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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.

19 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 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.

    2. 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?

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      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    3. 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*.

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      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. 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.

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      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    5. 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.

    6. 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/

    7. 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.

    8. 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.

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    9. 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!

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      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    10. 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.

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

    They won't pay anything near $12M.

  3. "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?

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

    Faxanadu coming soon to Switch Online. :-D

  5. 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.

  6. 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 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).

  7. 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?

  8. 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.