It's astounding how much authoritarianism people are willing to tolerate in the name of maximising the economic incentives for producing entertainment media.
> Authorities believe Once Were Nerd's activities may still run afoul of Article 171 in Italy's copyright law, which allows for up to three years imprisonment for violations. (Emphasis mine)
That seems... very excessive? Who's actually being hurt here? No one is buying 20 year old consoles and games that probably aren't even sold by the original company anymore. Seems pretty much like a classic victimless crime IMO.
> Agents accused the creator of promoting pirated copyrighted materials stemming from his coverage of Anbernic handheld game consoles.
Seems hardly something worthy of arresting, let alone jailing someone.
> Italy has a history of heavy-handed copyright enforcement—the country's Internet regulator recently demanded that Google poison DNS to block illegal streams of soccer. So it's not hard to believe investigators would pursue a case against someone who posts videos featuring pirated games on YouTube.
This is the theoretical maximum, but usually you will not be sentenced with this amount of prisons.
Especially if you don't have a criminal records, you can convert the prison period in a fine or other situation (i.e. social services).
Guardia di Finanza is the most militarized branch of Italian law enforcement and if they knock on your door (provided they bother knocking), you better comply.
To me it seems excessive to call specifically on them - regular police would suffice, if at all - this guy is nothing like the people this formation usually deals with.
I was briefly hopeful that we'd see meaningful copyright reform in the EU back when the Pirate Party had its moment in the spotlight. But nothing happened.
Now LLMs are stealing everyone's data, claiming be "fair use", getting away scot free, while irrelevant YouTubers are facing threats to be jailed over nothing whatsoever.
It's interesting to me that for critiques of AI, one of the major arguments is "stealing from artists"- and I know that the argument is more nuanced than this- but a lot of the specific legal framework for intellectual property rights and enforcement- current lawsuits that are against AI companies- are based on the same ideas that allow this kind of prosecution.
I know that people saying "stealing from artists" who are against AI scraping mean, my poor friend who posts on deviantart and not Disney, Sony or Nintendo, but in the sense that intellectual property is a law and the mechanism for enforcement is ultimately something like this, I don't get why it's such a popular argument.
Ultimately I hope AI will force us to decide on an updated paradigm of who owns ideas and it won't be a case of me receiving a cease and desist letter if I type a ChatGPT prompt that includes Mickey Mouse or "Miyazaki".
Game publishers are strangely aggressive about people playing pirated copies 20+ year old video games which haven't been available for purchase for over a decade. Meanwhile they are actively arguing for their right to destroy copies of games they have sold.
It's clear they view old games as competition for new releases, so they want to make those old games as inaccessible as possible. But we the people just want to be able to replay old games from our childhood that we already bought.
To me, it's kind of strange that buying and showing something that is sold legally (like a console purchased from China, which I assume went through customs, or even sold on Amazon in some cases) can make someone a criminal.
I believe this should be protected under freedom of speech: he's legally buying a product and demonstrating what it does. Maybe posting a referral link and profiting from it could be considered questionable, but come on...
If you want to stop piracy, start by blocking these devices at customs and investigating the businesses that import and sell them to the public. Never put someone in jail for what is, after all, a form of journalism.
What I want people to take away from this is that governments in the so-called "developed" world act at the behest of corporations. In this case it's to criminalize something that should, at best, be a civil matter. But suing people is expensive and often they have no assets to claim so let's just make it a criminal offense and let the government pay for it and threaten them with violence (ie putting them in prison).
There's a not particularly well-known case of this in the US that I wish more people knew about: the case of Steven Donziger.
Chevron extracted oil in Ecuador and because of lax legislation and oversight, polluted everywhere. Farmers and indigenous people sued (in Ecuador). Donziger handled the case and an Ecuadorian court brought down a $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron.
Chevron filed a RICO suit against Donziger in NYC. A US Federal district court decided the judgement was unenforceable because (in the court's opionion) it had been obtained through fraud with fairly scant evidence of such. Donziger was disbarred. But it doesn't edn there.
In subsequent legal proceedings, Donziger refused to hand over electronic devices to Chevron's experts arguing--rightly--that it was a violation of attorney-client privilege.
In subsequent legal proceedings, Donziger refused to hand over electronic devices to Chevron's experts arguing--rightly--that it was a violation of attorney-client privilege.
A criminal complaint was made but the DOJ declined to prosecute. In an extraordinary move, a judge appointed lawyers at Chevron's law firm to criminally prosecute Donziger for contempt. He was on house arrest for years with an $800,000 bond... for contempt of court.
Criminal prosecution being available to private companies should scare everyone. The government and even the judicial system has been subverted to do the bidding of companies.
So, sadly, a criminal proseuction for revealing a gaming handheld doesn't surprise me at all.
I have an opposing viewpoint here. Incompressible to me how normalised copyright theft has become in the commercial emulation space.
There are huge YouTube channels such as Linus Tech Tips reviewing $100 devices that contain copyrighted games that would have retailed for over a million dollars. This is not normal and is very different from an individual downloading some ROMs.
