After a lengthy legal battle spanning several years, a French court held that file-sharing website 1fichier.com is “liable for failing to remove or block access to unauthorized copies of Nintendo games stored on this platform.” In 2021, a court in Paris held that this website was was liable for €935,000 in damages to Nintendo for hosting pirated games. This was upheld on appeal. Nintendo called this victory “significant” not only for itself, but the entire industry.
This court ruling means that file sharing sites in Europe must now remove illegal copies of games when asked to do so. If they refuse to do so, they run the risk of being found legally liable and incurring significant fines. In a separate decision from January 2025, a French court also found that a bank was justified in terminating a payment processing agreement with 1fichier.com due to a lack of anti-piracy controls on the website.
Nintendo has been very litigious in the past few years, going not after file-sharing platforms that host illegal copies of their content, but also developers of emulators that violate Nintendo’s copyrights.
This case and other recent cases demonstrate that Nintendo does not simply want to seek damages for alleged copyright violations, but also wants to set precedent and make an example out entities that are involved in or support video game piracy. Such cases could serve to deter would-be copyright violators and those like 1fichier.com who are not directly involved in piracy but enable it.
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