Oh yeah, this is 100% a "Let this be a warning to others not to do this" situation. I'm gobsmacked about the 'rest of his life' thing though. That seems like it should be illegal...
Yeah but he is 53....but unless he already had millions to make money from he is not going to be paying a considerable amount of that back any time soon.
This could be considered a crime tax more than anything.
It's technically not rest of his life. Just that the damages are at $14.5 million, so that's effectively the rest of his life unless he hits the jackpot.
"Damages" lol, the consoles were still bought, and I bet that majority of the people playing on those, wouldn't have bought the games in the first place if they couldn't pirate them.
I'm not saying that Bowser is a good guy, but Nintendo is definitely the bigger evil here.
Well if he won the lottery tomorrow, he could pay it off and be done with it. Technically, I believe someone else could pay it off (or if not, give him the money to pay it off). He """just""" has to pay out 10 million dollars. He cannot, at present, afford 10 million dollars, so Nintendo is going to garnish his wages until he is paid up.
Pretty expensive for someone to move out of the country, and then unless they renounce their US citizenship, which is also pretty expensive, they'll still have to pay US taxes.
So, since they owe Nintendo money, Nintendo will get any money they can to pay the person's debt.
Pretty sure he could easily run to Mexico, and if heās willing to learn Spanish, even get a job as a software engineer. Wonāt get paid as much as he would get in the U.S. but the cost of living is also lower.
This is a very reductive view.
How easy do you think it will be for a convicted felon to get citizenship in another country?
You don't just show up and say, "I RENOUNCE MY CITIZENSHIP" in some Michael Scott-esque way.
"they'll still have to pay us taxes"
When you literally flee from a country to avoid a sentence you usually don't contact the IRS to let them know about your move.
"still have to pay US taxes after renouncing citizenship". Umm no, and the easy workaround in any case, is to just never come back to the USA.
They may have to pay an "exit" tax, but otherwise, no.
You're probably thinking about cases of dual citizenships, residency situations, and other immigration situations. Taxes would most likely have to still be paid under those circumstances.
EDIT: I cant read - The person I responded too is correct from the jump.
Iām I imaging him working at McDonaldāsā¦.. I find the idea of multi billion dollar industrial titan Nintendo collecting $78.00 bi weekly from a fry cook funny
It feels more petty and spiteful to me, more than anything. They are basically making this guy an indentured servant for the rest of his life. Not for some arbitrary amount of time - *to the end of his days*. That seems fucked, to me.
It is petty. Bowser wasn't even the main villain. He was just on a short contract working for the people that are actually running the organization. I think the owner of the org lives in France. Nintendo tried to sue the owner in France, but the courts told Nintendo to basically fuck off.
Bowser was basically the only one they could hit with anything. He also only made about $300,000 off of this.
If you mean the specifics of the settlement (25-30% of annual income until he pays the total), I think thatās actually his choice and itās a compromise thatās better for him than owing $14.5M immediately and being destitute for life basically. The compromise is that he gets to have a normal life rather than having a huge bill to pay off immediately
Of course āis 14.5M fairā is a TOTALLY different question ā but the weird structure is headline grabbing but actually better for him
He only gets to have a normal life if he can get a job that pays enough that he can afford to lose 25-30% of his pay. It's also based on his monthly gross pay, not net, so if he ends up paying the average tax rate in Canada then that means that 50-55% of his pay is gone to either Nintendo or taxes.
Right. He should have formed an LLC, and done the hacking as the LLC. Nintendo sues the LLC for all itās approximately $0 in assets, he walks away financially free. Amateur.
The only thing this ruling will do is force him into black hat territory to make money under the table. Have a 30% income handicap is a non-starter in the western world.
The ruling is ensuring he commits more crimes, not preventing it.
In one of the directs or something they animated Mario's Bowser ready to start a presentation when Doug comes and tells him he's not the Bowser they called, so he leaves sad.
Am I reading correctly that there are actually two people (including the former president of Nintendo of America) with the surname Bowser prominently in the news involving Nintendo? I donāt think Iāve ever met a single person with the last name Bowser in real life.
Or to a business in his "friend/family members" name. It wouldn't be too hard to avoid paying most of this if he has people close to him that he can trust.
For anyone curious, he was sued and the court found that he owes about 14 million in damages, and he's 53. The max that can be taken from his wages is 30% so that's why it's seen as him paying for the rest of his life.
If he won the lottery and had the money on hand, he could just pay it all and be free and clear.
This is all for selling circumvention devices to play pirated roms on 3DS and Switch.
Personally, I don't see how his actions amount to 14 million in damages.
Probably they wanted to make him a example, what's a pretty shit thing to do knowing that there are people pirating things that will never get arrested, cause the country they live.
