Nintendo lodges a complaint against the sites of emulation

The emulation of old console games on PC is a complicated subject, about which we talked a lot, as in this piece on the ethics of emulation: how creators, community and law see console emulators. The approach of Nintendo is more direct. They do not like it.

Two ROM hosting sites, LoveROMs and LoveRETRO, are the target of a recent Nintendo lawsuit (of which a pdf is hosted at TorrentFreak). There is a lot in this 27-page repository, but here is an explanation of why these particular sites were chosen, out of all the similar sites that exist.

"The LoveROMs website alone receives 17 million visitors each month, and the popularity of the Defendants' LoveROMs and LoveRETRO sites has allowed the Defendants to reap substantial and ill-gotten gains, including through donations and sales. on LoveROMs and LoveRETRO sites. "

In response LoveROMS has removed all Nintendo games, although games for other consoles remain available, while LoveRETRO" has actually been closed until further notice. "However, the lawsuit requires much more than that. Nintendo is after statutory damages of $ 150,000 US for each Nintendo game hosted on the sites and up to US $ 2,000,000 for each trademark violation, as well as a transfer of domain names and trademarks. sources of their ROMs

In this regard, it is amusing to point out that the version of Super Mario Bros. on sale on the Nintendo Virtual Console was considered a ROM that someone from Nintendo had downloaded on the Internet. If you are not on this story, here is Chris Bratt (formerly of Eurogamer, who currently runs People Make Games) to say it.