Mother And Son Arrested In R4 Piracy Bust

[wraggster]

The Nintendo copyright crackdown continues! The Kyoto Prefectural High Tech Crime Prevention Unit has arrested three individuals in Osaka Prefecture in connection with selling R4 style piracy devices. The R4 can be inserted in the DS Lite and has a small slot that the Micro SD card goes into. Data is stored on a Micro SD and downloaded via a flash drive. Not only did the police arrest Yasueda Okada, the 58 year-old president of the company selling R4-type devices, but also her adult son who is a suspect in the case. A third individual is in custody as well. All three have denied any wrongdoing. You know what they say, the family that sells R4 together, gets and arrested and goes to jail together.

http://kotaku.com/5086747/mother-and-son-arrested-in-r4-piracy-bust

[policrat]

Presumably the carts had data on them. I'm continually tempted by the idea of setting up a fly-by-night shopfront outside the nearest EBgames. Even stating at the outset you can put DS games on them, for free, off the interwebs.

Not because I think it's right, but because EBgames is awful.

[Epic Pie]

ROFL, thats amazing. An R4 piracy bust. ****ing lame.

[drexegar]

It serves them right, and not because of piracy, they deserve it because other companies were making fake R4's, so they threw in a feature in there new firmware, if it detects a fake r4, there frimware will brick your DS on purpose, Now Im not sure if that happened, but they should of be arrested for even thinking that idea up.

[Seven7]

It serves them right, and not because of piracy, they deserve it because other companies were making fake R4's, so they threw in a feature in there new firmware, if it detects a fake r4, there frimware will brick your DS on purpose, Now Im not sure if that happened, but they should of be arrested for even thinking that idea up.

Ok, one, that was a mis-translation. The idea was, if you ran the firmware on anything other than an official R4, there was a chance of screwing something up, be it the flash cart, or the DS itself.

Second off, did you even read the story?

Now, when i read the title, I at first thought maybe a police officer saw a mom and son walking in Akihabara with thier DS lites sporting R4's and was like "arrest the pirates" without even checking the software. However, assumeing that there was indeed software on the carts, like roms, then yes, this is a justified arrest. I actually applaud this kind of "bust". Reminds me of the idiots who where advertising 360's modded and full of like 50 games for like a million bucks. Now THEY deserved the bust they got.

i'm not against flash carts *is a proud R4 owner* or even piracy on a small, personal scale *no comment*, however piracy on a commercial level such as this does need to be looked at.

From Kotaku's comments list:


Article also mentions that the site ops were running a pay-for-ROM's type service. At 500 yen a title. How stupid can you get. They were asking for jailtime.

Couple this with R4 sales, and it ammounts to the same thing. Sorry, but this one's a justified arrest, and probrably what Nintendo was aiming against in it's anti-R4 campain, not the average homebrew user, but idiots like these.

[carlitx]

Presumably the carts had data on them. I'm continually tempted by the idea of setting up a fly-by-night shopfront outside the nearest EBgames. Even stating at the outset you can put DS games on them, for free, off the interwebs.

Not because I think it's right, but because EBgames is awful.

yah... I ****ing hate EBGames with a passion.

[JDvorak]

Not to get off subject but I walked into a Gamestop to buy a PSP movie and I am going bald with a gray beard, 36 years old and the a**hole wanted to see my ID to buy a NR movie. How lame is that. I told him to keep his F***ing movie and walked out. Last time I shop there. For heavens sake I had my kids 9 and 5 with me. What did I have my kids when I was 9 and looked like I wasn't 18 yet? I mean really the movie wasn't even rated!!! I mean when I was 15 I bought porno mags and wasn't even asked for ID then.

[jamotto]

I mean when I was 15 I bought porno mags and wasn't even asked for ID then.

Times they have changed.

The Gamestop employee had probably been told to card everyone or be fired.

[policrat]

Policing Practices Weekly: "In lieu of material illicit goods, find a R4 kit to point at."

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/3153/r4pointysd5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)