Nintendo Wins Copyright Case Against Canadian Flashcart Retailers

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Canadian Tempers beware, it looks flashcarts sold from your country are going to be a lot harder to find. Nintendo has just won a recent copyright right case against Go Cyber Shopping Ltd, a Flashcart retailer that's based in Canada.

Canadian federal court ordered Go Cyber Shopping Ltd. to pay Nintendo $12.76 million (that’s in Canadian dollars; it’s $9.51 million American) for selling devices that circumvent copyright protection on Nintendo’s 3DS handheld. These products, typically known as “flashcarts” in the modding scene, typically sell for $20 to $60, and they include items like Sky3DS and Gateway 3DS. While players can use them to load homebrew software, people typically use something like a Gateway to load in 3DS games that they’ve illegally pirated from the internet. Selling flashcarts is also against U.S. regulations.

So what does this mean, exactly? Flashcart retailers from Canada will likely shut down, meaning finding flashcarts that ship from the Canadian region is going to be a lot more difficult, if possible at all.

:arrow:Source

Thanks @Qtis for the tip!
 
Last edited by Tom Bombadildo, , Reason: STROKING QTIS'S EGO

FAST6191

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I might have to make a list of the various countries with court cases on the matter.

Japan
https://www.destructoid.com/nintendo-53-publishers-taking-r4-sellers-to-court-151947.phtml

Canada is this

The US is an odd one but hardly free and clear.

Spain
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/06/nintendo_spain_secures_win_over_r4_card_retailer

France
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/nintendo-to-appeal-not-guilty-judgement-of-flash-cart-sellers_7 was OK for a while but overturned on appeal a few years later https://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/french-court-reverses-ds-flash-cart-ruling-nintendo-smiles/

UK. 2010.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/r4-cartridges-ruled-illegal-in-the-uk

Germany and it mentions the Netherlands
http://allinfo.space/2017/01/21/nintendo-wins-lawsuit-against-german-seller-ds-flash-cards/

Apparently Europe is down to national courts to decide.

Australia
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nintendo-wins-lawsuit-over-r4-mod-chip-piracy-167490

On a different note the term r4 being somewhat ubiquitous made searching for these far nicer.

Nintendo themselves also provide reports it seems, here is January – March 2010. Kind of nice to see what was smacked down but not so good for things not going Nintendo's way.
https://ap.nintendo.com/_pdf/news/823754504.pdf
 
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Ryccardo

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I might have to make a list of the various countries with court cases on the matter.
I actually found a lot of those "flashcards are illegal here and there" list questionable without better context - think about this:

1- In many of those court decisions, a key point is being advertised, implied, or mostly used for piracy in another egregious case of blaming the tool and not its use

2- As most of us know, the firmware of DSi- and 3DS-compatible DS flashcards include more or less of a copyrighted rom (which is preprogrammed at the factory in 99% of such cards).
On this point alone, and ignoring "minimum infringement required for working" arguments, DS/Lite flashcards should be inherently legal, but most of those decisions happened well after the DSi and it's not clear at all which specific cards are under controversy!
 
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well, RIP. i only ever bought one R4 from canada and it was from a local used classified site. my acekard was just sheer luck from a thrift store, and i had no idea it was in the bag
 

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Have flashcarts been found illegal explicitly in the US like they have in so many countries now?

I don't like how they say he was "boasting" about it on social media because I see nothing of the sort. It's like Nintendo wants people to think the owner was a jerk and he deserved it anyway.

And I still find it funny Action Replays are sold in stores when they use the same exact method of circumventing Slot-1 encryption and using actual Nintendo game code to spoof. Maybe Nintendo is still too afraid of touching cheat devices legal-wise due to their embarrasing loss to Galoob in the 90s.

I might have to make a list of the various countries with court cases on the matter.
Nintendo themselves also provide reports it seems, here is January – March 2010. Kind of nice to see what was smacked down but not so good for things not going Nintendo's way.
https://ap.nintendo.com/_pdf/news/823754504.pdf
Have there been any public reports of US shops getting shut-down besides hackyourconsole.com? (they actually advertised installing games to the SD). It makes the situation in the US more suspect imo.
 
