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…
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"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!
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?
He got off easy as far as I'm concerned. No respect for pirates from me.
So you disrespect humanity? Self-loathing is kinda sad. Or wouldn't you be happy to receive games as a gift?
Not that guy, but I would not to be happy to receive stolen games, mind you.
You're pretty bitter why not join some cult and get a ride on the next UFO out of here and make us all happier.
......................"Nigger"
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.
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.
so Nintendo 1 Pirates 21345635243
and counting
heh yeah Nintendo is just wasting its time..
I don't know about "wasting time". Though Nintendo is doing little to deter singular leeches, even the slightest move towards active prosecution of uploaders can affect some level of change. They might be using a squirt gun to extinguish an inferno but some part of that fire is feeling the consequence. I mean, they fucked up that guy's life pretty bad.
And it might be important to point out that he was involved in "other fraudulent activities" that undoubtedly contributed to his sentence.
ehm,.. do you live in countries were suing someone is for free? Where I live, you have to pay thousends of Euros and if you win, hell, you lost your money but won't get anything back from one poor bastard. He pirated for the reason of not having any money to buy in the first place.
Think about it, do you honestly expect him to pay the 100 000$ ? Who the fuck does have that kind of money anyway?
So it's basically Nintendo wasting time and money for accomplishing shit. Unless suing is for free in japan.
Whats the difference between "everybody is doing it, but it is illegal" and "everybody is doin it". Right, a formality. It's impossible to hunt down every single pirate out there. Even the attempt is just wasting time and money. If you got a murdere, you can just punish him, but how the fuck do you go against every single goddamn human out ther (including yourself)? (Yeah, that's my logic. You can punish one, but not everyone, hence what everybody does is legal and Yeah, if everybody wants to kill people, then we are having a war and guess what, killing and raping becomes legal!)
I'm not saying pirating is good either, but I do it anyway. It's not like I killed someone and I wouldn't have bought the product in the first place. So everything feels right about pirating stuff. If I like something I still buy it.
@Chen
There are a few things standing in the way of that happening:
Economics, social order, moral codes, business ethics, responsibility and every other fucking thing that civilization is hinges on.
I'm not a lawyer (though my father is one, ironically) especially a Japanese lawyer but "suing" someone is completely different than presenting criminal charges and demanding direct compensation. In the first case, neither party maintains fault. You'll have a plaintiff waging a defendant and the case takes place in open, non-discriminatory court where the judge will hear both sides.
This however, was not the case. The man was accused of criminal conduct (of which he was later found guilty [probably by jury]) the case took place in criminal court and the prosecutors, therefore, sought compensation. Nintendo might have had to pay court fees, such as booking a court date, but I don't think they'll have any problem throwing out a hundred or two. And I know they have their own company lawyers.
And yes, I honestly expect him to pay the $100,000 over an extended period. If not only for the sole reason if he doesn't, it's illegal and he'll spend MORE time in jail. No one expect a few have that kind of money laying around but that's the point.
So let's assume that most people would want to rape and kill other people, if so then it means that it should be made legal?
This is really strange logic...
I'm not saying that I'm a saint - i also pirate stuff from time to time, but at least I'm not pretending that this is a good thing.
Well, if they would fuck up my life (impossible, I am still happy with my SNES and don't plan to buy new consoles for decades to come), but if they would, I would delibarately not pay any Cent and enjoy my carefree life in prison. (Well, in my country life in prison is carefree and comfortable.) I wouldn't see any need to pay such an amount of money. It's illegal, hence the law should be altered, so it becomes legal. Don't most of us live in something called democraty (= popular government), so what most people want should be okay. Most people want to pirate stuff, so it should be made, so that it will be okay.
Yeah, there's no reason not to sue people. It's money that makes up for the loss of sales due to piracy and it goes straight to the developers which encourages companies to continue making games.
I have to agree...there's no point prosecuting. Nobody is going to stop pirating just because some unlucky (well, rather, stupid) guy got busted.
Maybe not but they took down at least one. And that small triumph is money in someone's pocket. That's a victory for them, however small we perceive it to be.
Honestly, I think they do it because ruining some poor sap's life makes their dicks hard.
Many pros and cons to this. . .
too bad there's this massive country across the sea pirating the hell out of japanese console and handheld games and everything else japanese and japan can't do shit about it.
Mexico?
He means China.
I LOLed.
I was thinking the U.S., but eh what's the difference?
No matter how much companies try to curb such activities, there will always be a replacement sooner or later. But it's pretty stupid to openly advertise “the age of DS software downloads” to begin with. Don't know why but this reminds me of that old article of that girl's myspace escapades.
The quote from the judge made me think of the judge from Phoenix Wright.
Software piracy makes my dick soft.
"YO GIMME YO FRUIT COCKTAIL!"
Hi, I'm in here a year and a half for nearly beating a woman to death.. and you?
I'm in here two and a half year for pirating a Nintendo DS game.
Be my bitch!
The sentences really don't make any sense there...
but still pretty neat to hear about.
Tsk tsk, the economy is way more important than womens or even the planet.
Uho
Does such a soap-dropping environment exist in Japanese prisons?
I wonder why they call it "piracy" in the first place. It's a far too romanticized word for such an activity. I promote the use of the word "shitcocking" for what we currently refer to as software piracy.
The word you're looking for is "copyright infringement."
only if there _is_ such a thing as "copyright".
many countries have long opted to adopt such a concept, others are considering it less important.
recently, better alternatives have been discussed, but with such overwhelmingly corrupt and neoliberalist state powers, there's little hope for improvement. sic.
What the fuck do you mean, only if there is such a thing? Of course there's such a fucking thing as copyright. Most civilised countries are bound to respect it via numerous international laws. Take your dickhead moon laws back to where you came from.
Technically it's counterfeit. (No, it's not stealing, think about it).
Let's use the new term in this articles headline as an example: "Nintendo Crucifies DS Shitcocker: 30 Months & $100,000"
What exactly does "shitcocking" mean? Sounds like an made up fantasy word to me. Let's just call it communism. Because that is what piracy is.
FOR GREAT JUSTICE!!!
WATCH YOURSELF!!!
No, for the benefit of Nintendo.
What an idiot. You don't host pirated material on a host registered under your name and then bait the copyright holder by proclaiming it "the age of free DS software."
Piracy : worst than rape, murder and child molestation.
get to work, Japan.
The only true constant in the universe seems to be the stupidity of humanity.
2nded
amen.
Internet rule 95 in action.
K.O. ...
esperemos que lo lleven a la prision FuChu.. asi se la vivira chingon
LIAR!
Objection!
C-C-C-COMBO BREAK
new
old
die
One word reply
Samuraiman.
Be a man, do the right thing!
Annoying anonymouses.....
batman!!
semen
bmen
And even that seems to fluctuate in an increasing trend.