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Couple Who Ran ROM Site To Pay Nintendo $12 Million (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the not-fucking-around dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Nintendo has won a lawsuit seeking to take two large retro-game ROM sites offline, on charges of copyright infringement. The judgement, made public today, ruled in Nintendo's favor and states that the owners of the sites LoveROMS.com and LoveRETRO.co, will have to pay a total settlement of $12 million to Nintendo. The complaint was originally filed by the company in an Arizona federal court in July, and has since lead to a swift purge of self-censorship by popular retro and emulator ROM sites, who have feared they may be sued by Nintendo as well.

LoveROMS.com and LoveRETRO.co were the joint property of couple Jacob and Cristian Mathias, before Nintendo sued them for what they have called "brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo's intellectual property rights." The suit never went to court; instead, the couple sought to settle after accepting the charge of direct and indirect copyright infringement. TorrentFreak reports that a permanent injunction, prohibiting them from using, sharing, or distributing Nintendo ROMs or other materials again in the future, has been included in the settlement. Additionally all games, game files, and emulators previously on the site and in their custody must be handed over to the Japanese game developer, along with a $12.23 million settlement figure. It is unlikely, as TorrentFreak have reported, that the couple will be obligated to pay the full figure; a smaller settlement has likely been negotiated in private.

62 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Copyrights Hijack History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Copyrights are now hijacking cultural history. If you're not actively selling the material to for some reasonable period (10 years) then the copyright should go to the public domain.

    1. Re:Copyrights Hijack History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's really unreasonable when the consoles necessary to run these games themselves are now considered obsolete, not just nintendoware

    2. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by RickyShade · · Score: 2

      Oh come on, these companies stopped making/selling these games 20-30 years ago. You reasonably believe they should still be able to claim theft? Explain that.

    3. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Immerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As a creator you work a few years to make something, you typically make 90% of the total money in the first few years, and can then milk the long tail for a tiny trickle of residual income for decades afterwards while depriving society, including other creators, of the ability to use your work.

      It's that last part I have a problem with - how is that in society's best interest? Because there's nothing sacred about copyright, it's an artificial gift from society, given to encourage creators to create more things. How exactly is that goal served by continuing to let you lock up your creation for another 90 years beyond when you've already extracted most of the total money you'll ever get from it?

      Disney, in addition to being one of the major architects of the current near-perpetual copyright terms, is an excellent poster child of why it's a bad deal. An incredible number of their hits are retellings of much older stories, mostly unencumbered by copyright. From Sleeping Beauty to Moana those stories are all, at their roots, other people's creations, given new life by a new interpretation in new media. Why should Disney get to strip-mine other people's creations without giving anything back?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Immerman · · Score: 3, Informative

      You've obviously never browsed the Nintendo online store - lots of ancient games back up for sale, prewrapped in crappy emulators that lack any of the impressive features of your typical 20-year-old PC-based emulator.

      Let's hear it for perpetual copyrights! Hip hip...*crickets chirping*.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    5. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by mikael · · Score: 2

      My local post office was selling Blaze Atari 2600 consoles built into what looks like an Atari joystick controller. Something like 10 games built in.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    6. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by blahplusplus · · Score: 1, Informative

      It's that last part I have a problem with - how is that in society's best interest?

      How is us being able to not repair or preserve our videogames in the public interest? Little shits like you have been piggybacking on corporate money for a long time. We essentially have eternal copyrights where nothing goes public domain.

      Copyright law has been extended 5 times in favor of "value creators" over the public interest every time, arguments like yours fall on deaf ears because corporations own our governments.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      IP law was created to incentivize you to produce works that are accessable to the public to enjoy, not for you to build a feudal empire which is what modern IP law amounts to.

      If rule of law existed and sane IP laws were in effect, games would be going open source 12-20 years after they were made and Nintendo's little lawsuit wouldn't even exist because Mario and other old games had fallen into the public domain.

