Japanese Police Arrest Man For Selling Modded Save Files For Single-Player Nintendo Game

from the what-the-what? dept

We've already written a few times about how Japan's onerous Unfair Competition Prevention Law has created what looks from here like a massive overreach on the criminalization of copyright laws. Past examples include Japanese journalism executives being arrested over a book that tells people how to back up their own DVDs, along with more high-profile cases in which arrests occurred over the selling of cheats or exploits in online multiplayer video games. While these too seem like an overreach of copyright law, or at least an over-criminalization of relatively minor business problems facing electronic media companies, they are nothing compared with the idea that a person could be arrested and face jail time for the crime of selling modded save-game files for single player game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

A 27-year old man in Japan was arrested after he was caught attempting to sell modified Zelda: Breath of The Wild save files.

As reported by the Broadcasting System of Niigata (and spotted by Dextro) Ichimin Sho was arrested on July 8 after he posted about modified save files for the Nintendo Switch version of Breath of The Wild. He posted his services onto an unspecified auction site, describing it as “the strongest software.” He would provide modded save files that would give the player improved in-game abilities and also items that were difficult to obtain were made available as requested by the customer. In his original listing, he reportedly was charging folks 3,500 yen (around $31 USD) for his service.

Upon arrest, Sho admitted that he's made something like $90k over 18 months selling modded saves and software. Whatever his other ventures, the fact remains that Sho was arrested for selling modded saves for this one Zelda game to the public. And this game is fully a single-player game. In other words, there is not aspect of this arrest that involved staving off cheating in online multiplayer games, which is one of the concerns that has typically led to these arrests in Japan within the gaming industry. This is more like people getting mods for their owned games, along with save game files being traded, something that has existed in gaming for as long as the industry has existed.

As Kotaku notes, this isn't wholly new for Japan.

While this might seem wild, being arrested for selling save files, it’s not a new situation in Japan. Police in Japan have previously arrested folks for modifying video game software which violates the Unfair Competition Prevention Law in Japan. This same law was also used by Nintendo to sue a go-kart company in 2017. In 2015, another man in Japan was arrested after selling cheats in the popular online shooter Alliance of Valiant Arms.

Except, again, in most of those instances the police were arresting those selling mods and cheats for online multiplayer games. That's, frankly, bad enough, but we're now talking about the arrest of a person for selling save game files for a single-player game.

And the real question becomes: who is this arrest protecting? The selling of these files doesn't take any considerable money out of Nintendo's pocket. It doesn't harm other players of the game in the way cheating in online games does. So why is this arrest even happening? And, if there's no good answer to that question, why is such a poorly written law that allows for this arrest remaining in place?

Filed Under: copyright, criminal copyright, japan, mods, save files, zelda
Companies: nintendo

As Cuba Tries To Block Internet Messaging, A Reminder Of Why The Open Internet Is So Important

from the this-is-important dept

I know that the internet is taking quite a beating these days, but we should not forget the promise of the internet, and how it can be used for important movements. The protests in Cuba are a perfect example of this. As you probably know, Cuba has had very limited access to the internet, though it has expanded recently. Twenty years ago we wrote about efforts to build bootleg internet connections in Cuba, and a decade later, Fidel Castro suddenly talked about how important the internet was, noting that he had become something of an internet junkie himself. It's really only in the last few years that Cuba has made it really possible for people to have internet in their homes, but only via the state operated ETECSA with fairly limited speeds.

Of course, access to information (and people) is a two-edged sword in many ways, and as many authoritarian governments have discovered in the past, the general public might not go in the direction you want them to go in. And thus, the Cuban government did what so many authoritarians have done before: as the protests picked up, the internet began to shut down. It wasn't a full internet cut-off, but what appeared to be targeted at specific messaging apps. According to Kevin Collier at NBC News:

A number of messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, are all blocked in Cuba, said Arturo Filastò, the project lead at the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI).

OONI, an international nonprofit, relies on volunteers around the world to install a program that probes for which types of internet use are being censored and how. Its data showed that ETECSA began blocking WhatsApp on Sunday night, then Signal and Telegram on Monday. All three were still blocked on Tuesday, Filastò said.

"We have never seen instant messaging apps being blocked in the country,” he said. "It’s sort of unprecedented that we would see such a heavy crackdown on the internet in Cuba."

