Nintendo has filed lawsuits against two popular ROM sites that are accused of distributing illegal ROMs of Nintendo games and violating other trademarks.
LoveROMS.com and LoveRETRO.co, both of which are believed to be owned by Jacob Mathias, are the subject of a new complaint filed at an Arizona federal court. In it, Nintendo outlines its stance against these ROM sites and other platformers where their games are hosted.
“The LoveROMs and LoveRETRO websites are among the most open and notorious online hubs for pirated video games,” says Nintendo. “Through the LoveROMs and LoveRETRO websites, Defendants reproduce, distribute, publicly perform and display a staggering number of unauthorized copies of Nintendo’s video games, all without Nintendo’s permission.”
These two sites are not only being attacked for featuring Nintendo ROMs – and other copyright infringement material – but because Nintendo sees them as a for-profit operation. That state that the “Defendants are not casual gamers but are instead sophisticated parties with extensive knowledge of Nintendo’s intellectual property and the video game industry more generally.” Their suit asks for $150,000 per every illegal Nintendo ROM and up to $2,000,000 for any confirmed trademark infringements. TorrentFreak estimates that these sites could be facing up to $100 million in damages.
Since the suit was filed, LoveRETRO has been taken offline and LoveROMS has removed all of its Nintendo ROMs.
Nintendo has always been stricter than most when it comes to cracking down on ROMs, torrents, and other ways for people to download illegal copies of some of their classic games. The subject of such ROM downloading platforms has always been a source of contention amongst gamers, but the topic has reached a fever pitch in recent months. After all, Nintendo still hasn’t launched a virtual console for Nintendo Switch and has been hesitant to outline ways that players might be able to download classic Nintendo games legally through an à la carte method.
It’s a topic that’s sure to run and run.