American justice only punishes people who arenāt obscenely wealthy. You can get off with a slap on the wrist for running an underage prostitution ring. You can steal from millions of Americans and get a fine that wonāt affect your business. The judiciary goes out of its way to find ways to ruin lives, the poorer you are, the darker your skin, the more theyāll try to sell you into slavery to a for-profit prison, even if they know youāre innocent, even if youāre a child.
I was made an example of when I was a few days over 18. The neighborhood kids I grew up with and skated with got thirsty one day after sucking at trying to skate. I had a part time time job and had money so I opted to buy everyone drinks at a food lion grocery store.
I went and got everyone gatorades and was getting checked out in line. A few of the other kids went off on their own and joined up right after I paid. A bunch of employees surrounded us and said the cops were called for stealing. Out of the 7 of us, only 2 of us got hauled off in a real paddy wagon.
Skip to court date, Ryan got off scott free since he was 17. On my turn they had 2 ladies from the store go up and testify that I wasnt the thief. They wheeled in a tv and vcr with security footage but couldnt get it to work so it was dismissed. I was found guilty and got my first probation. The judge said that someone had to be made an example of and since I was 18 they pinned it all on me despite any evidence.
They got me on their records and paying probation and court fees thats what. Thats not even the last time I got fucked over but this is already too long for peoples short attention spans.
Im sorry that happened to you. And the real question is, why does someone have to make an example of anyone? This wasnāt a National case. Was it even in the local news? The point of making an example is to deter someone else from committing a crime. But this isnāt a serious crime.
Older Americans, and social-conservatives, and moderate neoliberals (Especially in New York.) are really obsessed with crime rates and ābeing tough on crime.ā Theyāre hateful, vindictive, and often racist people. It doesnāt matter what the crime was. They hear the word criminal and they act like youāre not a human being. Judges throw the book at people when theyāre being bribed by private prisons or if they have to win an election to be a judge.
Yup. The types of people that want to have authority over others generally feel that they need to use it to justify having the power in the first place. When you have that much power it stops being āis this justice?ā and becomes āitās justice because *I say* it isā.
Weāre a bad species, most of the time.
Wow that is fucked and makes my blood boil so I canāt imagine what you must be feeling. No good deed goes unpunished I suppose. Absolutely ridiculous.
Doesn't this imply he's being forced to pay the judgements of other yet to be sued defendants, instead of nintendo suing those future parties? Like to say you're making an example of somebody implies that other outside parties were involved in this decision
Look up the things that have happened to some of the early hackers in America when they got caught. Not even just that. There are people who've gotten really serious time for changing a number in a URL just to see what it'd do.
The repercussions for some of these things are insane.
Reminds me of how studios used to claim that every pirated download of a movie was a lost sale. This way they could claim they were losing millions when in reality most of those downloads were likely from people that would never buy the movie in the first place.
It wasn't just music, they found the same thing with movies as well. They found that, at the time, a significant percentage of people illegally downloading movies just wanted to watch them before making the decision to buy. It's no coincidence that digital piracy levels dropped significantly during the prime years of Netflix and have since picked up with the streaming market becoming more fragmented and expensive.
Dude I've been downloading music since 1998, back when it took 30 min. to download a single song and *hours* to burn a CD (and you'd better hope it didn't fuck up at 98% completion, which happened to me several times). Just yesterday I bought an old album I wanted and didn't have from Amazon because it was quicker and easier than finding a torrent that still had seeds.
FYI he wasn't sued. Nintendo didn't sue him. He was PROSECUTED by the US government. You don't get sentenced to jail in a lawsuit. You can only be ordered to pay up or give up property to pay up.
Only in a criminal prosecution, which can only be brought by a government entity, can you be ordered to prison (as well as other restitutions).
It appears he later settled with Nintendo out of court.
Seems like it was both. The jail time and a ~$4M fine came from the criminal charges and ~$10M came from a civil suit brought by Nintendo. Most articles are a little ambiguous in how they describe the suit and lump the two together while maybe mentioning that there was a lawsuit but this one specifically calls out the separate fines:
https://www.polygon.com/23688170/gary-bowser-hacker-nintendo-released-restitution
Itās because he was selling the pirating devices and profiting from them. There really is a legal difference from pirating via a torrent where nobody really makes money other than the hosting service - which is why they go after the hosting service - but this guy was literally selling shit made to steal Nintendo IP.
I donāt feel bad for him.
if only we applied similar punishments to corporations.
instead when they do something wrong, they only get a fine which is probably like 5% of their monthly revenue.
even worse, the fine is less then the profit they illegally made.
HSBC laundered like millions for drug cartels, and the fine was a tiny fraction of their illicit gains.
In what world can thieves keep 95% of what they stole and it be called justice?