In response to this, Ron DeSantis did one of the rare right things, and suggested that Florida could step in and figure out ways to give Cuba internet access. Of course, there's quite a bit of irony here as well, since DeSantis just a few months ago signed a law that makes it harder for the public to protest in Florida without retaliation. So, sure, it's great that he's trying to help Cubans, but tough to take him seriously after he tried to block the same rights and support to his own constituents.

Either way, in a time when people are constantly berating the internet and technology as all bad, it's important to remember how much good there is -- including the ability to help people organizing to protest unfair government regimes and to make themselves heard. The fact that Cuba's first move is to try to shut down those channels of communication only serve to put an exclamation point on that fact.

Filed Under: cuba, internet messaging, open internet, protests

Daily Deal: The Complete 2021 Learn Linux Bundle

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

The Complete 2020 Learn Linux Bundle has 12 courses to help you learn Linux OS concepts and processes. You'll start with an introduction to Linux and progress to more advanced topics like shell scripting, data encryption, supporting virtual machines, and more. Other courses cover Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8), virtualizing Linux OS using Docker, AWS, and Azure, how to build and manage an enterprise Linux infrastructure, and much more. It's on sale for $59.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Devin Nunes' Lawyer, Steven Biss, Finally Gets Sanctioned In Wacky Defamation Case

from the pay-up dept

Back in April, we wrote about how Steven Biss, who has become infamous for his flurry of frivolous defamation lawsuits -- many of which are on behalf of Congressional Representative Devin Nunes as well as an odd collection of wacky people in Nunes' orbit -- had lost yet another case, but that the court had rejected sanctioning Biss. That didn't last long. That ruling was in the 4th Circuit appeals court in the case Biss brought on behalf of Russian-born academic Svetlana Lokhova against a Cambridge academic, Stefan Halper, and a variety of media organizations. I'm not going to recount all the details of the case again. You can read those in our original post. Just know that it seemed to be a pretty obvious SLAPP suit. Much of it was filed after the statute of limitations had passed, on statements that were clearly not defamatory, and, in at least one case, appearing to sue the wrong party. However, the District Court judge and the Appeals Court both found that while Biss had a long history of bad behavior in court, they didn't want to take the further step of sanctioning him. Yet. Though both courts made it clear that further shenanigans could change that.

I will give you just one guess what happened next. And I'm sure you'll get it right.

I had somehow missed that while Biss/Lokhova were getting benchslapped in that case, they had decided it would be a good idea to file another frivolous SLAPP suit against Halper. This case involved claims that Halper had somehow defamed Lokhova (again) and tortiously interfered with her publishing contract, regarding a book she was publishing all about Steven Halper (which Halper insists itself is defamatory towards him). Halper had sent a letter to the publisher and distributor of the book arguing that Lokhova's book was defamatory, and then Biss/Lokhova sued Halper again. They failed to mention that they had already sued Halper, and that the cases were related, which probably didn't make the court very happy in the first place.

Judge Leonie Brinkema seems to have had enough. Recognizing that her original lenient order not to issue sanctions in the last case was ineffective, she has finally recognized that Biss seems unwilling to back down. So she has now order both Biss and Lokhova to pay Halper's legal fees in this case.

In the May 5, 2021 hearing on defendant's Motion for Sanctions, the Court found that Halper's counsel's letters were protected by absolute litigation privilege, making the filing of the pending lawsuit by Lokhova and Biss frivolous and without merit.

It goes on, dismantling each and every argument by Biss, and also notes that much of the argument seems to be an attempt to relitigate the other case that they had already lost:

The rest of plaintiff's arguments in her opposition to the Motion for Sanctions amounted to another defamatory attack on Halper and attempts to relitigate Lokhova I, including her attachment of redacted FBI papers purportedly showing Halper lying to the FBI....

The judge then recites a very long list of examples of bad behavior in court, including admonishment and sanctions by other judges.

Bis also has an extensive history of being admonished and sanctioned by courts around the country. In this district, Biss was warned not to engage in ad hominem attacks. Steele v. Goodman.... Another judge admonished Biss for conduct unbefitting an officer of the Court. Nunes v. WP Co. LLC.... Biss was sanction and required to pay the opposing party's attorneys' fees under Rule 11 for making "objections contrary to settled law":

Counsel for Plaintiff's objections contrary to settled law are particularly troubling given this Court's previous admonishment, in its May 29, 2020 Memorandum Opinion, that Mr. Biss "ensure that all positions, including those in briefing and in support of discovery, 'are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law' . . . [f]ailure to do so could result in sanctions."

