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Nintendo Wins Lawsuit Over R4 Mod Chip Piracy
schliz writes "The Federal Court has ordered an Australian distributor to pay Nintendo over half a million dollars for selling the R4 mod chip, which allows users to circumvent technology protection measures in Nintendo's DS consoles. The distributor, RSJ IT Solutions, has been ordered to cease selling the chip through its gadgetgear.com.au site and any other sites it controls, as well as paying Nintendo $520,000 in damages."
I'd like it if anyone could find "technical protection measure" actually defined within any Australian law.
Seriously, I don't think it's defined anywhere, and I'm sure that's grounds for appeal.
Disagree != mod troll.
The distributor advises consumers to use their modification devices for legal reasons only, such as playing legal copies of games from different regions
Wait, what? I thought handhelds (both the Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS and PSP) weren't region-locked, but were in fact region-free. This allows people to play games from any region without having to resort to "chipping" their devices (which can often cause permanent damage). If the Nintendo DS is region-free, how could this be a legal purpose for this device? Or is it, in fact, region-locked?
Modding consoles, selling chips to mod consoles and selling services to mod consoles have been deemed legal in Australia in the past due to the justification that they allow you to play backed up versions of games you've legally bought. Of course this is a valid reason to want to mod a console, but its also a "nudge nudge, wink wink" situation as the people who would actually mod their console only for playing backed up versions of their game would be in the extreme minority.
But this bullshit justification has always been enough in the past to stop people from facing the consequences of selling chips to get around DRM in consoles. So how come the excuse didn't work this time? Is it because its a civil trial? I understand the burden of proof is much less in civil, but if this was a successful avenue for corporations to take, I'm sure Sony would have done it years ago with the original Playstation. Did the defendants in this case mess up and get caught actively encouraging people to use their chip to pirate games?
I RTFA, but it was completely silent on how Nintendo managed to win this court case.
Every single DSi-compatible DS cart, including Datel's Action Replay DSi, includes portions of a pirated cart ROM. Nintendo started signing all executables and retroactively signing the existing library of DS games (they include the hashes built in to the DSi firmware), so the only way you can get an unofficial DS cart to run on the DSi is by pirating a game's executable/header and partial data and then using a data file exploit (data files aren't signed) to make it bootstrap your code. These DSi-compatible cartridges even show up with the game icon of a real game in the menu, since that part is also signed.
If that isn't a lawsuit in the making then I don't know what is.
OP should have made the post title more along the lines of "Nintendo Wins Lawsuit Over R4 Mod Chip Piracy in Australia" because unless Nintendo can get something done about it in China it's not really any win at all... Shenzen anyone?
Dear R4,
We are going to sue you because you make cardridges that fit into our Nintendo DS product that can read out images on MicroSD cards.
We are unhappy with this because we are a company and we like to make as much money as we can and software pirates are abusing the functionality to run pirated copies of Nintendo DS games. Therefore we think that you need to pay us a shitload of money and not the people that pirate.
Addholes as always,
Nintendo Inc.
Here be signatures
Considering this is Slashdot, how has no one explicitely pointed out that the R4 isn't a modchip?
Living With a Nerd
You're forgetting rule #1 of law: He who has enough money to buy off a judge, decides what the legal opinion will be.
I'm sure the judge is enjoying his new Wii-shaped swimming pool.
You should be allowed to do what ever you want to your system. Are they going to sue me for putting a mod chip in my Game Cube? Modding my SNES? Even modding my Gameboy. If you paid for the system you can do what you want to it.
Does anyone actually use Modchips on their Wii any more?
