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Nintendo Sues Korean Sites Over Copyright Violations
The Korean Times is reporting that the Korean branch of Nintendo has filed suit against several websites over copyright issues. The suits come just nine months after Nintendo first opened up the Korean market (officially) with the introduction of the Nintendo DS. From the article: "'They infringed on our copyright by posting Nintendo's game titles through the Internet without our permission,' a Nintendo spokesperson said. 'The legal action was taken against only some sites and users this time but we will take further measures if such a violation continues to take place.' She declined to comment on how many sites and people are involved in the piracy suit. The legal action came after Mineo Koda, the Japanese chief executive of Nintendo Korea, had expressed concern about the lingering problem of piracy in South Korea that he said would pose a challenge to his company's business here."
"Legally speaking" is never all that matters.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
I purchase old NES titles all the time now...but prior to them coming out with this service, I downloaded and played ROMs like crazy.
That being said...why hasn't Nintendo released a system (perhaps they could even do this with a firmware update to the Wii?) in which you could buy "packs" of old NES, SNES, and N64 games on CD? I mean think about it...charge 30 dollars, put 6-10 games on each CD, and presto: they suddenly have hundreds upon hundreds of titles they can resell (or sell for the first time). I know they would get plenty of business from me if they had officially created and supported re-releases of old games...just on a more "complete library" level. Or hell, release the entire library of each system on a DVD or two and charge a 100-150 for it...I would be willing to bet quite a lot that they would sell them by the truckload.
They are just now getting to see what they can earn off their older stuff...if you were to tell me I could buy a system created and built by Nintendo that had the ability to play NES, SNES, and N64 games, and then proceed to release the ENTIRE LIBRARY of those three systems on a retail level again...hell yes people would buy it.
It sure would beat the hell out of spending exorbitant amounts of money on Ebay for those hard to find titles....AND they would be making more money on complete, ready to play titles.
Virtual Console is nice, don't get me wrong...but I sure hope it's only their first step. They are sitting on a veritable gold mine and would be missing out on a lot of cash if they didn't do something more...substantial.
Living With a Nerd