Nintendo has settled a lawsuit with the owners of two websites that distributed free emulators and ROMs. Part of the settlement is that the owners have to pay $12 million to Nintendo. The websites loveroms.com and loveretro.co are both are now offline.
The owners are a married couple that offered Nintendo software on the sites, according to Torrentfreak. They confessed guilt on trademark and copyright infringement.
The sites allowed users to download Nintendo ROMs for free. These included copies of games for Nintendo consoles. Through special software, called an emulator, it's possible to play GameBoy, SuperNintendo or Nintendo 64 games on a PC.
Nintendo sued the owners of the websites in July. Quickly after that the websites went offline, and many other similar websites followed.
Nintendo demanded compensation of $150,000 per game and up to $2 million for trademark infringement of the Japanese gaming giant. The high amounts should reportedly scare owners of similar websites that also offer illegal games.
The owners of the sites have to hand over their sites and all games and emulators to Nintendo.
