Current Events > Nintendo Sues Console ROM Sites For 'Mass' Copyright Infringement

(+) Yeah! (+)

isn't nintendo losing money going after these people? these games aren't made anymore.

just let them be for fucks sake. it's one thing to sue someone that pirates a game that is 3 months old....its another thing to sue piracy for stuff that hasn't been produced in 20 years and cannot be found anywhere else.

Bloodychess posted...

They are well within their right to sue, but cut one head off and two more will take its place

Pretty much this. They are just flexing nuts at this point. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it's out for good. That's the way digital piracy survives.

What a waste of time and money, does Nintendo not understand the internet? There's more than one way to skin a cat.
---

voldothegr8 posted...

does Nintendo not understand the internet?

I mean ...

No idea if theyll win but Ninty is pretty serious when it comes to the court system.
---

I mean I understand the principle but don't fucking take down sites that host your old N64 games when you're not providing a legitimate solution for people to play those games again.
---

They won't win
---

Nintendo is a very conservative company which is why they have been slow to adapt to the internet and their digital policy is a total mess. Think of how some movie and music media companies just tried to sue piracy away and then eventually had to give up and provide a superior service with streaming and digital distribution for reasonable prices. Steam did this for PC gaming and basically saved the industry. You beat piracy by being a better alternative. Look at CD Projekt (and GOG), they literally don't protect their software at all. You can just share it with other people and nothing will stop you and yet they make millions. Nintendo though is full of old people who are out of touch and would rather fight the future than embrace it. That's why they are behind in online, mobile, and haven't even touched PC yet. They think it's better to sue ROM sites than offer their catalogue on Steam and make millions. That's going to be the case for the near future.
---

Seems to me this is a thing Nintendo could do at literally any time with literally any of a number of sites.

There has to be some particular reason they went for these two in particular.

EDIT:

Both sites are believed to be operated by Jacob Mathias and his Arizona company Mathias Designs LLC. They offer access to a wide variety of ROMs, including many Nintendo games.

Might be this was all done specifically to go against this guy in particular. I'm not sure what he's been up to but perhaps he got a little too big for his britches?
---

Bad look for Nintendo. Maybe they should focus on improving their own online service and library?
---

What's next, nintendo gonna go to a flea market or thrift store and sue someone for selling old nes games?
---

CyricZ posted...

Seems to me this is a thing Nintendo could do at literally any time with literally any of a number of sites.

There has to be some particular reason they went for these two in particular.

EDIT:

Both sites are believed to be operated by Jacob Mathias and his Arizona company Mathias Designs LLC. They offer access to a wide variety of ROMs, including many Nintendo games.

Might be this was all done specifically to go against this guy in particular. I'm not sure what he's been up to but perhaps he got a little too big for his britches?

Two things I've noticed. One. The first one is almost always the first google results for most searches of "x game rom" (it still is). Second. They offered a paid service to get rid of ads, faster downloading etc. which meant they profited from it, something that's much easier to take down in court.
---

GiftedACIII posted...

They offered a paid service to get rid of ads, faster downloading etc. which meant they profited from it, something that's much easier to take down in court.

Aha. This sounds like it.
---

Nintendo have a long history of going ballistic against pirates going way back to when there were floppy disk-based backup devices, and even before that against companies that just made unlicensed carts for the NES. They were always the first to take it to court while Sega especially and to a certain degree Sony were much more hands-off about it. A Sega dev actually left notes to a hacker group on the Sega Smash Pack disc for Dreamcast on how to hack it to run other ROMs, so their stance goes back a long way, too.

The wrong side won the 90s console wars, tbh.
---

kayoticdreamz posted...

isn't nintendo losing money going after these people? these games aren't made anymore.

just let them be for fucks sake. it's one thing to sue someone that pirates a game that is 3 months old....its another thing to sue piracy for stuff that hasn't been produced in 20 years and cannot be found anywhere else.

---

I learned it's the so called "pirates" that will preserve history and keep the legacy alive. How can you pirate a game that can't be bought under any circumstances (IE: Round 42 for DOS), and almost never be found, and was virtually forgotten entirely over time?
---

And stuff like ZeldaClassic is great. Home-brewed Zelda was awesome. I played the unofficial 3rd quest. If Nintendo made Zelda 1 again, I'd highly recommend that be added to the game.
---

kayoticdreamz posted...

isn't nintendo losing money going after these people? these games aren't made anymore.

just let them be for fucks sake. it's one thing to sue someone that pirates a game that is 3 months old....its another thing to sue piracy for stuff that hasn't been produced in 20 years and cannot be found anywhere else.

A copyright that isn't defended is a copyright forfeited.
Or something like that.

Blame Disney for copyrights lasting essentially forever.

