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FBI Cracks Down on Piracy of Obsolete Game
Alien54 wrote to mention a story detailing an FBI crackdown on pirated...NES games. From the article: "More than 60,000 pirated copies of Nintendo game consoles were seized Wednesday during raids in New York and New Jersey, prosecutors announced. Four people were arrested in the crackdown on the theft of popular games such as "Donkey Kong," "Mario Brothers," "Duck Hunt," "Baseball" and others, according to a release by federal authorities and papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Nintendo told the FBI that individuals and companies copy the video games and sell the pirated versions throughout the world, costing the company millions of dollars in lost revenue annually, according to the complaint."
Do nentendo still sell the old games?
Gotta be selling it to be losing out on the profits... unless you include repackaged versions of the game, maybe?
How do they figure out how much selling games that aren't sold any more is costing companies? If Nintendo was still selling say "Solar Jetman" or "Duckhunt" for the NES then I would understand it could cut into their bottom line. But seeing as they don't how is this calculated?
Next we'll be arresting people for making flash animations of copywrited material with really bad translations. Psh. So how much does a NES game go for these days? Buck and a quarter? Buck Fifty? Thank god the man put these criminals at bay. All your base.
Society never gets more or less violent, the definition of violent just keeps changing.
If they don't sell the titles but may intend to in the future, how can they justify the current loss of income?
I think the biggest impact these consoles are having is not in revenue, but in brand damage, as is the case with most counterfeit products.
The games are all there, but often the titles or copyright notices are removed, or the graphics are askew, the little built-in light gun doesn't work, or the sound is off for some reason. The controllers are badly designed, such that you don't know which button is Start, which is Jump, and what the deal is with the turbo buttons.
I do think Nintendo is missing the opportunity to sell consoles like this themselves. But it seems they'd rather sell us old NES games for $20 each on the Game Boy Advance.
Are talking about cartridges or consoles here? I know all about pirating game cartridges -- ahem -- but I've never really heard of a pirated console.
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
If you had to pay a yearly fee to maintain your copyright this kind of crap wouldn't happen. As soon as a game/book/movie/whatever is no longer being sold it should pass into the public domain. Not that the public domain will exist in 5 years.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They obviously aren't obsolete if they are still selling.
And also, these are the crappy 1000-in-1 games-in-a-controller things for sale at malls. The problem isn't so much that they cause Nintendo to lose money, but instead diminish Nintendo's brand.
See, many of the games in these systems are literally hacked ROMs with various sprites replaced, and often the ROMs don't work and simply crash. Since the consumer thinks "this Nintendo sucks", they are less likely to buy a Nintendo product down the line, thinking it'll be similarly crappy.
Not to mention that the consumer got ripped off in the first place, as these systems tend to be sold for US$60 or so in mall kiosks and are of absolutely piss poor quality which would likely break under moderate use.
all the mi-i-i-llions of taxpayer dollars, thousands of person-hours of deep investigative efforts using the latest in 1990s technological know-how and tools, our beloved Homeland Security leaders bring us ... NES pirates.
Nice try, people, but there're things you're *not* telling us and cases you're *not* showing us that keep some of us fearful - not respectful, given the above, but fearful.
Controlling the media to portray you, our beloved federales, as incompetent clowns is only halfway effective - which half varies depending, and I'm afraid of clowns.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
That article is a horrid write up on the incident, it says that 60,000 game consoles were siezed in the raid.
Do they really mean 60,000 consoles or is it 60,000 cartridges as the article implies earlier?
Also, I really wanna know if these guys were "pirating" NES games or if "Donkey Kong" and "Mario" were the only nintendo properties that the article writer knew. Herm.
Arrrr! They be only 9 pixels wide, and be made of 3 colors, but arrr, these NES buccaneers have me shaking in me sea-boots!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
1) Nintendo has on occasion re-released old NES games for new platforms, so they are still able to make money off of those titles.
2) Many 8-bit games have new incarnations, and as far as I know, its a good idea to control the IP in all its incarnations if you dont wish to lose that control.
3) This is about as blatant a case of piracy as one can name. It was both wholesale and flagrant. And Nintendo went after the source, not the customer.
This is not anything like the RIAA / MPAA suing individual users.
