Nintendo sues owner of LoveROMs and LoveRetro – LoveROMs no longer has ROMs for Nintendo consoles and LoveRetro has been shut down!
Important Note: This article contains my opinion which you may not agree with. Please comment in a civil way!
ROM websites hosting retro (and not so retro, in the case of PS2/PSP) games have been around for years and many of us have used them at least once. However, Nintendo has now decided to sue LoveROMs and LoveRetro in a move that, in my opinion, is somewhat futile.
What happened? Is downloading retro ROMs illegal?
On the 19th of July, Nintendo sued Mathias Designs LLC and its owner, Jacob Mathias, who are thought to be behind LoveROMs and LoveRetro. LoveROMs is quite a popular ROM piracy website that hosts ROMs and allows you to play them online. It also hosts copyrighted BIOSes as some some emulators (GBA/PS1) function better with an original BIOS. On the other hand, LoveRetro is a less popular website that hosted roughly the same things. Nintendo has sued for $150k per illegally hosted game and $2m for every trademark infringement, this is when a trademark is used in an unauthorized way.
As the websites apparently hosted 140 copyrighted games and infringed 40 trademarks, Jacob Mathias is being sued for a total of $100 million which is a pretty large sum of money. Jacob Mathias isn’t a well-known person in the piracy world and a quick Google search doesn’t return much about him or his net worth so it is doubtful that he has the money to actually pay up if he’s made to do so.
We must remember that downloading game ROMs, especially of games that you don’t own, is illegal as copyright stays valid for 75 years in the USA. According to Nintendo, even dumping your own games and using them for personal use is illegal however that is considered by some to be a gray area. Even though downloading old games is illegal, part of the reason why people do it is because they can’t legally purchase old games at a reasonable price or at all so there is that side of the story.
Will this affect you?
As things currently stand, it probably won’t unless you were an avid fan of LoveROMs or the lesser-known LoveRETRO. Currently, LoveRETRO has been shut down while LoveROMs is still up without any ROMs for Nintendo consoles regardless of their creator/publisher.
Abandonware websites have been sued in the past and when one is taken down, others take its place. Furthermore, many other websites hosting old ROMs are still up so the effect of this lawsuit will be minimal at best.
Conclusion
It is always important to buy games, even old ones, from legal sources if possible. Nowadays, websites like GOG are available so that there’s no excuse for pirating some old PC games! That being said, websites that legally sell ROMs for old consoles aren’t available which makes ROM piracy a thing that’s unlikely to stop anytime soon.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-sues-console-rom-sites-for-mass-copyright-infringement-180720/
A PDF of the Lawsuit as obtained by TorrentFreak: https://torrentfreak.com/images/nintendo-loveroms.pdf
i dont get why nintendo does that. They have no economic damage. Its more like an addverb to try the new games if you like the old ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The guy was making money on it. That’s why.
even if the guy was making money off of nintendo games, the consoles and the games they produced were discontinued from stores so, even if he was making money, they were from donations, because nothing on loveroms was paid, it was all free
Seems like a “show of force” move made by Nintendo after having their latest console hacked.
damn, big N really whipes in the wrong way…
Suing the man for $100 Million dollars seems harsh but so is piracy. Everyone pirated Nintendo games and no one bought anything; Nintendo wouldn’t be around anymore. Although, Nintendo should up their security in hardware and software better, so it would be more difficult to pirated stuff; even tho we always find a way to pirated.
150k per hosted game? Nintendo is on crack.
First Nintendo sued loveroms …
Nintendo legal team is on the verge of layoffs so they had to do something quick to impress the ceo, lol
you are foolish thinking that I will buy old games, I will pirate them and that’s it
A gleaming example of why copyright law needs to be rewritten for modern era. 75 friggen years? Absolutely stupid.
If you can make whatever money you’re going to make off your product in 20 years? You should maybe consider a business change to something more suited to your skills. Like… a lemonade stand perhaps.
IP rights should not lapse of course, but this garbage of suing people for downloading 20, 25, 30+ year old rom images, is beyond stupid.
*can’t
Blame Disney for the 75 years thing.
It was either Disney or MGM. Pretty sure it was Disney.
What a bunch of a-holes… From now on, I’m only pirating NINTENDO games!
It’s the Streisand effect. The more they try to prevent it, the more it will happen.
emupa****se is still alive and kicking.
go figure
Yep, ^.^ piracy, which aurora uses behind the scene (and then tr4sh talk about it on the site), its like a fenix, will never end.
Also, 4ur0r4 = th3_z311
No, I won’t believe you, there is no way that 4ur0r4 = th3_z311.
Their hammer already fell, you can’t find any mario game on EmuP.
