Two years ago, Nintendo began a court battle against the warez-hosting website RomUniverse, suing its owner, Mathew Storman for damages. Storman defended himself on his own, without a lawyer, and attempted to dismiss the charges by claiming that he himself did not upload any ROMs to RomUniverse, therefore he was innocent. Both Nintendo's lawyers and the presiding judge disagreed, finding that Storman was responsible for the distribution of the illegal and infringing games on his site. Nintendo sought $15 million dollars in damages and legal fees, however, the US District Court Judge found this to be too harsh, instead fining Storman $35,000 per illegal ROM hosted on RomUniverse.
This added up to be $1.7 million. On top of that, Storman was hit with a charge of $400,000 in statutory damages, making the total amount a whopping $2.1 million. Nintendo also sought permanent injunction, though the Judge denied this, stating that Nintendo couldn't prove it had been irreparably damaged by the existence of RomUniverse, and that the company was not at risk, given the fact that the site has been permanently taken down.
The Court Grants Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment as to Plaintiff’s copyright infringement, unfair competition and Lanham Act claims, and awards Plaintiff $1,715,000 in statutory damages under the Copyright Act and $400,000 in statutory damages under the Lanham Act for a total of $2,115,000 in statutory damages.
