Pokemon games tend to be an incredibly popular topic of discussion, no matter what, but with the dawn of a new generation, where information and unannounced Pokemon are slowly trickled out over months, or even kept secret until launch, fans were going wild with anticipation. This was especially true for Sword and Shield, which had a very contentious pre-release fervor to them. When images of the strategy guide for Pokemon Sword and Shield appeared on the internet, weeks prior to the games' official release, which was on November 15th, they went viral, as users posted them to every nook and cranny of social media and message board. Nintendo themselves even tried to get many sites to take those pictures down, citing the DMCA, to mild success. But by then, everyone had already saved the images and had distributed them even further across the internet.

To mitigate damage caused by the Defendants' leaks, TPCi submitted hundreds of takedown requests to platforms to remove the leaked images.

The content of the leaked strategy guide, which was slated to release a week after Sword and Shield themselves, on November 22nd, included pictures of Gigantamax Pokemon, the entirety of the Galar region's Pokedex (and all of its cuts, which turned into a dramatic hashtag campaign on Twitter), all of the new Pokemon and their Galarian forms, and more.

The Pokemon Company International believes that this leak of information has caused "irreparable damages", and by sharing stolen trade secrets, they threatened the value of both major Pokemon titles. A lawsuit has been filed with Perkins Coie LLP, where TPCi is looking to seek compensation for "wrongful conduct", and monetary relief for the damages caused by said leaks. The legal document shows posts from anonymous individuals on 4chan and Discord sharing dozens of screenshots from the guidebook, and though TPCi currently does not know who these four John/Jane Does are, they're actively searching to find out who was behind the Discord account providing the screenshots. Currently, TPCi is looking to issue a subpoena to Discord, in order to get more information on the accounts.

TPCi seeks leave to subpoena Discord, 4chan, and the individual who used the [specified] Discord handle, for identifying information associated with the users that posted the leaked images. TPCi will seek identifying information associated with the images, IP address, email address, secondary or recovery email address, records of session times and duration, and any other identifying information.

Source

Tags: [GAME=/game/pok-mon-sword.37382]Pokémon Sword[/GAME] [GAME=/game/pok-mon-shield.115653]Pokémon Shield[/GAME] [COMPANY=/company/the-pokemon-company-international]The Pokémon Company International[/COMPANY]

 

[Deleted User]

The Pokemon Company can suck my dick.

But the real question is, would you really want them to?

 

[cots]

Good. I hate spoilers. This is what should happen to those who spoil surprises for other people

Though I'm curious. If someone was to get a book through no fault of intention of their own, and are under no obligation or contract to withold the information, CAN they be sued? I mean, what infringement are they suing for? I'm guessing they'd have to go after someone at the company where they had a "no telling" contract? The company which allowed it to happen?

Copyright still applies regardless if you paid for the item or not. If you're reproducing copyrighted material without permission you can be held liable. I do think it's a bit extreme to punish people simply posting pictures from a guide book, that is unless they scanned and uploaded the entire book. However, I think it would be more appropriate to criminally (not in civil court, but in criminal you go to jail court) go after the people who were responsible for pirating and leaking the actual game and every single person who has pirated it since then. What's the penalty from the Felony? $250,000 fine and 5 years in jail? Sounds about right to me. Maybe in 10 years the next generation will change their ways and put as much value in video game piracy as the current one does in #metoo and go after all of the people who were pirating Switch games.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Disgusting. They made a shitty game, that sold really well. They're just mad that people aren't satisfied with it and that they hurt their reputation by only including half the Pokédex. Rather than wasting resources than pursuing frivolous lawsuits (I doubt anybody who posted leaks was under an NDA) they should put them towards making a decent game.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

Spawn wave has a good video from just before the release date. He talks about how gamefreak has a very bad pr problem. How if gamefreak was up front from the beginning and honest about everything, the negatives wouldn’t be highlighted so much.

from my POV it all started with the tree house event during e3 covering the games. If Gamefreak didn’t say anything during the live events about Pokémon being cut. Waited instead a few days til the release date, they could have prepared a proper explanation.

Trying to fix mistranslations from media coverage wouldn’t have been nessasary if they released the information using Nintendo’s own translation members.

Also we where told in 2013, that the 3ds Pokémon models were designed to be future proof already. now if there were some kind of coding issues with the models and they had to make some changes for the switch and couldn’t get it all done in time, they should of just said that. I think many fans would have accepted that and moved on from the cut issue.