It's funny now to go back and look at "Mad Max" and realize that the premise of that movie was that the future of Australia would involve too much lawlessness and a lack of legal enforcement (criminals going free, no law to protect citizens, etc.). Now here we are in the actual future and Australia of late is looking at actively censoring the internet, banning any videogame that shows blood, imposing criminal and civil sanctions on people for modding their videogame consoles, and even banning criticism of lawmakers. It seems that the Australia of 2010 turned out to be more of a police state than a free-wheeling lawless anarchy. Turns Tina Turner was right. We didn't really need Max at all.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I wrote a fairly popular DS app a few years ago, but I saw the writing on the wall for this platform. Between Nintendo making it harder to get these chips, and cell phones becoming more open, I don't see much point in writing for the DS. It's a shame: I think Nintendo could be where Apple is today with the iPhone, had they opened the DS. It had so much potential. Now, it is simply out of date.
While in the long run it should be ethical to mod a piece of hardware you bought yourself, I gotta admit I can list off about 16 people who all own DS's and Modchips, and half of them have yet to pay for a legal copy of a game for the DS. The other half run *mostly* modded games. None of them use the R4 for any legal 3rd party applications.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
My buddy has one of these for his kids. He raves about how good it is for long car-rides because it allows them to watch movies etc on the DS (which has pretty decent battery life) and keeps the entertained.
As my boy's friends often trade and/or lose games, one of these would also be useful in that case (R4 stays in the DS with all the applicable games, not allowed out. Heck you could glue it in and just swap miniSD cards as needed).
leasing it indefinitely
In the EU, at least, that's illegal.
They have a doctrine of customer rights or something
Then how does EU law distinguish between a time-limited lease, such as renting a DVD at some European counterpart to Blockbuster, and an indefinite lease?
I know three people that have them and none of them use it for anything except playing downloaded ROMs.
Then I take it you don't know me. I don't pirate DS games on my R4. I run homebrew apps such as MoonShell, DSOrganize, Colors!, and Lockjaw. I have played pirated MP3s on it, but I don't think Nintendo has the standing to sue on behalf of (say) its competitor Sony.
Y'know, I was actually thinking about getting a DS, but now that I can't load up emulators for older systems (like my GameBoy Pocket) or homebrew games, I might have to get a PSP. It seems you can't have both a system that's well known for a good library of games, popular, and a system that's open to homebrew (officially or otherwise) in the same package. Of course, there's Windows, I guess - but I'm tired of dealing with all of the slight-little driver issues to full blown failures of my computer and such with PC gaming, and would like a console that's open for development without this app-store xbox-live approval (sdk costs money) nonsense. It would appear that game publishers would avoid a console like that like the plague though, for fear that someone will develop a "Game Backup Tool." Of course, if consoles create a legal, fair way to backup games and do homebrew, then there would be little to no reason to hack except for piracy. Unless you're hacking for hacking's sake, in which case you probably don't care about whatever online service they'll ban you from anyway.
I tried the SNES emulator on the thing, with ROMs of those games (pre-dumped -- not pretentious enough to build or buy my own dumper)
Then technically, you've used your R4 for piracy. If you dump your own Super NES Game Paks (which will become easier once Retrode is out), you're protected under 17 USC 117 and foreign counterparts. But if you obtained bit-identical files over the Internet, then you've copied the copyrighted code libraries written and licensed by Nintendo for use in Super NES games without authorization. Unlike patent and trademark law, copyright law cares about the provenance of a copy.
They also care if people do homebrew stuff, because if that were legal, it wouldn't be just individuals who'd write games for it; it'd be large companies.
Then require all homebrew apps written for a system to be distributed with source code and the right to modify and redistribute. What major-label commercial games are copylefted, other than perhaps Id games several years after release?
So if a project is too big for distribution as homebrew freeware but too small for a retail release through official channels, such as Bob's Game, what should a developer do?
If that isn't a lawsuit in the making then I don't know what is.
I don't know much about copyright law in Australia, but at least in the United States, an argument from a copyrighted boot sector doesn't hold legal water, not even after the DMCA. See Sega v. Accolade and Lexmark v. Static Control Components.
It looks like their law has the same essentially unpatchable hole as DMCA. If you're in violation of the law when you use/distribute/manufacture things that are compatible with someone else's DRM, their existing implementation also becomes in violation if you ever produce a work that needs it.