Last edited by Sleet,

lukands

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Yup. Checked Modchip central, they have completely removed flashcarts from their product listing.
I noticed they removed flashcarts off their website many months ago.....now I know why!

Can't say I've ever heard of that company before. I think there are too many different ways for people to get flashcarts for Nintendo to make a difference in this country.
They have been around along time, but I thought they went by a different name?
 

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Considering how easy it is to hack a 3DS without any flashcards or even a specific game anymore, added to the fact that aforementioned hacks include the ability to use Nintendo's own store to download anything for free... makes this a bit of a Pyrrhic victory, no? Roughly the equivalent of celebrating because, even though your house just burned to the ground, they managed to put out the fire just in time to save your lawn ornaments.
 

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Sorry, but Nintendo is right about the carts.

it's very possible to make a homebrew only DS flashcart, and always has been. simply have a non upgradable firmware that doesn't emulate flash ROM, but does auto DLDI patch. DONE. You now have an antipiracy flash cart. (peopl efrom ye olden days may remember the antipiracy mod chip that only broke region protection on the ps1)

Datel even made one. called it games and music. It didn't sell well, go figure. possibly due to low capacity.

Course Nintendo gets pissy when you run a homebrew emulator for one of their systems. :)

the archival backup clause that we are so fond of in the USA is specific to magnetic media only, so playing backups of games you own and even dumped yourself is still infringing. You actually AREN'T allowed to backup carts by it. ANd without it to help you, the DMCA wins.

while DS flashcarts can play homebrew, their primary purpose is to play commercial games, as evidenced by the flash support in them.

A similar flashcart is not possible, as far as I know for the 3ds. but it's not needed for userland homebrew at all. This is why Soundhax is not completely patched yet. By allowing Soundhax (userland only exploit), they prove flashcarts are NOT NEEDED for homebrew, and thus prove the primary usage of flashcarts is for running commercial games. Hence, the sellers are liable for contributory infringement.
 

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Though a lot was hashed out around the time of magnetic/degradable media I have not seen anything say it died with that, and losable or scratchable/breakable media is still a thing. Beyond that "backups" could well be format shifting of a sort (your honor it is my multicart) which many would hold to be legal (section 4 on https://w2.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.php has some cases).
Most challenges I see in the US rely on the DMCA appearing to say even fig leaf strong encryption/protection counts, a good example being all the stuff with decss on dvds as even at the time the DVD css spec was proposed people said it was weak as you like, though that might have been to dodge arms controls. I have not looked at the list of exemptions and most of what I did see when the updates happened last year I think it was danced around the issue and had a lot of specifics as far as online game server replication, specifically "jailbreaking" a TV and what have you.

Primary purpose matters little from where I sit. Phrases like substantial non infringing uses tend to come up in discussions and court cases like this and the option to write and run homebrew would appear to allow for it. DLDI is also not a legal construction, to mandate its use could be a tricky proposition under the law.

There were options with non upgradable firmwares, in those instances people went for gamewise patches to do it.

Does userland prevent access to aspects of hardware, or easy access? Right now people are messing with javascript (a Turing complete and not esoteric language) on the switch, nobody considers that proper homebrew. Prior to that people had the java stuff that blu ray affords doing things on the PS3, same deal.
That said I am curious if it is indeed some legal wrangling as I am not sure I have seen that in games before. You have the PS2 and PS3 being home computers by virtue of Linux as a bit of tax avoidance
 

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Flashcarts, modchip, boot discs (remember those? Lol) and the like have always been what I would call "grey market items." In certain countries owning such accessories/devices/software in itself, is perfectly lawful, it's how you use it, that may be an issue. In other countries they're flat out banned, regardless of why you want to buy one or how you use it.

Here's a similar example, I live in NH. I can legally but fireworks (nothing aerislal but some of the not so deadly lol) as I'm over the age of 21. I can set them off on my own private property and that's completely legal. However, if I take said fireworks over state lines into Massachusetts, I could face smuggling and explosives charges as they are completely banned in that state.

Also back in NH, I can't go out on public property and set them off without a permit.

This is just a pretty simple example that came to me, only because I do actually live in NH near the mass. Border.

You could apply the same logic to different countries rather than states....
 

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