Anderson v. Sch. Bd. of Gloucester Cty..... In dismissing a RICO suit for its "conclusory allegations," yet another judge in the Eastern District of Virginia admonished Biss that any amended complaints must comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 11. Nunes v. Fusion GPS.... Biss has also been sanction in other districts, including in an Iowa federal district court, where the judge described Biss's personal attacks in a complaint as "immaterial, impertinent, and scandalous," with "no bearing on this case," and "prejudicial to [defendant]" with "criminal overtones," Nunes v. Lizza.... and by a district judge in the Southern District of Florida who imposed sanctions on Biss under the Florida anti-SLAPP statute because his lawsuit "was without merit" and arose out of free speech in connection with a public issue. Bongino v. Daily Beast Co. LLC.... Recently, Biss was sanctioned in the District of Maryland and required to pay defendant $21,437.50 to reimburse it for its attorneys' fees after Biss filed a meritless amended complaint. Harvey v. Cable News Network Inc....

It's probably not a good sign when the judge lists off all the times you've been sanctioned. Especially after warning you to tread lightly in an earlier, related case. So the following does not come as a surprise at the end of the ruling:

Considering Biss's experience as an attorney, long history of sanctionable conduct, this Court's specific warnings in Lokhova I that further frivolous actions against Halper could result in sanctions, the Fourth Circuit's comment about joining the chorus of other courts that have sanctioned Biss, defendant placing Biss on explicit Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 warning, and the frivolousness of this complaint, the Court infers an improper purpose for bringing this civil action. Accordingly, sanctions in the form of dismissal of the complaint are not sufficient to deter Biss from continued improper litigation practices, and an award of defendant's reasonable attorneys' fees for work done in this civil action after defense counsel issued his Rule 11 letter is appropriate. In the words of the Fourth Circuit, this Court has "join[ed] the chorus in sanctioning attorney Biss."....

The judge even highlights Biss' claim that the attorney's fees amount that Halper's lawyers asked for was too high, first noting that what they asked for is actually below the range established in earlier cases, and pointing out that Biss arguing that they don't have experience in this type of litigation is "meritless."

Also, this:

Plaintiff and her counsel also argue that the number of hours defense counsel spent on this civil action was inappropriate because this civil action involved a simple, "not difficult or complex" application of the litigation privilege. That characterization of hte issue is contradicted by the multiple arguments plaintiff raised in her 15-page opposition to defendant's Motion for Sanctions.

Basically, don't file crazy long and complex arguments only to then turn around and insist that the defendant's lawyers spent too much time having to deal with your arguments. The Court then decides that the sanctions should be for Biss and Lokhova to be jointly responsible for paying $33,875 in legal fees. Frankly, this seems low. And even though the Court says it chose this number to "deter further frivolous lawsuits," I'm not convinced that will work (see the list of sanctions earlier...). At some point, some court is going to need to go even further.

It's also interesting to see the Court make both Biss and Lokhova jointly responsible for the sanctions:

Lokhova obviously chose Biss to represent her in Lokhova I, must have been aware of the rhetoric he used in that complaint, and was in court when this Court admonished Biss, yet chose to retain Biss and authorize him to file this groundless new lawsuit. She is, therefore, also properly subject to this sanction.

It would be nice to see Biss finally stop filing frivolous lawsuits, but previous sanctions haven't seemed to help. And, of course underlying all of this, there's still the open question of who is paying Biss' fees in all of these lawsuits. That remains unanswered.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, defamation, devin nunes, sanctions, slapp, stefan halper, steven biss, svetlana lokhova, vexatious lawsuits

The Woz Backs 'Right To Repair' Reform

from the this-isn't-going-away dept

We've repeatedly noted how the "right to repair" movement has been gaining a full head of steam as consumers, independent repair shops, schools, farmers, and countless others grow tired of corporations' attempts to monopolize repair. Whether it's Sony and Microsoft creating repair monopolies for their game consoles, Apple bullying independent repair shops, or John Deere making it a costly hassle just to fix a tractor, the more companies restrict access to cheap repair, parts, tools, and documentation, the more this movement seems to grow.

We're now reaching an obvious tipping point. The federal government and more than two dozen states have proposed new right to repair laws. The recent Biden executive order also urged the FTC to do everything in its power (which is limited under the FTC Act) to address the problem.

