Nintendo Goes To Court To Halt Piracy

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Kotaku: Nintendo And 54 Companies Battle Evil R4 In Court
Nintendo has just announced that it and 54 game software companies are filing a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against companies that import "R4 Revolution for DS"-type devices, using the Unfair Competition Prevention Law as the legal grounding. Nintendo is asking for the cease of marketing, sales and importation of these Chinese-made devices. The R4 allows easy software piracy by fitting right into the DS's cartridge slot...In a statement released today, Nintendo announced that these R4 devices "allow illegal uploading from the internet", adding that "it is causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook." In conclusion, Nintendo adds that such devices hurts the growth of the entire game industry and steps must be taken regarding the legality of R4 carts. It's important to note that this legal injunction is for Japan only...more...

[Midwinter]

Kind of off-topic, but are mod chips legal in Japan?

[Neo-Rio]

No idea.

Although I do rememeber importing a Gameboy Advance flash-linker from HongKong into Japan many years ago - and the customs seal was broken. Hmmm... . I still got my flash-linker though.

I mean, technically speaking these devices usually assist homebrew game development.... just as much as you can use them to dump the contents of cartridges and pirate them around the internet. It's the old case of banning something that has an otherwise legitimate use. Kinda like banning all knives because they could be used to kill people - or banning encryption because while it can be used to secure bank transactions, it could also be used to secretly transmit kiddie-porn or terrorist manuals or something.

Anyway, Sony has it MUCH worse with the PSP these days. All you have to do is cut a certain trace inside a PSP battery-pack, which then enables you to completely hack the PSP wide open, copy the UMD game disks to a computer, pirate them all over the internet, play pirate and unlicensed games etc... and there's not a single damn company in China SONY can take aim at for that. The best SONY can hope to do is keep redesigning newer PSPs to thwart the hacks and tinkering with the PSP firmware updates - playing cat and mouse with the hackers... but really, the cat is out of the bag there.

Thing is, piracy - while bad - has never really killed the gaming industry - and the gaming industry only seems to be growing. Thing is, I believe that most people buy enough games to keep the industry chugging along, and pirate the rest where they can. IMHO, most pirated games aren't a lost sale as much as they are something that the pirate would never pay for in the first place.

[Western All Stars]

This is ironic considering Nintendo just lost a patent-infringement case a few days ago for nearly all their controllers going back to the 80's.

Nintendo is in fact facing a serious ban on several of the controllers for the Wii as well as GameCube after it lost its legal bid to scuttle a $21 million patent-infringement verdict.

Nintendo Wii: Banned in the USA?

[MrUltimateGaijin]

those R4 cards are awesome because they are so easy to use. no having t install custom firmwares

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Court bans sale of devices enabling use of illegal software on Nintendo DS

The Tokyo District Court has ordered five companies to halt the import and sale of devices allowing pirated games to be played on the Nintendo DS console, and destroy their stockpiles of the devices. The lawsuit against the companies -- including Chinese-operated Kanenka, located in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward -- was filed by Nintendo and 54 game manufacturers. Presiding Judge Masami Ichikawa ruled that the devices "are encroaching on the plaintiffs' business profits."

The devices are referred to in Japan as "majikon," short for "magic computer." They are mainly imported from China, and at least several hundred thousand have reportedly been distributed in Japan. Nintendo DS consoles have copy-protection systems preventing the use of illegally copied software, but these can be deactivated using the majikon devices. The defendants had argued that majikon are intended to allow users to use software they had created themselves, known as "homebrew" software. However the court rejected their claims, saying that majikon were mostly used to play copied games, and judged that the devices fell under a ban on sales under the Unfair Competition Prevention Law.

Nintendo and the other plaintiffs praised the ruling as fair. The defendants said the judge had ignored clauses of the law. Plaintiffs hope that the ruling will put the brakes on the use of illegally copied software circulating on the Internet, at least in Japan. Nintendo is also considering seeking damages from the accused parties. In a survey of seven overseas sites between November and December 2007, Nintendo confirmed that there had been over 100 million downloads of illegal software. In the lawsuit, the company described the damage as "astronomical."

A representative of the Association of Copyrights for Computer Software said the measures ordered by the court would prevent further damage, but added that a policy to prevent illegal game distribution is also needed. The association says they intend to work with Internet providers and the government to address the problem.