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As always in piracy cases, there's never been a proof of a single dollar of loss anywhere here as well. It's all in Nintendo's lawyers head. Piracy is one of

As always in piracy cases, there's never been a proof of a single dollar of loss anywhere here as well. It's all in Nintendo's lawyers head. Piracy is one of the rare cases where you can be convicted on imaginary damages which aren't required to be proven.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
Copyright itself is imaginary property. Completely made up. It makes sense that any "damages" are completely made up too. Might as well apply completely arbitrary sentences, fines and punishments. Artificial scarcity generates artificial punishments.
- realusername 3y ago
  Not all damages in the copyright system are imaginary like piracy, you could totally calculate real damages from counterfeit items in some cases, provided that they are sold the same way as the real products. Piracy is a bit special, nobody could ever prove that the damages exist and no research has successfully demonstrated that they even exist at all.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Counterfeits have nothing to do with copyright though. Counterfeiting necessarily refers to tangible products which exist in the real, physical world. There is a huge difference between a genuine product and a counterfeit. There is no difference at all between the original data and copies of it, they are exactly the same. In fact, there is no such thing as an "original" piece of data, they are indistinguishable from one another. You can literally check the authenticity of data via cryptography. Doesn't matter if it came from an "official" source or some "counterfeit" website. Their use of the word "counterfeiting" to describe copyright infringement is just like their constant attempts to equal it to "piracy". It's part of their propaganda. It's intended to give such "counterfeits" the connotation of being lower quality products. Ironically, it's the corporations who peddle lower quality goods to paying customers while "pirates" get the high quality products. A 6 MB video game gets blown up into a 100 MB obfuscated mess due to SecuROM, then the "pirates" write an unpacker and release the small and optimized version without any DRM whatsoever. Streaming services send you shitty compressed video with artifacts everywhere, meanwhile "pirates" get uncensored blu-ray remuxes.
    - blooalien 3y ago
      > "There is no difference at all between the original data and copies of it, they are exactly the same. In fact, there is no such thing as an "original" piece of data, they are indistinguishable from one another." Sometimes there is a difference. Sometimes the copy is better than the original (in that the copy frequently has had anti-consumer garbage like DRM removed).
      - matheusmoreira 3y ago
        In those cases they're not really copies though, they're new derived data. Someone took the official release and modified it into a better version. The source is not destroyed by this process, in fact people go out of their way to preserve it so that they can repeat the derivation process as many times as they want.
nerdponx 3y ago
Right, people who can afford to buy consoles and games generally just buy consoles and games. There are some occasional exceptions among people who are particularly greedy, lazy, or have atypical personal ethics. But for the most part I find it hard to believe that $14 million in damages were actually caused here.
- dm319 3y ago
  Absolutely.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
turquoisevar 3y ago
Always reminds me of this TED talk[1] that goes into the fantasy accounting in cases such as this. 1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Copyright itself is imaginary property. Completely made up. It makes sense that any "damages" are completely made up too. Might as well apply completely arbitrary sentences, fines and punishments. Artificial scarcity generates artificial punishments.

realusername 3y ago
Not all damages in the copyright system are imaginary like piracy, you could totally calculate real damages from counterfeit items in some cases, provided that they are sold the same way as the real products. Piracy is a bit special, nobody could ever prove that the damages exist and no research has successfully demonstrated that they even exist at all.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Counterfeits have nothing to do with copyright though. Counterfeiting necessarily refers to tangible products which exist in the real, physical world. There is a huge difference between a genuine product and a counterfeit. There is no difference at all between the original data and copies of it, they are exactly the same. In fact, there is no such thing as an "original" piece of data, they are indistinguishable from one another. You can literally check the authenticity of data via cryptography. Doesn't matter if it came from an "official" source or some "counterfeit" website. Their use of the word "counterfeiting" to describe copyright infringement is just like their constant attempts to equal it to "piracy". It's part of their propaganda. It's intended to give such "counterfeits" the connotation of being lower quality products. Ironically, it's the corporations who peddle lower quality goods to paying customers while "pirates" get the high quality products. A 6 MB video game gets blown up into a 100 MB obfuscated mess due to SecuROM, then the "pirates" write an unpacker and release the small and optimized version without any DRM whatsoever. Streaming services send you shitty compressed video with artifacts everywhere, meanwhile "pirates" get uncensored blu-ray remuxes.
  - blooalien 3y ago
    > "There is no difference at all between the original data and copies of it, they are exactly the same. In fact, there is no such thing as an "original" piece of data, they are indistinguishable from one another." Sometimes there is a difference. Sometimes the copy is better than the original (in that the copy frequently has had anti-consumer garbage like DRM removed).
    - matheusmoreira 3y ago
      In those cases they're not really copies though, they're new derived data. Someone took the official release and modified it into a better version. The source is not destroyed by this process, in fact people go out of their way to preserve it so that they can repeat the derivation process as many times as they want.

nerdponx 3y ago

Right, people who can afford to buy consoles and games generally just buy consoles and games. There are some occasional exceptions among people who are particularly greedy, lazy, or have atypical personal ethics. But for the most part I find it hard to believe that $14 million in damages were actually caused here.

dm319 3y ago
Absolutely.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

turquoisevar 3y ago

Always reminds me of this TED talk[1] that goes into the fantasy accounting in cases such as this. 1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0