7 ms·

Does that sentence actually change the perspective? It still implies that the modification itself was illegal.

Brian_K_White 3y ago
Yes. It changes it entirely. Obviously? Selling or otherwise distributing was illegal, or using hacked data with an on-line service, not merely hacking your own property.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zamadatix 3y ago
The law may seem silly/not worthwhile but at least it gives perspective there is a law saying selling modified things in a way that might make competition unfair is explicitly illegal instead of someone just deciding save edits are bad and something worth arresting for in a vacuum.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  But the law is about business competition. So how is that competition becoming unfair? Just naming this law without a lot more explanation does pretty much nothing for perspective.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    The perspective is seeing the law explicitly says said activity is unfair and illegal independent of whether one's ideology agrees said law is reasonable or should exist. E.g. if there was a 2022 law calling for arrest of those holding ice cream cones upside down because of risk to the sidewalk cleanliness then knowing that gives perspective to why someone was arrested for holding an ice cream cone upside down beyond just a random arrest decision for something one thinks everyone would consider harmless. That doesn't mean it convinces you personally that the law is reasonable and, just that it was indeed an explicitly illegal activity.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > The perspective is seeing the law explicitly says said activity is unfair and illegal independent of whether one's ideology agrees said law is reasonable or should exist. It still needs an explanation because at a surface level the crime and the name of the law have nothing to do with each other. Until that explanation exists of how the law says it's illegal, I don't have the perspective of seeing the law explicitly say that! I am not even in the realm of talking about whether the law makes sense.
      - zamadatix 3y ago
        The name of the law is neither here nor there in the end (most laws have useless names really) and you don't have to possess an explanation of why it's covered under that law to be given the perspective that it is. On that front though, and following the link to the body of the law, a shortened version might be: The saves are encrypted and proprietary. As a result modifying them to get rare items runs afoul into the "trade secrets" verbiage. Selling work based on such trade secrets then falls under the unfair competition definition and is what results in said penalties. My stab at the likely background reasoning for having these rules (i.e. not explicitly written into the law but rather why the law might have been made) is something along the lines that the guy made money off of devaluing the rarity of IP the company was supposed to have control of distributing through their proprietary means.
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        It's still pretty important to me to understand some of the mechanism. What it takes to not break the law. Some potential reasonings are much more sensible than others, and the overall consequences differ.
        SllX 3y ago
        I kind of wanted an explanation too so I looked up the law, but to be honest it’s dense and beyond me. [1] It reads like an anti-circumvention law to me, but I’m not clear on what specifically in there would make it applicable to modified video game save data unless you can argue that modifying save data is a wrongful way to acquire to a particular game state. [1] https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3629 https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3629
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Fair competition: you sell a game or other diversion that's better than mine and people like it so much I'm forced to go back to the drawing board Unfair competition: you make money out of sabotaging the perfectly good game I wrote, reducing the enjoyment for players who don't cheat
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Unless I do both of those at the same time, I don't see how the latter involves "competition".
      - zamadatix 3y ago