      The fact that we don't get source code for PC games that we've all bought is also a big pisser, which is why we have to resort to revese engineering and emulation, if we'd gotten the source code with the games we were paying for every game that has been created for PC would not need an emulator and could be enhanced and updated. The reality is the public is too stupid to understand technology or IP which is why IP law is so corrupt to begin with. The average citizen in capitalist society is a moron which is why human cultural works like videogames are broken and being destroyed by big companies in their eternal quest to prevent any and all culture from ever slipping into public hands.

      People like you should go read Lessigs book "Free culture". The big plan is for corps and the 1% to have a monopoly on all human culture.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    7. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "The key phrase here being -your work-. My work is my work. You have no rights to use it. Ever."

      We do because your "IP" is a publically granted monopoly, we can revoke your property rights if you defy the public interest. AKA you only get "IP" (aka monopoly rights) on the grounds it servers the public interest.

      As soon as it stops doing that we can trample your "rights" because they weren't rights at all IP is much different from regular property, since information is not a rivalrous good, I wouldn't want to live in a world with jackasses like you extracting a toll fee for every word in language because you had somehow copyrighted the english language.

    8. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The key phrase here being -your work-. My work is my work. You have no rights to use it. Ever. It is not yours. It is mine.

      Then keep it to yourself. Don't go running around town showing your work to everyone and then get pissed off when someone decides to imitate or copy you.

      After you have owned your car for 5 years and it lost 90% of its value I am taking it. Why? Because why not?

      Taking is not copying. Copying is not theft. Only an idiot of the highest caliber would confuse the two.

      If you want to make a non-destructive atom-by-atom copy of my crappy old vehicle while I am away shopping at Walmart (I can't afford to shop anywhere else) and you can complete the copy by the time I get back to my vehicle you are most welcome to it.

      How managed come of age and not understand the very basic concept of ownership is baffling to me.

      It's not ownership that is being protected by copyright law it's control over how content can be used backed by governments monopoly on infliction of boredom, injury and death.

      People understand the difference between reproduction and theft hence vastly different legal regimes in which both concepts exist. Your inability to recognize the difference renders your argument moot.

    9. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >

      The key phrase here being -your work-. My work is my work. You have no rights to use it. Ever. It is not yours. It is mine. Most children learned this by age 5 regarding cookies. How managed come of age and not understand the very basic concept of ownership is baffling to me.

      Ideas and cookies are not equivalent. If someone takes an idea and adapts it and adds to it, at what point is it still one person's work?

      Claiming an idea as your own and no one else may have the same idea or expand upon your idea for the rest of your natural life (and then some) is not some sort of inalienable right endowed upon us by our creator that deserves to be enshrined in some sort of declaration, it's basically just an unreasonable demand by someone who, like everyone else born in the past several hundred years, is simply building upon the culture they inherited.

      I'm sure that whatever intellectual property you own that makes you feel threatened by this subject is no different at all and is also just a extension or derivative of someone else's prior work that influenced you, but now that YOU own it, it's sacred and and by god it's your cookie and no one can take that cookie from you.

    10. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In that case you shouldn't really care about getting your hands on it so much, right?

      Oh, wait.

    11. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      That's weird, because there are countless stories about valuable vintage cars that get discovered stored away in a barn or outbuilding. Often, the owner gets a lot of money for them from a collector.

    12. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by hackwrench · · Score: 2

      Having created a "metaverse" Creation is merely a natural process of our brains a computer part of the larger computer, the universe itself. http://hackwrench.tripodcom/

    13. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by ChromeAeonuim · · Score: 3, Insightful

      sound like you have never created anything in your life.

      I have. I know the hard work that goes into making something new (in my case it would be a patent matter not copyright, but still), however at the same time I acknowledge that did it on the shoulders of those who came before me. That should be the deal with copyright and patent law. You get protection for a reasonable period of time, enough time that you have a chance to make a living and support further creative work, then it goes back to the public domain. Sounds fair to me.

      This has stopped happening in the case of copyright. Corporations want the first part of the bargain but, thanks to clever investments in the right politicians, they don't have to do the second part. There's a give and take, but all they want to do is take. That's not a fair balance.

