Husband and wife ordered to pay $12m to Nintendo for running ROM sites

Seems a tad harsh! But the law is the law I guess and Nintendo has every right to protect it's IPs.

An Arizona couple have been ordered to pay Nintendo a whopping $12.23m (£9.5m) in damages for running a pair of sites which offered pirated ROMs.

Jacob and Cristian Mathias admitted copyright and trademark infringement for operating LoveROMS.com and LoveRetro.co until July this year, when Nintendo intervened.

The sites, registered under Mathias Designs, a company set up by the husband and wife, offered pirated versions of games such as Mario Kart 64, Donkey Kong Country, Pokémon Yellow and Super Mario World.

Both websites were pulled offline when Nintendo threatened legal action, and replaced with a notice saying they were undergoing maintenance.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-11-13-husband-and-wife-must-pay-usd12m-to-nintendo-for-running-rom-sites

Dam greedy Nintendont. lol :P

Welp. They had a good run. Time to fake deaths and start a new life.

Nintedno succks

I’m fine with this.

Did they make money from it? If not, how are they going to pay that princely sum?

The copyright mafia strike again. Don't get me wrong I know it's not in line with the law to distribute free copies of commercial games. The thing that irks me about this stuff is that I bet it cost Nintendo about 0 copies that these things were downloadable. But because it's against the law they actually have to act on this, and we can now act like they really got what they deserved. Yeah, I get it, they were really naughty to distribute old games. But I also get that this is not what 'justice' looks like either.

We're not even aiming for justice when it comes to copyright. They are processed through our legal system to become scary examples for the common folk, like how we used to scare people by publicly executing a bad person on the town square. We cannot have piracy run rampant yet we cannot catch the pirates easily, so we have to financially execute a couple pirates every now and then to keep the people aware that it ain't right. Another fine product of our economic system.

There is a drive and there is clearly a moral grey in people's minds whether you agree with them or not, so this will continue forever. I don't see how this will ever get fixed. But it still sucks that it 'has' to be this way. I think if we can legally buy complete collections with emulation from publishers that we will forever have access to, it would largely be solved. But... licenses. So yeah, what do you do to change that pattern?

I think the best solution I could think of is to offer services or collections that involve all commercial non-indie modern games past a certain date. Let's say 2010. And then stop hunting people who distribute games from before 2010 freely. A kind of cut-off point so that the people who want the old games that are caught up in licensing hell or at risk of becoming unplayable/disappearing can freely distribute them, and every game after the cut-off point gets preserved and will always be available for purchase. Or it would help a LOT if you can re-download and emulate games you have bought at some point in your life from these publishers, even if they go broke. Seriously those two things would diminish people's desire to pirate games immensely. But how do you enforce that these games continue to be sold forever and who's job is that, when the companies can go broke? I find it tough to find a workable solution to this ever existing problem.

Nintendo doesn’t expect them to pay the 12 mil, it’s just a threat to other rom sites that Nintendo isn’t playing around.

If Nintendo made their games available in a way that didn't rape their customers... if at all... then I would back Nintendo on this. As it is, Nintendo is seems to be about releasing a small fraction of their classic games and raping those that want to play them by overpricing the games by a lot.

Glad I got my Raspberry Pi when I did.

The law... follow it

That will hurt their retirement plans...llol

While there perfectly within their right, Nintendo's rom selection sucks, it's online only DRM, and used to justify paying for shitty online that offers basically nothing.

Sega's attitude has been significantly less asshole. But then again, Nintendo are always assholes to their consumers.

Mafia Insurance Policy by Nintendo :P

Good. Piracy is illegal. Get that 12m Nintendo!

D ont take what doesn't belong to you.

There is just no way that Nintendo lost 12 million from old ass games (even if they are classics) due to ROM sites.

I'm all for companys protecting their copyright. However, I also believe that they should lose all rights on it as soon as they no longer provide said product. IMO every Game I can't directly buy from Nintendo on a system I can also buy from Nintendo, should be openly available. The historic value game >> a companys right on a product they don't sell.

