The controversial gaming website EmuParadise will no longer offer roms of old games. The administrator of the site fears for possible lawsuits against, for example, Nintendo.

EmuParadise founder MasJ writes this in a message on the site. Emuparadise offered download links to roms of old games over the last 18 years. This made it possible to play classics for classic game consoles from, for example, Nintendo, Sega and Sony on a computer, smartphone or tablet. Nintendo complained two similar websites in July for offering roms. The sites would violate Nintendo's copyright because they offer their games without a license. In addition, the Japanese games maker accuses the sites of unfair competition and trademark infringement.

'Do not want to risk the future of my team'

MasJ refers in his message indirectly to the recent lawsuit: "many of you know that the situation around emulation websites has recently changed." You probably do not know that EmuParadise has been in a similar situation for years. "

"We received threatening letters when we started the site 18 years ago," said the manager. "In addition, our hosters sometimes took servers offline after receiving complaints."

According to MasJ, the website always took games offline when developers requested it. Now, however, he fears that the situation can escalate and that he puts the future of his team members at risk.

To prevent a possible legal battle with Nintendo and other game companies, the founder decided to no longer offer download links to roms. The website will remain online and will offer legal content in the future. It has been forbidden since 2014 in Europe to download copyright material from illegal sources. There are, however, no cases known to date where someone in  has been convicted for downloading a ROM.

EmuParadise game website halts illegal ROMs in fear of lawsuits