Here’s another thing. Everyone knows data mining happens even with the best and biggest companies. It may be way game freak decided to say something during the treehouse. Data mining is wat you have to more honest about the state of your games.

there is overwhelming about of data to show they created the games’ originally for the New Nintendo 3/2DS systems. More than likely they were given a mandatory amount of time to port the games to the Nintendo Switch by there bosses at the very last minute. We already the Switch originally was going to be programmed to use cyanogen mod of android but they turned down the deal Nintendo offered. Instead the system using a modified port of the OS of the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo probably thought gamefreak would have it easy porting the games to the switch. however due to gamefreak remaining indie developer team member size and a mandatory release date they didn’t get a change to do it properly. Making the game world’s textures suffer.

My finale statement is this. A well known youtuber slipped during one of his videos and said he knew hacking & data miners found the complete data sheets for the missing Pokémon. The only thing missing is their models and they were easily able to add them in without problems and be fully tradable between games. Now he hasn’t said anything about this since and I have yet to see a patch doing exactly like he said. His videos since than, act like he never said anything about it. Making me wonder if he knew people working on a patch and wasn’t supposed to say anything. I can’t even find the video anymore. I was stupid and didn’t save it to a watch list.

At rate geamefreak shouldn’t be blaming fans for the bad press. If anything they should be looking at management and say, ‘you guys throw us under a bus and now want fans to pay the price, don’t go down this road and take responsibility Instead. Your disrespecting not only us but the fan base’.

A lot of this isn't true.

 

[Sheshomegrown]

$250,000 fine and 5 years in jail? Sounds about right to me. Maybe in 10 years the next generation will change their ways and put as much value in video game piracy as the current one does in #metoo and go after all of the people who were pirating Switch games.

Yeah, make someone have to pay 250,000 usd and 5 years in prison for copying data.. Especially from someone who said themselves that they've never made as much money on one of their releases before.. What kind of sentence do you feel that people who took a loaf of bread because they couldn't afford it, or people who shares their Netflix account, deserve?

And, please, continue comparing sexual harrasments and rape to copying data (or in this case, taking pictures of a guide book), they are really, really similar!

 

[flockamav]

Man, glad I like Digimon more than Pokemon

gold psot right here

 

[the_randomizer]

gold psot right here

Not sure if sarcastic or serious

 

[chrisrlink]

god for once i wished anonymous did something like how they fucked sony up after the geohotz fiasco some companies need to BURN

 

[SatoXR]

Oh. So this was the cause of the dex campaign. XD

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Oh. So this was the cause of the dex campaign.

 

[cots]

Yeah, make someone have to pay 250,000 usd and 5 years in prison for copying data.. Especially from someone who said themselves that they've never made as much money on one of their releases before.. What kind of sentence do you feel that people who took a loaf of bread because they couldn't afford it, or people who shares their Netflix account, deserve?

And, please, continue comparing sexual harrasments and rape to copying data (or in this case, taking pictures of a guide book), they are really, really similar!

Piracy is wrong and the USA it's illegal. If you can't afford something that doesn't mean you can simply steal it. If that's so, what's your home address? I can't afford a car right now. Would your parents mind if I steal theirs? Piracy is wrong regardless of anything you could possibly say to defend it. Can't handle the time don't do the crime

 

[codezer0]

Piracy is wrong and the USA it's illegal. If you can't afford something that doesn't mean you can simply steal it. If that's so, what's your home address? I can't afford a car right now. Would your parents mind if I steal theirs? Piracy is wrong regardless of anything you could possibly say to defend it. Can't handle the time don't do the crime

I don't think that's the point being argued, so much as that if there is a punishment to be doled out, that it should fit the crime.

In other countries, speeding ticket fines are assessed based on a sliding scale tied to your income. So it'll hurt (relatively) equally, but be more expensive to the rich prick that could afford a 300+kph hypercar compared to the guy that was doing 50 in a 40 in a 20-year-old beater.

In the event of those that were under NDA, a fitting punishment would be revocation of their privileged access, and likely a loss of job, if not reassignment to another place. But punishing someone that isn't under an NDA to begin with? With what?

 

[cots]

I don't think that's the point being argued, so much as that if there is a punishment to be doled out, that it should fit the crime.

In other countries, speeding ticket fines are assessed based on a sliding scale tied to your income. So it'll hurt (relatively) equally, but be more expensive to the rich prick that could afford a 300+kph hypercar compared to the guy that was doing 50 in a 40 in a 20-year-old beater.

In the event of those that were under NDA, a fitting punishment would be revocation of their privileged access, and likely a loss of job, if not reassignment to another place. But punishing someone that isn't under an NDA to begin with? With what?