      I'd have sympathy if someone was distributing something recent, like Smash Bros Ultimate. If that were the case, then yeah, sue them. But if it is some old game from 20 years ago, or something that they aren't even selling anymore, then no. Companies shouldn't get to sit on culture indefinitely, even long after the artists are dead in some cases, and keep collecting paychecks. I think it is absurd that major cultural works, things whose creators died before I was even born, are going to be controlled by media corporations for decades to come, maybe even long if/when the media companies buy new copyright extension laws.

    14. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Way to ignore the elephant in the room. "Happy Birthday" only recently fell into the public domain. I think you'd be very hard pressed to find somebody who was alive when "Good Morning to You" was originally written and released. What right do you have to collect rent on a given "work" several decades later? If the length of copyright is rivaling that of the lifespan of a human (or even longer), there is effectively no public domain.

    15. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by fred911 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "basic concept of ownership"

      That's when you have something that if someone takes from you, you are deprived of possessing or using. That's the "basic concept".

        If someone uses your brain-fart it doesn't deprive
      you from usage.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    16. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Calydor · · Score: 2

      Children also learned that sharing their cookies was a good and kind thing to do, and that being good and kind are traits to admire not ridicule.

      Your post basically comes across as a self-centered and entitled ME FIRST AND SCREW SOCIETY!

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    17. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      In my opinion that is the main problem we have in society today. Parents have stopped being that, parents. And it has allowed society to go into a nose dive of greed and "me me me" selfishness. And it is not just happening in the USA it it world wide. I believe it started in the USA with the shaming and criminal charges against people who disciplined their children. I'm not saying beat your kids senseless, I'm saying you will be hard pressed to find a decent person that hasn't has their back side turned red by their parents a time or two.

    18. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      To be fair to Nintendo their Virtual Console emulators are generally thought to be some of the best, in terms of accuracy. Compared to a lot of other commercial offerings they are top tier.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    19. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Calydor · · Score: 1

      My mother did that all of once, and slapped me across the face once as well. I'd like to think I came out somewhat decently on the other side of it all.

      The thing about punishment is it stops working if you do it all the time, it just becomes par for the course. There has to be a shock effect to it if you want it to be effective.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    20. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Immerman · · Score: 1

      >My work is my work. You have no rights to use it.

      Absolutely wrong. Physical artifacts can be owned - information can not. That's why it's called "copy right", and not "intellectual property", which is just a term made up by corporate interests trying to extend their control.

      Ideas cannot be taken, only shared. When you take something, you deprive the original owner of it - and it's not possible for me to deprive you of your idea short of killing you.

      If you create an idea you can either keep it secret, or share it with the world. I have no right to your idea if you do not wish to share it. But once you share it with even one other person it's no longer only your idea, you have copied it, and now they have it too. To prevent further spread you have to put artificial limits on what they do with *their* copy of the idea , and you have no natural right to restrict what they do with their things.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    21. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Also it's not just *YOUR* work - it's a work you built out of bits and pieces of countless other people's work - because that's how culture operates. Every plot twist, character, etc. you create is heavily influenced by the plots and characters you've seen throughout your life, even if you're not consciously aware of it.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    22. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by mysidia · · Score: 1

      it started in the USA with the shaming and criminal charges against people who disciplined their children. I'm not saying beat your kids senseless

      I think SOME minority of parents DID over-discipline their children and perhaps did "beat their kids senseless," and then
      some of those kids who had to endure that remained senseless and never recovered AND found their way into government seeking "revenge" against all future parents in the name of getting back at their own parents.

    23. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      Which comes back to not beating your kid senseless. Some children need to be disciplined more than others. No child needs to be beaten daily. And some lessons can be taught without an ass whooping.

    24. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I've never seen a commercial emulator that was worth a damned, so I'm not surprised. Pretty much all the good ones are open source - there's just no money to be made in emulators unless you're the copyright owner of vast libraries of content. Without that you've just spent vast amount of effort creating a tool that can mostly only be used by criminals.