Questionmarktarius posted...

kayoticdreamz posted...

isn't nintendo losing money going after these people? these games aren't made anymore.

just let them be for fucks sake. it's one thing to sue someone that pirates a game that is 3 months old....its another thing to sue piracy for stuff that hasn't been produced in 20 years and cannot be found anywhere else.

A copyright that isn't defended is a copyright forfeited.
Or something like that.

Blame Disney for copyrights lasting essentially forever.

I'll never forgive Disney for making copyright laws all fucked up. It's one thing to protect ones intellectual property, and another to essentially use copyright to punish people who just happen to have 3 fucking seconds of background music in an otherwise innocent video, and break their own copyright laws. Didn't kids under the age of 10 get sued for billions of dollars under RIAA in the early 2000s?
---

MI4 REAL posted...

kayoticdreamz posted...

isn't nintendo losing money going after these people? these games aren't made anymore.

just let them be for fucks sake. it's one thing to sue someone that pirates a game that is 3 months old....its another thing to sue piracy for stuff that hasn't been produced in 20 years and cannot be found anywhere else.

I could also understand a lot more if they actually sold these games on their current hardware, but most of them they do not, so it's not like they're losing money at all.
---

Terra-enforcer posted...

MI4 REAL posted...

kayoticdreamz posted...

isn't nintendo losing money going after these people? these games aren't made anymore.

just let them be for fucks sake. it's one thing to sue someone that pirates a game that is 3 months old....its another thing to sue piracy for stuff that hasn't been produced in 20 years and cannot be found anywhere else.

I could also understand a lot more if they actually sold these games on their current hardware, but most of them they do not, so it's not like they're losing money at all.

The one time I tried to pay a shareware fee I lost $28, because it was a money order.
---

MI4 REAL posted...

I learned it's the so called "pirates" that will preserve history and keep the legacy alive. How can you pirate a game that can't be bought under any circumstances (IE: Round 42 for DOS), and almost never be found, and was virtually forgotten entirely over time?

Exactly. Sadly, a lot of stuff was actually lost to the Internet when some sites were taken down. Underground Gamer is probably the best example.
---

Dunno who UG was....I never used a ROM...unless Zelda Classic is considered one.
---

Ahhh looks like the tropical paradise is unscathed
---

I bet it will become "piracy" if we play a CD and someone overhears the music.
---

MI4 REAL posted...

I bet it will become "piracy" if we play a CD and someone overhears the music.

I mean, technically it is!
---

Yeah, exactly, anything can be "Technical" it's just abused to hell and back. Might as well never own CDs again! Dear God, if 5 people in a household can listen to the same song one ONE CD, it's piracy!
---

VTBM posted...

MI4 REAL posted...

I bet it will become "piracy" if we play a CD and someone overhears the music.

I mean, technically it is!

If you're doing it at anything resembling a "public" venue, yes.
Go ahead and call the copyright cops on those assholes driving down the street at 2 in the morning blasting whatever "dun dun dun dun doo dun dun dun dun"

Neither of those 2 sites i use so idc lol
---

Doesn't matter how public or private it is.

Got a family of 10? Your ass must be playing 10 copies of the CDs on 10 stereos or else you're a criminal!
---

MI4 REAL posted...

Doesn't matter how public or private it is.

Got a family of 10? Your ass must be playing 10 copies of the CDs on 10 stereos or else you're a criminal!

No, that's still "private home use" or whatever.

that paradise website is still up though
---

FightingGames posted...

that paradise website is still up though

They don't have a lot of SNES games though, haven't for a while and i suppose its because of this same reason.
---

Questionmarktarius posted...

MI4 REAL posted...

Doesn't matter how public or private it is.

Got a family of 10? Your ass must be playing 10 copies of the CDs on 10 stereos or else you're a criminal!

No, that's still "private home use" or whatever.

Just wait, they'll criminalize that, too.
---

FightingGames posted...

that paradise website is still up though

These two "love" sites must have started spamming on social media or SEO'd the hell out of the sites or something. It's only the moles who pop up that get whacked.

SpiralDrift posted...

MI4 REAL posted...

I learned it's the so called "pirates" that will preserve history and keep the legacy alive. How can you pirate a game that can't be bought under any circumstances (IE: Round 42 for DOS), and almost never be found, and was virtually forgotten entirely over time?

Exactly. Sadly, a lot of stuff was actually lost to the Internet when some sites were taken down. Underground Gamer is probably the best example.

yep

piracy actually keeps some things alive and well.....but nope lets sue the shit out of those guys, make 0 money, and bury the "item" forever.

if we've learned anything it is that, while it is on the internet, it can be indeed be on the internet forever, but it is also just as possible that the internet will one day lose the "item" forever.

I think this is also why some of us have so much porn backed up because that shit gets lost eventually.