Nintendo’s Piracy Crackdown Continues, Wins Another Court Case Against ROM Site

Nintendo has scored another legal victory against video game pirates.

Reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the Paris Court of Appeals has ordered ROM siteholder Dstorage to pay €442,750 (around $484,000 USD) to Nintendo, along with an additional €25,000 to cover legal fees. Nintendo previously demanded Dstorage to take down the unauthorized Nintendo games held on its site, 1fichier.com. Dstorage did not comply, causing Nintendo to take legal action. The Paris Judicial Court found Dstorage liable in May 2021 and the Court of Appeals has now reached the same decision. Dstorage can appeal the decision.

Nintendo released a statement declaring the court order a victory against piracy in the games industry.

“Nintendo is pleased with the decision of the Paris Court of Appeals, as it again sends a clear message that in refusing to remove or withdraw access to unauthorised copies of video games despite prior notification, sharehosting services such as Dstorage (1fichier) are liable under French law and must remove or block access to such content and may be liable to pay compensation to those rights holders whose intellectual property rights have been infringed,” Nintendo’s statement reads in part.

“The Court’s finding of liability against Dstorage is significant not only for Nintendo, but also for the entire games industry. It will prevent sharehosters like 1Fichier from claiming that a prior decision from a court will be needed before pirated content has to be taken down, and additionally the Court decision confirms what rights holders have to give notice of when claiming that notified content infringes copyright or trademark rights.”

Nintendo has a long history of a no-nonsense approach to piracy. In 2022, Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser was handed a 40-month jail sentence for creating and selling devices that hold pirated games. The company also won a lawsuit against RomUniverse and ordered the site to both destroy its pirated games and pay $2 million in damages.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over seven years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.