[0x69420]

for what it's worth, this is the guy who took the open source efforts of the homebrew community, who try their absolute hardest to avoid association with piracy (and by extension nintendo's hammer), and sold modchips to enable the use of an os based on aforementioned open source efforts, for the unambiguous purpose of piracy, and to top it off those modchips were designed with an intentional tamper trigger that bricks users' consoles

we should bring back the militant anti-copyright culture that made “RIAA” and “MPAA” bad words, but this guy really doesn't deserve your tears

[Sakos]

... so what? How does any of that justify such a severe punishment? It's insanity. Who actually was hurt by the piracy? Nintendo is still printing money. They're not bankrupt, they're not measurably worse off. None of their employees were hurt. How can what he did possibly justify having to pay a significant part of his income for the rest of his life?

[manuelmoreale]

What do you think is an appropriate punishment in this case? I see your point about nintendo still printing money but unfortunatelly that's the reality of our society.

Apparently Nintendo made some 15B in revenue last year. Would that punishment be ok if they made 5B? Or 500M? At what point does the punishment become acceptable?

[Sakos]

> Apparently Nintendo made some 15B in revenue last year. Would that punishment be ok if they made 5B? Or 500M? At what point does the punishment become acceptable?

Honestly, I don't see how this form of punishment would ever be acceptable. This is a life-long debt we're talking about. This is the kind of punishment I might imagine in "you destroyed a town's water supply and all the newborns died" territory.

Companies do significantly worse things that affect millions of lives. They walk away with a slap on the wrist. Destroy lives? Insignificant fine or they settle with some people and they keep doing bad things. Companies can literally steal money from its employees and nothing will happen to them. Somebody "steals" money from a company? Destroy his life. Make an example of him.

When are we going to make an example of companies? Never? Okay, then I'm on the pirate's side with zero hesitation.

[manuelmoreale]

Well, you raise a good point but I think we should correct in the opposite direction. Companies should be held accountable, I 100% agree with you. That is definitely a problem.

[anonzzzies]

The 40 months behind bars was more than enough imho. It should’ve been just the fine though.

[manuelmoreale]

Jail time for this kind of crimes is pretty useless imo. As for the fine and the size of it, that is hard to judge. Not sure how they determined those 15 millions but I’d have set the size of time fine to be identical to the revenues earned from the illegal activity. That would be fair imo.

[kelnos]

It's irrelevant how much Nintendo made. Sentencing someone to debt for the rest of their life is a cruel and unusual punishment.

(And no, let's not bring up something like educational debt. That's something that's taken on by choice.)

[manuelmoreale]

I agree it’s irrelevant. I only mentioned revenues because the parent comment mentioned Nintendo still making ton of money.

And so I was wondering at what point does that becomes relevant.

I’m not entirely sure I agree with you on the cruel and unusual punishment though.

I have a relative who’s in a similar situation because of some unpaid taxes. A fifth of her paycheck goes to the state automatically for example.

[tjpnz]

The 40 months in prison?

[manuelmoreale]

I personally don’t believe he should have done jail time at all.

[sledgehammers]

Appropriate punishment depends on what kind of life the man has and what kind of life does the society want him to have. Apparently debt slavery is fair in a situation where no real damage was done to anyone.

[manuelmoreale]

If it depends on what kind of life the man has and what kind of life does the society want him to have, since you are part of society, what is in your opinion an appropriate punishment?

Because I agree with you i principle but details are complicated in these situations.

[0x69420]

in the absence of serious conditions such as borderline personality disorder, it is actually possible to have thoughts that differ in connotation, implied tribal signals, or whether they intuitively paint some given thing as “good” or “bad”

for instance, it is possible to simultaneously think “draconian copyright legislation is bad” and “this particular guy was a crook”

[eska]

It’s also simultaneously possible to think that his punishment is draconian.

Murderers and corrupt crooks that have destroyed entire communities have received less than this.

[bondarchuk]

>for the unambiguous purpose of piracy

That would mean he did it for the purpose of sailing the high seas, entering and robbing mercantile ships. In actual fact, he did it for the purpose of enabling users to run software not authorized by the manufacturer on physical devices they own.

(All of which is just to say: the association between "intellectual property" infringement and much severer violent crimes is itself a big ruse. Just like the use of the term "property" by the way.)

[hutzlibu]

I think the comparison with piracy is stupid as well, but the warez scene themself like to embrace that romantic pirate image very much.

Roaming the oceans freely, how nice - but the rest is indeed bloody murder and theft, which copying is not.

[StrictDabbler]

Piracy has been used to describe mass copyright violation for profit since about 1603, for a breach of a Royal Charter granting monopoly of publication to the Stationer's Company.

You might as well just say "acht-oo-ally, a geek bites the heads off chickens."

[KenArrari]

I still think this is insanely overkill for someone who already spent years in prison and paid fines for it.