The man who Nintendo sued for $1.6 MILLION
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- Опубликовано: 2 дек 2021
- In 2009, Nintendo's new game was leaked and uploaded to the internet. Within a month, Nintendo caught the culprit, and sued him for $1.5 million, plus another $100k in legal fees. Here's the full story!
PATREON - / thomasgamedocs
MERCH - teespring.com/stores/thomas-g...
TWITTER - / thomasgdocs
CORRECTION
The Ganon figure wasn’t an amiibo, sorry! I didn’t realise Nintendo just packaged Wind Waker with a …normal statue!
SOURCES
- / aussie_nintendo_pirate...
- www.nintendolife.com/news/201...
- www.kotaku.com.au/2010/02/nin...
- www.smh.com.au/technology/nin...
- www.gamezone.com/originals/au...
CREDITS
Image of Australian Law Courts © Google 2021
Jeff Bezos photograph taken by Steve Jurvetson 
Игры
I just want to say to Thomas Games Docs, you did a decent job with the info that's actually out there. After 12 years certain things are hidden from the public but I think I'm safe to talk about them now.
Hey bro, as a suggestion double check your paperwork before you say anything first.
It would really suck if you said something that you felt was no big deal only to have Nintendo and their lawyers threaten or send you to court again.
I don't know how Australian law works, but out here in the US I have heard of people getting sued for releasing info on their case after they agreed to not discuss it, even after a bunch of years.
It wouldn't surprise me if Nintendo put a clause where it mentions that.
:D
it's easy to tell he actually spends alot of time researching and editing his videos, must of had taken some time.
keep up the great work Thomas!
I hope that Ganon amiibi gets passed through your family for generations.
@@joshmcgootermier2301 It's a regular figure, not a Amiibo.
He could've just uploaded a video to prove he had it lol. He didnt have to upload the whole game 😭😭
I actually have to agree, James Burt did not had to upload the ENTIRE game, which got into this fiasco with Nintendo, James Burt has no one to blame but himself.
@@benitosierrajr3958
I do wonder if there was another Pirate out there who pirated those Games to sell to the Supermarket early if you think of it on a larger Scale, but yes Jame Burt was in the wrong for piracy on uploading the video Game to his Computer for his Streamers to play for free.
Piracy does not make you an All Star
Hell, I think just a picture would have sufficed
Come on mahn if i got spiderman NWH bluray or hd version before release then i wouldnt just flex it like putting a small clip on youtube or somewhere.i would want and love to share it with my friends, internet friends my telegram channel etc.
This is why I tell people on etsy to stop making Nintendo fan art products. They can and will go after you in time.
There was a fan game a big time corporation went after but not because of the game, it was due to how much attention the product got. Forgot what corporation it was but they went after three people who made their own fan game for free, they weren't selling it, and it got WAY more attention than the actual game. So the three people were sued.
Meanwhile, I bought a Dragon Ball patch off of Etsy and this person has been on there for years and sells probably 30 every year. That's it.
Big corporations get mad big time if you take away their customers.
There's one about gas. A big time gas chain was suing a small town gas station for selling their gas too cheap. Meanwhile, I got gas that was even cheaper than what that small town gas station was selling for.
So take away business from a big corporation because you had a better idea and they'll get mad and sue you.
Oh man, that isn't going to happen.
@@christins.1481 its hit and miss. When I started on etsy I made a Harry Potter bookmark for sale and I thought it was ok to do because it was nothing like anything in the book or movies or graphic art made by Harry Potter. But Warner Brothers still flagged my post as copyright infringement. And that's when I first started my shop and didn't have any sales yet. So no its not just about if a product gets attention. These huge companies have the man power to pay people to search for products related to their stuff and attack the artist. Also there was a daycare that had painted a Winnie the pooh in their wall in the infant nursery and Disney found out about it and sued them. Just because they can. Ridiculous
@@mizzysparrots4874 when marvel's loki show came out there was a controversy with disney going after any and all works up for sale with the word loki in it. this included many that were very, very clearly not based on marvel's loki, at all. because he's a fucken god people still worship to this day ffs 😭 taking down shit people had up for ages too
@@damien678 wow thats complete bullshit and unfair. What sucks with etsy is they automatically take the side of the person who flags the post and remove the post without you stating your side. Many times the flag is incorrect. That happened to me too. There was a guy who created a painting of the Billy character from Hocus Pocus. He went around and flagged posts that used the keyword Billy and also posts about hocus pocus. He flagged one thing I had that wasn't remotely close to his. I emailed etsy to explain what he's doing and to explain that HE DOESNT OWN COPYRIGHTS TO DISNEY CHARACTERS and they didn't care. My post is forever gone and it had nothing to do with his post.
So nobodys gonna ask how he managed to get enough money to pay ~$1 million USD?
