RomUniverse Owner Issued Permanent Injunction In Nintendo Lawsuit

TheGamer

RomUniverse Is Permanently Banned From Ever Operating Again, Following Nintendo Lawsuit

By Rhiannon Bevan

Published Aug 14, 2021

On top of owing Nintendo $2.1 million in damages, the owner of RomUniverse is also banned from relaunching the site.

Matthew Storman raised eyebrows last month when he announced his intentions to relaunch his website, RomUniverse. Storman made this announcement after he had already been successfully sued by Nintendo, who was awarded $2.1 million in damages. Seemingly, Storman believes that relaunching without Nintendo games would keep the company off his back, but he was wrong.

Now, the US Central District Court of California has once again ruled in Nintendo's favour. RomUniverse has been slapped with a permanent injunction, meaning the ROM site can never legally go back into business again.

This development was made public by the courts earlier this week, and first spotted by TorrentFreak. The granting of a permanent injunction means that the site cannot go back online, and will continue to be inaccessible to the public. Furthermore, the court has ordered Storman to: "permanently destroy all unauthorized Nintendo games or other unauthorized copies of Nintendo’s intellectual property". Storman has until August 17 to comply with this order, and must declare under penalty of perjury that he has done so by August 20.

As we previously reported, Nintendo may have been granted the $2.1 million in damages, but is never actually going to get that money, at least under the current agreement. Both parties came to an agreement that Storman would pay the damages off in instalments of $50 a month, which unless the defendant makes it to the age of 3,500, means the total amount awarded to the gaming giant will go unpaid.

Mathew Storman had represented himself throughout this lawsuit, having unsuccessfully attempted to have the case dismissed by the court. He has always disagreed with Nintendo's allegations. However, following this latest development, it appears unlikely that Storman was successful in convincing the court to overturn the order to pay Nintendo the $2.1 million. He put forward the argument that it has not been proven that Nintendo actually suffered from any financial damages as a result of RomUniverse being online.

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