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Nintendo Cracks Down on Copying Devices
Adrian Lopez writes "Nintendo is cracking down on mod chips and copying devices with the help of the Hong Kong government. 'The Hong Kong High Court has intervened, at Nintendo's request, to help stop a global distribution operation involving game copying devices and modification chips that violate the copyrights and trademarks of Nintendo DS and Wii. On Oct. 8th, the court ordered the raid of Supreme Factory Limited facilities, through which Nintendo representatives seized more than 10,000 game copying devices and mod chips over the course of three days. The devices seized are used to copy and play Nintendo DS games offered unlawfully over the Internet, and the mod chips allow the play of pirated Wii discs or illegal copies of downloaded Nintendo games.'"
Its like taking piss out of a swimming pool, you can make wii chips out of commonly availible materials for $5 (WiiFree, OpenWii etc)
I can't help but notice that every article on the Main Page has been posted by ScuttleMonkey...where did everyone else go? Was there a party last night that Scuttlemonkey wasn't invited to?
Media-shifting is only a fair-use right when encryption is not involved. Under the DMCA, you cannot break encryption to media-shift. It's not just media hype, it's been US law since 1998.
If Nintendo is 0% successful at this, they will have wasted a lot of money and time for nothing.
If Nintendo is 100% successful, on the other hand, they will save some revenue, but at the cost of pissing off a lot of users, legitimate and otherwise, who might decide to take their business elsewhere.
Odds are pretty good that their actual success rate will fall somewhere between 0% and 100% (most probably close to the low end of the scale), making this endeavor slightly annoying to the users, while being in the main a big waste of time.
Any way you slice it, it's a dumb idea.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
...the way this article is spun.
Yes, mod chips could be used for illegal activities, but also for good. The article really fails to highlight that. With a tone like this, you'd wonder how tape recorders ever got sold.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
I've always wondered if those that use R4 cards (I don't have one) for the DS and play online are at risk of being caught and having their doors knocked down by the SS..err I mean Police. Surely they're logging users and have means of identifying legitimate/illegitimate users?
ilovegeorgebush
"It can destroy years of hard work by a team of very talented software developers, who strive to create games consumers enjoy playing."
It -can-, but it doesn't. Instead, it allows people that don't have the money to buy the game to play it anyhow, and get their friends excited, and get them interested in sequels and spinoffs. Instead of forcing the penniless gamer to go out and play in the yard for free, it keeps them addicted to video games.
On the other hand, people that -can- afford the games buy them, for the most part. I'm not talking the teenagers that have to skip lunch this month to buy a game, but the people with full-time jobs and disposable income.
And when it comes right down to it, the only difference between someone "stealing" a game using a modchip and that same person buying the game used is the timeframe. The developer doesn't get any money from either way. (Of course, GameStop gets some money on the used route, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.)
My current tactic? Rental. Any game I don't absolutely have to have right away, I just rent it. For 1/3 of a game per month, I can rent 2-4 by mail. For 3/4 of a game per month, I can rent 4-8. Since I lose interest in most games after a few hours anyhow, this works great for me. I've had some games that I thought I'd love that I spent less than an hour playing them before they were back in the mail. GameFly (and probably other services) will even let you buy the game at a reduced price if you want to keep it. That makes it really hard to justify buying it brand new.
So in the end, Nintendo can rid the market of these devices and it won't change things for the better. That isn't their goal, though. Their goal is to remind people that they are illegal and 'wrong'. And they did that.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I've not made a habit of backing up CD / DVD media based games or content, primarily due to the hassle. For the adult stuff my wife and I are careful enough with the disks that the risk of the disk becoming damaged through normal use is reasonably low. (read as not worth the hassle and cost of obtaining technically illegal software and quality media)
:-)
An incident last weekend however has me reconsidering my current practices, at least where my kids CDs, DVDs and games are concerned.
Over the course of the last few years I've had to use the furniture polish trick on a few game CDs. Usually after one of the kids left them sliding around in a drawer and the PS2 or 'puter couldn't read them anymore. With I think one exception, so far I've been lucky and they've all be playable.
Last weekend however my son had a friend over for cooperative HALO3 fest. On the second evening they're setting up the friends system when my son decides to "stand up XBox so it can get some cooling". After this the system says the disk is unreadable, and it's discovered that their is a perfectly circular series of scratches about a quarter inch from the out edge and an eighth of an inch wide.
After multiple attempts with the furniture polish and toothpaste tricks I finally get the disk to read. I have NO doubt I'll be buying the young man a new HALO3 disk in the near future.
The moral of the story?
It should be EASY and LEGAL to make backups of your media. It doesn't matter whether it is music, a video or a game!
Oh, by the way, anyone have any favorite, tried and true, game disk restoration tips?
Never ascribe to malice or conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
The devices seized are used to copy and play Nintendo DS games offered unlawfully over the Internet, and the mod chips allow the play of pirated Wii discs or illegal copies of downloaded Nintendo game
They're also used to play games that aren't available for sale in the USA (and won't run on a North American Wii even if you import them legally), and they're used to play legal ("Fair Use") backups of game discs that have been damaged.
All of you MAFIAA shills can whine "oh but that's not what you guys are REALLY using them for!" all you want, but my both my sister and my girlfriend like Japanese date sims (weird, yes), and I've known several people who've had a game disc damaged beyond playability--usually by dogs or small children.
We have Bill fucking Clinton to thank for that.
Uh, didn't it pass the Senate with 99-1 votes for vs. against? It wasn't particularly Bill Clinton's baby. Not that he would have vetoed it even if the vote was closer, but there are few politicians out there that show much opposition to increasing copyright restrictions. And Rich Boucher isn't running for president.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I'd bet a lot of money that use of these devices for the purpose of personal backups pales in comparison to their use for playing copied games.
