Nintendo Sues HackYourConsole.com

[Olas]

Nintendo doesn't get it, do they? The idea is to provide a better service, not fight the pirates.

Or they could do both. I agree that Nintendo should do more to make their games legally available for purchase, but I see no reason why they shouldn't crack down on piracy too. Let's not pretend that we actually believe everyone who used this person's services would have paid for the games otherwise.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

That said, $150,000.00 per infringement is ridiculous & an abuse of civil law. This is the same kind of boogeyman litigation that earned the MPAA it's glistening record (you know, those guys that publicly claimed that burning your own CD's to your own computer alone was piracy).

This is the kind of situation that the 150k fine exists for. The entire reason that the fine was set that high in the law was to combat pirates that actually sold goods, usually counterfeited goods. The MPAA is stupid for using the highest penalty for people who aren't profiting of the transactions. Nintendo is at least using the law as originally intended.

As copyright is typically a civil matter, Nintedo (/their legal team) were the ones that decided to sue for that much, not any explicit legal dictate. Sure, it probably won't end up that high once it goes to court, but it still offends my personal sensibilities to claim you're owed $150,000 a piece for something that's worth $60. Pretty sure if one did that in most any other legal setting, they'd be laughed out of the room, if not charged with fraud themselves

(come to think of it, suing for $60 per copy plus legal fees would technically make them more money than they would have made if they sold the same number of games retail, given that they didn't have to pay for production & distribution. Huh.)

Again, I can't say I feel particularly sorry for the woman specifically; just bugs me a bit

 

[Roxas1359]

How are Microsoft and Sony doing that next genera- oh, that's right...

You mean how Sony's is actually not that bad actually and you get 2 downloads and can deactivate one of them and download it again on another? You know, like how Apple does some apps or how Adobe does their products? Sony's handling of online purchases isn't bad. MS actually had it terribly in that you needed to be signed in your account in order to play the game, although now they've gotten rid of that, but replaced it with needing gold. Plus you can only transfer it once, and after that you'd have to have Nintendo transfer the data if you were trying to transfer it from one Wii U to another in case say you upgraded from a Basic to a Deluxe model.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I'm fine as long as it sets the following precedent:

Console Modding = Fine.
Piracy = Not fine.

I mean wow, that website, being that blatant in this day and age? We already have criminals dumb enough to posting their status on facebook ("smuggling the goods now").

 

[J Tyran]

Their games are all they've got to succeed with, and piracy has a very real negative effect on that.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

This is not internet piracy, where people are getting games for free. Instead, they're still paying for them, clearly demonstrating that they are willing to pay.

You can argue that they wouldn't necessarily pay full price, and there's some validity to that, but the argument of "a pirate is not a customer" is clearly not true in every case.

This because "commercial piracy" is a different thing, in developed and affluent countries anyway. People buy these boxed and labeled counterfeit BDs/DVDs, CDs and Games simply to save money. It generally is a lost purchase too because the customer often has the money to buy the genuine product but will choose to buy several of the counterfeit ones instead, if mystical forces prevented them from buying the fakes they would almost certainly have bought at least some of the original items.

Not to mention the people responsible for making them can make huge sums of money running into 10s or even hundreds of thousands per month, often going to people and enterprises that you wouldn't really want to see that kind of cash injection.

 

[Something Amyss]

I remember a few years ago MS went after someone for just the modding. I don't see much of a problem with Nintendo doing this though.

EDIT: That XBox case involved Matthew Crippen and the case was actually thrown out of court when it got to that point. It was actual a federal case too, not something brought by MS. Now I'm glad this Nintendo story came up, since I remember hearing about the XBox case, but not the resolution. So, it's pretty clear why Nintendo is approaching this on valid copyright terms.

2nd EDIT: The important part of the XBox case was the the government had no evidence that Crippen was modding the system for piracy. So, you can mod a system to circumvent a protection measure, as long as the circumvention is not for the purpose of making an unauthorized copy. Like, modding a system to play homebrew games is legal. Who's to say what the customer will do with the hacked system afterwards?

If, and that is a big IF Nintendo is right about the "hundreds of Wii games available today" image, then they have a solid case as she appears to be advertising infringement. The concept that technology isn't illegal just because it has illegal uses is a strong one, but if you're advertising it for illegal uses (and I don't know that she is, but again, if), then there's a problem.

Looking at the site, there are multiple instances warning that illegally obtained ROMs are illegal. I'm not sure if this is an ass-covering idea after the fact or if it was always up.

Nintendo doesn't have much choice legally. It is necessary under copyright law for the holder to defend their rights, if they fail to do so they can lose them public domain.

That applies to Trademark law only, and only in cases where market confusion might be at issue. I'm not sure there is any reasonable assumption of that here. In fact, with the number of replications of Mario and other famous Nintendo characters out there unchallenged, the argument of "use it or lose it" kinda has no weight. Mario should, by any measure of trademark law, have been sufficiently degraded at this point. Of course, Nintendo is a big company, really big, and they get treated like special snowflakes. If you or I let a trademark ride like they did, we'd be fucked.

In any event, they are not required to go after copyright. You can't "lose" copyright in the way you can lose other IP statuses (trademark and patent).

Good for Nintendo. Piracy is theft. If you do not want to pay for the content, then you do not get the content. No one will ever convince me that it is not stealing to illegally download.

I'm glad you admit to being closed-minded. At least now I can move on to the more important point. The devices she's selling are not explicitly piracy devices. Now, maybe Nintendo's right and she did advertise that she would load up the newest games, but I'm yet to see proof of that. In the meanwhile, the site currently discusses legality issues.

However, now I'm curious. Is an MP3 player stealing? What about an android phone/tablet?

Hell, if a adblocker (not endorsing them, mods, just using his example) is stealing, is borrowing someone else's DVD (completely legal, by the way) stealing? What if you're walking down the street, and you walk by a TV store and there's a broadcast playing in the window. Is enjoying that without paying stealing? Should I report myself to the authorities because I'm in the proximity to a performance hall and sometimes hear the music without paying? Hell, On occasion an ad has failed to play before a TGWTG video. Am I "stealing" if their content provider (blip) screws up and doesn't send me an ad?

I'm just wondering how far into the absurd we go before people actually call it that, rather than feeling it justified. I'm surprised we don't have people complaining that playing local co-op on a game designed for local co-op is tealing, because only one person paid for that game.

DAMN YOU, DYNASTY WARRIORS! YOU HAVE MADE A CRIMINAL OUT OF ME!