Nintendo’s campaign against piracy has scored another victory with a Nintendo DS pirate being handed a two and half year prison sentence and force to pay $100,000 in penalty, after he made a game available for free download.
The Kyoto district court heard that the defendant, a 38-year-old Osaka salaryman, distributed Nintendo DS software online, violating Nintendo’s copyright and trademarks.
Prosecutors sought a four and a half year prison sentence, ¥2,000,000 in fines, and a further ¥7,100,000 in confiscations. The judge granted all of their requests save the lengthy prison sentence, which he reduced to 2 and a half years.
The accused man made Rhythm Tengoku Gold freely available for download from his homepage, proclaiming “the age of DS software downloads,” as well as duplicating the game in China. The confiscations apparently stem from revenues he concealed in the course of other fraudulent activities, including selling counterfeit goods.
The judge was keen to hang the pirate high, lambasting him for his wicked assault on struggling console giant Nintendo, even if he did not consider the sort of sentence handed out to thieves and rapists appropriate:
“His criminal conduct tramples on the huge development costs of the copyright holders who develop this software. It is clear that he did great monetary harm to the rights holders.”
Via 47news.
Nintendo, based in Kyoto, seems to enjoy a favourable relationship with courts. Whether it can defeat piracy by technical means as well remains to be seen…
It is ridiculous he got 30 months for one measly game.
Now the dumbass judge of this case has cost the people of Japan 2,000,000 yen housing this guy in prison for the next 30 months.
The judge is obviously bought and paid for and you’d see a Nintendo logo on his ass if you pants him.
This also means Yakuza goes free early.
Think about it when someone gets arrested for a victimless crime.
A prison has limited capacity it’s not like the phantom zone someone has to go free sometimes when someone is arrested.
I doubt Nintendo lost 2,000,000 yen from the guy’s actions but he was a retard to have post it on a site registered in his name.
Really crimes like this should carry zero prison time instead take away his rights to use the internet ,force him to give anti piracy talks etc for x time and give him community service.
Doing stupid s#it like this in their own backyard… I pity the fool. He is extremely lucky he didn’t get thrown in the proverbial volcano with Nintendo’s legal power in Kyoto, yes he is.
eh…I don’t play the ds anyway..
Japan doesn’t give us translated goodies so why would i play a biased game from stingy japan companies?
“The confiscations apparently stem from revenues he concealed in the course of other fraudulent activities, including selling counterfeit goods.”
The U.S. government convicted and jailed American gangster Al Capone for tax evasion (as opposed to murder, violation of the National (alcohol) Prohibition Act, illegal gun trafficking, prostitution, conspiricy to commit, etc.).
Why? Because that was what they could most easily prove.
This guy might be in a similar boat (“other fraudulent activities, including selling counterfeit goods” is not as bad as what Capone did) — they prosecuted him on what they could most easily prove.
Exactly. I quote from the article:
“as well as duplicating the game in China. The confiscations apparently stem from revenues he concealed in the course of other fraudulent activities, including selling counterfeit goods.”
In other words, he was selling bootleg games. He was making people pay for pirated games, meaning people still have to shelve out cash, but none of it goes to Nintendo.
I think he deserves 30 months for being such a bastard. Either you pirate and make things free, or they buy it legally. Just leeching off Nintendo like that is harmful to everybody except the guy himself, and he should be punished for being the selfish asshole he is.
Bootleggers =/= Software pirates
Bootleggers scam you, while software pirates make software available for free. Don’t mix them up, please.
This sounds like good cash. I’m going to sue myself to get money!