Okay, let's get this out of the way right up front: Downloading what you think is a ROM of the Japanese release of Dragon Quest IX, days before it even comes out, is not cool. It turns out that it will probably also end up being hazardous to your DS.

DS Scene reports that a file going around, labeled "Dragon Quest IX JPN DSi Enhanced NDS iND," is actually not Dragon Quest IX at all, but rather a malicious program that can overwrite a DS's firmware and render systems unusable. The program is disguised as a hentai slideshow called "DS Owata," which is itself disguised as Dragon Quest IX.

Our advice in this case is to do your very best not to be a pirate and just buy the thing when you can. Square Enix booby-traps its legitimate games against piracy anyway.

Torrent Freak reports that the infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay has been sold to Global Gaming Factory X, which runs a chain of internet cafes. GGF will take control of the site in August.

GGF plans to make significant changes to the site's methods. "We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site," said Global Gaming Factory CEO Hans Pandeya. The revamped Pirate Bay will use some kind of new P2P distribution tech developed by Peerialism, another GGF acquisition. The new standard is separate from, but backward-compatible with, BitTorrent.

"A lot of people are worried," a statement on The Pirate Bay reads. "We're not and you shouldn't be either!" The site's organizers say that profits from the sale will be put into a foundation "to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess [sic] of the nets."

In our minds, this is even more significant than the sale and eventual relaunch of Napster, because Napster was never so closely connected to a political party.

It seems the lengthy litigatory road embarked upon by The Pirate Bay's four founders back in April is finally coming to an end. Following a guilty verdict that sentenced Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde to one year in prison and fines of 30 million kronor (about $4 million), the quartet's lawyer requested an appeal after it was revealed that the presiding judge over the case was, in fact, a member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property. The request was denied earlier today by the Svea Court of Appeal.

Yes, the folks who made it possible to finally find that KeyGen for your downloaded copy of Barbie Horse Adventures: Mystery Ride are heading for a Swedish slammer -- but before they go, they'll reportedly press charges against Sweden for violating their human rights.

[Original image: marcusrg]

Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games:

Maybe you heard about the verdict that just came out in one of the music file-sharing cases: $1.9 million for 24 songs. So, what does this have to do with gaming? More than you would probably imagine, since this gets to the root of copyright and statutory damages. In fact, EFF legal scholar Fred von Lohmann posted an interesting piece on whether the penalty is even Constitutional. Whether this is the suit that breaks the back of statutory damages has yet to be seen, but it's something that any media producer or consumer should be keeping an eye on.

Of course, much of that may be getting ahead of the issue of explaining this decision in greater depth so that everyone can understand what the actual problem is. We've talked about copyright infringement and piracy at length on LGJ, and the issue here is what comes after someone is found to have infringed on a copyrighted work: damages. Specifically, we're talking about statutory damages, which something a lot of people may not be very familiar with at all.

We certainly hope Electronic Arts built up some tough skin during the whole Spore piracy pandemic, as it looks like they'll be facing similar buccaneering with their upcoming plumbob-equipped title, Sims 3. According to media measurement group BigChampagne, the game was illegally download over 180,000 times between May 18 (the day the game hit the Torrentscape) and May 21.

Holly Rockwood, an awesomely named EA PR rep, responded to the downloads by explaining, "the pirated version is a buggy, pre-final build of the game," and that, "it's not the full game. Half the world -- an entire city -- is missing from the pirated copy." Based on the image seen above (sent in by an anonymous pirate), we don't think Rockwood is bluffing. For a more full-bodied Sims 3 experience, you'll have to wait for it to hit store shelves June 2.

Hey, Netherlandian young adults! Stop all the downloadin'! If a recent survey of 3,500 folks between the ages of 12 - 24 (issued by Dutch television program EénVandaag) is accurate, 93 percent of Dutch adolescents "download music, movies or games from the Internet," while only five percent use honest, paid services such as iTunes and Steam. The remaining two percent responded with a perplexed "vwat ees an eentarnet?"

