It looks like the legal dispute between Nintendo and RomUniverse isn’t over yet. After the Big N sued the ROM site in 2019 and last month it was determined in a court case that Nintendo should receive $2.1 million in compensation, it now appears that the permanent injunction was denied because the website had already shut down.
However, Nintendo is hoping the court will reconsider this decision because they fear RomUniverse could reopen in the future, mainly because Matthew Storman, the owner of the fraudulent site, said he did not rule out a comeback when he spoke to a Nintendo lawyer on the phone earlier this month. He also told the lawyer that it would not include Nintendo games, but the company doesn’t seem to be convinced.
This is the message Nintendo has issued:
The defendant’s threat to continue operating RomUniverse to distribute video game ROMs, using the same website he used for the past several years to massively infringe Nintendo’s copyrights and trademarks, requires the filing of a court order.
At this time, we have not received the $50 per month referred to in the previous court ruling and we do not have an adequate remedy at law for Defendant’s past or future infringement, so a permanent injunction is necessary.
For his part, Storman is seeking a reversal of the decision to pay $2.1 million, claims that Nintendo has not actually suffered damages and is not clear that the copyrights in the games that would make him pay that amount were properly registered in time. We will have to stay tuned to see how this case proceeds in the future.