1y 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

Well today has been rich in boring dystopic news.....

Not The Onion @lemmy.world

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

1y 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

Games @sh.itjust.works

nanoUFO @sh.itjust.works

1y 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

24 comments

- Not just edited files, edited save files if the headline is to be trusted
Say it with me now, fuck nintendo, fuck supporting nintendo and fuck everyone within nintendo. Do the right thing.
puts on pirate hat
- As sad as this makes the little kid in me who sat in awe of Super Metroid and Ocarina of Time, you’re right.
  What a bummer.
- You take yours off?
  
  Briefly, as a sign of respect.
"Endangering the brand" by using "specialized tools" to tamper with "company property".
Reads like the patent bullshit combined with the copyright bullshit. Some laws about software are just idiotic.
This whole "selling licenses" needs to stop. What, my government runs Windows and now Microsoft can strongarm my government to decisions against the interest of the people? All with the power of letting the license expire if company policy isn't met?
Nintendo is seemingly able to write their own laws at this point, and both the Japanese and the American justice systems will give them anything they want. Throwback to the 80s and 90s when we legally determined that if you purchase a video game and a console, you are allowed to do anything you want with both of those things. Because you paid for them, so modifying or reverse engineering them was legally protected. We've just slowly been marching backward ever since then.
- Nintendo would likely lose most of their court cases against emulation in the US. They get away with it because places like github don't want to fight cease and desist letters. The court system never gets directly involved.
- Basically Disney 2.0 lol
Seems like a gross misuse of law enforcement’s time. I do not even get how that Japanese law even really applies to this case exactly. Seems like a stretch. What am I missing? Why is this considered so serious that could land him in jail for 5 years and 10s of thousands in fines. Makes. I sense to me all. Can someone explain?
- Probably because he used "specialized tools" to edit the software, thus attacking the "trade secrets". He tampered with company property, thus endangering the brand.
  Stupid stuff, but at least they are only wasting tax payer money /s
- On the morning of January 18, 2012, as Wikipedia and many other websites went dark for the protest against SOPA and PIPA, squads of SWAT guys raided an estate in New Zealand belonging to Kim Dotcom. Local law enforcement was present, but the troopers belonged to US ICE.
  Representatives from the MPAA and RIAA were there
  In the US, the physical media hosting MEGAupload was seized, and the cloud storage service was shut down.
  No crime had been committed. Grounds for extradition have yet to be established, despite over a decade of litigation. No suable offense has been established. Despite a lot of efforts, court battles, and even the rise of Dotcom's new ME.GA enterprise, nothing has been proven to justify the initial raid.
  Law enforcement isn't about law. It's not about protecting the public. It's about preserving money and power for those who have it. And if Nintendo is butthurt about modded Pokémon, it's about modded Pokémon.
Forgive me if I'm saying something stupid, as I know nothing about Pokemon. But two minutes of searching turns up this repo that apparently lets you edit save files and more.
Which raises the disturbing question: do people really pay to get data they could make themselves for free?
Although I could be missing something obvious and perhaps this man was selling something this project or others like it couldn't generate. Like I said, I don't know the first thing about Pokemon.
As for this guy being arrested for selling fake stuff, is it really dystopic? It's no different than selling fake Rolex watches or fake signed sports memorabilia: you're either deceiving customers if they don't know what they're buying from you, or you're damaging / debasing a company's brand.
- As for this guy being arrested for selling fake stuff
  Modified, not fake. They're not selling a fake Rolex watch, they're selling custom watch hands. The article does not suggest they misrepresented what they were selling at any point.
- OP possibly wanted to point out:
  The 36-year-old has reportedly admitted to committing the crimes (...) while providing the justification that he did it to earn a living.
  
  What is the crime? That is the part that is disturbing.
- Not to disagree with you, but PKHex is not a CLI application. It relies heavily on a visual interface.
  The problem is not (necessarily) using the program, but loading the save files to it.
  Modding an OG switch is relatively simple but dangerous process if you do something wrong. Modding any modern switch is practically impossible to do as a normal individual.
  But once you have that it’s a dead simple process to do it, and just a little bit time consuming to gen and trade the mons
- or you're damaging / debasing a company's brand
  Oh no
  Anyways
Today Japan has bested the US as the most extreme cyberpunk dystopia, but tomorrow is another day.
And like Sony stuff all totally overpriced . They should expect the billions we are in the world they will have a thought time fighting piracy .

24 comments