French hosting company Dstorage has been ordered to pay Nintendo €935,000 in damages because a Dstorage hosting site, 1fichier.com, failed to remove illegal copies of games despite requests from Nintendo.
1Fichier allows users to upload files and generate a download link. Files can be up to 300GB in size and remain on the 1Fichier servers for 30 days for free users. Nintendo found out that the 1Fichier servers also contained pirated copies of Nintendo games. The Japanese company requested Dstorage to remove these files, but Dstorage refused.
Nintendo therefore went to court, which, according to Gameblog.fr, ruled in favor of the Japanese game company. In the ruling, the court emphasized that rights holders are not required to obtain a court order before they can ask a hosting company to remove copyrighted material. Because Dstorage refused to block access to the illegal game copies, Nintendo’s rights have been violated, according to the judge.
Dstorage can still appeal the court’s decision. This company said in 2019 that it has a “duty to protect the freedoms of customers” and that a company that wants to file a copyright claim must provide evidence that files hosted on 1Fichier infringe its copyright and that the hosted files are not covered by exceptions within the law. When companies demonstrate this sufficiently, Dstorage says to remove such files.