END COMMUNICATION
This article has to be referring to those "100 games in 1" (or whatever) consoles that they sell in the mall. I just don't see the market for a quarter of a million pirated NES consoles otherwise, not to mention games you can get at Gamestop for a buck.
Don't these guys have anything better to do? Like tracking down murderers and rapists, for instance?
Four people were arrested in the crackdown on the theft of popular games
How many times does it have to be explained that copyright infringement is a different offence to theft?
If somebody put a game up on the Internet where it was downloaded thousands of times, that can cause far more harm than if somebody went into a shop and stole something.
If somebody copied games that you can no longer buy, it can cause less harm than if somebody went into a shop and stole something.
Copyright infringement and theft are fundamentally different actions, with different consequences, governed by different laws. Even the Supreme Court has ruled that copyright infringement is not theft (Dowling vs US, 1985).
There is a perfectly good term to use when somebody copies something illegally. It's "copyright infringement". People who insist upon misusing the term "theft" are only seeking to cause yet more pointless arguments. There is a word for these people too. It's "troll".
Nintendo made those games. They own the rights. They should be allowed to do what they want with it. How about that? I don't get it why people want everything to be free after a while. If Nintendo judges it can still make money off these games in a few years, then it is in their own right to arrest people who steal from them.
Back in november, when Nintendo asked for your help in tracking down these "N64 controllers" full of hacked roms, everyone thought it was great, lined up at their e-door to help
Now when they've finally raided the warehouse and put a stop to it, there's nothing but "bitch bitch bitch copyright is teh suck".
Fuck you guys, I'm going home.
These guys seem like they wouldn't know theft if it bit them in the rear end. The crime is copyright infringement, not theft. Why are the police not involved if it is theft? Why is the IP "stolen" still in Nintendo's posession? Because what is going on is a violation of copyright laws/contracts. This may not make it right, but this statement proves that our English language is being twisted to support agendas and make things sound worse/different than they really are. [quazi-philosophical rant ahead:] I am one of possibly few left growing up being taught that stealing (or theft if talking legal terminology) requires loss. That in order for something to be stolen somebody has something, but somebody else took it away from you, depriving you of it, while gaining him/her possession of said item. Slowly this concept is being replaced rapidly every day with a different, easier to use concept. Now people are growing accustomed to the idea that theft/stealing doesn't require the "owner" to loose things they had "stolen," or that loosing something you don't even have but wish you had is theft. This surfacing ideology really scares me from a philosophical viewpoint. Before I try to reason why this is scary, I will first attempt to identify reasoning behind this. I think the answer as to why the definition was changed in the mindset of possibly millions is due in part from the pushing of certain agendas on people, which shall be a basis on my explanation. The agenda pushing is in part from the recording and movie industries attempt to show people a negative side to file-sharing, mainly that it can be used to violate copyright. Either through thinking copyright infringement was too light of a word to stir up support, or possibly because they though copyright infringement was too complex for somebody to explain, they instead went with calling unauthorized duplication of data theft or stealing. This brings in another factor right into the issue, that is that they might be too lazy to try and define in a balanced way fee from biased the basic ideas behind copyright laws without resorting to toying with the sometimes fragile world of emotions. The flaw with the decision here is, if you followed the definition of theft/stealing I was taught, duplicating pieces of data, simple 1's and 0's, without depriving them of the same bits of data doesn't fall under this definition. Sure copying something copyrighted without permission in some cases is wrong, but why not call it what it really is, and try to make it wrong in it's own sense instead of "stealing" stealing. The only thing that somebody would possibly be deprived of is the potential to earn some money. The potential meaning they have a chance, but fate can work in or out of their favor, but is not required under law to fall in their favor. I shall close this explanation of this piece with a fitting analogy. If we follow the mindset of the industries at work in media (music and movies), maybe it can be considered theft to tell people that a particular movie, or CD, or book is bad/not worth spending money on because you decrease the value of it to those people who want to buy it. The only flaw here might be that freedom of speech is protected under law here in the U.S, but there have been cases where the justice system has failed us on protecting the first amendment. You the reader have probably been reading through this and wondered where the reasoning for the redefining being scary will come into play. The English language is very rich in words and phrases. There is more than one way to describe one act, but only one way to describe it accurately. To me, what we were taught in elementary school, piled on to what "copying" is, and adding on to that what is being fed into our brains from debates on controversial i
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Maybe the copyright owner should be compensated (_depends_), but so what if owners of copies see the value of their copies reduced.