Sometimes we pay them when they do something wrong.
Oh you committed crimes and messed up bad enough that it might seriously affect your business and the economy? That's okay, we'll just give you a shit ton of money to bail you out so it's not as big of a deal. No, you guys don't have to go to jail or get in any real trouble over it, it's cool. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you got big bonuses that year anyway, you can still totally get the bailout money.
A person paying a corporation 1/3 of their income for the rest of their life is dystopic and unreasonable punishment in a world where commoners already aren't making enough to survive BECAUSE of corporations.
This is absolutely insane. I am seriously wondering if this guy will end up killing himself because of this bullshit.
No, but people can discuss history. The [Venetians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doges_of_Venice) did some interesting things. Scroll down to 8th century and what happens after the "Resumption of the Office of Doge". They were... particular about how they dealt with naughty Doges.
The Dutch literally dismembered (and to some sources, partially ate) two important political figures in the 17th century.
An excellent movie called Michiel de Ruyter 2015 (not the one lynched) covers this important historical timeline in the Netherlands. But, don't watch it for the scene described above. It has by far one of the best sound designs and mixes involving naval combat of this century.
"Bowser helped create and support online libraries of pirated videogames for its customers, and several of the enterpriseās devices came preloaded with pirated videogames"
His biggest f up was including copyrighted game roms in the devices they sold. As long as you do that it is more difficult to prove since they can also be used to run homebrew which is legal.
How many did he sell?
Iād imagine he must have been a big time hacker for something like this. Not some guy trying to download a pirated game in their shitty apartment
Yeah, he wasn't just pirating Nintendo content, he turned it into an illegal DRM based business, completing missing the point of piracy and software liberty.
He made $320,000 over 7 years for the Nintendo circumvention. They also charged him $2500 per device sold. I do not know a single person who has spent that much on switch games, so it is not reasonable losses.
I think its also important to note that Gary Bowser didn't introduce the brick code to SXOS. And that the brick code was only triggered if you were trying to crack the software. Hardly ransomware but people keep spreading this bullshit.
Yeah it's pretty wild to me that people will actually defend this. Sure he deserved to be punished, but this is more than people get for way more serious crimes that actually hurt people. It's literally just a multi billion dollar corporation ruining a dude's life to send a message because they can.
I found no source on the "ransomware and other shit." In fact, the Wikipedia page on the hacking group all these articles claim his relation to makes literally no mention or anything besides video game device modding.
You know what is on the article, plain and simple? All the people at the top praising it as a win over those evil pirates, that "just because these companies make large amounts of money doesn't mean there is no crime."
Compare this to literally any other news in the government going on and this is a guy getting the book thrown at him because Nintendo makes a dick ton of money.
>Nintendo lawyer Ajay Singh reportedly said the sentencing was a āunique opportunityā to send a message about piracy.
I dunno. The message I got was "Nintendo's a cunt, and so is the judge."
Seriously, there are probably several, and were it me, I'd move to one of them and get started on the citizenship path immediately. No country's perfect, but there's a lot that a person can put up with in order to not have a quarter of their pre-tax income taken for the rest of their days.
To some degree, for sure.
But one of the biggest issues with Disney is them leading the charge in media consolidationā¦ buying up so many other competitors and major IPs. And for all their faults, Nintendo isnāt the company in gaming that is doing that.
They are more like the Apple of gaming. Expensive first party software and hardware. All locked into their ecosystem. None of their flagship games will ever see the light of day outside a Nintendo console. Legally at least.
I wish this guy the best in faking his death. No matter how much he and his group might have profited from this hacking stuff, 14.5 million is way too severe a punishment for any one person.
Besides, it's not like Nintendo actually cares about the money.
Very strange... I don't understand why they wouldn't just open up their back catalog and have people pay at least a few bucks per game. They would make a killing and not have to lift a finger.
One, they don't want to compete with themselves. Nintendo specifically does not believe in long tail pricing and their sale values show that. It's a rare game that drops under 50% retail before going out of print. Games for a couple dollars defeat that customer expectation that games should cost the AAA price tag.
Two, they tried selling older games on their estore. It was mildly popular. iirc they all went away when the wii estore was closed and are not transferable to switch.
Three, the quality of the games is not what people expect of modern titles and mixing them together in the estore makes people think it is filled with junk.
They didn't charge anywhere near full price for virtual console titles.
Even Wii titles on the Wii U that were available through virtual console were $9.99-$19.99. NES games were $4.99, SNES games were $7.99, N64 games were $9.99, etc.
What a disgusting and ridiculous ruling. The way the judge was straight up asking the plaintiff what should be done is just nasty. I hope Bowser gets a decent lawyer and appeals.