Comming from this standpoint, there certainly are games Nintendo still sells, like on the NES Mini. But the huge majority of games aren't sold anyway, so why would it matter?

Of course, sadly, the world doesn't follow my logic, so two people end up with a fine they will never be able to pay ...

It’s a good thing I loaded up my snes and nes classic to the hilt. I think I got most of my roms from that site.

I wonder why this is not in the Nintendo Fan Club forum. And just look at the Nintendo haters justifying ROMs.

Calling Nintendo "The Mafia"? What about Sony and Microsoft?

I’m with the above idea that if Nintendo or Publisher offer the game for sale than it is off limits. However, if it is not offered by Nintendo or Publisher than it should be fair game. There are quite a few games I’d buy from them if they were available.

Kinda makes you wonder how much these guys were making off of those websites huh?

Is Nintendo going to sue me since I just resold some old Gameboy games the other week?

No, but if you had uploaded those games to the internet and let millions of people download them for free they might have done. But in this instance no laws were broken.

exactly what I was thinking

Damn sheep were angry that Nintendo was best on PC. PCs big first place lead this gen was even nuttier with Nintendo games. Oh well...

Ouch. I imagine that Nintendo would rather not ruin people to protect its IP, but the buck has to stop somewhere.

Copyright law in the US is very favorable to creators, valid for the life of the maker plus 90 years. It will likely get some attention in the next few years since Disney is scheduled to have Steamboat Willey enter the public domain, which is what stirred amending the law back in the late 90s.

Cue the entitled cry babies.

This. The court decision is the win. They could care less about the money.

Nintendo deserves to spend the time and energy developing and marketing games so some peon should just be able to profit off the work of Nintendo (programmers, developers, etc..,)?

i am not on nintendo's side on this strangely.

I use roms and love them. I am actually quite sad by this news. Anyway its no different than the beatles taking down their songs from youtube or something.

so emuparadise is gone, love roms

whats left? cool roms, rom hustler,romnation

edit just checked....

-cool roms is still up but has removed all nintendo roms!

-romnation is nothing but virus spam ads

-rom hustler still has everything up! next victim?

Nintendont wants to kill the history of games. Anyway their actions only make roms less accessible and doesn't make any damn difference.(It also won't save their pathetic consoles)

@Basinboy: Yeah, I doubt Disney is gonna let that happen. If it does become available to the public we're gonna see some crazy...crazy Mickey Mouse stuff.

No tears from me.

Nintendo is such a trash company lmfao.

Nintendo would rather people buy more garbage amiibos and a bunch of empty cardboard boxes "labo"(lol) to play with instead of playing games.

Nintendo doesn't want to make use of their VC platform to sell gamers what they want but don't want rom sites giving people the ability to enjoy those old games either.

lmfao Sheep are shameless.

Damn dude ninty crushing families 12 mill damn bro

God damn. Protecting your IPs in one thing, but sending people to the poorhouse over some old ass ROMs that they're not even putting up for sale is another. Didn't know Nintendo was going so hungry.

So anything that is currently not available to buy directly from the publisher of said product, shouldn't be copywritten at all? Sounds idiotic to me.

Nintendo destroying families :(

I seriously doubt that the husband and wife did $12 million worth of damage to Nintendo by sharing old ass ROMs.

This does not surprise me about the Disney of gaming. A family friendly happy go lucky image that hides a corporate monster that has for years held incredibly rigid and ruthless practises.

They are within their rights to protect their ips, but some of these have not been available for years and they could easily, easily offer them for next to nothing. So going after someone like this is mean spirited, because for many of the games, they aren't even contesting it with their own versions. They want you to buy and rebuy the same games over and over but destroy the lives of those who offer more.

Sega takes the modders and gives them jobs, Nintendo pursues them for 12 million dollars.

So piracy shouldn't be illegal ALL the time?

@dotWithShoes: If Nintendo offered all these games at a reasonable price there wouldn't be any need for piracy. And no, making people buy these games each console gen isn't reasonable either. And a 12 million dollar bill for this crime is totally disproportionate.