Instead of making R4 chips, they should have made a game that requires an R4 chip first (just make sure you do it in such a way that you never license anything from Nintendo or otherwise give them permission to manufacture devices that protect your game). Then make the chips, and when Nintendo comes a-suing, sue them right back for doing the exact same thing. If they win, you win.
i don't care if 99% use something for piracy, the other 1% should never be affected. i should be allowed to tinker with whatever i buy, and if i can do something myself, i should be able to pay someone else to do it for me, whether it be modding my own hardware(or am i licensing the hardware?) or archiving my legally purchased media to whatever format i choose(seeing as i am allowed to record and archive content off the tv, why can't i use the internet as a dvr?).
what's even more ridiculous is the bullshit development licensing consoles have in the first place. anyone for that system, would have to be for development licensing fees on windows, linux, mac, etc. they are all computers ffs!
...
I only use my R4 for homebrew. I already own the 3 good NDS games, and 5 good GBA games.
Here's a car analogy: most people speed in cars, so we should outlaw cars.
A save the children analogy: most children play too many video games, so we should shut Nintendo down and make the Nintendo DS illegal.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Fair use statutes such as 17 USC 107 tell the judge what to look for when evaluating certain defenses to copyright infringement. Likewise, I'd imagine that the definition of "sale" and "lease" in commercial codes tell the judge what look for. But what do EU commercial codes say about this? If vehicle leases done in writing can last for three years or more, why can't leases of consumer electronics done in writing last for three years or more?
Wasn't the concepts of First Sale Doctrine (which is hardly an American in origin) supposed to protect against this Digital Pesantry? Next thing you know Pepsi will be suing people for improperly drinking their soda due to EULA viloations (Must be served cold in a Pepsi branded glass with 6.8 ounces of ice per 1/5th litre of soda.)
There is nothing now preventing ANY manufacturer prohibiting any non-sanctions periphrials. Nope you can only use SONY headphones with our Sony Walkmans, you can only use Ford manufactured tires on a Ford, you can only use the king's paper for legal documents... err wait... we did do that... didn't the Americans fight a war over that kind of behavior?
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Actually, a US Federal judge just recently suggested that if the only items that a defendant had "pirated" were items that he already owned a license for, that she would be willing to listen to a Fair Use argument on that
Another U.S. federal judge disagreed: UMG v. MP3.com, 92 F. Supp. 2d 349 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
i think, the issue is quite clear.... so long as the developer and distributor 'of anything' makes a profit off their work they have no room to argue that someone else has infringed on their rights. basically, if they can stay in business, they ought to just shut up!
the whole idea of copyrights wasn't to give an industry ultimate control over their own ability to maximize profits, especially not indefinitely. and anyone who whines cause they think they 'should' be making more money should be taken out and put down.
seriously, how petty must the corporate world get before things change? does Nintendo make games to make a profit, or does it make games so that people can enjoy them? if the earlier is true their right to do business should be revoked! making money may be required to stay in business, but making that the goal sets up a business to eventually act excessively selfish, greedy, or downright irresponsible.
case and point: they sued a smaller, nobody, company because the technology they produced was used for piracy--or could be, but they still refuse to provide adequate means for people to do the things that device legally allowed a user to do.
i've copied and given away ALL of my DVDs, CDs, and video games/systems. i believe wholeheartedly that maintaining a large collection of disks, cartridges, and entertainment systems is beyond irresponsible in a time where the construction and shipment of those items consumes so much better used non-renewable resources. the tonnage of plastic used to make those things, and now sitting on a shelf unused or in a land fill somewhere, is beyond unbelievable. let's not even consider the environmental cost of the energy needed to make them or the transportation fuel needed to get them to my home.
if the government had any sense at all, it would not only throw out any case brought against a company that allowed for the mass digital storage of otherwise individually sold items, but it would also either sue the pants off the developers for refusing to provide the same service, or simple provide the technology to the public itself via the development of a non-governmental non-profit organization simply in the hopes of limiting the future distribution of waste to their already overfilling landfills (they could use the money from the lawsuit to pay for the development of the non-profit manufacturer).