Are you saying that if I buy a copy of a book and someone makes cheaper copies of the book, then I should be compensated?
That's weird man. Weird.
Crap, I forgot part of the equation. Then they add the aforementioned price times the number of people who have not yet been born.
"I am not your lawyer,.."
In that case, can I have the retainer back??
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I'm a bit confused here.
Back in november, when Nintendo asked for your help in tracking down these "N64 controllers" full of hacked roms, everyone thought it was great, lined up at their e-door to help
Now when they've finally raided the warehouse and put a stop to it, there's nothing but "bitch bitch bitch copyright is teh suck".
It's probably because of a misleading summary. If you miss the single word "sell" at the end, it might sound like Nintendo is suing people sharing files noncommercially, when really they're suing a huge commercial operation based on copyright infringement.
After reading the article, I have no problem with Nintendo's actions in this case. The summary made it sound more like the RIAA lawsuits.
BTW, don't be surprised when the thousands of Slashdot users don't agree with each other.
I really don't understand....pirates are trying to make a quick buck, right?
The handheld console games from a while back were selling because they were easy to use and on the cheap.
Why would you bother knocking off NES consoles and games when most people who have the itch just buy GB versions or use emulators?
Wouldn't it make more sense to pirate Gameboy games?
Yes. They sell old NES games for the GBA such as Super Mario Brothers, Ice Climbers, and Donkey Kong. They also include NES games in Animal Crossing, which is a selling point for that game.
If any of you have seen those infinity-in-1 gaming systems: The cheap controller with a/v out that has a self booting emulator and roms flashed on. They sell a version with a gun for duck hunt as well. These are what they are talking about. Not cartridges.
The way I view it it's similar to records -> tapes -> cd's -> ???? -> profit!!!
Seriously though, Thriller first came out on vinyl. Everything was good. The tape offered portability. Everything was still good. The CD offered portability and sound quality. Still grand. You can buy these games for a song for the original NES, or you can pay 20$ for the portable version that has all the graphics of the original (sometimes improved) and maybe a few extras thrown in here and there. Sounds like a good deal to me.
The issue is this: some, if not most, of these games are not available for sale any more. I can't go to a store and pick up Double Dragon, for any system. I need to hunt hunt hunt for it. Now Nintendo may want to rerelease these games, they may not, but they can't say that they're currently losing millions of dollars in revenue. These guys have been stopped, I guess sales of old NES carts should start bringing in the big bucks for them again.
HOWEVER, that being said... these guys were profiting from counterfeit goods, and I'm sure no one can condone that.
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
An anticircumvention ruling was issued by the Librarian of Congress on 10/28/2003. It protects - for the time being - sites such as ours at videogamemaps.net (my url). The pertinent clause:
(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Sounds like the FBI straight out fucked up to me.
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
This is kind of insane.
They do not sell the games themselves. Nor do they sell the consoles that these games require to run. And they have no online aftermarket auctioning thing which might tie resale of used items into a revenue generating stream
And yet they claim lost revenue?
It obviously can't be enough revenue to motivate them to actually sell the product. If it was, then I would expect them to put Donkey Kong et al on the shelves for consumers to purchase.
This is an interesting loophole on Americas model of Free Market Economy.
The arguement has always been along the lines that free markets develop products in a Darwinian Evolutionary model. Good products succeed and bad products die off. Patent law was developed to protect the young until they had a chance to mature.
My first reaction is that they are actively killing their predecessor in order for their current products to survive. Kind of a genocide of previous generations.
But how is this different from someone releasing a new software product line and not supporting their old product line AND not allowing anyone else to do that either? Some products have aftermarket support like this (automobiles) without legal ramifications from the original manufacturer, and some do not (Windows 98).
Is this an inconsistency in the law, or am I up too early?
THEN BEGIN PRODUCTION OF THE OLD GAMES AGAIN.
Don't complain when someone pirates an obsolete game just because its hard to find in some areas. Going to EB Games and other related stores and going into their "Classic Games Bin" is useless because half of the games are beaten half to death and the decent ones are taken by those 27 year olds who look forward to their weekly D&D parties with their friends.