Who said he paid anything? That was the sentence of the court, it doesn't mean he is going to pay it.
Most of these cases are just for show. In the end they are not going to pay anything because they don't have the money anyway. They just sign a document saying if they do it again they will need to pay it.
He didn't. He came on this video comments (as well as reddit and on his own channel) to say he filed for bankruptcy and owed nothing. This was just to set an example, which is silly in its own right because it most definitely did less than nothing to the pirate scene lol.
Exactly my thoughts
@@belavet, good thing Australia allows you to discharge legal judgements in bankruptcy court.
You can’t do that in the US anymore.
Perhaps I wasn't the only one misled by 7:02 saying he had paid his dues.
The reason Nintendo goes so hard on individuals for things like this is to set examples and as a deterrent. They want these stories to get out to scare the hell out of people even thinking about pirating.
Sure, and I could scare the hell out of other people and prevent them from even thinking about fucking with me if I killed someone... but that would be insane and over the top to do so, and people would be right to say I was a piece of shit for doing it. So yeah... fuck Nintendo. There is nothing that can possibly justify what they did.
@@JordanISmith yes, but this was a time where the game hasn’t been released yet, and 50K people were already downloading and playing it for free. And would definitely increase more if Nintendo didn’t take action. Nintendo loses profits if this happens. This case was perfectly justified, unlike the other items Nintendo hates its fans emulating old games that don’t make profit anymore.
@@JordanISmith It's gonna be a hard life if you think you should get stuff just cause you want it.
sintendo
@@naejimba He paid nothing. He claimed bankruptcy. Any large corporation would do the same thing, and worse if they could. Nintendo is surprisingly ethical, although the bar for ethics in the corporate world is extremely low.
Sounds like you’d be in less trouble cheating the IRS than pirating Nintendo.
that's prolly the message nintendo wanted to convey through this lawsuit 😆
My bro pirates one old wii game and nintendo launched an investigation and had our internet turned off and stuff. I have pirated sooo many games but only nintendo cares if a little kid pirates a really old game they no longer sell. They r the worst
Just don't mess with Disney...
Look up the story of Al Capone. Yes, you can get away with cheating the IRS for a while (I'm not telling you or anyone else to do that, so please don't), but the second they get a whiff of evidence that you are or were cheating them, they'll be on you like a horde of bloodhounds until you have either A) paid back all of your back taxes and penalties, B) served whatever jail time is found by the courts to be necessary for your tax evasion, or C) BOTH!
@@steveescher1554 it sounds terrible when you put it like that. But copyright law compells them to behave in ways that express a protective stance on their IP or else it would set a precedent that the IP can be exploit within fair usage or other figures.
Why didn’t he just record himself playing the game to prove he owned the game? Just share the video files. RUclips existed back then with 11 minute restrictions.
I may be a little vague. But it may not have been as simple as it is today to do such a video?
Way better way, legal and he would've got tons more exposure and credit. Just set up a camcorder and make a 10 min video
Well either that he was a idiot or he did not have a camera and didn't want to bother getting one
Nintendo would've still sued him because they are a petty and pathetic company
Nah he probably uploaded the data intentionally and not just ‘to prove he had the game’
In a just world, the retailer chain who sold him the copy ahead of release would be sued.
NOT James Burt himself, NOT the clerk who made the honest mistake of thinking something that's on the shelves is actually for sale, PERHAPS the store manager who decided to put an unreleased game on the shelves ahead of launch but definitely the company who hired said store manager.
If someone at a big company screws up major but accidentally,
the company gets sued, the employee might get fired (sometimes not)
and the expenses may even be covered by an insurance company.
This is very one sided, you are forgetting James dumped the entire game, on the fing internet, I would agree with you if he had not done that, but has the saying goes fuck around and find out.
It wasn't a Ganon amiibo, it was a Ganondorf Statue that came with Wind Waker HD Limited Edition.
Amiibos weren't a thing in 2013.
The statue cost him 1.6 million dollars
@@WWE_AEW he got it for most sales of nintendo games in the store, not because of the lawsuit
@James Nnabuihe james burt himself said the statue doesn't have anything to do wih the lawsuit
????? Huh
Actually, Amiibos were already a thing in 2011. Not technically Nintendo's Amiibos, but Skylanders' Toy-to-Life. Amiibos are the exact same thing. Just that Nintendo came out with their own a few years later.
This never would have happened if he would have used today's sponsor, Nord VPN!
Oh lord have mercy, this is scary accurate.
Damn, it really was a missed opportunity
Also it’s co sponsor Raid Shadow Legends
You can't use Nord for illegal practices, it's in the Terms of Service. You'd still get sued.