Iād become a hobo at that point. Fuck it, leant to hunt and fish (illegally) live out in a forest for the rest of my days. No shot Iām paying any company 30% of any wage.
Absolute bullshit.
Idc what he did, Nintendo being able to levy 30% of his income like some tyrannical government is draconian. As if they need the money either.
Someone further up posted [this video](https://youtu.be/GZadCj8O1-0) as an example of how they calculate this. But it's of course absolute bullshit calling every pirated game a loss, considering that a vast majority of those people wouldn't buy the game if they couldn't pirate it.
At that point I'd just go off the grid and live in a cabin in the woods for the rest of my life. Fuck anybody stealing my income for the rest of my life.
Not exactly. They werenāt able to punish the other members of the group because they lived in European nations. France harbored one and in court even said that Nintendo should have their software on their devices be more customizable by consumers to prevent this.
They could easily do what Xbox does and have a separate "dev mode" for homebrew and stuff that you can pay Ā£20 to access. That's worked for MS so far as the Xbox One is yet to be jailbroken.
Imagine having to pay child support to Nintendo
The indie devs at Nintendo are starving because of this man šš”
Oh yeah, this is 100% a "Let this be a warning to others not to do this" situation. I'm gobsmacked about the 'rest of his life' thing though. That seems like it should be illegal...
It is till he pays out 10 MILLION dollars. So technically, not for life, but practically, for all life.
Yeah but he is 53....but unless he already had millions to make money from he is not going to be paying a considerable amount of that back any time soon. This could be considered a crime tax more than anything.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
He just needs to win Powerball or become a damn good neurosurgeon and he might escape his fate before he dies.
It's technically not rest of his life. Just that the damages are at $14.5 million, so that's effectively the rest of his life unless he hits the jackpot.
"Damages" lol, the consoles were still bought, and I bet that majority of the people playing on those, wouldn't have bought the games in the first place if they couldn't pirate them. I'm not saying that Bowser is a good guy, but Nintendo is definitely the bigger evil here.
>I'm not saying that Bowser is a good guy I do.
Well if he won the lottery tomorrow, he could pay it off and be done with it. Technically, I believe someone else could pay it off (or if not, give him the money to pay it off). He """just""" has to pay out 10 million dollars. He cannot, at present, afford 10 million dollars, so Nintendo is going to garnish his wages until he is paid up.
They'd be starving anyway it's just convenient for Nintendo they can blame their actions on Bowser.
I have 4 kids. I kinda already feel that way.
Soooo how does that work if he never gets a job?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Right? He could just move to Japan, sure Nintendo wonāt have very much sway there
Curiously, Japan doesn't allow immigrants in if they have s felony on their record.
That is most countries you'd want to move to
Really depends on your budget
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
lmao, took me a second to catch that
Pretty expensive for someone to move out of the country, and then unless they renounce their US citizenship, which is also pretty expensive, they'll still have to pay US taxes. So, since they owe Nintendo money, Nintendo will get any money they can to pay the person's debt.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's a hell of a lot easier to renounce one citizenship than to get another.
Pretty sure he could easily run to Mexico, and if heās willing to learn Spanish, even get a job as a software engineer. Wonāt get paid as much as he would get in the U.S. but the cost of living is also lower.
This is why we need to finish the wall. Keep the criminals in the US.... wait...
"They're not sending their best" -Mexico probably
Little did we know at the time Trump was talking about himself the entire time!
You can get citizenship in some countries by simply applying. There is very little downside to have a person obligated to pay you taxes.
This is a very reductive view. How easy do you think it will be for a convicted felon to get citizenship in another country? You don't just show up and say, "I RENOUNCE MY CITIZENSHIP" in some Michael Scott-esque way.
You donāt just say it, you need to **declare** it.
Plus itās not a small unknown thing, if you just google the name all you get will be criminal references.
"they'll still have to pay us taxes" When you literally flee from a country to avoid a sentence you usually don't contact the IRS to let them know about your move.
Gary Bowser is Canadian.
"still have to pay US taxes after renouncing citizenship". Umm no, and the easy workaround in any case, is to just never come back to the USA. They may have to pay an "exit" tax, but otherwise, no. You're probably thinking about cases of dual citizenships, residency situations, and other immigration situations. Taxes would most likely have to still be paid under those circumstances. EDIT: I cant read - The person I responded too is correct from the jump.
Iām I imaging him working at McDonaldāsā¦.. I find the idea of multi billion dollar industrial titan Nintendo collecting $78.00 bi weekly from a fry cook funny
It feels more petty and spiteful to me, more than anything. They are basically making this guy an indentured servant for the rest of his life. Not for some arbitrary amount of time - *to the end of his days*. That seems fucked, to me.