      And I would venture a guess that the vast majority of emulator users could care less about accuracy beyond playing properly. I've never met an emulator user (in person at least) that hasn't been delighted by such woeful inaccuracies as resolution up-scaling to make games look almost as good as you remember, rather than as bad as they really were.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    25. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Rhipf · · Score: 2

      So just because Shakespeare plays are still for sale his heirs should get a royalty for those sales? Yes I realize this is an extreme example but Nintendo isn't a person so will not die and could conceivably be in business in 200 years. Would it be ok at that time to post ROMs of 1980's games online?

      Copyrights, patents, etc. aren't to show that you have an inherent right to the item covered. It is society (via our government) stating that we are allowing you to capitalize on those items for a limited period of time. After that period of capitalization your item is returned to public domain. That covenant has kind of been broken though since the end goal when those items enter the public domain keeps being pushed further and further out.

    26. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Rhipf · · Score: 1

      Actually, your statement should be "Photocopying my car is the same as me photocopying your art and selling it. Hurrrr.". The whole point of the OP's statement was that the IP wasn't being stolen. But then I guess the ignorant Right don't see the difference between copying and stealing (see I can sling meaningless political insults too).

    27. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Rhipf · · Score: 1

      You would have been better off creating something under copyright. Patents are only good for 20 years.Copyrights last a lifetime (and the lifetime of your offspring).

    28. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 1

      The fact that we don't get source code for PC games that we've all bought is also a big pisser, which is why we have to resort to revese engineering and emulation, if we'd gotten the source code with the games we were paying for every game that has been created for PC would not need an emulator and could be enhanced and updated.

      I mean, aside from being an ass to whomever you replied to, who was effectively agreeing with you; you want companies to give you their secret sauce that they spent millions on developing, for the price you pay for a game? It's bad enough the Chinese are making cheap knockoffs of everything already.

      The progress we see in games is driven in large part by the fact these companies take huge gambles developing their AAA games. Obviously this is happening less and less, where everything is getting rehashed, but it does not take away from my point.

      --
      I tend to rant.
    29. Re:Copyrights Hijack History by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Copyrights are now hijacking cultural history. If you're not actively selling the material to for some reasonable period (10 years) then the copyright should go to the public domain.

      I would agree with you if I didn't just buy a whole lot of original 30 year old games from Nintendo's store to play on the Switch.

    30. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      You may be onto something here..

    31. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      You would have been better off creating something under copyright. Patents are only good for 20 years.Copyrights last a lifetime (and the lifetime of your offspring).

      Yes and no. Even though copyright has much longer life time enforcement, it has much lower power than patent. In patent, if anyone makes and sells something as described in your patent, you can sue the person regardless the person knew nothing about the patent and came up with the idea himself/herself.

      In copyright, if someone creates work and holds copyright of the work, you can still create the same work with similar technique and won't infringe on the copyright. For example, a famous photographer takes a picture of the Eiffel tower and sells it for good money. You then go to the exactly the same spot and use exactly the same camera/lens to take a picture. You get the similar picture (using similar photography technique) and sell it for good money. Then you are not infringing the copyright of the famous photographer because it is your own work. I believe there is a case lawsuit somewhere similar to the example I gave. I just can't find it online.

    32. Re: Copyrights Hijack History by Agripa · · Score: 1

      So just because Shakespeare plays are still for sale his heirs should get a royalty for those sales?

      Yes because otherwise what incentive will Shakespeare have to produce more content?

  2. may need some chapter 11 and 7 to get out of that by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    may need some chapter 11 and 7 to get out of that no way that there sites made that much.

  3. Super lame. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The internet used to be so much better.

  4. Re:Don't steal by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    How many of these court cases have to be won by rights holders until you entitled gayme tards stop stealing.

    These court cases affect only a tiny fraction of a percent, and only the dumb ones.

    Just offshore your server, and register the domain with a fake name or a shell corp in the Cayman Islands. How hard is that?

