The French Supreme Court has ruled that 1ficiher.com caused damage by failing to remove illegal copies of Nintendo games.

The French court ruled in favor of Nintendo in a case involving file sharing and pirated games. The decision was made by the Paris Court of Appeal in April 2023, which found Dstorage SAS liable for failing to remove or block access to pirated copies of Nintendo games distributed through the 1fichier.com website. The court ordered Dstorage to pay Nintendo €442750 in damages and €27000 in legal costs, but the company decided to appeal the ruling rather than accept it.

Now, the Cour de Cassation, France’s highest court, has ruled that Dstorage SAS is indeed responsible for storing unauthorized copies of Nintendo games and for failing to remove or prevent access to the games when ordered to do so by the Big N. In practice, the ruling means that share hosting sites in France and Europe (including 1fichier.com) must quickly remove or block access to illegal content upon request, and if they fail to do so, they must pay compensation to the rights holders.

“We are pleased with the court’s finding of liability against Dstorage. We believe it is significant not only for Nintendo, but for the entire gaming industry. It will prevent file-sharing sites like 1fichier.com from claiming, as they did during the trial, that a prior court order is required before pirated content must be taken down, and it confirms the rights of content owners to provide notice when they claim that claimed content infringes copyright or trademark rights. Together with its recent decision of January 15, 2025, confirming that a major French bank was right to terminate a payment processing agreement with 1fichier.com due to a lack of anti-piracy measures, the French Supreme Court leaves no doubt that share hosting providers such as 1fichier.com are not a safe haven for storing and sharing illegal content,” Nintendo’s statement said.

The Big N’s crusade against piracy of its games continues.

Source: VGC