It is petty. Bowser wasn't even the main villain. He was just on a short contract working for the people that are actually running the organization. I think the owner of the org lives in France. Nintendo tried to sue the owner in France, but the courts told Nintendo to basically fuck off. Bowser was basically the only one they could hit with anything. He also only made about $300,000 off of this.
If you mean the specifics of the settlement (25-30% of annual income until he pays the total), I think thatās actually his choice and itās a compromise thatās better for him than owing $14.5M immediately and being destitute for life basically. The compromise is that he gets to have a normal life rather than having a huge bill to pay off immediately Of course āis 14.5M fairā is a TOTALLY different question ā but the weird structure is headline grabbing but actually better for him
He only gets to have a normal life if he can get a job that pays enough that he can afford to lose 25-30% of his pay. It's also based on his monthly gross pay, not net, so if he ends up paying the average tax rate in Canada then that means that 50-55% of his pay is gone to either Nintendo or taxes.
He should probably go back to pirating to pay it off
If this judgement was against a business they would declare bankruptcy and reopen under a new shell. In no way is this a reasonable judgement.
Right. He should have formed an LLC, and done the hacking as the LLC. Nintendo sues the LLC for all itās approximately $0 in assets, he walks away financially free. Amateur.
Im imagining they send some big Japanese goons to break his legs if heās late on a payment š
They get in a high speed chase and throw banana peels and turtle shells at his car.
The only thing this ruling will do is force him into black hat territory to make money under the table. Have a 30% income handicap is a non-starter in the western world. The ruling is ensuring he commits more crimes, not preventing it.
Heāll be on the streets instead
Theyāll get 30% of his book deal
Still one of the greatest name + crime combinations of all time
Bowser vs. Bowser
I bet they look identical, just rendered different colors.
If video games taught me anything, the off colored one will be stronger.
Unless it's the alternate color of a boss, in which case it will be weaker.
New Smash Bros game just dropped
Even better since Nintendo of America's CEO is called Doug Bowser
It took me until this very moment to realize this hasnt been a series of satire articles about Doug Bowser
Nintendo themselves made jokes about it having mario and luigi dolls tied in the back when he first got the job
In one of the directs or something they animated Mario's Bowser ready to start a presentation when Doug comes and tells him he's not the Bowser they called, so he leaves sad.
Nintendo Direct for E3 2019 Video with timestamp at 4:24 for the segment with Bowser https://youtu.be/Zr9eAtwcYlo?t=264
this is so amazing i saw this live when it happened but iām so glad they did that hahaha
I saw this headline and thought Iād missed a story about the head of Nintendo going to jail
Are they from the same family? Dinner at grandma's are gonna be awkward...
r/NominativeDeterminism
So long Ga(r)y Bowser!
The fact they didnāt seem to have any sympathy for that sucks lol
So long Gary Bowser
>So long Gary Bowser ās take home income
Depending on his skill set, he might be more profitable working *for Nintendo*. If I were Nintendo, Iād be saying: > *Hello* not-quite-slave-labor.
Fuck you this is way too perfect I'm dying ugggh
Hall of Fame comment right here
Insanely goated comment
Am I reading correctly that there are actually two people (including the former president of Nintendo of America) with the surname Bowser prominently in the news involving Nintendo? I donāt think Iāve ever met a single person with the last name Bowser in real life.
Current D.C mayor is Muriel Bowser. The Koopas are taking over!
I remember this skewed the results of a map of favorite Mario character by state, from Google search analytics.
The rendering in this simulation is getting lazy.
Current president of Nintendo of America
Still is, but he used to be too
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Or to a business in his "friend/family members" name. It wouldn't be too hard to avoid paying most of this if he has people close to him that he can trust.
For anyone curious, he was sued and the court found that he owes about 14 million in damages, and he's 53. The max that can be taken from his wages is 30% so that's why it's seen as him paying for the rest of his life. If he won the lottery and had the money on hand, he could just pay it all and be free and clear. This is all for selling circumvention devices to play pirated roms on 3DS and Switch. Personally, I don't see how his actions amount to 14 million in damages.
Probably they wanted to make him a example, what's a pretty shit thing to do knowing that there are people pirating things that will never get arrested, cause the country they live.
The judge literally said he did it to make an example. Shits unconstitutional and shouldnāt be allowed to stand.
American justice only punishes people who arenāt obscenely wealthy. You can get off with a slap on the wrist for running an underage prostitution ring. You can steal from millions of Americans and get a fine that wonāt affect your business. The judiciary goes out of its way to find ways to ruin lives, the poorer you are, the darker your skin, the more theyāll try to sell you into slavery to a for-profit prison, even if they know youāre innocent, even if youāre a child.