  5. Re: Fuck Nintendo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nintendo has been releasing tons of old games on their service. They were most certainly still selling some of those roms.

    Once these companies learned there was still money to be made in these old games, it was all over for rom sites.

  6. Misleading Headline by silverkniveshotmail. · · Score: 3

    They won't pay anything near $12M.

  7. "Smaller settlement" by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I imagine that smaller settlement includes a declaration of bankruptcy by the couple. What else could one do in such a situation?

  8. predicted unexpected outcome: by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    Faxanadu coming soon to Switch Online. :-D

  9. Way to miss the point by MikeRT · · Score: 3, Informative

    How is us being able to not repair or preserve our videogames in the public interest? Little shits like you have been piggybacking on corporate money for a long time. We essentially have eternal copyrights where nothing goes public domain.

    GP was agreeing with you by saying that the whole purpose of extending those copyrights is to let people continue to squeeze out the last drops of value to the detriment of the public.

    1. Re:Way to miss the point by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

      How is us being able to not repair or preserve our videogames in the public interest? Little shits like you have been piggybacking on corporate money for a long time. We essentially have eternal copyrights where nothing goes public domain.

      GP was agreeing with you by saying that the whole purpose of extending those copyrights is to let people continue to squeeze out the last drops of value to the detriment of the public.

      Sorry about that, I misread your post or was replying to someone else.

  10. Nintendo added to my boycott list by Morgaine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The message that Nintendo is sending fans seems clear. Don't use, buy, play or in any other way invest your time or money in Nintendo, as their only interest is in bleeding you dry by whatever means they can. As a company they are signaling that they have neither social insight nor ethics, and do not treat fans as assets nor as free publicity.

    Message received and understood, so I'm adding Nintendo to my short boycott list. It's just a personal statement and of course will have no effect on Nintendo individually, but I doubt that I will be the only one making such a decision. Evil deeds and blind corporate greed should not go unpunished. Conversely, competitors now gain an extra chance.

    My poor Wii will never have a brother or a sister.

    --
    "The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
    1. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If all you have is a Wii, you were never a real Nintendo customer. That's just a mainstream console that 'everybody was buying.'

    2. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by ledow · · Score: 1

      I would have thought it was clearly than that - please don't keep giving away the stuff we own that we're still selling because it's quite blatantly illegal and we hardly even need to present evidence to prove that in a court of law.

      That's ALWAYS been the case. You think this is something new? ROM sites were being shut down every day as far back as the 90's, because THEY ARE ILLEGAL.

      All the "abandonware", "well, it's free advertising for their brands" etc. arguments were primitive attempts to justify wholesale copyright infringement.

      Note that I do draw a line - there's a difference between a guy who downloads his favourite game for his favourite system that he has in a cupboard still, because it's easier to do that than wire up to a physical ROM cartridge to extract it, and a site offering literally hundreds of thousands of ROMs for every system known to man, none of which they ever owned. But so does Nintendo draw that exact same line.

      And they had the nous to realise that these games were still popular and offer them for everything from the Wii up as "Virtual Console" games so people could enjoy the old games again (third-party licensing issues aside, Nintendo can no more distribute someone else's stuff than I can distribute Nintendo's stuff).

      Maybe I'm biased against your attitude because not only do I pay for stuff, I don't use things that I don't have a license to. I kind of follow your attitude - "You don't want me to do that... fine, I won't". Except I say that from the point of view of "it's your product and you don't want me to" rather than "I'm going to pretend that I'm a significant investment to you on my own and 'withdraw' the privilege of me playing 90's games that I never paid you for in the first place."

      The message is: ROM sites aren't legal, we will sue the people who run them, and get them shut down, especially when you *can* still legally buy those ROMs from us. That's been the same message since 1990-ish. You're 30 years too late on your faux-rage.

      I also speak as someone who loves emulation. I have the ROM / TZX / ISO of loads of games. The games I own. The games I still have the discs / systems for. The games I could have made those files for myself. I don't distribute them. I play them for my own nostalgia. I actually own "legal" ROMs too... the ones that StarROMS were selling many years ago, and various software that includes ROMs (some of the Williams classic arcade software from the 90's that includes the full Joust ROMs etc. in an emulator).