An interesting caveat: Downloading copyrighted media isn't actually illegal in the Netherlands -- but uploading copyrighted works is. Bizarrely enough, the Dutch pirates' preferred form of file sharing is BitTorrent, with 45 percent using sites such as The Pirate Bay to yoink their movies, music and games. However, BitTorrenting, which causes users to download and upload simultaneously, is illegal under the Netherlands' copyright regulations. Fascinating, right? Right?

[Via MaxConsole]

Nintendo has announced that it has reached an agreement with Amazon and eBay through which the shopping sites will prohibit the sale of the R4 and other DS flashcarts.

"Nintendo is pleased with the co-operation it has received from both eBay and Amazon to prevent the sales of game copying devices," Nintendo's global head of anti-piracy, Jodie Daughtery told MCV. eBay has actually pulled auctions for copying devices for years (presumably as an "item encouraging illegal activity), so if there is a policy update, it involves even more vigilant policing of auctions.

Amazon UK games director Chris Poad told MCV that Amazon has a "notice and take down" process for its third-party Marketplace. "So where a third party believes that their IP has been infringed, they can highlight it and we can take it down. This is what happened in the case of the R4."

Now Nintendo just has the rest of the Internet to deal with in its efforts to curtail DS piracy (and, as an extremely unfortunate side effect, homebrew).

Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software president Yutaka Kubota expressed to Famitsu grave concerns about the proliferation and use of Nintendo DS flash cart devices, such as the R4DS.

Referring to the volume of illegally downloaded DS software, Kubota remarked, "It's not a matter of numbers anymore," adding, "The fact is that you can download any Nintendo DS game as much as you want, so there's no way to even calculate the damage. This is an issue that affects our national interests, and personally, I see it as a form of information terrorism that is crushing Japan's industry."

In the interview translated by 1UP, Kubota called on the magazine's readers to stand firm against piracy, saying, "I want them to be aware that unless we do something, nobody will be able to make the games they love to play. Not only will gamers wanting to play new games not be able to play anything, but people who want to join the game industry in the future will have their dreams trampled upon."

Japan's laws do not currently forbid the purchase of devices like the R4, nor the downloading of commercial software for use with them. A new copyright bill under review would make it illegal to download copyrighted media, but doesn't expressly give authorities the right to arrest offenders.

Unconfirmed reports circulating around the net claim the upcoming life-sim, The Sims 3, has leaked online weeks before its retail release. The Electronic Arts developed title is scheduled to land on store shelves on June 2. According to SoftSailor, torrents for The Sims 3 clock in around 5GB, but have yet to be confirmed as the full, final version of the game.

The Sims 3 is the long-awaited sequel to the best-selling Dollhouse simulator, announced last year. Recently (after coming under fire for extensive DRM use in Spore -- which totally didn't work anyway) Electronic Arts announced The Sims 3 would not include any online authentication, relying solely on a serial number as copy protection. Joystiq has contacted Electronic Arts for comment and puts a bounty on the heads of all pirates everywhere. We're giving away cookies.

[Via GamePolitics]

Metaforic's Andrew Mclennan, a former game developer frustrated by piracy, spoke to Gamasutra about a new technology his company has created to reduce copying of DS games. Nintendo's tactic so far has been to try to stop the sale of the R4 flashcart in Japan and other countries, but the company is now working with Metaforic to attack the problem from a different angle.

Metaforic's MetaFortress technology, to be used in games by Nintendo and six other publishers starting this year, uses code stored in the actual game that detects the patching used by flashcarts, and then disables the ROM. "We take any DS game and inject a security scheme into the game itself," Mclennan told Gamasutra. "It turns each game into its own security system. Every time we apply it to a different game, it's a different security system."

Though he admits that the software could be hackable eventually, it would require a separate effort for each individual game ROM. "We add so much security to it that it will take a very long time to hack." Mclennan claims that even flashcart firmware patches will be unable to neutralize MetaFortress, though he didn't specify why.

