11mo ago

Police in Japan have arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of selling illegally modified Pokémon save data to customers online

www.ign.com Japanese Police Arrest 36-Year-Old Man on Suspicion of Tampering With Pokémon Violet Save Data - IGN

Police in Japan have arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of selling illegally modified Pokémon save data to customers online — a practice which is banned under the country’s 2019 Unfair Competition Prevention Act.

A Boring Dystopia @lemmy.world

M0oP0o @mander.xyz

11mo ago

Police in Japan have arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of selling illegally modified Pokémon save data to customers online

www.ign.com /articles/japanese-police-arrest-36-year-old-man-on-suspicion-of-tampering-with-pokemon-violet-save-data

197 26

Not The Onion @lemmy.world

lnxtx (xe/xem/xyr) @feddit.nl

11mo ago

Police in Japan have arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of selling illegally modified Pokémon save data to customers online

www.ign.com /articles/japanese-police-arrest-36-year-old-man-on-suspicion-of-tampering-with-pokemon-violet-save-data

249 20

65 comments

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.
- Competition is unfair to monopolies, so this law prevents competition. /j
- Japan is very nuts with these sorts of laws. Can't even legally physically mod your console
  
  puts a sticker on their PS5
- 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/Pok%C3%A9mon_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.

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.
- monocle pops off face in shock
- Checkmate capitalists.
  You didn't beat capitalists; you joined them!
  
  Don't be ridiculous, he seized the means of Mew production.
- 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?

Nintendo please stop. I really liked you
- The first mistake was liking a company.
  
  They honestly used to be really solid. I've been there since the NES. During the GameCube days my house burned down. I had happened to order a cable and then it, of course, got sent back to them. I had completely forgotten about this and they called me to ask if the note was correct that the package was undeliverable because the house being gone.
  They sent me a new GameCube and five games of my choosing.
- 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

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

The world is safe for another day.

Palworld lookin better and better

It’s a good thing they got that scoundrel off the streets before anyone got hurt… /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.
- Disgusting criminal scum!!! /s

Hold on, you can sell made up pokemon that are slightly edited for $84 a pop?
What?
- 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)
  
  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.
- You can buy jpegs for 100k and sell them for 84 bucks too
  
  Urls of Jpegs lol. Not the actual image.
  
  $84! Has the price gone up recently? LOL

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?
- I think it's a very safe place because it's nearly a fascist dictatorship.
  With a near 99% conviction rate, it's pretty safe...because everyone is afraid of even being accused of stepping out of line.
  
  But the devil is always in the details, isn't it? Unless, that is, you stop reading as soon as you hear what you want to hear, and don't go any further in the article...
  According to Professor Ryo Ogiso of Chou University, prosecutors defer prosecution in 60% of the cases they receive, and conclude the remaining 30% or so of cases in summary trials. This summary trial is a trial procedure in which cases involving a fine of 1,000,000 yen or less are examined on the basis of documents submitted by the public prosecutor without a formal trial if there is no objection from the suspect. Only about 8% of cases are actually prosecuted, and this low prosecution rate is the reason for Japan's high conviction rate.
  
  Conviction rate is that high because people are admitting things they didn't do once arested. Why? Because otherwise police will keep you in custody for months. Every attorney says it's better to admit because you will quicker be able to leave the custody. So conviction rate is unrealistically high.
  
  99% conviction rate, and an inmate execution rate roughly equivalent to Alafuckingbama

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.

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.

This is too much, this has to stop. Can't we do anything??
- Don't buy anything from a Japanese video game company.
  
  No that vote with your wallet shit has gotten old and crusty. I can't think of a single company that has worked for. There needs to be legal consequences for this, fight fire with fire
- Don’t buy and tell others not to either.

WTF, is there no death sentence in Japan for crimes against humanity and the damage done to rich peoples bottom line? /s

Nintendo moment

dystopia dystopia dystopia dystopia

65 comments