They are drying out the biggest piracy pools, their move makes sense, even if the internet make their battle already lost.
The debattable copyright laws could win over the internet ‘leaks’ only if repression can be operated by individuals, like good ol’ anonymous letters our grand parents witnessed. The net non-neutrality is already one step toward this wonderful direction.
emuparadice
friggin N with their shtty mario games and cheap consoles
A company that sues over old junk is just gonna get they’re self’s way less popular and eventually no one will buy they’re junk anymore and they go out of business.
Nintendo needs to let go of all they’re retro stuff and work on only the new things of now. They are just ruining they’re reputation by suing over the old stuff.
Why dont console makers tke charge of the retro-gaming scene?
Why not add game packs to the various stores that can bought digitally.
Its sad that a console maker would not support thier own games. Think of future generations.
Honestly Nintendo is loosing the race in the gaming community, so what they are doing is stoping old games being downloaded free so they can resale or revamp then resale why do you think they starting selling retro games
it may be Nintendo’s panic preemptive strike to prevent switch’s piracy. They know their consoles are hacked and they know these site host consoles ROMs, and they would likely host switch’s ROMs when they have them.
In all honesty, they’re probably doing this to encourage developer to keep releasing games on Switch (and also releasing them on the west).
F**ck Nintendo, I will never buy nintendo software anymore like I did when EA shut the uderdog-gamers. LoveROMS was full with rare FMTowns and NEC PC roms, and after underdogs and now LoveROMS, I need to find another site where I can get these.
Forget about PC games. How can I get old console games now a days?. The game cartridges catalog is not fully available, not every item is on sale and in proper conditions.
Not justifying piracy, but if Nintendo (or any other company) doesn’t offer an alternative by not forcing us to rebuy our already bought games, then we have no other choice.
So I can’t play games or down load any I like that sad take fun out everyone what wrong get old games play I really sad n mad at same time
Lol, who said emulation isn’t piracy?
Hi everyone, here in Italy in this year, because of Nintendo’s pursuit for copyrighted material, several sites are not avaible without changing dns. I think it’s correct but as said in the article there’s always a way to get the material: other sites or users who already downloaded games that reuploadad them (and in famous hosting sites..) And for now they don’t look in forums 😉 In 2017 nintendo stopped an italian reseller of r4 and similar because 3ds piracy. Other 6 are still alive..Make sentences in tribunals is a big cost and they can pursuit a single case at once to assure them a money return. As always: there are no REAL laws end punishment for who download pirated games. How is in another part of the world? I’m curious.
took 1 (or 2 in this case) down, 10 more will appear, you can’t stop us nintendogs
THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nintendo can’t legally take the whole site down because the site has more than just Nintendo Roms on there. Sure, they’re roms from other consoles, and companies, but that’s for those individual companies to deal with Love Roms. Those other non Nintendo files aren’t any of Nintendo’s business, and they can’t do anything about that. All Nintendo can legally do is take down the files that violate Nintendo’s rights, but to shut down the entire site is a violation of Love Rom’s rights because that’s taking down other files that aren’t any of Nintendo’s business, or jurisdiction. It’s even worse if the site had files that were legal to distribute, because then Nintendo would be making files that are legal to distribute unavailable to the public which would be against the law, and a violation of the site’s rights to retain access to those legal files, and to keep them maintained, and available to us to download and it’s against our rights to have free, and open access to those legal files, if Love Roms has any to offer.
First they shut down Pixelmon, then made that new pixelated pokemon game. That was infuriating enough… BUT NOW THIS?? Nintendo even treated Waluigi like some kind of ragdoll (Check their April Fools tweet)
amm they do that becuz they were making money out of it nintendo doesnt shut some game or site if they arent making money out of it or losing money out of it like pixelmon and pokemon brick bronze and other ones were making money out of them so nintendo sued them for using the name pokemon to make money and here loveroms makes nintendo loses money .
Uhh… Nintendo? Maybe you should go after the people making and selling counterfeit NES Classics instead? There’s more money there, AND they’re passing those boxes off as if you approve of it. They’re even selling them right in the middle of malls in the United States, right out in the open. (Not even gonna say how prevalent they are in the Philippines and other 2nd/3rd-world countries.) At least ROM sites have the decency to not imply that you approve of their work.
I hate what nintendo did and I am glad that I have pirated games
c’mon nintendo just try to stop me.
Does this affect those who buy digital games on game systems? i do that with xbox live,playstation network and with both Nintendo’s 3DS and Switch
Rip LoveRoms, it was the only place i trusted. Now where am i suppoae to get ROMs? First Emupraidise and now LoveRoms (& LoveRetro)