Gavin Allmond
Saturday, January 16th 2010
Yuo Can Meng, a UK citizen who pleaded guilty of importing over 26,000 R4 cards last December has today been sentenced to 12 months of jail-time in Hull Crown Court.
The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) worked with Humberside police to seize 1,280 flash carts, ending Yuo Can Meng’s reign of terror over the UK videogames market.
In a press release, the Director General of ELSPA said: ‘œOur crime unit is pleased with the outcome of this trial and pleased to see the Court of Appeal’s copyright judgement is being robustly enforced. Intellectual property (IP) theft is an important issue for the country’s videogames industry – as is protecting it.’
As cheap and lacking in morals as I am, I have to agree that R4 cards and similar devices are bad for the world of gaming. I have an R4 (for using Linux builds and homebrew’”I swear), but I could live without it. True, it means my DS would go from getting used daily to having the dust scraped off it once a month, if it’s lucky. I have the R4 because it’s convenient and cheap. A brand new DS game can cost £30 here, that’s around fifty US dollars. As an unemployed student (one of the DS’s primary target consumers, I imagine) I can’t justify that price for a DS game at all. With the prices they charge I suppose I’ll just have to reduce my Nintendo-based gaming over time.
I’m not justifying the R4′s existence, but rather lamenting the fact that I wouldn’t use my DS without it. Mind you, it would be nice to have a legitimate way of playing homebrew programs on the DS.
Via: GoNintendo/GamePolitics.
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Wait. A year’s jail for selling something not actually illegal? Or was he pre-loading games onto them? The latter I can understand.
Oh my word what an absolute fucking crime lord.
I apologise(don’t) for my language but the amount of violent crime that goes unpunished is ridiculous.
DS Homebrew is practically non-existent with the vast majority of software and emulators now vapourware. Tiny screen resolution, relatively low processing power and the draw of the PSP as a much stronger handheld for bedroom programmers to fiddle with means that 99% percent of R4 owners use them solely for piracy.
@superd1984: I fully appreciate your stance, but we have to all collectively accept that the courts here ruled illegal activity as deserving of a prison sentence. If anything, it’s far easier to convict through evidence a business crime than anything physical and open to emotional debate.
If we’re really whining that DS games cost £30 will we also stick thumbs up for piracy on larger consoles where games are more expensive but are considered to offer a ‘fuller’ experience? There are DS titles that outstrip many full £50 experiences in terms of content. If one chooses to pirate games one must at least be content with what they are accepting and condoning. Aside from convenience, there are few other points to argue in a debate of morals over whether or not we should pay for things in the digital age.
Worryingly, I only really use my R4 for homebrew and convenience (rather then using it illegally). I’ve recently bought the DS games I want (very few in number) and use my R4 to have them all in one place.
As for homebrew, I have a fantastic WiFi sniffer that tells you what networks are around, and their signal strengths/security. SOmrthing I do find helpful.
@wardrox: What’s the name of said WiFi sniffer? You mentioned it on a podcast, but I could never find it…
@stridechicken: It’s called “DS Blue” and I think is part of this; http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=36719