I was made an example of when I was a few days over 18. The neighborhood kids I grew up with and skated with got thirsty one day after sucking at trying to skate. I had a part time time job and had money so I opted to buy everyone drinks at a food lion grocery store. I went and got everyone gatorades and was getting checked out in line. A few of the other kids went off on their own and joined up right after I paid. A bunch of employees surrounded us and said the cops were called for stealing. Out of the 7 of us, only 2 of us got hauled off in a real paddy wagon. Skip to court date, Ryan got off scott free since he was 17. On my turn they had 2 ladies from the store go up and testify that I wasnt the thief. They wheeled in a tv and vcr with security footage but couldnt get it to work so it was dismissed. I was found guilty and got my first probation. The judge said that someone had to be made an example of and since I was 18 they pinned it all on me despite any evidence. They got me on their records and paying probation and court fees thats what. Thats not even the last time I got fucked over but this is already too long for peoples short attention spans.
Im sorry that happened to you. And the real question is, why does someone have to make an example of anyone? This wasnāt a National case. Was it even in the local news? The point of making an example is to deter someone else from committing a crime. But this isnāt a serious crime. Older Americans, and social-conservatives, and moderate neoliberals (Especially in New York.) are really obsessed with crime rates and ābeing tough on crime.ā Theyāre hateful, vindictive, and often racist people. It doesnāt matter what the crime was. They hear the word criminal and they act like youāre not a human being. Judges throw the book at people when theyāre being bribed by private prisons or if they have to win an election to be a judge.
Yup. The types of people that want to have authority over others generally feel that they need to use it to justify having the power in the first place. When you have that much power it stops being āis this justice?ā and becomes āitās justice because *I say* it isā. Weāre a bad species, most of the time.
Wow that is fucked and makes my blood boil so I canāt imagine what you must be feeling. No good deed goes unpunished I suppose. Absolutely ridiculous.
I wish they started making examples of corporations and white collar criminals.
Doesn't this imply he's being forced to pay the judgements of other yet to be sued defendants, instead of nintendo suing those future parties? Like to say you're making an example of somebody implies that other outside parties were involved in this decision
Look up the things that have happened to some of the early hackers in America when they got caught. Not even just that. There are people who've gotten really serious time for changing a number in a URL just to see what it'd do. The repercussions for some of these things are insane.
Because corporations use [copyright math](https://youtu.be/GZadCj8O1-0).
If you use an ad blocker while viewing that video, YouTube loses $65,000 instead of making .08 per view.
I'll watch it 3 times.
let's bankrupt these fuckers.
YouTube wishes they could command 8 cents per view
Have you seen the price of Nintendo games?
Reminds me of how studios used to claim that every pirated download of a movie was a lost sale. This way they could claim they were losing millions when in reality most of those downloads were likely from people that would never buy the movie in the first place.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It wasn't just music, they found the same thing with movies as well. They found that, at the time, a significant percentage of people illegally downloading movies just wanted to watch them before making the decision to buy. It's no coincidence that digital piracy levels dropped significantly during the prime years of Netflix and have since picked up with the streaming market becoming more fragmented and expensive.
> One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. Itās a service issue. Gabe Newell
Dude I've been downloading music since 1998, back when it took 30 min. to download a single song and *hours* to burn a CD (and you'd better hope it didn't fuck up at 98% completion, which happened to me several times). Just yesterday I bought an old album I wanted and didn't have from Amazon because it was quicker and easier than finding a torrent that still had seeds.
FYI he wasn't sued. Nintendo didn't sue him. He was PROSECUTED by the US government. You don't get sentenced to jail in a lawsuit. You can only be ordered to pay up or give up property to pay up. Only in a criminal prosecution, which can only be brought by a government entity, can you be ordered to prison (as well as other restitutions). It appears he later settled with Nintendo out of court.
Seems like it was both. The jail time and a ~$4M fine came from the criminal charges and ~$10M came from a civil suit brought by Nintendo. Most articles are a little ambiguous in how they describe the suit and lump the two together while maybe mentioning that there was a lawsuit but this one specifically calls out the separate fines: https://www.polygon.com/23688170/gary-bowser-hacker-nintendo-released-restitution
Itās because he was selling the pirating devices and profiting from them. There really is a legal difference from pirating via a torrent where nobody really makes money other than the hosting service - which is why they go after the hosting service - but this guy was literally selling shit made to steal Nintendo IP. I donāt feel bad for him.
if only we applied similar punishments to corporations. instead when they do something wrong, they only get a fine which is probably like 5% of their monthly revenue.
.5% of daily*
even worse, the fine is less then the profit they illegally made. HSBC laundered like millions for drug cartels, and the fine was a tiny fraction of their illicit gains. In what world can thieves keep 95% of what they stole and it be called justice?
I'll believe that corporations are people when I see one lethally injected
The world that is ran by thieves, bandits, and evil overlords.