And to clarify the story, this guy is being investigated because it was suspected he was selling these devices, not just reviewing them.
I play video games through emulation, mainly because if I were playing, for example, Dissidia Final Fantasy on a regular Playstation Portable, I wouldn't be able to scan the text with my screen reader, or get AI image descriptions. I tried to buy all the PSP games I wanted to play, but that store was shut down. So now I don't think I could pay Sony for these games even if I wanted to.
Blind people use audio description to watch television and movies. And yet, none of the streaming services have Doctor Who with audio description, for example, in the US. So even if I paid to watch it, I'd have to pirate the audio description track.
And yet, companies can pirate all the books, videos, art and music they want, and have the best lawyers on staff to remind the courts who are really in charge. May the rich be brought low, or the poor be lifted up.
31 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 57.9 ms ] threadThat seems... very excessive? Who's actually being hurt here? No one is buying 20 year old consoles and games that probably aren't even sold by the original company anymore. Seems pretty much like a classic victimless crime IMO.
> Agents accused the creator of promoting pirated copyrighted materials stemming from his coverage of Anbernic handheld game consoles.
Seems hardly something worthy of arresting, let alone jailing someone.
> Italy has a history of heavy-handed copyright enforcement—the country's Internet regulator recently demanded that Google poison DNS to block illegal streams of soccer. So it's not hard to believe investigators would pursue a case against someone who posts videos featuring pirated games on YouTube.
Oh well... didn't realize Italy was like that
This is the theoretical maximum, but usually you will not be sentenced with this amount of prisons. Especially if you don't have a criminal records, you can convert the prison period in a fine or other situation (i.e. social services).
To me it seems excessive to call specifically on them - regular police would suffice, if at all - this guy is nothing like the people this formation usually deals with.
Now LLMs are stealing everyone's data, claiming be "fair use", getting away scot free, while irrelevant YouTubers are facing threats to be jailed over nothing whatsoever.
Make it make sense.
I know that people saying "stealing from artists" who are against AI scraping mean, my poor friend who posts on deviantart and not Disney, Sony or Nintendo, but in the sense that intellectual property is a law and the mechanism for enforcement is ultimately something like this, I don't get why it's such a popular argument.
Ultimately I hope AI will force us to decide on an updated paradigm of who owns ideas and it won't be a case of me receiving a cease and desist letter if I type a ChatGPT prompt that includes Mickey Mouse or "Miyazaki".
Rules for thee, not for me.
It's clear they view old games as competition for new releases, so they want to make those old games as inaccessible as possible. But we the people just want to be able to replay old games from our childhood that we already bought.
(yes, whataboutism, but I feel the need to point it out)
What I want people to take away from this is that governments in the so-called "developed" world act at the behest of corporations. In this case it's to criminalize something that should, at best, be a civil matter. But suing people is expensive and often they have no assets to claim so let's just make it a criminal offense and let the government pay for it and threaten them with violence (ie putting them in prison).
There's a not particularly well-known case of this in the US that I wish more people knew about: the case of Steven Donziger.
Chevron extracted oil in Ecuador and because of lax legislation and oversight, polluted everywhere. Farmers and indigenous people sued (in Ecuador). Donziger handled the case and an Ecuadorian court brought down a $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron.
Chevron filed a RICO suit against Donziger in NYC. A US Federal district court decided the judgement was unenforceable because (in the court's opionion) it had been obtained through fraud with fairly scant evidence of such. Donziger was disbarred. But it doesn't edn there.
In subsequent legal proceedings, Donziger refused to hand over electronic devices to Chevron's experts arguing--rightly--that it was a violation of attorney-client privilege.
In subsequent legal proceedings, Donziger refused to hand over electronic devices to Chevron's experts arguing--rightly--that it was a violation of attorney-client privilege.
A criminal complaint was made but the DOJ declined to prosecute. In an extraordinary move, a judge appointed lawyers at Chevron's law firm to criminally prosecute Donziger for contempt. He was on house arrest for years with an $800,000 bond... for contempt of court.
Criminal prosecution being available to private companies should scare everyone. The government and even the judicial system has been subverted to do the bidding of companies.
So, sadly, a criminal proseuction for revealing a gaming handheld doesn't surprise me at all.
There are huge YouTube channels such as Linus Tech Tips reviewing $100 devices that contain copyrighted games that would have retailed for over a million dollars. This is not normal and is very different from an individual downloading some ROMs.
And to clarify the story, this guy is being investigated because it was suspected he was selling these devices, not just reviewing them.
That makes a whole lot of difference.
Blind people use audio description to watch television and movies. And yet, none of the streaming services have Doctor Who with audio description, for example, in the US. So even if I paid to watch it, I'd have to pirate the audio description track.
And yet, companies can pirate all the books, videos, art and music they want, and have the best lawyers on staff to remind the courts who are really in charge. May the rich be brought low, or the poor be lifted up.
The YouTuber should have used an LLM for laundering copyright.