Remember earlier this year when Nintendo was suing a couple of sites for distributing pirated ROMs of their games? Well, it looks like that legal action has paid off for them big time.
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A settlement has been reached between the publisher and the owners of two Nintendo ROM emulator websites, to the amount of $12 million. That’s a big win in the company’s favor, and a huge blow against the pirated gaming market.
The lawsuit was originally filed in Arizona federal court against a married couple that ran the LoveROMS.com and LoveRetro.co websites, where ROMs of classic games are commonly distributed. They eventually came to terms with Nintendo in the lawsuit and now must pay the hefty fee as a result.
But it’s not just the ROMs the couple used. It turns out the site also illegally used graphics in its design that ripped off Nintendo, though specific examples were not mentioned.
With that, the sites will be taken down in the future (after being signed over to Nintendo) and the couple must not be allowed to distribute any Nintendo ROMs, nor utilize its images for advertising purposes.
This is obviously a “warning shot” of sorts to other ROM companies that profit off of distributing older games illegally. That’s not to say that pirating won’t happen still, as we know a number of folks still getting their hands on NES and SNES Classic systems modified to have more games, including those with expired licenses like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Disney’s Aladdin.
That said, however, you can bet that some companies will be a little bit quieter around Nintendo, especially considering that this lawsuit was found in their favor. They aren’t messing around when it comes to protecting their properties. Just ask the couple that now have to fork over a heaping sum of money and their websites.
We’ll see if the publisher continues its hunt in the future for other ROM sites, but obviously it’s focusing on its own business, with the Let’s Go games releasing for Switch this week and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate coming next month.