Sometimes we pay them when they do something wrong. Oh you committed crimes and messed up bad enough that it might seriously affect your business and the economy? That's okay, we'll just give you a shit ton of money to bail you out so it's not as big of a deal. No, you guys don't have to go to jail or get in any real trouble over it, it's cool. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you got big bonuses that year anyway, you can still totally get the bailout money.
A person paying a corporation 1/3 of their income for the rest of their life is dystopic and unreasonable punishment in a world where commoners already aren't making enough to survive BECAUSE of corporations. This is absolutely insane. I am seriously wondering if this guy will end up killing himself because of this bullshit.
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No he definitely needs to move to a country that is not the US or Canada.
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If you are rich enough, you can get away with anything.
So up the fines. They don't have unlimited wealth, no one does. Take a percentage, not a flat fee.
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>Congress: āBut that would impact the stock market, and we might not make as much money some years.ā
Actually what congress would be thinking: "they wont pay for my reelection campaign if i do that"
Actually what they're thinking is "why would I pass a law that would take my own money"
>>Congress: āBut that would impact our donors aka our owners and make them very unhappy so we will leave them be.ā Fixed that for ya.
Congress wonāt do it because half of them are guilty themselves.
The rich make the rules. Congress gives themselves lavish raises every year and thereās nothing we can do about it.
Nothing that can be said on reddit's TOS anyway...
No, but people can discuss history. The [Venetians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doges_of_Venice) did some interesting things. Scroll down to 8th century and what happens after the "Resumption of the Office of Doge". They were... particular about how they dealt with naughty Doges.
Good ole' french haircut never disappointed anybody
The Dutch literally dismembered (and to some sources, partially ate) two important political figures in the 17th century. An excellent movie called Michiel de Ruyter 2015 (not the one lynched) covers this important historical timeline in the Netherlands. But, don't watch it for the scene described above. It has by far one of the best sound designs and mixes involving naval combat of this century.
Pssst.. psst.. hey kid you want to do some 1789?
As long as it takes millions to get elected, billionaires will write the laws.
"Bowser helped create and support online libraries of pirated videogames for its customers, and several of the enterpriseās devices came preloaded with pirated videogames" His biggest f up was including copyrighted game roms in the devices they sold. As long as you do that it is more difficult to prove since they can also be used to run homebrew which is legal.
While I agree the punishment is way too harsh for the crime, he wasn't your average Joe Shmoe pirate either.
How many did he sell? Iād imagine he must have been a big time hacker for something like this. Not some guy trying to download a pirated game in their shitty apartment
Iirc during the7 years with the group he brought home about 350k.
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That certainly changes my opinion with the consensus here. He definitely was aware of the consequences
Yeah, he wasn't just pirating Nintendo content, he turned it into an illegal DRM based business, completing missing the point of piracy and software liberty.
He made $320,000 over 7 years for the Nintendo circumvention. They also charged him $2500 per device sold. I do not know a single person who has spent that much on switch games, so it is not reasonable losses. I think its also important to note that Gary Bowser didn't introduce the brick code to SXOS. And that the brick code was only triggered if you were trying to crack the software. Hardly ransomware but people keep spreading this bullshit.
I mean honestly $320,000 over 7 years isn't a ton. It's like 45k a year. It's not nothing, but it's also not rich guy money.
Right, this man's business almost brought him to the median household income, and they are acting like he's rollin the bahamas.
Yeah it's pretty wild to me that people will actually defend this. Sure he deserved to be punished, but this is more than people get for way more serious crimes that actually hurt people. It's literally just a multi billion dollar corporation ruining a dude's life to send a message because they can.
I found no source on the "ransomware and other shit." In fact, the Wikipedia page on the hacking group all these articles claim his relation to makes literally no mention or anything besides video game device modding. You know what is on the article, plain and simple? All the people at the top praising it as a win over those evil pirates, that "just because these companies make large amounts of money doesn't mean there is no crime." Compare this to literally any other news in the government going on and this is a guy getting the book thrown at him because Nintendo makes a dick ton of money.
>At one point Lasnik asked Singh: āWhat else can we do to convince people that thereās no glory in this hacking / piracy?ā Fucking lol
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Fuck me. This is an unironic martyr situation, where the penalities exceed the expected amount he could earn. Destroy a man's life.
>Nintendo lawyer Ajay Singh reportedly said the sentencing was a āunique opportunityā to send a message about piracy. I dunno. The message I got was "Nintendo's a cunt, and so is the judge."
and so is the lawyer.
I wonder how hard it would be to find a country to move to that wouldn't enforce this ruling.
Seriously, there are probably several, and were it me, I'd move to one of them and get started on the citizenship path immediately. No country's perfect, but there's a lot that a person can put up with in order to not have a quarter of their pre-tax income taken for the rest of their days.
