Nintendo gets cross with US pirates
Sits on a couple of American cowboys.
Nintendo, following a legal spat with porn site SuicideGirls over use of a trademark, has obtained restraining orders against two American firms to stop them importing and selling counterfeit Nintendo products.
The products in question are sold in malls in the US - and openly in the UK to no reaction from Nintendo of Europe - and come in the form of what looks like an N64 controller, preloaded with NES games such as Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong.
"This action is one of many steps Nintendo is taking to protect its creative rights and to combat the growing international problem of product piracy," says Nintendo's antipiracy director Jodi Daugherty. "We're confident that mall management companies around the nation will provide their complete cooperation upon being informed of the court's decision."
NOE has made no comment on whether or not it intends to follow suit in Europe.
Nintendo has been highly litigious in recent years, only last week threatening SuicideGirls.com simply because one of the featured models listed Metroid as an interest in her biog. In addition, and on a far more serious note, NOE famously stopped high street retailer CEX importing and selling legitimate Nintendo merchandise from abroad in 2002. Ironically, Nintendo itself received a record fine from the EU in 2002 for price fixing in Europe, to the tune of GBP 94 million.