The Court of Cassation has definitively settled the dispute between Nintendo and Dstorage, which operates the famous online storage site 1fichier. In 2018, Nintendo and the companies that manage the Pokémon franchise (Pokemon Company, Creatures Inc. and GameFreak) had asked 1fichier to remove several pirated games. Noting that nothing had been done, these companies took Dstorage to court.
1fichier definitively loses against Nintendo
The proceedings continued until April 2023, when the Paris Court of Appeal ruled in Nintendo's favor: it ordered Dstorage to pay Nintendo €442,750 in compensation, plus €27,000 to cover legal expenses. However, the French company decided to appeal the decision in cassation — and justice was therefore finally row à the opinion issued two years earlier. A judgment which will probably not give rise to an appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union, with the Court of Cassation finding that there was no "reasonable doubt" as to the interpretation of European Union law.
As a result, 1fichier will have to quickly remove or block pirated game files, at Nintendo's request. The judgment will "prevent file hosters like 1fichier from claiming, as it did during the substantive proceedings, that a prior court decision is necessary before removing pirated content," Nintendo rejoiced in a statement reported by the VGC website. "It also confirms the rights of copyright holders to "report content when they believe it infringes copyright or trademark rights," the manufacturer added.
If 1fichier is specifically targeted, there is no doubt that other French and European file hosts will look at the matter very closely and take requests to remove pirated files very seriously. Nintendo does not joke around when it comes to protecting its intellectual property. The company has thus taken down several Switch emulators in recent months.
Source: VGC
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