@@MoyToy84
Way to kill the joke dude
How on earth could Nintendo force him to not comment on the case? I doubt that could happen here in Europe.
What are you talking about, NDA's exist here in Europe too
@@BLACULA-Skeewoah Rubbish. You can't take someone to court here, then force them to sign an NDA. Only, yes ONLY, the court/judge can force that upon you, NEVER the one who sues, unless it's part of a settlement, and that's not forced.
@@johnnymartinjohansen yeah, the key word you are using here is "forced" my scandanavian friend 😊.... But NDA's can be sentenced under the law too, instead of forced... They're often used in employment contracts or in this case; as part of the settlement to ensure Nintendo doesn't use his information in a public setting and to ensure that there's no further disparagement between both parties!
The reason Nintendo goes so hard on individuals for things like this is to set examples and as a deterrent. but James could of never had to pay the fees. all he had to do, since this was civil court was to file for chapter 7. and the debt is wiped.
Yup, is as you wrote, is no the money, is about making an exemple from him.
Australia isn't like that. Sadly it's not like the US where you can just file and call it the quits
Not sure that's true. Not all debt can be cleared through bankruptcy. Like student loans can't be.
And why SEGA still does what Nintendon't! SEGA allows for fangames. They even allowed Christian Whitehead to SELL his.
Nope in Oz you can't do that. You have to pay
“He lived with his parents and was a real gaming fan”
True chad.
No, his name is James.
No, he'd be a "neckbeard". A Chad is a good looking guy with some money, and not a lot of intellect.
@@louisejohnson6057 So true! It’s almost like that was the joke!
@@MINE_OK If that was the joke you were trying to tell, you told it badly.
@@louisejohnson6057 sorry man
Here in the US the easiest solution to get away from large fines that you couldn't realistically pay back is to file for bankruptcy.
Australian here, believe you can do that here too and that may have been what he did
Then your credit scored gets ruined and you will not be able to get any loans anymore such as for buying a house.
@@Flappybirdys it depends on the type of bankruptcy and even the worst, chapter 7, only stays on your credit report for 10 years. Depending on the size of the fine. It's easier to go bankrupt and wait 10 years.
@@JustATempest oh I see. Yeah that is true, a lot of people probably won’t be able to save 1 million in 10 years so it would be a good option for some people.
@@Flappybirdys unless he just saving up his own money for a house? That'll actually be cheaper, without the interest of paying loans back!😂
Bankruptcy for suit, piggybank for house 😂
I misread the title and assumed he sued them back
Makes me wonder how does someone like that actually pay $1.6M when he seems to be much like normal people pay check to pay check.
The morale of the story is don’t listen to people on the internet to do a thing that will get you trouble they will not help you in the good way at all.
The bottom line is that it's the individual who decides to create peer pressure not the peers themselves. Words by themselves are harmless, it's the person that hears or reads them who forges those words into weapons. In any event, getting files off of the disc or cartridge isn't a simple process so cannot be done on a whim. James' dad is clearly the kind of person who doesn't believe in a person taking responsibility for their own actions and goes through life blaming others for his own bad decisions.
@@KryyssTV not true words last longer then wounds
@@keithflippers4429 You misunderstood. I said people choose to weaponise the words of others so that they can be hurt by them. I didn't say that those words cause no harm, but I will say that how seriously those words cut into them is that person's choice too.
Don’t tell me what to do person on the internet
@@paperstackwell ...says one person on the internet to another. Oh the irony!
Wow Nintendo trolling him with the Ganon figurine is insane, he's known as the King of thieves after all.
What's interesting is that it's a statue of Ganondorf from Wind Waker. Of all the versions of Ganondorf, this one seems to be at least slightly remorseful over some of the actions he did in the past.
In case you didn't see James Burt's comment here, he said:
"The Ganon statue (not amiibo) was unrelated to the Nintendo dispute and was from EB Games for a promo of the most Nintendo purchases in the local area which I didn't know initially (ikr)"
So they probably didn't know who he was when they decided to give him a statue of Ganondorf. A coincidence but a nice one. ^^
Nintendo had nothing to do with it. His local EBGames just gave it out to their biggest Nintendo product customer during a promotion period.
I love that how soon as he got it he had to share it online, again.
They should have given wario
Very simply he could've set his phone to record a video for RUclips showing the receipt, the game packaging, the physical game itself, him inserting it in the console, him playing the game. There was absolutely NO REASON for him to upload anything other than a video showing proof of purchase.
There were a lot of people in 2009 that didn't have smartphones. It's actually possible that uploading a ripped disc was easier than getting a video uploaded.
With court settlements in Australia, you only have to pay what you can afford a week. Could be as little as $1 / week
wouldn't that still be 1.5 million weeks though??
