Daily reminder that IP law is fucking stupid.
Unfair Competition Prevention Act
How is selling modified save data is unfairly competitive?
Because Nintendo wanted to sell those upgrades instead of someone patching them into the save file?
It’s really insane if this story is true.
You use a program to create a file. You modify the file that you created with the program using a different program. Company sues you claiming they own the file that you created with the program you legally purchased.
I wonder what tool chain Nintendo uses internally. Could Notepad++ sue Nintendo for modifying a text file created by Notepad++ without always using Notepad++? They’re unfairly cutting Notepad++ out of competition by using vim on txt files originally created with Notepad++ then profiting on the results by selling games that used the modified txt files after compiling them into games.
Japanese copyright law is literally insane. It’s simultaneously completely lax and unapplied (doujin, i.e. derivative fan works) and so constrictive you can’t breathe.
Japan is very nuts with these sorts of laws. Can’t even legally physically mod your console
puts a sticker on their PS5
Competition is unfair to monopolies, so this law prevents competition. /j
So, I haven’t played Pokemon Violet, but looking at Wikipedia, it sounds like it’s got a multiplayer game mode:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_Scarlet_and_Violet
Mode(s): Single-player, multiplayer
I don’t know what the implications of buying what he was selling are, but it’s possible that it functionally allowed players to cheat in multiplayer, which kind of ruins the experience of other players.
If it only affects a single-player game, on the other hand, I don’t really see a problem being caused.
I’d also add that I kind of feel that at least for this particular form, even if it is multiplayer cheating, while it’s probably not practical to mitigate every form of cheating in a multiplayer game, it’s probably possible to design the game in such a way that it can’t be attacked in this particular way.
They all have multiplayer; you can battle your Pokemon against each other. But they all, also, have exploitable bugs that make cheating without editing a save file easier since you don’t need external tools to execute them. If they were actually concerned about cheating, they’d fix the bugs first.
Cheating in games isn’t illegal, though.
It’s not about cheating, it’s about making a profit. Nobody cares if you modify your save files (they do, there are ways they try to prevent that, especially in competitive multiplayer, but it’s not a legal issue). But once you start selling them, that’s when you’re officially in trouble.
When I was in school, I bought a Gameboy XPloder for 80 bucks and cheated Mews in Pokemon Red. I sold the Mews to everyone in school for 5 bucks a pop and made back way more than I invested. I don’t care if Nintendo finds out because I was 12 when comitting this heinous crime. As a bonus, I also never taxed those business profits. Checkmate capitalists.
Checkmate capitalists.
You didn’t beat capitalists; you joined them!
Don’t be ridiculous, he seized the means of Mew production.
monocle pops off face in shock
Holy shit man, Lex Luthor over here!
I also related more with Team Rocket as a child.
So, you were goofy and always screwed everything up?
Still do…
Next week: Paco Guttierez, age 9, arrested and sued for $200 million after building a cardboard Nintendo game because his family couldn’t afford the real thing
It’s a good thing they got that scoundrel off the streets before anyone got hurt… /s
Disgusting criminal scum!!! /s
Cops in japan literally has nothing to do. I bet they’re excited to finally see some action.
You know that Japan has crime? You know that large crime orgs operate in Japan? Everything from drug trafficking, sex trafficking, extortion, protection rackets, arms smuggling is happening.
Exactly. If I were a cop there I’d feel much safer arresting nerds that modify save files.
Articles like this popped every once in a while until bored japan cops become a meme at this point.
Nonsense! They used to stop me all the time for riding a bicycle under the influence of being not Japanese!
Nintendo please stop. I really liked you
I feel the same. Over the recent years it’s becoming abundantly clear that Nintendo hates their fans. It’s actually really sad and disappointing.
For example:
- Smash Sports exists DESPITE Nintendo
I haven’t liked Nintendo since they decided to just take 30% of all the money Gary Bowser ever makes for the rest of his life, for the crime of modifying hardware that people own so that they can use it however they see fit.
TPC*
“The Pokémon Company” (actual name) is a separate entity from both Game Freak and Nintendo.
Doesn’t matter, they’re both assholes
Japan is not the Japan we think it is.
A racist xenophobic country that flattens nails and oppresses people for the benefit of the elite due to its hyper hierarchical culture?
Flattens nails? What, to make them difficult to use with a screwdriver?
The nail that sticks out is hammered down, aka tall poppies get cut first, etc.
The nail that sticks out.
On hardware, you mean?
anyone who is too different from the rest will be hounded for it.
Apparently they’re for masonry? Are there a lot of brick structures in Japan?
Not sure why you’d use a screwdriver with a nail…
Palworld lookin better and better
Plus, guns
The world is safe for another day.
Hold on, you can sell made up pokemon that are slightly edited for $84 a pop?
What?
You can buy jpegs for 100k and sell them for 84 bucks too
Urls of Jpegs lol. Not the actual image.
He’s selling modified game save files it sounds like. No Pokémon were hurt or genetically modified in this man’s pursuit of profit.
Ah so he was commiting temporal anomalies and risking a subspace collapse from tampering with multiversal duplication.
5 years in prison sounds too lenient (/j)
In the Pokémon universe? Happens like once a week.
A random kid will probably stop them by accident or something.
I’m thinking he was probably selling saves with all the Pokémon plus all the Pokémon in shiny and a complete story. I did this with every single Pokémon game prior to switch and put them all on my Pokémon home when they were discontinuing pokebank, but only the ones that are able to be caught legit that way.
Easy headline to lol at, but this poor guy is fucked. He was doing it to earn a living, now he faces 5 years in jail and/or a $32k fine.
Just another reminder that Nintendo and the Pokemon Company both hate your guts. They see you as an obstacle between them and your money, and they’d kill you if they thought it profitable. Pirate everything. It’s always morally correct.
Nintendo moment
WTF, is there no death sentence in Japan for crimes against humanity and the damage done to rich peoples bottom line? /s
I still remember when they went after the R4 devs and it accomplished nothing because there were already at least 30 other flashcarts by that point with hundreds of R4 copies.
dystopia dystopia dystopia dystopia
