Nintendo of America has awarded $ 2.1 million in damages after winning a lawsuit against pirated content provider RomUniverse. Nintendo originally filed the lawsuit in September 2019 for $ 15 million in damages. Although the case was ruled in Nintendo’s favor, the judge ruled a lower number: $ 2,115,000.
RomUniverse was originally run by California-based Matthew Storman, who argued in court that he didn’t upload the pirated copies himself. But Nintendo said in its original complaint that the site allegedly offers memberships for up to $ 30 a year, which allows subscribers to download games faster than non-subscribers.
Showing that kind of profit from Nintendo’s copyrighted works is why the company won the $ 2.1 million judgment. Nintendo said RomUniverse has a catalog of new and old Nintendo games that have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.
Nintendo has previously won similar cases in both the US and the US British courts, including a $ 12.2 million settlement against ROM vendors. The company is known for cracking down on who it feels is theft of its intellectual property. Several lawsuits are pending against Nintendo Switch hack creators and resellers.
The suits are not limited to civil law suits only. In 2020, two hackers – including one named Gary Bowser – were arrested and charged with 11 crimes. Nintendo also filed a lawsuit against Bowser earlier this year alleging similar copyright infringement for the creation and sale of Switch hacks. Nintendo described this type of copyright infringement in one of its previous lawsuits as “a serious, worsening international problem”.
