Nintendo Cracking Down on BitTorrents

[wraggster]

via wiiexperiance

Another newsbit from our pal JoeyBuckets, this time he happens to be directly involved. After downloading what he swears was an old Zelda cartoon from BitTorrent, his ISP was contacted by the ESA with the following letter. In short, be careful what you download and stop downloading illegal games unless you want to lose your internet service and possibly deal with other legal issues. Now that the Virtual Console is out, Nintendo can and will take a hard stance against even older ROM’s if they wish. We highly suggest just getting the Wii system and playing your favorite games legitimately and supporting those that put in the work to bring them to us. We at The Wii Experience do not condone downloading illegal software and the following letter is an example of what your ISP may receive if you do such activities.

Here’s the letter in full:

Attention: Intellectual Property Enforcement
Telephone: ###-###-####
E-mail: [email protected]

19 Jan 2007 02:32:59 GMT

ISP: PenTeleData
ESA Reference Number: ###-#######

Dear PenTeleData:

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is a U.S. trade
association that represents the intellectual property interests of
numerous companies that publish interactive games for video game
consoles, personal computers, handheld devices and the Internet in the
United States and in other countries (collectively referred to as ESA
members). ESA is authorized to act on behalf of ESA members whose
copyright and other intellectual property rights it believes to be
infringed as described herein.

ESA is providing this letter of notification to make PenTeleData aware
of material on its network or system that infringes the exclusive
copyright rights of and is unlawful towards one or more ESA members.

Through the Berne Convention and other international treaties covering
intellectual property rights, ESA believes that its members’ rights in
such entertainment software products are entitled to the full
protection of the intellectual property law as well as other relevant
laws of your country.

Based on the information at its disposal, ESA has a good faith belief
that the IP address below infringes the rights of one or more ESA
members by offering for sale or download unauthorized copies of game
products protected by copyright, or offering for sale or download
material that is the subject of infringing activities. The copyrighted
works that have been infringed include but are not limited to:

Title: Zelda
Infringement Source: BitTorrent
Infringement Timestamp: 19 Jan 2007 02:52:24 GMT
Infringement Last Documented: 19 Jan 2007 02:52:24 GMT Infringer Username:
Infringing Filename: The Legend of Zelda
Infringing Filesize: 2351679488
Infringer IP Address: ###.###.###.###
Infringer DNS Name: #######################
Infringing URL: ############################

The unauthorized copies of such game product(s) or the material that
is the subject of infringing activities appears on or is made
available through the above-listed IP address. Those items are listed
and/or identified thereon by their titles or variations thereof,
game-related listings/references/descriptions, or depictions of
game-related artwork. Such copies, titles, game-related
listings/references/descriptions, depictions, and material that is the
subject of infringing activities, are hereinafter referred to as
“Infringing Material.”

Accordingly, ESA hereby requests PenTeleData to immediately do the following:

1. Notify the account holder of the Infringing Material.
2. Remove, or disable access to, the Infringing Material detailed above.
3. Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse
Policy/Terms
of Service Agreement, including termination of a repeat offender.

Please inform us whether you will remove or disable access to the
Infringing Material as requested. PenTeleData or the account holder
may contact ESA at the above-listed contact details, with email
preferred. Please include the above-noted Reference Number in the
subject line of all email correspondence.

Thank you for your cooperation and prompt response in this matter.

Sincerely,

Intellectual Property Enforcement
Entertainment Software Association

Our buddy Joey Buckets promises he wasn’t downloading the game, but seeing none of this was worth the movie he did download, he fully deleted the file and uninstalled all of his file sharing software. It’s truly just not worth it.

[gunntims0103]

just what i would have thought, now that the vc is out nintendo seems to be now more than ever taking a stance against roms and piracy. even older roms for nes and such will be sought after by nintendo

[Critical_Impact]

Well maybe if they made their VC games cheaper and released more people wouldn't download roms.

[acn010]

hmmm... ouch thats a low blow...
but why torrents? lol.... its obvious that people will get caught

[aCoL]

what happend to our one legit backup copy ?

[Cap'n 1time]

what happend to our one legit backup copy ?

Unless you backed it up yourself, that is to say that the file that you backed up came from EXACTLY the copy you own then it wouldnt appear on a torrent now would it?

If you own the game but still download someone else's back up file for that game, it is still illegal. Any roms that appear in torrents, other P2P applications, or websites are technically illegal.

[hockey2112]

hmmm... ouch thats a low blow...
but why torrents? lol.... its obvious that people will get caught

You're absolutely right, torrents are a very risky proposition in general, because of the forced simultaneous uploading of the content that you are downloading. The main sticking point of the letter above is this excerpt:

Based on the information at its disposal, ESA has a good faith belief that the IP address below infringes the rights of one or more ESA members by offering for sale or download unauthorized copies of game products protected by copyright, or offering for sale or download material that is the subject of infringing activities. The copyrighted works that have been infringed include but are not limited to:...

It's not the fact that he was downloading from a torrent that got him snagged. It is the fact that he was automatically serving parts of the file to other people as well. He was distributing copywritten content illegally. Even if there was some "one backup copy" rule, the fact that he was uploading the file to others negates any legality that he might try to seek with that argument.