Sure, it's a bitch, especially as I was hoping to pick up an R4 for Homebrew purposes, but you've got to admit that Nintendo have a point with this.
Fortunately, the auctions ended & the buyers had paid me before eBay informed me that they were taking the F2A listings down due to software piracy. When I questioned eBay as to why this had been done when I was not advertising any commercially copied software with the cartridges, they told me to get in touch with the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) who had asked for the listings to be removed.
So far, I have emailed the officious tosspots at the ESA four times & demanded an explanation as to why they insisted the F2As be removed when eBay can still advertise writable CDs & DVDs, USB flash keys and DVD writers, all of which can be used for piracy in a similar fashion.
In over 4 weeks now, I have not received one reply from the ESA who, as far as I am concerned, have accused me of being a software pirate & been heavy-handed in their attitude - even though I made it clear to them that the F2A can be a legitimate developer tool for homebrew GBA ROMs.
All these heavy-handed corporations are just assholes!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Yep- I use DSOrganize and MoonShell on mine. Makes a decently priced MP3 player. I am guilty of pirating games too, though- mainly because I live in China and the DSes are region-locked to only play Chinese games (of which there are less than 10) due to some idiotic decision. But, they left the GBA slot completely unprotected, because the GBA game library consists mainly of fan-translated games flashed onto blank cartridges and sold commercially; from big department stores to small street vendors, none of them are official.
OSx86 FTW
My family owns an original Nintendo NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo64, Nintendo Gamecube, and a Nintendo Gameboy Advanced. We are a Nintendo specific game family. We have purchased litterly hundreds of ORIGINAL cartridges and CD's for these systems that totals up to A LOT of money spent. I was able to get ahold of a Super Wildcard for my super nintendo a few years back and yes I did backup ALL my cartridges for my Super Nintendo and I am glad I did. I now have two that won't work anymore becuase the contacts on the cartridge are so worn. Even cleaning them didn't help. Do you know how HARD it is to find OLD nintendo cartridges to replace them? Even GameStop is slowly phasing out nintendo stuff to put in more XCrock shit! I don't own an XBox, I WON'T own an XBox. I'm starting to think Microsoft bought up GameStop too. At least I can still play my LEGALLY purchased Super Nintendo games on ZNes on the PC in Linux. At this rate I don't know if I will buy a Wii. Anyone know of a legit place that won't rip you off to purchase backup devices for the old nintendo NES, nintendo64's and gamecubes. I have one gamecube Cd that is starting to have problems now too! I want to be able to LEGALLY backup my games damit! Fuck the RIAA, MPAA, Nintedo et al.. If I won't be allowed to backup up my LEGALLY purchased stuff I won't be doing anymore purchasing. It will save me a lot of money at least and less in the pockets of the media outlets that seem to think it is their god given right to get my money!
My thought is that the game console makers should produce their own game backup units that would allow you to legally backup your games. Even if it put like a serial number into the backup of the game so it could be traced back to the original owner if they decided to "pirate" them. This I think would protect BOTH the consumer and the media outlets rights. The consumer could legally backup his legally purchased media and if they gave out a copy to someone else and the meida outlet found a copy floating around they could trace it back to whoomever gave it out and prosecute them. Simple I think.
At least I have my old Amiga 2000 system and all the tons of games I bought for it. Oh that's right I am glad I made backup copies of those too so I could play them on UAE under Linux on my PC, since my Amiga 2000 floppy drive died and try to get a replacement for one of those!
Starting to see the LEGITIMATE need for backup software/devices??????
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Having/maintaning good backups is part of "taking care of your stuff." Please provide a method on how to backup my TV, my couch, my oven, etc, so when I'm robbed I'm good to go. Oh wait, that's right, it's called home owner's insurance, which applies to everything you own (as long as you chose to cover it). When my wife's apartment burned down I had my PS2 games back within a week. Backups are for irreplaceable information, not material goods.
When I was in high school, I bought a Flash2Advance for gobs and gobs of money because I wanted to play NES games on my Gameboy Advance. I did that for a few days, and then got sick of it. A few months later I decided to try my hand at GBA game development, and made a few demos and a complete game over the course of a few months. I entered the game in a Homebrew GBA competition and got an honorable mention... My parents thought it was the biggest waste of money and for a while I did too, until three years later when I mentioned it on my resume. I got a job at an embedded engineering company, and my boss later told me that the whole reason they called me in for an interview was because of they downloaded my GBA game and tried it out. Before that I had never even heard of "embedded engineering," and now it is my passion and specialty.
I never thought a $500 video game would change the direction of my life, but I will never doubt that homebrew is great. Certainly it can be used to steal games, but it is also one of the cheapest and most effective ways for a novice programmer to get into a booming industry. And, yes, developing for emulators is also valid, but testing on real hardware was an invaluable experience that an emulator cannot replicate.
So your reasoning to ban all backing up of your legally-acquired copies of music, games, movies, etc. is because you can get insurance which may or may not completely cover the loss (if you chose to pay the higher premiums to get the coverage), if it covers the loss at all?. I'm afraid I just don't agree with you.
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Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Yeah, but Nintendo does it too.
The current bee in my bonnet is the way they cancelled a US version of Puzzle Collection for GC.
So the only reason I have a Free Loader is to play that damn game.
And I guess I still don't buy it. As long as the publishers don't publish in places where they don't have copyright, do they really care if someone can play the software there? So that means we're at least 3 steps removed from the people who might care.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death