      And I've also paid for those, or paid for virtual-console titles, etc. too. Because, you know what, if a game is so good that you want to break the law to carry on playing it, maybe it's worth another couple of dollars to the original creators, even if it's 20+ years old, eh? Sure, you may have paid for it back in the day, but if it's that good, it's worth paying a few pennies more to get it again and in a modern, legal format so you can continue to enjoy it, no? And to say "Hey, thanks, Nintendo, these games got me through my childhood and I'm a grown adult now, so I can give you a little bit to say thanks for all those hours of entertainment".

    3. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A site hosting hundreds of thousands of ROMs is a requirement for that guy to be able to go online and download the one he has a partial-legal right to. Sounds like you made use of such sites yourself. Why is it that people who speak out for something are often the ones engaging in it?

      Copyright was supposed to be for a limited time. In an age without internet, fast cars, or easy distribution, that limited time was 14 years. If anything copyright should be shorter now than then. It isn't. Currently copyright is multiple generations long. That's far, far too long and thus worth completely ignoring. Once something swings so far out of whack it's only natural for it to swing the other way just as far. They've distorted copyright so far there's no moral issues with completely ignoring it.

      You use your toothbrush every day don't you? It's clearly saving you a more expensive trip to the dentist, so you should pay a usage fee on that toothbrush until it breaks. Same with your shoes, fridge, cleaning detergent, etc... Copyright is in complete disharmony with how the world works.

      And if you look at how copyright is enforced, they use the same tactics as thugs and criminals. Even if you believe in the righteousness of copyright, you shouldn't approve of the immoral way it's enforced. Or do you believe breaking your legs is valid punishment for jay-walking (which doesn't even exist in all cultures, same as copyright not existing in all cultures. Their cultures don't collapse without it nor do they lack for locally produced artwork and stories).

    4. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The message that Nintendo is sending fans seems clear. Don't use, buy, play or in any other way invest your time or money in Nintendo

      Actually the message they are sending is that they don't abandon their IP and you can get these old ROMs legitimately designed to run on your current hardware for pennies on their online store.

      I get upset at a lot of anti-piracy bullshit, but at least Nintendo actively do something with their IP.

    5. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by tepples · · Score: 1

      Currently copyright is multiple generations long.

      The "three-generation principle" was allegedly established a century ago. See "The Copyright Term Red Herring" by Leo Lichtman.

    6. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by tepples · · Score: 1

      The message that Nintendo is sending fans seems clear. Don't use, buy, play or in any other way invest your time or money in Nintendo, as their only interest is in bleeding you dry by whatever means they can.

      exactly, just bought a PS4 for my nephew and another one for me... I wasn't sure if getting a switch or a PS4 but this just help me made up my mind.

      I don't see how Sony is any better with the Connectix and Bleem lawsuits (which it lost but attorney's fees drove the defendants to bankruptcy), Geohot lawsuit (which it won), the XCP rootkit, reluctance toward cross-platform multiplayer, and the like.

      So the message that Sony sent fans seems clear. Don't use, buy, play or in any other way invest your time or money in Sony, as their only interest is in bleeding you dry by whatever means they can. (Etc., etc.)

    7. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      To be fair, Nintendo do at least offer a huge chunk of their back catalogue, often in many forms, for sale. That they do not offer official ROM releases for user to play on PCs, which is a shame, but if any company has a right to protect 20 old copyright it is the company that is still actively selling that copyright.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    8. Re:Nintendo added to my boycott list by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      That's a pretty poor application of the meme. The Wii was a 'high water mark' console. Owning one is mainstream, not the mark of a gamer who likes Nintendo. How many 3DS carts do you own? What's your favorite Wii U game.

