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Piracy Nintendo The Courts

ROM Site Owner Made $30,000 a Year -- Now Owes Nintendo $2.1 Million (arstechnica.com) 65

Posted by EditorDavid from the judgment-day dept.
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica: The now-unemployed owner of a shuttered ROM distribution site has been ordered to pay $2.1 million in damages to Nintendo after trying and failing to defend himself in the case.

In September 2019, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles resident Matthew Storman over his operation of RomUniverse.com, which offered prominent downloads of "Nintendo Switch Scene Roms" and other copyrighted game files. At the time, Nintendo said that the site had been "among the most visited and notorious online hubs for pirated Nintendo video games" for "over a decade." Storman has admitted that, in 2019, the site made up the bulk of his $30,000 to $36,000 a year in income. This included direct revenue from the sale of "premium unlimited accounts" for $30 per year that provided users with faster downloads and no limits.

By the time Storman signed a September 2020 agreement with Nintendo to shut the site down, he said he was deriving $800 a month from the site. According to court documents, Storman's income is now derived primarily from "unemployment and food stamps."

In a motion for dismissal, Storman invoked the "safe harbor" protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), arguing that he was just a neutral service provider for users sharing files. He also pointed out that he had agreed to Nintendo's DMCA takedown requests in the past. During a deposition, though, Nintendo got Storman to admit that he had uploaded Nintendo's copyrighted ROM files himself, obliterating any attempts at a "safe harbor" claim...

While Nintendo originally claimed that RomUniverse was responsible for "hundreds of thousands" of copyrighted downloads, that number was lowered to 50,000 based on evidence gleaned from screenshots of the site. Nintendo argued that each download cost it between $20 and $60 (the average cost of new games it sells) and that it had therefore lost between $1 and $3 million in revenue.
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ROM Site Owner Made $30,000 a Year -- Now Owes Nintendo $2.1 Million More

ROM Site Owner Made $30,000 a Year -- Now Owes Nintendo $2.1 Million

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  • mod story down Duplicate (Score:5, Informative)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Sunday June 06, 2021 @03:45PM (#61460268) Journal
    Even editors dont read slashdot?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      When you sit down and really think about the situation. What is really more sad?

      1. Editors not reading slashdot.

      2. Or us, who read this site with such frequency that we can pick out duplicates.

      Man... what am I doing with my life :). Hahah.

      • I've been watching random eps of South Park after several years of not seeing it and when I go through the old seasons I still say "Yeah I've seen this one, and this one, and this one, aahhh here's one I've not seen."

    • What editors?

      If I knew how to code I'd make a site like the pre-Dice Slashdot and replace it. Slashdot is being DELIBERATELY run into the fucking ground because I suspect the editors are completely bored and give no fucks. It shows. It's pathetic and shitty and sad.

      I hope they have life changes forcing them to quit so they'll be replaced because they will never leave since editing involves no actual work.

  • >Ars Technica

  • Wow, that's $4.2 million overall... (Score:5, Funny)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Sunday June 06, 2021 @03:52PM (#61460296)

    ... considering the other $2.1 million he was charged four days ago [slashdot.org].

  • Asleep at the wheel again

  • Nintendo's claim that every download is a lost sale is fundamentally flawed. Free, or even very cheap, downloads means people will just grab things on a whim. If they had to actually pay the $20 - $60 each file, they would be very selective -- probably 1/10th the number of downloads. It's the same reason my kids ask for tons of stuff, but when they earn their own money and are spending THEIRS and not MINE, they are much, much pickier. They're downright miserly with their own coin.

    I think it would be great i

    • I think that in most cases, damages are not actually paid to this amount, anyway. At least I never heard about a pirating case, where the poor slob had to fork over a couple of billion dollars.

      But I agree, it's a ridiculous argument. Decreasing returns is a basic function in economics. And yet it's only ever "retail" price that the owner seems to lose, even 10's or 20's of years since the stuff got obsoleted, or is available at the local library.

    • True. Still, play stupid games, wins stupid prizes (Score:4, Insightful)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Sunday June 06, 2021 @06:24PM (#61460648) Journal

      That's true.

      Still, the dude knew exactly what he was doing. So I don't feel that bad for him. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

      • Or maybe punishment could fit the crime.

        • That's why they are called stupid prizes.