        The competition is mostly from the "make money by" part. That's money from what used to be a sole company's asset now going to 2 places rather than 1. E.g. before I could leverage the rarity aspect of the gameplay & IP however I desired (including keeping it as part of making a time investment into the product if I thought that was more valuable in the long run) but now you're selling an alternative version of the experience to people and I have to compete with getting any pokemon and stats instantly from someone else for $x when it comes to extracting the value from the IP asset with the protected saves. I'm not saying this is a great stance, just showing how it is seen as competition in the second scenario alone.
        jojobas 3y ago
        That sounds like bullshit. You still have to buy the original product (game) to use this other thing (modified save). I guess unless the original vendor also sells something to that effect, like pay to win. I hope modifying the save file for yourself is not illegal still. Also less than a year ago age of consent in Japan was 13 years, talk about priorities.
        bdowling 3y ago
        > Also less than a year ago age of consent in Japan was 13 years, talk about priorities. If you read past the clickbait title, however, you’ll find that the individual prefectures have had stricter age of consent laws for many years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia Did you know that the United States still has NO age of consent law at all? It’s true, there is no federal law that addresses the subject. (Each state has its own law.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_Unite...
  - edflsafoiewq 3y ago
    Competes with devs selling you their own save edits ("cash shop" purchases)?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - effluvium 3y ago
      You're probably right. It makes me angry and bums me out. For me, grinding 98% of the time is not enjoyable. Game are definitely better than what they once were, but let me cheat on single player games. I get it game developers, the play time will be shorter I'm fine with that. And game devs if you don't want to add cheats then add a bunch of accessibility controls because those things are just as good as cheats. Also just let me temporarily turn off encounters. Sometimes I don't want to fight. I just want to walk around and enjoy the world you made. But no I get an encounter every minute and I'm stuck listening to that same battle song again. Looking at you Yakuza franchise.
  - cloudbonsai 3y ago
    > But the law is about business competition. That law is basically Japanese version of DMCA. "Unfair Competition Prevention Act" is an antiqued piece of law first enacted in 1930s. Its original scope was trade malpractice such as corporate spying. In 1990s, Japanese gov (somehow) decided to implement DRM protection in the framework of this law. So it ended up governing both trade secrets AND DRM.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Thank you very much!
VS1999 3y ago
The selling part is more important than the modification part because the law he broke specifically references selling or renting.
anigbrowl 3y ago
It does not. Selling your cheat mod is fundamentally different from playing around with it on your own workbench.
qwerty456127 3y ago
[flagged]
- tumult 3y ago
  Housing is already affordable in Japan.
  - qwerty456127 3y ago
    Housing can always use becoming more affordable. Perfectly affordable housing is when an ordinary worker without a university degree can buy a decent single-bedroom apartment in just some years of saving (which sounds totally unrealistic so there always is room to improve). I've read it even is hard to rent a decent apartment in Japan because they always require huge deposits only the rich can afford easily. There are homeless people, at least some of them not particularly happy about being homeless, also 30+ yr. old people having to live with their parents - means housing is not affordable enough.
    - kalleboo 3y ago
      > I've read it even is hard to rent a decent apartment in Japan because they always require huge deposits only the rich can afford easily. Are you thinking about South Korea? Deposit in Japan is maybe 1-2 months of rent.
      - qwerty456127 3y ago
        You probably are right, supposed facts about Korea and Japan may have intermixed in my memory.
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    To be fair, housing alone is a low bar. I'm sure plenty of homeless people could technically afford somewhere to live, but don't find any of their available options worth it for whatever reason. Wonder if there have been any surveys on this.
  - 3y ago
bottled_poe 3y ago
Seems like fraud would be a more likely charge.