  11. Re:Nintendo can DIAF by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

    Nintendo comes out with new good stuff all the time. I am really looking forward to the new Animal Crossing game for the Switch, whenever it comes out. It won't be just a retread of the old A.C. Every new version of Animal Crossing they have come out with has new fun stuff in it.

  12. Including third-party NES game publishers? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Conversely, competitors now gain an extra chance.

    Does this include competitors making indie games for Nintendo's older consoles, such as Haunted: Halloween '86 (The Curse of Possum Hollow) and Micro Mages ?

    1. Re:Including third-party NES game publishers? by tepples · · Score: 1

      When pursuing ROM sites, Nintendo has authority to assert copyright over only its first-party games. Or what am I missing?

    2. Re:Including third-party NES game publishers? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Sony has been just as abusive toward George Hotz, and Microsoft is responsible for Windows 10. So which set-top gaming appliance's maker isn't abusive?

    3. Re:Including third-party NES game publishers? by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      Nintendo does not have the authority to prevent someone from "USING nintendo ROMs" either, but when you sign an injunction saying they do for you personally....

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  13. Please explain to me... by shentino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...why Nintendo gets ALL the roms?

    I mean surely there are games out there that Nintendo doesn't have copyright for. Why should they get the chance to reverse engineer someone else's IP?

    What would the likes of Namco, Accolade, Sega, and so on have to say about this?

    1. Re:Please explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Silly consumer! Petty laws like copyright do not apply to corporations.

    2. Re:Please explain to me... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      reverse engineer

      Reverse engineer a 30 year old game designed for a system that no longer exists? I'm sure if Nintendo wanted to waste money they could just throw cash into the boiler in their basement. But really let's get a grip. It's not like they couldn't just dump the ROMs like any other person did.

  14. Re:Don't steal by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's not stealing. It's copyright infringement. They really can't be more different.

    If it was stealing they would have been charged in a criminal court and imprisoned. This was a civil suit, where they were charged an amount to compensate for the losses claimed by Nintendo.

  15. Re:Don't steal by Freischutz · · Score: 1

    It's not stealing. It's copyright infringement. They really can't be more different. If it was stealing they would have been charged in a criminal court and imprisoned. This was a civil suit, where they were charged an amount to compensate for the losses claimed by Nintendo.

    I don't really care, I will never understand why people do this because everybody loses. If I am understanding this correctly these people are making old games that Nintendo no longer markets or supports and for which there is no new production hardware available playable on emulators. Since I don't think this retro games niche market is massively cutting into Nintendo's modern games business it seems to me that it serves no purpose to shut these businesses down. If I was Nintendo, and I was vexed by people doing digital archeology on my ancient retro games available and profiting form it, I'd just make them an offer they couldn't refuse. In return for paying me a fair license fee, a percentage of net profits on each sale perhaps, they would get an official license from Nintendo to make this retro stuff available to enthusiasts which they can hang on their wall and show any lawyer that comes calling and yapping about copyright violations and I'd gladly throw in complete access to original Nintendo documentation on out-of-production hardware to make your emulator work easier and increase your emulator's product quality. That way the retro enthusiasts are happy, the company stays in business and Nintendo would have a revenue stream from products that were netting them no revenue previously which they can pour into the development of new games, ... buuut, no, let's shut them down instead.

  16. Questions of Legal Anons by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    The Judgment ... The suit never went to court; instead, the couple sought to settle

    Can it be said to be a "judgment", if no court, judge, police, or any official officer of justice has anything to do with the outcome?

    A permanent injunction, prohibiting them from USING, sharing, or distributing Nintendo ROMs or other materials again in the future, has been included in the settlement.

    Is it possible for an injunction to stripe something that is considered a right of all owners of cartridge games from someone? This would seem to not only prevent backup copies, but any sort of participation in the modding scene at all (I am assuming no one has designed something that plugs into a nintendo console to allow you to play mods of old cartridge mario games).
    Could the injunction just as easily of said they are prohibited from ever operating a computer, or owning a website? I have heard of judges prohibiting computer use before, but first that is a judge and second even that sounds like it has some pretty shaky foundations.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.