US court awards Nintendo $2.1m in damages in copyright infringement case

By Emmanuel Legrand

A District Court in California found in favour of games company Nintendo in a copyright infringement case involving the web site RomUniverse, operated by Los Angeles resident Matthew Storman.

  Storman was accused by Nintendo of making available copies of games and profiting from mass-scale copyright infringement. After a first ruling in its favour, Nintendo asked for a summary judgment and $15 million in damages.

  The court found that Storman had knowingly engaged in copyright infringement and profited from this trade. "There is no genuine issue of material fact in dispute that Defendant knew users of its website were engaging in infringing conduct by downloading the copyrighted files, and that Defendant induced, caused, or materially contributed to the infringing conduct by advertising and making the files available for download on his website," reads the ruling.  

Direct financial benefit

  In addition, "there is no genuine issue of material fact in dispute that Defendant received a direct financial benefit from the infringing acts of the users of his website who downloaded copies of Nintendo’s copyrighted video games, and Defendant did not stop the infringing activity despite having knowledge of the infringement."

  Judge Consuelo Marshall sided mostly with Nintendo, but not on the level of the damages. She awarded $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. 

  “Considering Defendant’s willful infringement, the Court finds $35,000 statutory damages for each infringed copyright […] would compensate Plaintiff for its lost revenue and deter Defendant who is currently unemployed and has already shut down the website,” wrote Judge Marshall.

Taking down the web site

  After meeting with Nintendo's representatives in September 2020, Storman “agreed to take down the romuniverse website.” Therefore the court did not agree with Nintendo, which argued that because Storman’s infringement was willful, there was no assurance that he will refrain from further infringement. 

 "Plaintiff thus fails to demonstrate irreparable harm and an inadequate remedy at law exists for a permanent injunction. Accordingly, the Court denies Plaintiff’s request for a permanent injunction," wrote the judge.