Yes. It changes it entirely. Obviously? Selling or otherwise distributing was illegal, or using hacked data with an on-line service, not merely hacking your own property.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

zamadatix 3y ago

The law may seem silly/not worthwhile but at least it gives perspective there is a law saying selling modified things in a way that might make competition unfair is explicitly illegal instead of someone just deciding save edits are bad and something worth arresting for in a vacuum.

Dylan16807 3y ago
But the law is about business competition. So how is that competition becoming unfair? Just naming this law without a lot more explanation does pretty much nothing for perspective.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  The perspective is seeing the law explicitly says said activity is unfair and illegal independent of whether one's ideology agrees said law is reasonable or should exist. E.g. if there was a 2022 law calling for arrest of those holding ice cream cones upside down because of risk to the sidewalk cleanliness then knowing that gives perspective to why someone was arrested for holding an ice cream cone upside down beyond just a random arrest decision for something one thinks everyone would consider harmless. That doesn't mean it convinces you personally that the law is reasonable and, just that it was indeed an explicitly illegal activity.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > The perspective is seeing the law explicitly says said activity is unfair and illegal independent of whether one's ideology agrees said law is reasonable or should exist. It still needs an explanation because at a surface level the crime and the name of the law have nothing to do with each other. Until that explanation exists of how the law says it's illegal, I don't have the perspective of seeing the law explicitly say that! I am not even in the realm of talking about whether the law makes sense.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      The name of the law is neither here nor there in the end (most laws have useless names really) and you don't have to possess an explanation of why it's covered under that law to be given the perspective that it is. On that front though, and following the link to the body of the law, a shortened version might be: The saves are encrypted and proprietary. As a result modifying them to get rare items runs afoul into the "trade secrets" verbiage. Selling work based on such trade secrets then falls under the unfair competition definition and is what results in said penalties. My stab at the likely background reasoning for having these rules (i.e. not explicitly written into the law but rather why the law might have been made) is something along the lines that the guy made money off of devaluing the rarity of IP the company was supposed to have control of distributing through their proprietary means.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        It's still pretty important to me to understand some of the mechanism. What it takes to not break the law. Some potential reasonings are much more sensible than others, and the overall consequences differ.
        SllX 3y ago
        I kind of wanted an explanation too so I looked up the law, but to be honest it’s dense and beyond me. [1] It reads like an anti-circumvention law to me, but I’m not clear on what specifically in there would make it applicable to modified video game save data unless you can argue that modifying save data is a wrongful way to acquire to a particular game state. [1] https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3629 https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3629
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Fair competition: you sell a game or other diversion that's better than mine and people like it so much I'm forced to go back to the drawing board Unfair competition: you make money out of sabotaging the perfectly good game I wrote, reducing the enjoyment for players who don't cheat
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Unless I do both of those at the same time, I don't see how the latter involves "competition".
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      The competition is mostly from the "make money by" part. That's money from what used to be a sole company's asset now going to 2 places rather than 1. E.g. before I could leverage the rarity aspect of the gameplay & IP however I desired (including keeping it as part of making a time investment into the product if I thought that was more valuable in the long run) but now you're selling an alternative version of the experience to people and I have to compete with getting any pokemon and stats instantly from someone else for $x when it comes to extracting the value from the IP asset with the protected saves. I'm not saying this is a great stance, just showing how it is seen as competition in the second scenario alone.
      - jojobas 3y ago
        That sounds like bullshit. You still have to buy the original product (game) to use this other thing (modified save). I guess unless the original vendor also sells something to that effect, like pay to win. I hope modifying the save file for yourself is not illegal still. Also less than a year ago age of consent in Japan was 13 years, talk about priorities.
        bdowling 3y ago
        > Also less than a year ago age of consent in Japan was 13 years, talk about priorities. If you read past the clickbait title, however, you’ll find that the individual prefectures have had stricter age of consent laws for many years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia Did you know that the United States still has NO age of consent law at all? It’s true, there is no federal law that addresses the subject. (Each state has its own law.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_Unite...
- edflsafoiewq 3y ago
  Competes with devs selling you their own save edits ("cash shop" purchases)?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - effluvium 3y ago
    You're probably right. It makes me angry and bums me out. For me, grinding 98% of the time is not enjoyable. Game are definitely better than what they once were, but let me cheat on single player games. I get it game developers, the play time will be shorter I'm fine with that. And game devs if you don't want to add cheats then add a bunch of accessibility controls because those things are just as good as cheats. Also just let me temporarily turn off encounters. Sometimes I don't want to fight. I just want to walk around and enjoy the world you made. But no I get an encounter every minute and I'm stuck listening to that same battle song again. Looking at you Yakuza franchise.
- cloudbonsai 3y ago
  > But the law is about business competition. That law is basically Japanese version of DMCA. "Unfair Competition Prevention Act" is an antiqued piece of law first enacted in 1930s. Its original scope was trade malpractice such as corporate spying. In 1990s, Japanese gov (somehow) decided to implement DRM protection in the framework of this law. So it ended up governing both trade secrets AND DRM.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Thank you very much!

VS1999 3y ago

The selling part is more important than the modification part because the law he broke specifically references selling or renting.

anigbrowl 3y ago

It does not. Selling your cheat mod is fundamentally different from playing around with it on your own workbench.

qwerty456127 3y ago

[flagged]

tumult 3y ago
Housing is already affordable in Japan.
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  Housing can always use becoming more affordable. Perfectly affordable housing is when an ordinary worker without a university degree can buy a decent single-bedroom apartment in just some years of saving (which sounds totally unrealistic so there always is room to improve). I've read it even is hard to rent a decent apartment in Japan because they always require huge deposits only the rich can afford easily. There are homeless people, at least some of them not particularly happy about being homeless, also 30+ yr. old people having to live with their parents - means housing is not affordable enough.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    > I've read it even is hard to rent a decent apartment in Japan because they always require huge deposits only the rich can afford easily. Are you thinking about South Korea? Deposit in Japan is maybe 1-2 months of rent.
    - qwerty456127 3y ago
      You probably are right, supposed facts about Korea and Japan may have intermixed in my memory.
- LoganDark 3y ago
  To be fair, housing alone is a low bar. I'm sure plenty of homeless people could technically afford somewhere to live, but don't find any of their available options worth it for whatever reason. Wonder if there have been any surveys on this.
- 3y ago

bottled_poe 3y ago

Seems like fraud would be a more likely charge.