Nintendo ROM Site Lawsuit Results in $12 Million Judgement
That's a lot of coins.
Nintendo has been awarded $12,230,000 by an Arizona judge following its lawsuit against two ROM hosting sites.
Back in July, Nintendo issued lawsuits to LoveRETRO and LoveROMS, both run by the same married couple, Jacob and Cristian Mathias. The couple have since taken down both sites, and entered settlement negotiations with Nintendo to avoid a legal battle.
TorrentFreak now reports that the two sides have agreed to a consent judgement. Unsigned judgement documents read: “Plaintiff is hereby awarded judgment against all Defendants, jointly and severally, in the amount of $12,230,000”.
The couple have apparently also agreed to a permanent injunction, preventing them from breaching Nintendo copyright again, handing over ownership of both sites to the developer, and handing over all Nintendo games and emulators.
The high value of the judgement may be intended as a deterrent to other ROM hosting sites. Previous settlements of this kind have resulted in behind-closed-doors settlements involving lower payouts, although it's by no means clear if that's true in this case.
Nintendo is famously protective of its copyright, and won a legal battle against an unlicensed Mario Kart tour company operating in Tokyo earlier this year.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and he's worried about that one NES controller T-shirt he owns. You never know. Follow him on Twitter.