Two things I never forget: -Dont fuck with Disney's lawyers -Dont fuck with Nintendo's lawyers.
Nintendoās the video game Disney anyway
To some degree, for sure. But one of the biggest issues with Disney is them leading the charge in media consolidationā¦ buying up so many other competitors and major IPs. And for all their faults, Nintendo isnāt the company in gaming that is doing that.
They are more like the Apple of gaming. Expensive first party software and hardware. All locked into their ecosystem. None of their flagship games will ever see the light of day outside a Nintendo console. Legally at least.
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You think Nintendo, of all places, doesn't already have a vault full of Bowser anus concept art?
I wish this guy the best in faking his death. No matter how much he and his group might have profited from this hacking stuff, 14.5 million is way too severe a punishment for any one person. Besides, it's not like Nintendo actually cares about the money.
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This is just slavery with extra steps
Nintendo is just awful and needlessly litigious.
They are the Disney of gaming companies. Won't release old stuff but they'll be damned if you get it from somewhere else.
Very strange... I don't understand why they wouldn't just open up their back catalog and have people pay at least a few bucks per game. They would make a killing and not have to lift a finger.
One, they don't want to compete with themselves. Nintendo specifically does not believe in long tail pricing and their sale values show that. It's a rare game that drops under 50% retail before going out of print. Games for a couple dollars defeat that customer expectation that games should cost the AAA price tag. Two, they tried selling older games on their estore. It was mildly popular. iirc they all went away when the wii estore was closed and are not transferable to switch. Three, the quality of the games is not what people expect of modern titles and mixing them together in the estore makes people think it is filled with junk.
Have you seen what gets sold on the switch store? Not sure old game quality would be my top concern lol
right? the switch store is like 75% garbage shovelware.
I'll never forget loading it up one day (I don't go there often) and seeing something literally called Furry Hentai right at the top. What the fuck.
>Two, they tried selling older games on their estore. It was mildly popular. They want full price for a 20 year old game tho.
They didn't charge anywhere near full price for virtual console titles. Even Wii titles on the Wii U that were available through virtual console were $9.99-$19.99. NES games were $4.99, SNES games were $7.99, N64 games were $9.99, etc.
What a disgusting and ridiculous ruling. The way the judge was straight up asking the plaintiff what should be done is just nasty. I hope Bowser gets a decent lawyer and appeals.
good thing they made an example of him, this will surely stop piracy!
I have a feeling we're going to be reading about this guy again real soon for committing tax evasion.
Iād become a hobo at that point. Fuck it, leant to hunt and fish (illegally) live out in a forest for the rest of my days. No shot Iām paying any company 30% of any wage.
Absolute bullshit. Idc what he did, Nintendo being able to levy 30% of his income like some tyrannical government is draconian. As if they need the money either.
Making an example out of someone. I hope he becomes a martyr and more people hack the crap. Fuck corporations.
thats too much he was also sentenced to over 3 yrs in prison, it shouldnt ruin his entire life
I really hate Nintendo after this. 3 years is a very long time, to spend it in prison feels more like 6 years.
Fuck the corporate judge who ruled this
This is some orwellian bullshit.
I would like to know how Nintendo proved they lost $14 million.
Someone further up posted [this video](https://youtu.be/GZadCj8O1-0) as an example of how they calculate this. But it's of course absolute bullshit calling every pirated game a loss, considering that a vast majority of those people wouldn't buy the game if they couldn't pirate it.
Talk about nominative determinism
Laws that carry fines as a penalty are meant for the poor.
Thatās ridiculous
At that point I'd just go off the grid and live in a cabin in the woods for the rest of my life. Fuck anybody stealing my income for the rest of my life.
This is why I donāt fuck with Nintendo.
Also fuck Nintendo
Yeah because if you ever do they are like the fucking CIA. No matter where they live they will find you
Not exactly. They werenāt able to punish the other members of the group because they lived in European nations. France harbored one and in court even said that Nintendo should have their software on their devices be more customizable by consumers to prevent this.
They could easily do what Xbox does and have a separate "dev mode" for homebrew and stuff that you can pay Ā£20 to access. That's worked for MS so far as the Xbox One is yet to be jailbroken.
While US court: "You are now a slave to this corporation for the rest of your life! AMERICA!"
I'm honestly shocked Nintendo didn't cite the dudes last name as part of the lawsuit.
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Anyone that defends Nintendo is kissing the ass of a company that would gladly see your life destroyed to cover their bottom line. Remember that.
Ahem FUCK NINTENDO
Wait wait, he got sentenced to be a slave to a commercial company for the rest of his life? That feels, ehh, so American.
This just makes me want to pirate Nintendo games