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NOA to Sue for Flash Advance Linkers

Posted by timothy on from the subject-to-confiscation dept.

SamMichaels writes: "I just received a letter from Nintendo of America claiming that Flash Advance Linkers violate the DMCA...I'm to cease sale in my store, and surrender all remaining units to Nintendo. The letter is posted on the front page of Zophar's Domain. Any pro bono lawyers out there?"

6 of 661 comments (clear)

  1. DMCA or not by rho · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    DMCA or no, this device allows people to copy GBA games. Legally right or wrong, it's a pretty rude thing to do.

    You think companies are making games for the mental excercise of it?

    I hope you get shut down.

    --
    Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
    1. Re:DMCA or not by rho · · Score: 1, Flamebait
      So what you are saying is that you can take something that has a legitimate use, and use it illegally? My goodness, that is amazing.

      No. If you'd remove your head from the hive-mind's ass, you could see it.

      This device's primary use is for illegally copying games. It is not primarily for developers, nor is it for backing up your carts. Somehow, developers are still able to make GBA games without this device, and somehow we managed to live for some 25 years without cart backups. You can deceive yourself all you want. Waving a potential legitimate use in front of a device who's principle use is illegal is sophistry.

      Again, I bring up the example of plates to make counterfeit money. You can say "they are pieces of art, not illegal tools". You can say "they make great paper weights". You can even say "I just use them to crack nuts"--it doesn't matter. Their principle use is to make illegal counterfeit money, and claiming that they are anything else is embarassingly stupid.

      The same applies here. You can claim anything you want, but the device's main purpose is to get games for free, beyond the cost of the device itself. Nintendo would be insane to just allow the thing to be sold.

      You're confusing your blind hatred of the DMCA (which is bad legislation) with what is legal, illegal, right, or wrong. If the DMCA was only used for cases like this, I'd be perfectly content with the law. This is what the law was designed to prevent: punks ripping off a company beneath the guise of "backup purposes" or "developer machines". It's laughable.

      The DMCA is being used for other, stupid things, and that is wrong. The law is stupid and wrong. But Nintendo, in this case, is 100% right. If you weren't so self-deceiving, you could see it too.

      --
      Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
  2. Re:"rude"? by rho · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I can't explain colloquialisms. If you can't parse the meaning, I can't dig you out of your morass of ignorance. Try auditing a creative writing class, or something.

    --
    Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
  3. Re:Well what did you expect? by Uttles · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    You're missing the point. Guns can be used for hunting, shooting games, killing people, armed robbery, all sorts of things. Pillows are used for sleeping, sitting, napping, shooting people, again lots of things. Nintendo cartridges have one purpose, to play video games. If you're selling "tools" to illegaly copy these games, you're committing a crime, because the tool has no legitimate purpose.

    --

    ~ now you know
  4. Re:Internet Exploder! by BlueUnderwear · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    Wouldn't this kill any paragraph longer than 50 characters, as long as it only contained dots, word characters and *gasp*, spaces...

    And wouldn't it be too easy to work around by including non-word characters into the page widening posts (underscores, hyphens)?

    I guess, the best solution would still be to use a real browser. Indeed, what kind of dick would surf Slashdot with IE? That's worse than a bespectacled geek going to a football match. Or a jock coming to the chess club. IE is just not in its place on Slashdot... don't ya people know this is supposed to be a Linux hangout? ;-)

    --
    Say no to software patents.
  5. Re:Description by Bilestoad · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    amatuer GBA developers out there that use this kind of hardware to test theirs and others games on a real system

    i.e. "developers" who refuse to comply with Nintendo's terms for developing on that platform. Like it or not, Nintendo own the platform and controls it. Just because you're not strong enough to take a principled stand and refuse to buy one doesn't give you the right to ignore the legal considerations. I don't know why I'm bothering to tell you this, you know it but don't care.