          When I was a teenager I may have things like have a couple drinks, then drive down the highway with my friends holding a roman candle out the window.

          If, while doing that, I crashed and died or ended up in a full body cast for a year, would you say the punishment fit the crime? Probably not.

          But guess what - reality is this: play stupid games, win stupid prizes. If you're 17 and you decide to have a couple drinks before going down the highway sticking fireworks and var

          • Let me try a closer analogy.

            The dude pretty much challenged Nintendo to a legal fight, knowing that he was in the wrong.

            If a dude challenges a grizzly bear to a fight and the grizzly ends up killing the dude ...

            I'd rather the dude who challenged a grizzly to fight doesn't die. But if he does - well, played a stupid game, won a stupid prize.

            • This isn't a good analogy, though. It leaves out a really important variable in that our legal system is here specifically to be the middle man preventing the grizzly (Nintendo) from taking unfair and unjust recourse.

              Of course, the legal system is flawed and often fails to varying degrees on the fair and just part. But, we shouldn't be advocating to make it worse -- for an aristrocracy where when a little guy fucks with a big guy, the big guy gets to destroy them.

              It's not mutually exclusive. We can say both

              • > But, we shouldn't be advocating to make it worse -- for an aristrocracy where when a little guy fucks with a big guy, the big guy gets to destroy them.

                > It's not mutually exclusive. We can say both

                Exactly; it's not mutually exclusive. I'm not advocating unfairness, AND I'm not staying awake at night crying for the guy.

                Somebody knowingly starts a fight with grizzly, I don't *want* him to die, I'm not that bothered when he does

                Dude set at out to make his money by illegally selling someone else's stuff

          • If, while doing that, I crashed and died or ended up in a full body cast for a year, would you say the punishment fit the crime? Probably not.

            I absolutely would. You chose to engage in negligent behavior at high speed and high mass. That's what happens. People die or get crippled for life.

        • Or maybe punishment could fit the crime.

          So $1-3 million? He should have had a better lawyer to describe worthlessness of stuff sold in bargain bins.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      Nintendo's claim that every download is a lost sale is fundamentally flawed.

      Great post - weird moderation. Mod up please.

    • Nintendo's claim that every download is a lost sale is fundamentally flawed.

      If people didn't want it, they wouldn't be stealing it.

      • That's not a counterpoint. OP didn't say that they don't want it. OP said it doesn't necessarily represent a lost sale.

        I can afford possibly 1-2 AAA games a year out of my budget. Nope, not a lot of spare cash at the moment. I buy, 1-2 AAA games a year. No matter how many other games I download, I'm not going to be buying more than 1-2 games a year. There are millions of folks who can't afford a single AAA game in a given year. A download does not represent a lost sale, by any stretch of the imagination.

        • There's also the "try before you buy" crowd. People that can't be arsed to buy a $60 game may leech it if it's safe and easy enough to do so. Rom sites are . . . not necessarily safe in-and-of-themselves (they can have adware/crapware/malware embedded in pages), but the actual ROMs are usually safe since you load them through an emulator that exposes no attack surface in your OS.

          Particularly prolific downloaders may pick off hundreds of software titles in a year, play them for a few hours, say "meh" and d

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        If people didn't want it, they wouldn't be stealing it.
        That does not mean people would pay 2021 new game prices for it if it's a ROM -- most of which are very old games, Nor that people's new game purchases decrease.

        The argument is that the damages are much less per download, and $20+ per download's not a reasonable estimate, not that the damages are $0.

        Look at Nintendo's Online service... $20 a year and you get 104+ old SNES and NES games -- that puts it at approximately $0.20 per game. So uhm...

        • If you had any familiarity with the suit (which was brought up last week in the original post of the same story), you'll see that the site in question was dealing with fairly new ROMs.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mysidia ( 191772 )

            you'll see that the site in question was dealing with fairly new ROMs.
            The fact their site had some new ROMs on it does Not mean that tens of thousands of their reported download numbers were complete successful downloads of newer ROMs.

            Further, there are separate conditions for new titles that mean the downloads should not be treated as replacing a sale of the game... (1) The large number of ROMs their site had --- The downloads of newer ones are likely to be a small minority of downloads on their websit

            • No, but then the article doesn't necessarily go into that detail. As to the rest of your arguments, none of that seems to hold water in American courts. I'm not agreeing with that, but . . . honestly you're just pissing in the wind at this point. It's hopeless.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        If something is free, people will pick it up simply because it's free. People often have all kinds of random freebies in their homes which they have absolutely no use for.

