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Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

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Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#81

Post by Tao3300 »

BizarroLand wrote: post #68
mock-possum wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, video game piracy should be allowed. Copying is not theft.

I mean, that you can be criminally prosecuted for ripping DVDs and Blurays you own to a digital format is insanity. If you own a nintendo game and a cartridge, make a rom of it, and then play that rom on a more lifestyle compatible system then it shouldn't be a big deal. I think the copyright on video games should end at 7 years, maybe 10 at the worst. You have a decade from the date of publication to make your money…

> you own a nintendo game and a cartridge, make a rom of it, and then play that rom on a more lifestyle compatible system then it shouldn't be a big deal

Especially considering I had a switch cartridge fail after the warranty period recently. They wanted $40 or something to fix it. I had to "speak to the supervisor" to haggle a better rate.

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#82

Post by [deleted] »

jimbob45 wrote: post #30
xyst wrote: post #17

Copyright law is so archaic. Going to jail for “pirating games” is just absurd to me. Nintendo and backers of copyright law clearly using this guy as an example to not fuck with our wares or else we will send our multimillion dollar legal team at you. Copyright and patent law is holding the west back. Can’t create a product without stepping on some patent trolls alleged “IP”

If you were to go about changing copyright law, I have to imagine you’d only be able to change it for your nation’s works while still respecting the duration from other countries. In that case, copyright reform wouldn’t have helped this guy. I’m all for copyright reform though. 70 + life is absurd. Even worse, you penalize people for dying early like MLK.

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#83

Post by s1artibartfast »

kelnos wrote: post #65
pipes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So videogame piracy should be allowed? This might act as a slight disincentive to making new games.

Except it won't, because copyright infringement will never replace enough purchases to actually matter. I don't think most people would say we should abolish copyright completely, but the current situation is just dumb. The copyright term is way too long. And having governments enforce a company's business model at the end of a gun is gross. At most, there should be financial penalties for violations. Depriving someo…

If left unchecked, copyright infringement without compete most digital goods and most markets. It has lower costs and less transaction friction. Why buy a Nintendo game if there was a ubiquitous platform offering free games for everything in the catalog.

Who would pay for a streaming service when you can get all content from all platforms for free.

Most people simply pay for their digital content now because it's easier. The only reason it's easier is because of enforcement actions against infringement

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#85

Post by welshwelsh »

jimbob45 wrote: post #30
xyst wrote: post #17

Copyright law is so archaic. Going to jail for “pirating games” is just absurd to me. Nintendo and backers of copyright law clearly using this guy as an example to not fuck with our wares or else we will send our multimillion dollar legal team at you. Copyright and patent law is holding the west back. Can’t create a product without stepping on some patent trolls alleged “IP”

If you were to go about changing copyright law, I have to imagine you’d only be able to change it for your nation’s works while still respecting the duration from other countries. In that case, copyright reform wouldn’t have helped this guy. I’m all for copyright reform though. 70 + life is absurd. Even worse, you penalize people for dying early like MLK.

>still respecting the duration from other countries

I don't see why. Why should other countries laws apply in my country?

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#86

Post by DoItToMe81 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #83
kelnos wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it won't, because copyright infringement will never replace enough purchases to actually matter. I don't think most people would say we should abolish copyright completely, but the current situation is just dumb. The copyright term is way too long. And having governments enforce a company's business model at the end of a gun is gross. At most, there should be financial penalties for violations. Depriving someo…

If left unchecked, copyright infringement without compete most digital goods and most markets. It has lower costs and less transaction friction. Why buy a Nintendo game if there was a ubiquitous platform offering free games for everything in the catalog. Who would pay for a streaming service when you can get all content from all platforms for free. Most people simply pay for their digital content now because it's eas…

You can already get both for free openly now. It's not hard, you can just Google search it. It's vastly easier and safer now to torrent or pirate than it ever has been, due to proliferation of information on safe sites, and also due to trust systems that have sealed out people who'd spread malware in the past.

People pay for digital content because it is consistently updated and has quality standards that piracy sometimes does not.

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#87

Post by Doxin »

neilv wrote: post #25
xyst wrote: post #17

Copyright law is so archaic. Going to jail for “pirating games” is just absurd to me. Nintendo and backers of copyright law clearly using this guy as an example to not fuck with our wares or else we will send our multimillion dollar legal team at you. Copyright and patent law is holding the west back. Can’t create a product without stepping on some patent trolls alleged “IP”

I think that argument about patent law is weakened by juxtaposing it with a complaint that someone who made a business of video game piracy got smacked for it.

It's still an absurd punishment for that crime.

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#88

Post by KenArrari »

0x69420 wrote: post #15

for what it's worth, this is the guy who took the open source efforts of the homebrew community, who try their absolute hardest to avoid association with piracy (and by extension nintendo's hammer), and sold modchips to enable the use of an os based on aforementioned open source efforts, for the unambiguous purpose of piracy, and to top it off those modchips were designed with an intentional tamper trigger that brick…

I still think this is insanely overkill for someone who already spent years in prison and paid fines for it.

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#89

Post by s1artibartfast »

DoItToMe81 wrote: post #86
s1artibartfast wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If left unchecked, copyright infringement without compete most digital goods and most markets. It has lower costs and less transaction friction. Why buy a Nintendo game if there was a ubiquitous platform offering free games for everything in the catalog. Who would pay for a streaming service when you can get all content from all platforms for free. Most people simply pay for their digital content now because it's eas…

You can already get both for free openly now. It's not hard, you can just Google search it. It's vastly easier and safer now to torrent or pirate than it ever has been, due to proliferation of information on safe sites, and also due to trust systems that have sealed out people who'd spread malware in the past. People pay for digital content because it is consistently updated and has quality standards that piracy some…

You're a contradicting yourself. It is not currently as easy to get high quality trustworthy pirated content as it is to log into Disney Plus or Netflix. If you take away copyright protections, you would quickly see the rise of high trust high quality sources for pirated material. Someone could simply make a trustworthy streaming service that offered the catalogs of both companies and others in full quality and offer it for a fraction of the price because they don't have to pay to license or produce content. They could advertise on billboards and everywhere they want.

Re: Nintendo Hacker Freed, Now Owes Them 25-30% of Salary for Life

#90

Post by jhugo »

gnicholas wrote: post #32
jhugo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The former is narrower than the latter, but both would exclude gifts, which are not considered income from a tax perspective. The tax perspective is completely irrelevant here. Gifted money would absolutely be considered by the court to be available to repay the debt.

I'm curious where your certainty comes from. I happen to be a (former) lawyer, and my perspective is that it's quite possible that there are loopholes here. If there is a settlement agreement that refers to "income" then it would likely be defined in terms of taxable income, which is a generally agreed upon standard. You refer to a court considering gifted money to be available to repay the debt. But do we know if th…

Bowser was ordered by a court to pay $4.5m restitution to Nintendo after pleading guilty to two criminal charges (the specific charges he pled guilty to are unclear, but he was charged with fraud, DMCA circumvention, conspiracy and others). Separately, Nintendo brought a civil suit against him, and the court entered a judgement in favour of Nintendo (following a consent agreement) for $10m.

These are debts that Bowser owes, and whether certain of his income is taxable or not is not relevant to whether it is available to pay those debts. A "private settlement" would still be very unlikely to contain some specific list of sources of income that were affected by the debt.

Should he decide to adopt your (very strange, especially for a former lawyer) stance in your grandparent comment that non-taxable income would somehow be, by virtue of its tax treatment, shielded from these debts, he would simply find himself back in court for failing to pay.

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