Nintendo found that compensation for damages for cases that appealed illegal ROM distribution site settled at 1.4 billion yen

By Rafael Hernandez

In a lawsuit that Nintendo of America (NOA) was issuing to publishers as a site that illegally distributes game ROM files violated their rights and was profitable, the amount of damages was about 1200 It was reported that it is expected that it will settle down for a million dollars (about 1.4 billion yen).

Couple Who Ran ROM Site to Pay Nintendo $ 12 Million - Motherboard
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjezda/couple-who-ran-rom-site-to-pay-nintendo-dollar12-million?utm_source=reddit.com

Nintendo 'Wins' $ 12 Million From Pirate ROM Site Operators - TorrentFreak
https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-wins-12-million-from-pirate-rom-site-operators-181112/

NOA is complaining of copyright infringement, Jacob Mathias who was running the site "LoveROMs.com" and "LoveRETRO.co" which distributed pirated ROMs, and Mr. Cristian Mathias his wife. LoveROMS.com is a site that distributed ROM data of past games and BIOS of hardware, and LoveRETRO.co is a site where you can play pirated games with an emulator that runs on the browser. The lawsuit was first reported in July 2018, and it was supposed to be claiming damages of "several hundred million yen".

Nintendo appeals a famous site that distributes pirated games, damages compensation is hundreds of millions of yen? - GIGAZINE

Both sites sued filed immediately shut down the site and stop distribution of ROM and provision of emulator. Following that trend, the long-established store of ROM data distribution site " Emuparadise " which has been running for 18 years has also closed the site.

A long-established store ROM site that lasted 18 years after receiving a lawsuit against Nintendo's piracy distribution site declared the end of data distribution - GIGAZINE

TorrentFreak of overseas site got a case document on this case. From that point, it turned out that Mathias and his wife are moving towards agreement paying NOA for damages of $ 12.23 million (about 1.4 billion yen). The couple acknowledged that both parties involved in the ROM distribution site caused the direct and indirect copyright infringement and trademark infringement that caused the irreparable damage suffered by NOA, In fact, NOA's appeal has been almost fully accepted.

However, it is unlikely that they will have the ability to pay for this amount, and TorrentFreak predicts that actual payments will be smaller. The background that NOA showed this amount is considered to have a strong hue as a deterrent against other illegal sites.

In response to this incident, it seems to be said that it is becoming extremely difficult for existing illegal ROM sites to keep operating as usual. The top page of both LoveROMs.com and LoveRetro.co's site is in a state where the exact same apology statement to NOA is displayed immediately after receiving the lawsuit.

LoveROMs.com
http://www.loveroms.com/

LoveRetro.co
http://www.loveretro.co/