When you purchase media of any shape or form (that includes movies, music and video games), each of these formats often come with the presentation of a copyright infringement disclaimer warning that copying for redistribution of such content is strictly prohibited by law. Sometimes these disclaimers are presented upfront, and sometimes these disclaimers are somewhere in the fine-print.

So basically with every license/purchase to use various formats of media, you contractually agree with the provider that you cannot do these things without risk of consequences based on law.

So what happens when you break your agreements with the copyright holder? This is the potential reality you can face.

This is a doofus couple that thought they were an exception to the law. It does not matter if you agree with the company's lengths they stretched for or not, it is the couple that violated the mutual agreement in the first place.

I understand how crazy it seems when these types of stories break out when copyright laws do indeed bite those that violate them; but jesus christ, don't act like they didn't have it coming. It's not Nintendo's fault the married couple broke the agreement. No amount of petty whimpering any of you might have here over the couple is going to spare the fact they're going to suffer the consequences they called upon themselves.

A producer is free to set whatever price he or she wants. It's their product. If they price it out of your range, that isn't an excuse to turn to illegal means.

If you want the product, buy it. If you think it's priced too high, don't buy it. As a consumer, that is your power.

Then maybe Nintendo should bring back the VC on Switch and release all these games.

Im sure if they did this less people would resort to ROM Sites

Good for Nintendo. Protect your ip's. Not sure why anyone thinks they should have free access to the nintendo catalogue of games. That's not how it works. I've never understood the entitlement some gamers have to think they should have full access to every game ever released via even though they aren't legally available. This couple got revenue through site traffic due to giving away nintendo ip's. I fully support this decision as this couple broke the law. Not sure why people here are mad about this.

I agree with the sentiment of Nintendo being very mean spirited.

I was going to buy a switch this holiday but it's hard to justify supporting such a scumbag corporation. MS and it's owners give away Billions in Humanitarian Aid while Nintendo pursues a family giving away old Roms for $12 million dollars.

Nintendo is a Big ole Bully.

Absolutely, especially the bolded. One of the most anti-consumer and vindictive companies operating in gaming today laughably masquerading as something entirely antithetical as to what they pride themselves on being.

Perhaps if Nintendo afforded consumers, y'know, an actual COMPETENT Virtual Console service that didn't drip feed three whopping games a month held under lock down of a pathetic, years old behind-the-times antiquated service I'd feel more sympathy for them. It's true that in the light of the law there's no argument to be had here, but on a moral and preservation grounding there is. Many of these games that are causing Nintendo to lose "$12 million" are minuscule to their bottom line, and these ROM sites operate not so much on the incentive for financial gain (and if they do, that's for the upkeep of the site itself, not to profit off another's work), but mainly due to a love of the source material. People only wish to keep Nintendo's legacy alive that they themselves ignore and take no substantial initiative to offer the consumer through legitimate means. If they did so I'd be singing a very different tune and agree with this ruling 100%, but they don't. It is entirely punitive towards those who want to remember and honor Nintendo's past, and Nintendo goes after them for it.

While legally justified, it is still severely messed up. They're not only exceptionally petty and vehemently contemptuous towards their fan base that still (for some strange reason) adores them over something that's costing them very little, they hold no concern nor respect towards the products they created, that've made them who they are, and that've given so much enjoyment to so many over the years, and seem to view them as nothing but a means to stick it to their fans in the harshest of means possible. And in doing so, they've discouraged and threatened a method to keep the retro scene alive for nothing but the pettiest of corporate greed that they could be capitalizing on for very respectable revenue (making everyone happy) if they for once removed their heads out of their complacent, lazy asses and leveraged their legendary history to mutual benefit.

To hell with this company.....they deserve to rot.

Unfortunately, this is quite a complicated issue. The key thing is, is that these ROMS were distributed unofficially. Not much different than anime sub sites pirating from Japan just to sub anime to appeal to anti-dubbers, then Crunchyroll became a thing. Hell, practically the same as finding pirated films on Pirate Bay.

"But.. but... preservation."

Well, this wasn't the best way either. If anything, like movies, we need something like the Library of Congress.