Japanese pirate officially arrested for selling three R4 cartridges

[Virtus]

R4 cartridges, better known in Japan as Majicon, are a major thorn in Nintendo's side. The importing and sale of these devices that allow people to play pirated DS games was ruled as illegal in Japan since 2008. Generally, Nintendo has opted for filing civil complaints or civil lawsuits against violators, but at last, it looks like the gloves have come off.


On May 30th, police arrested a 39 year old self-employed man in the Saitama prefecture. The man was charged with selling 3 R4 cartridges over the internet between February 14th and March 9th for a total of ¥7,200 (US$91.27). This marks the first such arrest of a R4 cartridge dealer in Japan, and hopefully will be a successful blow against the game piracy market for Nintendo.

Overall, there were 83 piracy-related arrests in Japan in 2011, nearly double the 45 arrests from 2010. While the majority of cases have been illegal video upload related, recent rulings and actions have shown that Japan is upping the ante and cracking down on all forms of piracy.

I'm guessing there won't be many retailers putting up Nintendo-provoking banners any more...

Source

Nobody has been arrested for selling R4 cartridges before; this is the first case that's about selling the cartridges. In the past people just got fined and a wag of the finger, but never arrested. This is quite interesting, considering that R4s have been technically illegal ever since that one case that Nitendo won back in '08.

[KnightRaider]

The Source is gone Virtus, and lol that is extremely funny .

[RedPhoenix]

The Source is gone Virtus, and lol that is extremely funny .

No, that's extremely stuped! C'mon! there are worst things than a harmless piracy, for exemple murders, homicides, kidnapping, drug trafficking etc.. etc..

[Delimon]

Well I actually don't disagree with this. Any pirate should know the rules. Don't pirate things that are still in use or popular unless you want to get in trouble. And because this is a more recent law that was made, you have a much higher chance at being charged for it. If he still did it anyone, then he has no one to blame but himself.

[Virtus]

The Source is gone Virtus, and lol that is extremely funny .

Thanks, that was weird. Source fixed.

No, that's extremely stuped! C'mon! there are worst things than a harmless piracy, for exemple murders, homicides, kidnapping, drug trafficking etc.. etc..

Precisely, and you're talking just about crimes. What about global issues such as global warming, the economy, civil unrest in other countries, etc?

[Delimon]

The Source is gone Virtus, and lol that is extremely funny .

Thanks, that was weird. Source fixed.

No, that's extremely stuped! C'mon! there are worst things than a harmless piracy, for exemple murders, homicides, kidnapping, drug trafficking etc.. etc..

Precisely, and you're talking just about crimes. What about global issues such as global warming, the economy, civil unrest in other countries, etc?

The problem is that that stuff costs money to fix. And A LOT of money. most people aren't willing to pay that money because we pretty much don't have any extras left over. But this is still copyright infringement and the bigger problem is that it has to deal with a system that is still in use today. Also notice the word "selling." It's not like he was giving this stuff away for free, he was actually making money off of it and that not only breaks Japanese laws but U.S. laws as well. So he is indeed a criminal and they want to make an example out of him.