French court bans DS 'game copier' devices

by Richard Mitchell on Oct 4th 2011 5:00AM

Nearly two years after French courts ruled in favor of Nintendo DS flash cartridge sellers, it appears that prosecutors have won their appeal. The Paris Court of Appeals has ruled against Divineo and five other companies responsible for selling devices similar to the R4, which allow users to run unofficial code (pirated games included) on the Nintendo DS.

In its statement (PDF), Nintendo revealed that the companies have been charged over €460,000 in criminal fines, as well as over €4.8 million in damages to Nintendo. The company didn't offer specifics, though the ruling included some suspended prison sentences as well. Nintendo unsurprisingly cheered the news, noting that the decision "represents a strong message to French companies dealing in these devices, that such activities are illegal and will not be tolerated." The company also took a moment to thank law enforcement agencies that took part in raids to confiscate the devices in question (something Nintendo has gotten quite adept at over the years).

The victory comes as part of Nintendo's ever vigilant campaign against piracy, which has seen lawsuits everywhere from Australia to New York, with some cases leading to similar nationwide bans. Nintendo has also stopped eBay and Amazon from selling flash carts, and has even enlisted the aid of its own customers.

And, most important of all, the company has inspired Joystiq's Baby Pirates comic series, which is now teetering on the brink of irrelevancy. Thanks, Nintendo.

Source: Nintendo (PDF)

Tags: anti-piracy, babypirates, ds, france, nintendo, r4

Reader Comments (26)

That picture never gets old

@BlueRajasmyk
d('.'d)

@BlueRajasmyk

To stop piracy they´d need to close china, and that´s kind of complicated.

4.8 million in damages! Looks like they might turn a profit this year after all! TIME TO BUY SOME STOCK

Piracy is going to get harder and harder with each passing generation.

It was almost impossible on PS3, it will be impossible on Vita.

Which is both good and bad for us.
Sony learned/copied a lot from homebrew, and PSP was made better because of things like RemoteJoy, Custom Firmware Extender, and PSP go was almost worthless till it got hacked.

But lots of games didnt get made or localized cause of the rampant piracy.

Though 3DS will get hacked, because Nintendo were dicks enough to add territorial lockout.

@Extinction

3DS is technically hacked now. The cartridges have been 'ripped' and are downloadable as data. Old flashcarts run on it and play NDS games fine. There's been images of flashcarts-to-be running pirated 3DS roms.

There will always be dedicated people willing to crack open even the most closed console.

@Extinction "It will be impossible on Vita" keep telling yourself that

@Mr White
It was impossible on PS3 for 5 years.
Easy for Sony. Just do the same and plug where the previous problem was. With a console with so much online connectivity I bet the Vita will take more than 5 years to crack. Possibly when they stop updating the firmware after the consoles life cycle.

@Extinction
As long as people tell them they can't, people will hack it.
As long as people tell them they can, people will hack it.

It's a simple force of nature.

@Extinction "But lots of games didnt get made or localized cause of the rampant piracy."

WRONG

Games don't get localized either because...

1. The publisher does not think there is a target market for the product
2. It's the end of the console cycle, and by the time the game is done, see 1

In this case, piracy is the ONLY HOPE of getting a translated release (see the countless load of fan translation projects, most notably MOTHER 3's fan translation, which was extremely high quality).

@Extinction

"It was almost impossible on PS3, it will be impossible on Vita."

I lol'd

Never ever say impossible, that's like throwing chum in shark infested waters. Never throw the gauntlet down because no one can win.

This means WAR!!!!

Nintendo is asking for more of these devices to circulate, after locking their devices to zones... zone locking is a thing of the 2000s, and it was for DVDs, its sort of ridiculous to see it in a handheld. I do not aprove piracy, but there is times when you can't play a game because Nintendo doesn't wants your American DS to play a Japanese game. Also, homebrew is a nice thing these flashcarts offer. I have this drawing application which I have used insanely to draw stuff in my DS Lite with the stylus, and some emulators for example GBC (Those sweet Zelda games, Oracle of Seasons/Ages are the last ones I played, games I can't sadly play on the DS due to no official GBC support, and because I don't own anymore a GBC, the only way to play is the emulator (though I still keep many GBC games as a memory I cherish from childhood)) and so on I can give you a lot of reasons to use a flashcart!

Hackers can suck the balls of ever leper that has ever existed since the dawn of time. This includes anonymous (I'll be damned if I'm going to do them the courtesy of capitalizing their name) and their shit spawn, lulzsec. I hope all of them get Mexican carteled.

@FinalFantasyXIIIsucks

So i am presuming that you are one of the few that has never downloaded anything illegally?
Alot of the flash carts for the DS are used to play games which nintendo have made inaccessible to half the world, i am not saying it is a correct thing to download illegally however for the purpose of playing a game otherwise unaccessible is that so wrong? i am all for giving money to the developers but how is it possible without a means to do so?