If it were gamecube, I'd understand, but it isn't. EVEN IF IT WERE N64 I WOULD UNDERSTAND. But, no. Not SNES and NES. Those are hard to come by when you dont buy stuff off the internet all the time.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Sorry for being a correction nazi, but the NES tiles are 8*8px and 4 colors. Below is a blurb if you're interested to know more. Else skip.
I wrote a program that extracts the tile tables from NES roms and thus had to do a bit of reverse engeneering. It seems the tiles are 8*8px and 2 bitplans, which means 4 colors. One of the colors is transparent though, so 3 is sort of correct. A tile only requires 16 bytes of memory (8*8 bits * 2 bitplans).
The tiles are arranged in 16*16 blocks or banks, and two of those can be kept in memory at the same time, which means that 256x2 tiles can be kept in memory at the same time.
When you get to a new area, the game will swich banks, and you get new enemies or whatever. The game can also switch palettes so the enemies come in different colors. To further save memory, the tiles can be flipped and stuff, so less angles will have to be drawn. The octorocs on Zelda 1 are just two tiles that are mirrored to make a fully symetrical creature, then there's two different palettes (red & blue).
This guy knows more than me: NES Architecture - by Marat Fayzullin
The Chair Corp. comic(*00-12)
crackdown on the theft of popular games such as ... "Baseball"
What a complete load of crap, you can't steal baseball!
Enjoy an e-piphany
The article doesn't give details, but I believe this is the crackdown on those shitty "9999 videogames for $9.95!" booths at every mall. Yup, those pieces of crap. Not only is it just blatant copyright infringment, it's some massive trademark dilution too. They make "9999" videogames because they just rename the NES games over and over. So you've got "Ice climbers" "Glacier Climbers" "Slippery Climbers"... bah. Oh, and 75 copies of "Duck Hunt" that you can't use because they don't actually have a proper controller, etc, etc. Good riddance to bad garbage. See, _THIS_ is software piracy. It's the same as selling copied DVDs/CDs for massive profits. This is the crap they should be spending effort on, not p2p networks.
What is he doing with your retainer, and how did he get it out of your mouth in the first place?
No, on second thought, I don't want to know...
Blank until
like Geez, they are 20 years old!! older than me. besides its like national identity, if you don't hold on to it, be prepared to lose it. Old games that I like (marathon for example) which is only 10 years is now free to download. Whats Nintendo's problem.
I just wanted to help out with a couple of Supreme Court rulings on the subject:
And then the Supreme Court went ahead and reversed itself in Eldred v. Ashcroft, claiming that it's Congress's job to determine whether a given copyright statute "promotes the Progress". Quotes from the opinion
Super NES had more customized parts and more patents than the old NES. It also had a souped-up lockout chip. Expect Super NES clones in 2011 when the U.S. and Japanese patents start to run out.
Worse yet is the fact that there's no registration of copyright works, so if you find some old game that you think is great and would like to distribute it you have no idea who you have to contact to get permission.
For one thing, there is a copyright registry located in the United States. For another thing, if you move your business to Canada, you can apparently license some copyrighted works directly from the government under its compulsory license scheme for orphaned works.
Someone was selling faux-Nintendo consoles at a kiosk in the local mall a couple months ago. I actually walked up and messed with the display unit for a minute, since some discerning soul had loaded up Gradius before the (Korean??? Good English grammar, though...) attendant could come back and switch it to Duck Hunt. Good game, albeit illegal.
Funny, the kiosk isn't there anymore...
I knew that would cost me a bit of karma, but this particular story just struck me as incredibly rediculous. For once I found myself agreeing 100% with the sentiment the story was trying to express. Way to go, slashdot.
We're not talking about some guy playing ROMs of Mario Bros. in his basement.
These things were in the malls for the holiday season -- at those cheezy little cart/stands -- so yes, I think it's safe to say that Nintendo lost some sales as a result.
Ok, say you wrote Duck Hunt. You made a coupla thousand bucks back in the day being an unknown coder working for a large corporation (Nintendo) and somehow managed to wangle that royalties agreement. You still get some royalties here and there for usage and branding etc. Then, walking down the street, you see a bunch of market stall guys selling a counterfeit copy of your game, with your graphics, your code. Oh yeah, your royalty cheques have been getting smaller by the year since it was released and your still not John Carmack. How would you feel?
My Mind Is Rewired. Is Yours?