Recently ROM sites such as EmuParadise have been getting hit with major lawsuits by Nintendo.
Sad days have come for emulation sites many times before and many have fallen due to lawsuits.
EmuParadise being hit by a suite from Nintendo has released this statement earlier today.
EmuParadise is Changing
“Many of you are aware of the situation with regards to emulation sites has been changing recently.
What you probably don’t know is that we at Emuparadise have been dealing with similar issues for all 18 years of our existence.
From receiving threatening letters in the early days to our host suddenly shutting down our servers due to complaints, we’ve seen it all. We’ve always complied with takedown requests but as you can see that is no guarantee of anything.
I started Emuparadise 18 years ago because I never got to play many of these amazing retro games while growing up in India and I wanted other people to be able to experience them. Over the years, many folks have joined in and contributed to this vision and I think I can say that we’ve been successful in spreading our passion for retro games far and wide.
Through the years I’ve worked tirelessly with the rest of Emuparadise team to ensure that everyone could get their fixed of retro gaming.
We’ve received thousands of emails from people telling us how happy they’ve been to ReDiscover and even share their childhood with the next Generations and their families.
We’ve had emails from soldiers at War saying that the only way to get through their days was to be lost in the Retro games that they played from when they were children. We’ve got emails from brothers who have lost their siblings to cancer and were able to find solace in playing the games they once did as children. There are countless stories like these.
It’s been a long and beautiful Journey with many ups and downs. When I started Emuparadise things could have gone either way. But right now the direction they are going in could not be more than clear.
So where does that leave us?
It’s not worth it for us to risk potentially disastrous consequences.
I cannot in good conscience risk the futures of our team members who have contributed to the site through the years.
We run Emuparadise For the Love of retro games and for you to be able to revisit in those good times. Unfortunately, it’s not possible right now to do so in a way that makes everyone happy and keeps us out of trouble.
This is an extremely emotional decisions for me after running the site for so many years. But I believe it is the right thing for us at this point in time.
Thus, we have decided to make a new start. We will continue to be passionate retro gamers and will keep doing cool stuff around retro games. But you won’t be able to get your games from here for now where we go with this is up to us and up to you.
Will still have our emulators database, the community, and everything that comes with that.
We have already made several plans of what is going to happen next.
It’s going to be a fun New Beginnings and there’s going to be lots to come! We’d also love to hear from you in the comment about what you think we should do but for now, we need to make this change. We’ve served the humidity for 18 glorious years and it’s been a hell of a ride!
But every end is a new beginning and we’re excited to find a way forward to continue being your # 1 emulation destination.
Thank you for supporting us through this journey. We could not have done so much without you visiting us, telling your friends about us, uploading screenshots and descriptions, telling us when something was wrong, letting us know when we messed up, and more.
Thank you for being a part of our community and encouraging us through all these years.”
Sad words indeed from EmuParadise, a site that has brought joy to its users for 18 years. They aren’t the only ones to face legal issues at this point. Sites such as LoveRetro.co and LoveROMS have taken down all of Nintendo’s files. Due to the complaint of copyright infringement.
Nintendo filed suit on July 19th in the U.S. District Court of the District of Arizona.
This is a huge blow for any of these sites and could cost in the 100 million dollar range if all the titles were counted.
In the Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU report filed by research firm Ecorys. It states that,
“In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements,” the report states. “That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect. Only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.”
Haven’t the copyrights for old games expired?
Well U.S. copyright laws state, copyrights owned by corporations are valid for 75 years from the date of first publication. Video games have been around for less than 3 decades, copyrights for most will not expire for decades.
It’s most likely that the size of the damage injunctions requested are ment to close down sites. Rather than gain any kind of recovery from damages. As of writing this post, we have reached out to Nintendo of America and have yet to hear back.
This is a sad day indeed for any of us who enjoy reliving our glory days of the past. What will come from all this? Are dark times ahead for all the retro lovers? Will the landscape of retro games change for years to come?
Thanks for reading and keep doing it for the love of the game.