You can still be punished for copyright infringement for beaching a NDA. The NDA is simply a contract between you and the company. You're still legally responsible for your own actions. Seeings as it's Hate Crime to utter words like "I don't like you because you're an illegal alien" in certain states, which carries a high fine and a long jail sentence plus a felony criminal record that prevents you from employment and public assistance I think actually doing something illegal (not simply participating in free speech) is a legitimate reason to imprison someone. If I caught someone personally stealing from me they'd wish the only thing that would have happened to them was sitting in a jail for 5 years.

10-20 years ago the crimes the #metoo people are accusing people of were generally accepted by society if not completely overlook by authorities. Who knows. That may happen in another 10-20 years regarding software piracy. Maybe the kids would become obsessed with ruining the previous generations lives based on them doing stuff that was pretty much viewed as okay by the majority of society back when they were doing it.

 

[codezer0]

And, again... what about for those who never worked for them in the first place? The problem with this lawsuit is implying that Game Freak is pursuing damages against someone, or some people, that never worked for them in the first place, and thus had nothing to gain by keeping their secrets for them.

 

[chrisrlink]

piracy isn't the point if it was they'd be going after the xci leakers not a damn strat guide leaker their just doing this to amass money for a possiable class action against them for false advertisments (not to mention the joycon drift lawsuit) that's their true motive in my mind corporate greed

 

[cots]

And, again... what about for those who never worked for them in the first place? The problem with this lawsuit is implying that Game Freak is pursuing damages against someone, or some people, that never worked for them in the first place, and thus had nothing to gain by keeping their secrets for them.

Copyright infringement isn't dependent on the infringers motivations. Unless they're lives were on the line and they were being forced to post the material there's no valid defense for their actions. There's no good reason you could come up to present to the Judge on why you committed the crime. Most of these "I'm above the law pirate types" who get caught usually crumble in front the Judge anyway. So replies from pirates defending their pale egos on this forum isn't going to change my viewpoints. Though, like I already stated, unless they scanned and posted the entire book I think a small fine would suffice, which is probably what's going to happen anyway. Now, if you're pirating the entire game then or were involved in leaking it and get put in front of the Judge none of your "group census on justifying pirating" is going to be able to defend you from facing the piper. Don't believe me? Go research lawsuits and criminal cases brought against video gaming pirates in the last 30 years and then get back to me on how many beat the charges.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I don't think they could get whoever it was based on the fact he leaked game info alone. Unless he was under some sort of NDA. But most likely a store broke release date and they are the ones who should be anwering to Nintendo.
All the guy who shared it did wrong was distributing warez (it's still copyright infringement even if it's just some scans). Something I think most of us have been guilty of at multiple points in time. And while you can certainly get prosecuted for that (see: https://gbatemp.net/threads/kongsnutz-my-story.361116/ ) that is the most they could get him for AFAIK.
Now if he was actually an employee at a mall or game store who leaked it, he might have been under some sort of NDA, and the punishment would likely be much stricter for that.

 

[Sliter]

Because in most cases, an agreement is signed to not disclose sensitive information and breaking such agreement leads to fining, that's why.

I'm actually shocked (and kinda ashamed) that some people are fine that a company is trying to sue (and therefore potentially destroying) an average person just for uploading some pictures and committing the terrible crime of spoiling people.

the thing is, the person knew that shouldn't have been doing that and did anyway, isn't because they got any early access that mean they are better than anyone that don't, and with that I think it's ok
And they are probably more doing that for probably avoid more alike in the future...
Idk I don't want any bad for no one, I just don't like the idea some can do want they want and get free with that XD if someone that work with t can't show his kids what they are working at, if it get leaked and know he would suffer a lot from that, why someone complete ramdom can go and show everything lol

 

[Fewtch22]

So they're asking the community to squeal on the leakers?

Fat chance of that, unless someone has a grudge and also a hole for a heart.

 

[Captain_N]

like it matters if images are leaked. i would have leaked them over a tor connection over a vpn if i had the pics. I would have leaked them just because.

 

[Sheshomegrown]

If I caught someone personally stealing from me they'd wish the only thing that would have happened to them was sitting in a jail for 5 years.

Dude, you are in here saying that people should be put in prison and fined for taking pictures of a guide book, yet you still hint that you're gonna beat the living shit out of someone who steals something from you. What would be a good sentence for you? Surely beating someone should have a higher sentence than stealing materialistic things, yes?

Nice way of completely missing everyone's points..

I find it a little bit intriguing how important it is for you to defend money loss (that they can't even prove) for a multi-million dollar company. How is it that you feel more sorry for them than the person not affording bread, or the women and men in #metoo?