to start suing him again.