Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against two of the most popular ROM sites on the web. Both sites are supposedly run by the same owner and company. The websites in question are LoveROMS and LoveRETRO, both of which now have a hefty lawsuit to deal with. The basis of the lawsuit revolves around the fact that the two sites have both distributed illegal ROMs of popular games like Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo filed the lawsuit as a way to protect its copyrights, as the two sites have allegedly accumulated “substantial ill-gotten gains” through the years by allowing users to download the games. According to the company, the sites collectively bring in more than 17 million visitors per month, which in turn could mean millions upon millions of illegal downloads nearly every day.
In addition to ROMs, Nintendo also accuses the site of illegally distributing BIOS software for some of the company’s proprietary consoles. Interestingly enough, the company states that the two sites are not “casual gamers but are instead sophisticated parties with extensive knowledge” of its intellectual properties.
Nintendo is asking for quite a bit in terms of restitution in its lawsuit against LoveROMS and LoveRETRO. Not only does it request that the sites are taken down and the domains handed over to it, but that damages are paid as well. The video game giant is requesting that the sites pay $150,000 per ROM infringement and two million dollars per copyright infringement.
Those are some hefty prices to pay for distributing ROMs. It remains to be seen how the lawsuit will turn out for Nintendo and the defendants as well as if the company will turn to other illegal ROM sites in the near future. Since the lawsuit was filed, LoveROMS has removed all of the publisher’s games from its site while LoveRETRO has completely shut down. Also check out our posts recently about endangered N64 saves and how one Splatoon 2 hacker took matters into their own hands.