Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo Wins Lik Sang Piracy Case
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an Adrenaline Vault article indicating Nintendo has won substantial damages against GameBoy 'backup' device vendor Lik Sang. According to the original Reuters story, "Nintendo Co Ltd said on Thursday it has won one of its 'most significant anti-piracy judgments ever' against a Hong Kong firm that sold devices capable of copying its games and putting them on the Internet for limitless downloading." Nintendo has been awarded an interim amount of HK$5 million (US$641,000) in damages, and they say Nintendo software publishers as a whole lost US$650 million in sales last year due to piracy.
BS.
They assume just cause someone download it for free they lost a sale. Most people who download stuff would of never bought it anyways, even if they could not of gotten it free. They should just enjoy the popularity of the product and acept the sales they get. [even a downloader must buy GB to play it on] Anyone with brains does not spend $5-600 a year on GB crap. Well not anyone with a real life or a good drug dealer near by.
Eh, I've talked to maybe 20-30 people who have this unit, so this isn't statistically significant, but everyone used it to download copyrighted roms, not for homebrew games. So why don't you blame them for downloading them instead of nintendo for trying to stop them.
Anyway, this sucks... I don't think its Nintendo's fault, I think it's the judge's fault. Nintendo just wants to make more money, can't blame them for trying especially since there are many people using the backup devices for pirating.
But make more money how? How many developers want to develop for a company that has no concern about copyright infingement? This was not about only first party titles. This is just one more venue that Nintendo has to stick with Sony and Microsoft...not for the consumer, but for the developer.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
There are plenty of free public domain roms out there which are not illegal to play.
Plus the flash carts also make a good development system if you want to try your own game on something other than an emulator.
//
I hope with the following Information I am able to give you a little insight into the recent
happenings and about the misleading press release of Nintendo.
Before the Nintendo Press release has been distributed, I have delivered a Notice of
Appeal to Nintendo, as well as to the High Court of Hong Kong. I am not exactly sure
why Nintendoâ(TM)s press department didnâ(TM)t mention a word about it.
The Judgment was not a real trial yet, it was a Summary Judgment with a single Judge.
Usually such Summary Judgments are in case of bounced bank checks where no trial is
needed and everything is straight forward.
With all due respect to the High Court of Hong Kong, but no Intellectual Property (IP)
specialist was assigned to this case. Already at the first hearing the Judge mentioned that
itâ(TM)s a pity Hong Kong has no IP specialist anymore and that he finds the Copyright Law
of Hong Kong very confusing. After some research, it looks like the Judge is a specialist
for maritime laws. He made several comments during the hearings which seemed to
observers like this was his first IP case ever.
The Summary Judgment itself was based on the Section 273 of the Hong Kong Copyright
Ordinance about âoecircumventing a copy-protectionâ. No copy-protection exists in the
Gameboy or Gameboy Advance game cartridges. The Judge didnâ(TM)t hear a specialist or at
least an independent 3rd party expert opinion - he took it for granted from the
explanations by Nintendo that there is a copy-protection.
Furthermore, the Judge found that âoeby analogy with drugs, it[the setcion 273] is not
aimed at the drug addict but at the drug traffickerâ. I fail to understand his logic, as this
would mean that the drug store selling the injection needles to drug addicts or maybe
even the manufacturer of the container where the drug addict keeps the drug could be
held liable?
After legal actions in the USA against Bung Enterprises in the late nineties (for selling
and manufacturing videogame development and backup equipment) this was the second
Court Judgment ever regarding products of this nature. Regarding information made
available to me in the Court Room, the case against Bung and its US distributor Carl
Industries Inc was brought to an end in their disfavor by Bung not complying with Court
Orders and not paying ordered penalties. The actual judgment was written by Nintendo
representatives, without the Judge properly going through the arguments. The legality or
illegality of the products in question has therefore never been argued in a real trial
anywhere in the world. A serious trial, with competent Judges, is now definitely needed
to settle the question once and for all. This is why I have decided to appeal.
I am not happy about the direction where this is heading, neither are supporters and
legitimate users of the tools. Again, I have to stress once more, that the very same
hardware under attack is used by thousands of hobbyist users and even professional
developers for legitimate purpose. Very embarrassing for Nintendo: even the large
publisher, who made the original game used in Court for demonstrating purpose, bought
hundreds and hundreds of Flash Cartridges from my company for beta testing. And so did
numerous other top 10 publishers listed in the stock market.
The products I have sold are not circumventing any copy protections, same as a Floppy
Disk Drive and a 3.5" Disk doesn't â" in fact there is no copy-protection existing, as
commonly known by the gaming industry.
I completely understand Nintendoâ(TM)s fight against piracy, but I believe they are aiming at
the wrong targets. With Digital Media and the Internet nowadays, publishers will have to
change their strategy. They just canâ(TM)t win the fight against the Progress without removing
our primary rights: presumption of innocence and the right for backup. Nintendo doesnâ(TM)t
need to prove you are a pirate anymore, it is assumed you all are if you have the technical
means to copy.