By now, you have probably heard of the lawsuit that Nintendo had filed against ROM-hosting website ROMUniverse and its owner, Matthew Storman. The website hosted ROMs of Nintendo’s games, and offered a subscription service for those that wanted to remove the download size limit. Earlier this summer, Nintendo won the lawsuit, and the courts ordered Storman to pay Nintendo $2,100,000 in damages. This would be done via monthly $50 payments.
Well, last month, Nintendo reported to the court that they haven’t received anything at all, and requested a permanent injunction against Storman out of concern that Storman may bring back ROMUniverse. The judge has decided to grant Nintendo’s injunction, and the court has ordered Storman to “permanently destroy all unauthorized Nintendo games or other unauthorized copies of Nintendo’s intellectual property including movies, books, and music” by August 17th.
The judge also ordered Storman to file a declaration with the court that he has complied by August 20th. If he doesn’t do these things, Storman could face charges of perjury. As for the injunction, it means that Storman can no longer distribute, copy, sell or play unauthorized Nintendo ROMs, and he can’t any Nintendo trademarks or logos.
Copyright was partly supposed to be about saving good creative works if I’m thinking right, but seeing how Nintendo’s doing this clearly shows how broken Copyright law is today and how backwards Nintendo is acting with this.
They may have a legal right to do this, but what they’re doing is showing the problem, and is morally wrong (Copyright is not a human right, it’s a thing that got WAY out of hand.) as it basically just doesn’t respect basic human rights and even certain cases preservation for great Nintendo games.
Theres nothing morally wrong about it… it’s their property
+Light Blue Diamond
……What in the heck did I just read? Are you for real right now?
Another big lawsuit I see, by Nintendo who else can it be?
Good. Too bad for the crook. I am glad Nintendo does this. It is not your game. I hope nintendo closes down all these hacks.
Hope you like buying rare games physically on eBay, or spending $20 a year just to play a specific catalog of games up until the subscription ends.
And that just covers the Western releases.
lol. I like how you don’t try to argue that it isn’t theft.
And how am I doing that?
I never said “it’s perfectly legal and ethical, Here’s a link to several secret rom sites.”
When there’s no option to buy it on the market or Nintendo themselves, what are we supposed to do? Buy it from some random asshole who scalpels old games for money? THEIR money?
Here’s an idea: don’t pay outrageous prices for games.
Or just don’t have them!
It’s somewhat funny how Nintendo feels so threatened by roms, they’re resorting to hyperbole(s) like “permanently destroy”.
Must be a rough Google translation of a much harsher response.
They don’t feel threatened by ROMs, they’re obligated to defend their IP in order to maintain ownership of it. That’s how the law works.
+cronotose
That’s trademarks, not Copyrights.
Because ordering “permanent destruction” is perfectly normal.
Get out of here, you Nintendo fanboy. “Nintendo themselves can never do any wrong, and when they do, it’s all okay”.
+amanfromdeclan
Except here’s the thing; Piracy is not the answer.
When it comes to taking down rom sites; I’m 100% with Nintendo as it is blatant theft and actually makes the “fans” even worse than the company itself.
Could Nintendo be doing far better? Absolutely yes but that doesn’t mean rom sites are allowed to fly.
Whether it’s roms or fan games, Nintendo has a only-behavior-fits-all-approach.
But why give them the benefit of a doubt.
I have a good feeling Nintendo dislikes ROMs to the point where we won’t get something like a virtual console from them which requires ROMs to run. Although we do have the Nintendo Switch Online NES + SNES games and 3D All Stars, it really feels like that’s all we’re gonna get. Unless it’s a game that’s tinkered somehow by Nintendo, we won’t be seeing anything like a N64 or Gamecube game collection anytime soon.
The funny part about that is it will just encourage people to emulate those games even more.
$50 monthly payments on a $2.1 million dollar fine means it will take him 3500 YEARS to finish paying
Sad thing is he didn’t make any money doing illegal activities according to the guy committing crime.
I have this crazy idea that if the money you spend on games you love goes to the company that made them then they can use that money to make more games you love.
Y’all arguing in favor of the rom hosting site are WHACK.
The absurd amount of corporate bootlicking in these comments wow some people are doormats for faceless capitalist entities.
Sucks that he had a subscription service, how does that justify this response though? Seeking 2.1 million dollars from a single individual who ran a ROM site is absurd. Piracy isn’t theft. There is nothing morally or ethically wrong with video game piracy. Especially when it comes to games Nintendo refuses to even allow you to buy. I sure love giving some random dude on eBay $200 for a NES game.
Nintendo treat you people like dirt.
You and your opinions are dirt.
After the recent Direct with the Nintendo Switch Online update, it makes sense they would be hunting for illegal ROM distributors. This makes perfect sense to me because why would they have the urge to all of a sudden start a hunt? Firstly, they need to protect their IP; and second, they are working on bringing these games to the customer eventually. Although I do hope they make the right choice with the new pricing in the online service. In the future, I expect there to be more classic consoles added to the service. At least that would deviate people from distributing illegally.