Nintendo takes out injunction against ROM site owner and demands all illegal games are "permanently destroyed"

(Image credit: Nintendo)

A Californian court has demanded that the owner of an inactive ROM site must "permanently destroy" all illegal copies of their Nintendo games.

Los Angeles resident Matthew Storman – who previously ran RomUniverse, a site that distributed ROM copies of classic Nintendo games – has until Tuesday, August 17 to "permanently destroy all unauthorized Nintendo games or other unauthorized copies of Nintendo's intellectual property including movies, books, and music".

As reported by TorrentFreak, the judgment comes two years after Nintendo of America first took Storman to court to compel them to take down RomUniverse, which it said infringed on numerous Nintendo properties.

In May 2021, Nintendo emerged triumphantly and Storman was instructed to compensate Nintendo $2.1 million for violating its trademarks and copyrights. Though an original appeal to impose an injunction on Storman was initially refused by the courts, the judge has now seemingly reconsidered this in light of Storman reneging on their $50 per month payment plan.

“This failure to make even the modest $50/month payment, an amount that he proposed and agreed to, demonstrates that Nintendo has no adequate remedy at law for Defendant’s past or future infringement and underscores the need for a permanent injunction,” the court papers insisted, and the judge seemingly agreed; the defendant is now "permanently enjoined and restrained" from engaging, directly or indirectly, with any further copying or distributing of Nintendo's IP, including its trademarks, logos, and games, of course.

Nintendo also convinced the court that RomUniverse could easily be resurrected if Storman wasn't compelled to destroy the illegal copies of its games, which is why the defendant has until August 20 to formally declare they have destroyed all copies of unauthorized Nintendo games under "penalty of perjury".

“Plaintiff’s evidence demonstrates a threat of continued infringement based on Defendant’s representations that he may relaunch his website which previously contained Plaintiff’s copyrighted games," the filing says. "Accordingly, Plaintiff demonstrates irreparable harm warranting an injunction for Plaintiff’s copyright infringement claim.”

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Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.