Nintendo is one of the companies that has been most impacted by a burgeoning piracy market for its games and devices- with some extremely popular games that never drop in price, they are ripe targets for this kind of thing. However, today, Nintendo has won yet another landmark ruling in their ever going fight against piracy in Italy, with the First Instance Tribunal of Milan referring to two queries onto the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to see whether Nintendo’s use of security to protect against piracy was proportionally justified- which would make these circumvention devices (like R4 cartridges) illegal.
The ruling was used to determine that Nintendo was indeed in the right here.
“Nintendo is pleased that this ruling is consistent with a long line of judicial precedents established at national courts in a number of Member States including Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and the UK,” the platform holder said in a press release.
“This decision is also entirely in line with several decisions from the Italian Supreme Court (Criminal Division) against sellers of circumvention devices as well as a recent ruling from the criminal appeal courts in Florence, which confirmed a first instance criminal decision, against the owners of PC Box.”
For its fans, it also added, “Don’t fund piracy by purchasing these devices and stay out of the business of selling them.”
Piracy on Nintendo devices has more or less gone down with the launch of the Wii U and 3DS, and hopefully for Nintendo, they can keep it that way with the upcoming NX platform as well.
