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

Nintendo Nukes 'Zelda' Fan Game, As Per Usual

from the death-of-the-wild dept

I've tried with Nintendo. For some years now, I have both complained about how strict and hamfisted the company is when it comes to allowing fans to express their fandom in the form of fan-created games and content, as well as offered the company advice as to how it could be just a little more cool about all of this. The frustration really starts to boil over when you realize just how much cool content the world could have if Nintendo could figure out some way not to be as protectionist as possible and instead seek out ways to work with fans to allow for this sort of thing. To be clear, as I have said in the past, Nintendo certainly can act this way when it comes to how it treats its fans, but it doesn't have to act this way.

But, when you jump at every fan-made work like a toddler on meth jumps at their own shadow, I suppose you just can't help yourself. The most recent evidence that Nintendo isn't changing course comes in the form of a fan-created Zelda game put up on GitHub that Nintendo swiftly got taken down.

Well-known modder Kaze Emanuar, who has been releasing a number of unofficial Nintendo-based projects over the last few years, launched a title called 'The Missing Link' earlier this year. The game made use of the very same engine from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and aimed to bridge the gap between Ocarina, and later N64 title, Zelda: Majora's Mask.

The game was available from GitHub, but following the copyright claim, has since been removed.

To be charitable to Nintendo, there is no lawsuit thus far involved in this story. Given that the company has never been litigiously shy, perhaps that's progress of a kind. And, again, Nintendo is well within its rights to take this action. The takedown request itself at least nods at any question as to whether this game would constitute fair use.

"The copyrighted works are the video games in Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda video game franchise, including without limitation the audio-visual works, story lines, characters, and imagery in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0000901848), The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0001940271), and others.

Nintendo has reviewed the reported material and does not believe it qualifies as a fair use of Nintendo’s copyright-protected work."

All true, except that isn't where this story has to end. There are plenty of ways that Nintendo could sanctify these sorts of fan-made games and content that don't involve taking them down. It could work out some arrangement with the fans who make these fan-games to make them official, thereby alleviating any concern for copyright protection. On the copyright side specifically, the company could simply ignore these fan-games, like plenty of other game studios do. Hell, if it's some monetary corporate itch that requires scratching, Nintendo could even build a fan-creator program that allowed it to make some money and have curation abilities over these expressions of adoration turned into gaming content.

But, no. Instead, out comes to the copyright takedown request, down goes the game, and the world is an objectively slightly worse place for it.

Filed Under: fan games, trademark, zelda
Companies: nintendo

The NSA Has An Internal Office Advice Columnist And Yes, She's An Inconsistent Hypocrite Too

from the spy-versus-spy dept

Peter Maass, who I've been fortunate to meet and has had a pretty amazing career as an embedded war journalist, has penned a pretty fantastic read over at Glenn Greenwald's new The Intercept venture. In it, Maass points out that among the ocean of compelling bits buried in the Snowden documents is this strange little fact: the NSA has an advice columnist who routinely provides NSA employees with office politics and interpersonal advice under the pen name "Zelda." Her column, titled "Ask Zelda!," routinely appears for employees with adequate security clearance via the agency's intranet.

Many of the advice columns released via Snowden's document dump deal with perfectly ordinary office politics, like complaints about stealing sodas out of refrigerators, stinky co-workers, or bosses who can't be bothered to respond to e-mails. But Maass points out that one of the more entertaining columns involves complaints by an NSA worker who is concerned about their boss spying on them. In a column signed "Silence in SID," an employee writes in:

"Here's the scenario: when the boss sees co-workers having a quiet conversation, he wants to know what is being said (it's mostly work related). He has his designated “snitches” and expects them to keep him apprised of all the office gossip – even calling them at home and expecting a run-down! This puts the “designees” in a really awkward position; plus, we're all afraid any offhand comment or anything said in confidence might be either repeated or misrepresented."

The tension created by having an overly nosy boss has resulted, the employee claims, in workplace efficiency problems and a growing lack of trust in the establishment:

"We used to be able to joke around a little or talk about our favorite “Idol” contestant to break the tension, but now we're getting more and more skittish about even the most mundane general conversations (“Did you have a good weekend?”). This was once a very open, cooperative group who worked well together. Now we're more suspicious of each other and teamwork is becoming harder. Do you think this was the goal?

Zelda is quite-amusingly shocked by the boss's behavior inside of an agency of spies:

"Wow, that takes “intelligence collection” in a whole new – and inappropriate – direction. …. We work in an Agency of secrets, but this kind of secrecy begets more secrecy and it becomes a downward spiral that destroys teamwork. What if you put an end to all the secrecy by bringing it out in the open?"

So spying over-broadly on people you don't think should be spied upon destroys teamwork, fosters distrust and erodes overall efficiency, huh? Gosh, what if you took that concept and applied it to an entire planet? As Maass notes, at no point while giving advice on spying inside the NSA does Zelda seem to have awareness of the possible lessons that could be applied to spying going on outside the NSA (at least that we get to see):

"Her response to “Silenced in SID” does not acknowledge the irony – or hypocrisy – of an employee at a spy agency complaining about being spied on. But Zelda directly addresses the long-lasting effects of inappropriate surveillance. “Trust is hard to rebuild once it has been broken,” she observes. “Your work center may take time to heal after this deplorable practice is discontinued."

So remember, dear readers: inappropriate surveillance erodes trust, destroys teamwork, damages the overall community, and creates a general downward spiral that's bad for everybody involved. Unless we're doing it to the general public, in which case -- who cares? Now get back to work!

Filed Under: edward snowden, nsa, zelda

Nintendo Shuts Down Fan-Made Zelda Movie

from the that's-not-connecting-with-fans dept

techflaws.org was the first of a few to point out that Nintendo, for some bizarre reason, decided to completely shut down a fan made film based on the immensely popular classic video game The Legend of Zelda. Apparently the fan-made film took a few years to produce, but once it was done, it was released and even shown in a few theaters before Nintendo flipped out and broke out the lawyers. The moviemakers caved and as a "concession" the movie was allowed to be shown online but only through the end of last year.

I'm at a loss to see how this makes any sense for Nintendo at all. Here were a bunch of fans who were helping to promote Nintendo games for free, by putting a ton of work and effort into it. And Nintendo's response is to shut them down? In what world does it make sense to stomp out your fans putting in so much time and effort to help promote your work?

Filed Under: fans, movies, zelda
Companies: nintendo