French Supreme Court rules in favour of Nintendo against site hosting pirated copies of its games

Nintendo has won a long-running legal battle against French sharehosting operator Dstorage.

Following a decision dated February 26, 2025, the French Supreme Court found Dstorage “liable for failing to remove access to unauthorised copies of Nintendo games stored on its platform” – referring to the filehosting site 1fichier.com.

This decision means other European-based filesharing sites must remove pirated copies of games when asked, or face legal action and potential fines.

Nintendo initially filed a lawsuit against Dstorage in 2021, after it had previously demanded the company take down unauthorised Nintendo games stored on 1fichier.com.

Dstorage appealed the decision, which failed when in April 2023 the Paris Court of Appeals ordered the company to pay Nintendo €422,750 in compensation and €25,000 in legal fees.

Dstorage then took the case to the French Supreme Court, claiming a court order was needed before it would take down pirated content. This ultimately failed, leading to Nintendo’s victory in court.

“Nintendo is pleased with the Court’s finding of liability against Dstorage and believes that it is significant for not only Nintendo, but for the entire games industry,” the firm said.

“It will prevent sharehosters like 1fichier.com from claiming like it did during the proceedings on the merits that a prior decision from a court is needed before pirated content must be taken down, and it confirms the rights that holders have to give notice of when claiming that notified content infringes copyright or trademark rights.”

It added: “Together with its recent decision as of January 15, 2025, confirming that a major French bank had rightfully terminated a payment processing agreement with 1fichier.com due to lacking anti-piracy measures, the French Supreme Court leaves no doubt that sharehosting providers like 1fichier.com are not a safe haven for storing and sharing illegal content.”

Nintendo has been cracking down on piracy as of late. In November, it asked a US District Court to subpoena business records from various firms as part of its lawsuit against James ‘Archbox Williams’ over alleged piracy changes.

It has also sought legal action against Ryan Michael Daly of Modded Hardware – a website that sells modded consoles, pirated games, and mod chips.

In February 2024, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the creators of the Switch emulator Yuzu. A month later, its developer Tropic Haze agreed to pay $2.4 million in a settlement and relinquished the domain name to Nintendo of America.

Later that year, Switch emulator Ryujinx reportedly ended development following a request made by Nintendo.