@tmus5

But the ds didn't have region locking, so importing was always an option. Which leaves homebrew as the only 'good' thing these carts can do. But the evil of piracy heavily outweighs the good of homebrew, so ban them away, I say.

@bunnyraven Importing only works if you understand the game's target language. Granted, I haven't yet seen any fan translation projects on DS, but the point still stands: Importing doesn't translate a game.

Also, as someone currently writing GBC homebrew, please, stop talking, I hate you. When handhelds and consoles come with native-code homebrew built in (and this will NEVER HAPPEN) then you can make a point against copier devices. But practically, we need copier devices and softmods to do homebrew on real hardware, because consoles are so closed down they make Apple look like a saint of open platforms.

@tmus5 I'm actually one of the stupid ones that pays for everything, even though sometimes I look back on what I bought and realized that maybe instead of spending money on that game, book, comic, or whatever, I should have used said money to pay the bills. It's not that I haven't been tempted, it's just that I'm a strong believer in karma. I'm constantly afraid that if I download something illegally, I'll get caught and have to pay out the ass for it.

Because of that, it pisses me off that people who don't feel the same way as I do go and pirate to their hearts content. It get's me that what I shell out $30, $40, $50, or $60 for, these assholes get for free. It's because of them that games like Diablo III require a constant internet connection or some other form of shitty DRM.

That, and it's those assholes that hacked the PSN earlier this year and potentially put my personal information at risk. I know that you could blame Sony for that, and they are partially responsible, but it's those shitstains that took the initiative to do what they did.

Screw the hackers, and screw their mothers.

@bunnyraven

"Which leaves homebrew as the only 'good' thing these carts can do. But the evil of piracy heavily outweighs the good of homebrew, so ban them away, I say."

How about the best thing these carts do is allow your game collection (bought and paid for) to actually be PORTABLE along with your handheld console?

Besides, your arguments are as flawed as the RIAA/MPAA's. More piracy does not mean less purchasing. The percentage of people who are willing to pirate, but would be willing to buy if there were no piracy option has to be somewhere in the vicinity of zero. Copy protection and DRM only hurt legitimate customers would love to do things like back up their save files or not have to manage dozens of separate game media.

Babypirates!

I see 3DS/DSi softmods being more viable than flashcards; now that the handhelds have viable built-in or removable storage. Plus, the softmods generally tend to separate piracy and homebrew, so the softmod people can open the door for just homebrew and the piracy people have to do extra work. And so far that seems to have kept the lawyers away from softmod hackers since they don't actually enable any piracy.

How can a device that runs unsigned code be illegal? I understand that copyring ROMs is illegal, but the companies making the devices do not supply ROMs, and these devices can be used to run homebrew, as well as letting you take all the games you own with you on one cartridge. Why kill the legitimate use of these products? Just sue those who are abusing the products, not those who use/make them for nefarious purposes. These are the actual parties in violation.

@TonyGeezy arg, meant to say non-nefarious there

@TonyGeezy

In this case, its a very clear case of the majority hurting the minority. The minority is the group who actually uses things like the R4 for homebrew, the majority just want their free games. Its very unfortunate and ties directly to your second point in that its easier to go after and shutdown the manufacturers and retailers of devices like this than it is to go after everyone that buys and uses them for ROMs. In fact, if Nintendo or another company were to try that, they'd find it practically impossible.

@TonyGeezy

(Almost) all DS flashcarts have hardware on-board specifically for the purpose of running pirated ROMs.

@Esposch

Just because it's a copy doesn't make it pirated.

French court bans DS 'game copier' devices

Reader Comments (26)

Posted: Oct 3rd 2011 6:35PM BlueRajasmyk said

Posted: Oct 3rd 2011 6:37PM Chichok said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 12:08PM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 5:05AM Cavall said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 5:18AM Extinction said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 5:53AM Apsac D said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 5:53AM Mr White said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 6:02AM Undulation said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 6:13AM Andrew12h said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 9:03AM kmeisthax said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 9:10AM Scuffles said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 5:47AM Spartan050 said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 6:28AM zubieta said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 7:37AM FinalFantasyXIIIsucks said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 8:43AM tmus5 said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 8:50AM bunnyraven said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 9:08AM kmeisthax said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 9:08AM FinalFantasyXIIIsucks said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 10:05PM chispito said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 8:47AM bunnyraven said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 9:15AM kmeisthax said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 3:25PM TonyGeezy said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 3:26PM TonyGeezy said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 5:10PM Suichimo said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 7:31PM Esposch said

Posted: Oct 4th 2011 10:07PM chispito said

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