nintendo takes severe legal action against rom downloading?

[surnshurn]

I was browsing Youtube as I am frequent to do, and saw a video stating that Emuparadise had removed all of its downloadable ROMs following legal threats from the big N. This kind of thing isn't super new, but the fact that Nintendo stated it would be targeting anyone who downloads an unsanctioned ROM would be subject to severe penalty (in the order of thousands per ROM downloaded); according to the video I watched, Emuparadise responded by immediately pulling all ROM downloads from its site. This is a very prudent safety measure imo, since EP is a tiny if venerable operation that really isn't prepared to handle that kind of multimillion-dollar litigation threat.

Long story short: I checked Emuparadise and it seems to be up and running (though I haven't bothered installing any emulation on my latest OS install, so I wouldn't know for sure). I didn't see anything here on hg101 about it - although I know this forum group is more about the legit title ownership, which I respect - so I was wondering if anyone here was following that story.

I was wondering about hg101's thought on this story and its development - what with the massive threat from nintendo and understandable cowing from a small but well-known site like EP. I can understand that the easy access to this increasingly valuable software (valuable as in rarer by age and inevitable decay of cartridges, not necessarily ebay dollars per title) would become a real pain point for a company like nintendo, which hasn't exactly been having the most stellar time in the recent console market and is making plays on the retro game market. That the company would be upset about rampant illicit downloading - which is a practice associated with ridicule - and would take some kind of legal action against sites that make this freely available, is pretty interesting and perhaps major in the appreciation of older software titles.


www.polygon.com/2018/8/15/17693556/emuparadise-roms-shut-down-threat-nintendo


edit: checked emuparadise, it looks like the download links are all dead. kind of nuts how that sort of thing is still getting pushed into the deep web.

[ReyVGM]

That's not exactly true.

Nintendo sued a couple of rom sites, and emuparadise decided to call it quits on their own. They have been getting threats across the years, and not just from Nintendo.

So yeah, what Nintendo did influenced their decision, but it wasn't because they were sued or threatened by Nintendo directly (this time). Actually, emuparadise didn't even have Nintendo developed roms available for download, at least not the major ones.

This is EP's official reason:
www.emuparadise.me/emuparadise-changing.php

[surnshurn]

Yeah, I guess I should have checked the EmuParadise news page on that one; that's a big duh on my part. They do claim they'll be sticking around for the foreseeable future, so it will be interesting to see if it develops into something new or languishes into decay.

[vnisanian2001]

Retroroms.info is where you can find the current MAME roms.

BTW, they should fix Super Contra. It shouldn't sound slow.

[Ace Whatever]

We had a thread back in August when it first happened. Still waiting on that free non-private tracker alternative for printed strategy guides

[starscream]

Nov 11, 2018 0:12:09 GMT -5 vnisanian2001 said:

Retroroms.info is where you can find the current MAME roms.

BTW, they should fix Super Contra. It shouldn't sound slow.

There's a bug report for this over at Mametesters.org filed some months ago. Which is the recommended channel, otherwise it's unlikely devs hear or care much about it.

[toei]

Nov 8, 2018 11:44:41 GMT -5 surnshurn said:

Yeah, I guess I should have checked the EmuParadise news page on that one; that's a big duh on my part. They do claim they'll be sticking around for the foreseeable future, so it will be interesting to see if it develops into something new or languishes into decay.

The isozone died too, which was an even bigger lost. Other big sites pulled all Nintendo roms. What sucks is how certain very obscure releases that aren't part of your standard No Intro or good sets have become way harder to find. These include Japanese and European PS1 & 2 exclusives, certain PC Engine titles, Japanese computer games, etc. The irony is that Nintendo's own games are still pretty easy to find regardless.

I figure Nintendo got aggressive cause their mini consoles turned out to be much bigger business than anyone had anticipated.

[surnshurn]

Nov 12, 2018 23:37:32 GMT -5 toei said:

The isozone died too, which was an even bigger lost. Other big sites pulled all Nintendo roms. What sucks is how certain very obscure releases that aren't part of your standard No Intro or good sets have become way harder to find. These include Japanese and European PS1 & 2 exclusives, certain PC Engine titles, Japanese computer games, etc. The irony is that Nintendo's own games are still pretty easy to find regardless.

I figure Nintendo got aggressive cause their mini consoles turned out to be much bigger business than anyone had anticipated.

ISOzone? damn, I was trying to keep that one hush-hush. It does make sense that Nintendo would start to crack down, ever since virtual console became part of their business model; I'm honestly surprised that it didn't kick into high gear sooner.

As for the mini consoles - has Nintendo offered a channel to purchase older/rarer/lesser-known titles, or were they just throwing around monkey market strength a la donkey kong?

[eatersthemanfool]

Nah they're just konging it up.