        Take for instance epic games, they have been giving away a free game every week for the past year. I have downloaded most of these games, but some i haven't even played at all while others i've only played for a few minutes and then got bored. There was only one that i actually played for any significant number of hours.
        Had these games bee

      • Considering how much gamers get fucked over by the industry (on-disc/day-1 DLC, online region locks, DRM, censorship, unfixed bugs, mods on forums who lash out like toddlers, terrible refund policies, low-quality translations, content being retroactively removed in patches, banning users for criticism/negative reviews, content being removed from sequels to sell as DLC, seizing money from LPers, pay-to-win in singleplayer games, terrible drop rates and downright INSULTING grind in online games, and a severe

      • Nobody is "stealing" anything.
        Those games are no longer available, and copies are being made, not taken.
        It's a violation of Intellectual Property, not Theft.

    • I think that you're absolutely correct. Some people would have bought if free downloads had not been available but most people wouldn't have.

      LK

    • This is true but part of the impetus for copyright as generator funding creativity, to the benefit of The People, is withholding it from everyone willing to pay as low as $0 and legally reserving it to the amount the author or publisher wishes. They decide the amount, which is (literally) their business, and nobody else's.

    • Nobody is going to pay $20-$60 for a 30 year old game that you need an emulator to even run.
      (Yes, there are some pirate cartridges that you can load things on, but good luck getting one of those over the last 15 years.)

      It's been well studied, and only a tiny fraction of downloads are "lost sales", and even that only applies when such a product is still available for sale, which is NOT the case with the nintendo cartridges.

      (Sure, you can randomly find them at a garage sale once in a while, but there's no sal

    • Nintendo's claim that every download is a lost sale is fundamentally flawed. Free, or even very cheap, downloads means people will just grab things on a whim.

      What does that matter? I could sell some dinky little candies by the piece for $1 next to the register, and there's effectively an infinite number of them, being mostly sugar. If you grab a bowl and hand out a hundred to passers-by, your argument is that the theft was so casual and easy that somehow factors into damages?

      You still owe me 100 units x retail price, and that's what I'm going after you for. People took them on a whim? SO!? I'm totally in the right starting at retail value times units stol

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        Your analogy is horribly innacturate. You're comparing a physical good, where you suffered an actual loss, versus a digital good. It costs you to make and replace the candy. Digital goods have zero marginal cost [investopedia.com]. That is, duplicating them costs nothing, or as close to it as not matter.

        Except even then it is wrong. No one stole any of your unique candies. You didn't lose a handful. They're all still in your bowl. People just didn't buy your $1 candies because someone else is giving away free clones.

        To fix yo

  • Matt should make copyrighted payment notices and post them to his site. If Nintendo wants their money, they can download one each month and then upload it on their site to request the next payment installment. Of course, Matt will submit a DMCA take down notice on each one of them to protect his copyrighted material ... :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      That would get Matt jailed or writs of execution issued. When a court orders you to pay: you have to follow the procedures that are based on the court's rules... you don't get to create arbitrary rules. I'm guessing this judgement will probably result in bankruptcy though, unless Matt was independently wealthy -- in which case; the courts will be taking whatever he owns anyways, except for certain property and certain value in property that can be claimed exempt (Such as their primary residence,

    • That would be a violation of law #1 which is law in every single country in the world: Don't piss off the judge.
  • Didn't slashdot run this a week or two ago? Perhaps just catching up with ArsTechnic's website perhaps.

  • Now that would be a headline worth reading. I mean good work EditorDavid, this isn't even a typical Slashdot dupe. This is a bloody carbon copy, and outright THEFT of BeauHD's fine work. The headline and the first paragraph copied almost verbatim.

    Even Slashdot hasn't seen this level of dupiness before.

  • The story was SO interesting, the editors approved it TWICE!
  • Well, that's unfortunate. You need to be carefull with those things. This is why when I play casinos at this website [nolimitcasino.com] if I see that I'm starting to lose and make impulsive decisions I stop playing it, cause either way I will lose all the money. If you have similar problems then you should stop playing as well.

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