And last week, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak jumped into the fray to point out that after finally studying the issue at length (he insists his "busy schedule" prevented this until now), he's now a big fan of meaningful right to repair reform:

Ironically, the company Woz once founded has proven to be the most obnoxious player on this front. Apple's ham-fisted efforts to shut down, sue, or otherwise imperil third-party repair shops are legendary as are the company's efforts to force recycling shops to shred Apple products (so they can't be refurbished and re-used, harming consumers and the environment alike). The company also routinely lies about what right to reform legislation actually does, trying to conflate its desire to protect revenues with altruistic worries about public safety.

After researching the issue, Woz says he now "totally supports" the right to repair movement and that open-source technology and standards were absolutely instrumental in Apple's early successes and popularity, whether it was their ability to manipulate video input on older TVs, or shipping the Apple I with full design specs so users could tinker with the device once they got it home:

"I do a lot of Cameos, but this one has really gotten to me. We wouldn't have had an Apple had I not grown up in a very open technology world."

A broad coalition of companies like Apple have spent the better part of the last five years demonizing reform efforts. These attacks almost always attempt to dress up vanilla greed as some deeper concern about public safety and security (see claims that reform will embolden sexual predators or turn states into dangerous hacker meccas). But a recent bipartisan FTC report showed how the majority of these claims are absolute self-serving bunk, and the more the public understands the benefits of right to repair, the tougher it becomes for companies like Apple to fight upstream against reform.

Filed Under: right to repair, steve wozniak
Companies: apple

'Resident Evil 8: Village' Broken Due To DRM, Cracked Version Fixes It

from the your-game-on-crack dept

Any review of the stories we've done on DRM in video games will reveal two main categories as far as themes for those posts. The first is that DRM is laughably ineffective. DRM is an arms race that only ever has one winner: those who seek to circumvent it. Even the once-vaunted Denuvo DRM, thought, for some time, to be undefeatable, has now been reduced to being an industry joke. The other theme is how DRM has awful effects on paying customers and absolutely zero negative effects on those who commit copyright infringement. So, what is DRM? A useless platform used by video games with only one real impact: annoying paying customers.

But one point that often gets lost is that cracked versions of games that include annoying DRM aren't just functioning as copyright infringement (though they certainly are primarily that), but also that these cracked versions can also be legitimately seen as fixing these broken games. For an example of this, one need only look at the PC gaming experience surrounding Resident Evil 8: Village, which is fundamentally broken on the PC for paying customers.

The background here is that Capcom actually layers two different DRM systems on the game, apparently as a method for making the game much harder to crack. Instead of being cracked at the time of release, in May, the game was only cracked here in July. The problem is that this 2 months worth of protection appears to have come at the cost of the game being able to keep up when players do very necessary things in a Resident Evil game like, oh say, shooting zombies.

The retail version includes easily reproducible scenarios where attacking an advancing zombie with a gun—something you do quite often in Resident Evil games—can trigger a visible on-screen stutter. In other words, the image freezes for a noticeable moment before the game catches up, and this can be seen in RTSS's real-time graph as a spike.

Whatever Capcom and Denuvo worked up this time around seems to have evaded crackers' efforts for much longer. That may have come at the price of guaranteed smooth performance—with gaming analysts like Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia maligning the game's PC version. "This stuttering honestly leaves a very bad first impression for this game, as the pivotal moment of a first-person game with guns is shooting those guns," Battaglia said shortly after RE8:V's May 2021 launch. "If that is unsatisfying very often when you do it, then the game is doing something wrong."

Notably, the cracked version has none of these stuttering issues. In other words, the crack, or more specifically the routing around of the DRM, simply fixes the game. Yes, it's also a method for playing the game for free and thereby committing copyright infringement, but think about what this means in summary. Capcom released a game where the core gameplay element -- shooting bad guys -- doesn't work right. The cracked version makes that core gameplay element works correctly. If you're a paying customer of Capcom's, where does this leave you?

Well, it leaves you in a place where the company you bought the game from has sold you an inferior product compared with the one the pirates are offering you for free. Does that make copyright infringement morally right? Absolutely not. But it is also not solid moral footing for the company to punish its paying customers for the crime of paying for the game as opposed to pirating it. Selling an inferior product is not a business strategy.

For what it's worth, the guilty party in this equation looks more to be the Capcom side of the equation rather than Denuvo, but that doesn't change the fact that something like 2 months worth of protection came at the cost of the paying customer. In what world does that make any sense at all?

Filed Under: drm, piracy, resident evil 8, video games
Companies: capcom