Nintendo wins in court against French file sharer of pirated games

Nintendo has apparently finally won the legal battle against a French file-sharing service. Dstorage operates the website 1fichier.com, where copies of games are or were also available. The company had not responded to Nintendo's requests to remove pirated copies of Nintendo games offered online. Dstorage had appealed against a 2021 ruling in Nintendo's favor, but its defense was ultimately unsuccessful, as the Japanese games company has now announced.

In 2021, a French court ordered Dstorage to pay 935,000 euros in damages to Nintendo because pirated copies of Nintendo games could be found on the file-sharing website operated by the company. Dstorage immediately appealed against this judgment, but was unsuccessful at the Court of Appeal in April 2023. The hosting company then went to the highest French court, but has now also been defeated there.

Just last year, Nintendo successfully took action against Switch emulators twice. In March 2024, Yuzu had already lost its case following a copyright lawsuit by Nintendo. In October of last year, the Switch emulator Ryujinx disappeared after Nintendo contacted the developer. In the latter case, no legal action was necessary, unlike in 2021. Following a court case, hack provider Bowser had to pay a fine of 10 million US dollars for offering hacking kits for the Nintendo Switch that could be used to circumvent copy protection. In the end, the leader of the hacker group Xecuter even had to spend 40 months in prison.

Nintendo celebrates victory against file-sharers

Dstorage is not aware of any prison sentence so far, but Nintendo is “pleased with the court's decision to hold Dstorage liable”. This is because share hosting services “must immediately remove or block access to illegal content”, explains Nintendo in a statement, the full text of which can be found on GBAtemp. “Otherwise, they are obliged to pay compensation to the rights holders whose intellectual property rights have been infringed.”

The Japanese company goes on to emphasize its “view that this decision is important not only for Nintendo, but for the entire games industry”. File-sharing services would therefore now have to remove pirated copies, even without a court order. In addition, the court decision “confirms the rights that owners must assert if they claim that the reported content infringes copyright or trademark rights”.

Finally, Nintendo also has a “message to consumers”. They should “not download pirated Nintendo games, as this increases the risk that the functionality and experience of playing legitimate Nintendo games on authentic Nintendo hardware will be compromised”.

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