Prison for British Nintendo DS R4 cartridge dealer

by Steven Williamson on 18 January 2010, 13:38

Tags: Nintendo (TYO:7974), ELSPA, DS

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The Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) and Nintendo will be happy to learn that an R4 flash cartridge dealer arrested in December last year has now been sentenced to a significant time behind bars.

The R4 cartridge, the chip that allows users to download and play pirated software illegally, can currently be bought freely on the Internet from sites such as NDS-Gear, but ELSPA and Nintendo has been waging a war on traders and trying to do everything in their power to get them removed from public sale.

With the help of the anti-piracy police, ELSPA, UK-based Yun Can Meng has become the first significant scalp in Nintendo's battle as he was issued with a twelve month sentence at Hull Crown Court following his arrest for importing 26,500 cartridges that were apparently heading for public sale.

In a press release the Director General of ELSPA said: “Our 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.”

Though the ruling does send out loud warning signals to other dealers we can think of better ways to spend tax payer's money then lock up these people. Make them play Cooking Mama for 3 hours solid while locked up in a room with the same J-Pop music track looping in the background, now that's a proper punishment.


HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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J-Pop isn't so bad ;)

I've got a DS and I have to openly admit, I was completely ignorant of the R4 cartridge / levels of gaming piracy. :lol: Is it really that big a kettle of fish? The games are like £25-30 at first and drop over time, or pick it up second hand.
It's frustrating, but I frequently see people on the tube or buses showing people their DS and saying “Oh, just pick any game, I've got all of them on there.”

How do people expect new games to be made, if the developers don't receive any return from their last release? People complain that £30 a go is too much, but I don't think that makes it ok.

The Big N will still be fine from profits from hardware, but small developers will be discouraged from producing for the DS, arguably one of the most suited platforms for them.
I used to use My DS with an R4 cart full of games I'd actually gone out and bought. It was great, saved me carrying a whole pile or carts around with me.

I don't do it now because I got bored of the DS and haven't used it in about 8 or 9 months.
i just wanted to know, is it legal in the uk to buy these cards even if you dont want to pirate games cos there is some awesome homebrew apps and games out there also is it legal to pirate games you own, for the convenience of not having to carry all your games
yeah but another thing those R4 cartriges do is alow you to use your ds as a media player to watch films etc

surely thats not illigal