Though Mclennan thinks flashcarts should be illegal, he "sympathizes" with the homebrew community. It wasn't his goal, but disabling flashcart-based piracy at the software level obviates the need for anti-flashcart legislation, which could be good news for homebrew fans.

The Escapist's Pedro Franco recently wrote up an interesting article about Brazil's recent transformation into a "pirated goods heaven," particularly for illicitly acquired video games. According to Franco, Brazil was once a thriving market for games, until the mid-1990s brought about outrageously high taxes on gaming software (45 percent of the price of PC titles consisted of taxes), diminished per capita income and the transition from cartridge to disc-based games. Now, it's estimated that 94 percent of Brazil's gaming market is composed of pirated merchandise.

Check out Franco's full article to find out the social and industrial implications of a nation that finds gaming piracy permissible. (Spoiler alert: It leads to bad things.)

[Via GamePolitics]

The Business Software Alliance recently conducted a study into piracy, and found that it may be a bigger problem than any of us could have thought, Reuters reports. The study showed that PC piracy accounted for 41 percent of total PC software installed in 2008, a 3 percent rise from 2007 figures. However, as piracy expands, so do sales, as PC software raked in $88 billion in 2008, a whopping 14 percent increase.

Even though the US only has a 20 percent piracy rate (which is the lowest in the world), Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of the BSA, says that figure is a lot worse considering we buy more software than any other country. But, as bad as the figures are, some countries are actually seeing a decline in illegal software.

Throughout two of the biggest regions for piracy (Russia and China), figures show a decline over previous years. In Russia, piracy dropped 5 points down to 68 percent in 2008, whereas in China the decline has been more gradual, dropping from figures of 90 percent in 2004 to 80 percent in 2008. Other countries remain at a 90 percent or higher piracy rate, however, including Georgia, Bangladesh, Armenia, Zimbabwe, Sri Landa, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

So, remember kids: Don't copy that floppy!

If you were one of the many recruits in last year's war on restrictive, invasive DRM, you may want to check out a recent article on Gamasutra that features opinions on PC gaming piracy protection (that's a mouthful) from a number of gaming industry movers and shakers.

The general sentiment of these interviewees is that DRM is extremely ineffective when it comes to preventing piracy, and that developers should either come up with alternate ways of ensuring the retail product is more valuable than the pirated product, or determine a different way to make money altogether (such as micro-transactions). For interesting insight from fine folks like 2D Boy's Ron Carmel and Stardock's Brad Wardell, we highly suggest checking out the full article.

It's hard to convey the sound of two hands clapping through a press release, but the ESA has managed to do just that. Celebrating the recent 10-month jail sentence of Khuong Van Truong, a San Jose resident caught with "11,000 bootleg video games, 4,000 DVDs and 300 audio CDs," the ESA has released a statement today lauding the California courts which sentenced the man.

"We applaud the work of both the San Jose Police Department and the Santa Clara County Office of the District Attorney for their hard work and dedication to bringing this game pirate to justice," the statement reads. Van Truong was arrested last year after his two-year-old son was found wandering around a busy intersection. When police brought the chiild home, they discovered a large piracy operation as well as a variety of illegal drugs. Here's hoping Van Truong's family can take the child into custody during the sentence.

In case you hadn't noticed, Canada was recently added to the US "Priority Watch List" due to the country's allegedly less than strict laws regarding the piracy of various media (that includes games, folks). Canadians, however, are not taking the change lightly. University of Ottawa law professor MIchael Geist, citing a statement made by the Canadian government, says the process, "lacks reliable and objective analysis."

The piece states that the criteria for determining who ends up on the list (and that country's priority level) is based around media industry lobbyists in the US, such as the International Intellectual Property Alliance. Geist hopes that Canadian politicians will take a stance against the inclusion on the list, though the recent ESA schmoozing of Canadian lawmakers may scatter those hopes a bit. Given Canadian member of Parliament Mike Lake's statements made less than two weeks ago though, we should see some serious change in Canadian piracy law, "in this Parliament." That is, if he can take a time out from playing NHL '09.

[Via GamePolitics]