I remember when Super Paper Mario was coming out on the Wii, I found it at Gamestop three weeks before its release date. They noticed it was too early, but they let me buy it anyways because my Grandma was insistent and I was like 9yrs old. Good thing I was too young to post about it.
Your grandma is an angel dude, did you enjoy the game?
Hella cool grandma
When I had an EB near by, they did this all the time with games since I was a frequent customer/window shopper. Sometimes I'd arrive on the day of a shipment, see them unpacking merch and ask if I could purchase the title, usually with decent success lol.
Nah it didn't happen. Enjoy the likes on your comment
In that case I believe it would be GameStop that would've been in trouble for breaking street date. If you had ripped the game and uploaded it, then you'd be in trouble
"Nintendo was able to employ the use of sophisticated technological forensics to identify the individual responsible for illegally copying the file and making it available for further distribution"
Translation: "We took it down and found the guy lol"
They traced the credit card back to the only copy bought 2 weeks before release. They didn't use anything that magical haha
@@KongsNutz So they wouldn't have traced you if you had used cash instead?
Originally I thought they found you because they got your IP and asked the internet service provider for your private information.
@@JoaoPedro-ki7ct nowadays they could trace you with a cash sale, your face is recorded when you go out thousands of times a day and you don't even know it. Although wearing a maskight help. Si incognito
@@h2dfives799 That sucks
@@h2dfives799 Sorry to break it to you but as soon as you step outside cameras are always in our faces if you like it or not.. It been that way since the 1980s and it's nothing we can do about it..
1:35 stairs... In your house
The real ones at fault here is the "store" that put it out on the shelf early than they were supposed to. The store started the chain reaction. But all people involved were just as guilty for pirating the game.
Nuh uh
I know this is one year ago but this is not piracy. There has to be a cause for them to be at the shelf they did not ask for the game to be at the shelf. Also, games can come out early at stores before the date it actually comes out. Piracy is the act of buying / storing unauthorized movies, books, games, torrents on your computer / system paying cheap, or getting it for free and you don't own the real authorized legal copy for your self and your not using the unauthorized copy as a backup copy. But it is best to hack the game files instead of getting it online from a website because that can increase the risk of malware. To make copy of a Mario games hackers do a process called dumping where they would put the disk on to their computer and extract data, textures, assets, graphics from the one file inside the file with the file type of the console for example Dolphin would show up as a file type called 'DOL, WBFS' and other file types including GCM, ELF and Cemu would have WUX as a file type or an ISO. and they extract the data and all of that to the file type and they run it through a 'system inside the computer' technology called the emulator witch broadcast emulation file types on your computer.
He could’ve just recorded footage of the game on a camera and uploaded it to youtube and provide a link to the forum. He could’ve looked cool and not get sued
They would sue him for copyright infringement. When someone streams a game, they are technically breaking copyright law, but the companies ignore it cause it is free review/advertising.
@@bradleywhais7779 well then wouldn’t Nintendo not sue him if they’re getting a free advertisement/review
@@bradleywhais7779 You're allowed to use a small portion of a work as fair use.
@@bradleywhais7779 Except it’s not copyright infringement.
@@bradleywhais7779 were nintendo already do that back then?? really?
Yeah, peer pressure is one of the many successful ways to persuade someone, especially to do things wrong, which kind of hurts.
Imma be honest, it's actually sad that non of the people who ask for the copy got hold accountable for their action.
@@digojez Or the people who actually cracked the copy protection.
Peer pressure may me do a few dumb things back in junior high, but never cost me more than a lunch detention.
A 24 yo being peered pressure on online forums sounds pretty lame 🤷
@@thorjhonson1721 peer pressuring other peoples is even lamer
4:12 Yikes! Imagine developing a game only to have it stolen, you can’t blame Nintendo tbh :\
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be this guy when a new Zelda comes out. On the one hand he’s clearly a fan so he’s going to want to play. On the other hand I imagine every time he touches a Nintendo controller he’s reminded of how that company literally ruined his life.
The question that still remains is, why the hell was the freaking game for sale on that supermarket so early??, who put it on sale that early??, why would this guy upload the contests instead of just a picture of him holding the game box and disc in his hand to prove he did actually purchased it early??
Most stores, espeically in the past get the physical games early. Usually it is planned that most stores get them early in case of delays, logistical issues and so forth. If everything goes smoothly the store should get the game close to two to three weeks early and they sit in the back until an authorized release time.
As for James, it seemed to me he wanted friends and people to acknowledge him. We know that in the internet, parasocial relationships can form, they effectively peer pressured a guy into releasing the game. Plus even if he took a picture, there will be people pressuring him that wasn't enough.
Hey I work at target. We get stuff a lot early. Every now and then the boxes will have what we call a “street date”, which means we can’t sell or put the product out until the date it says on the box. This happens with electronics, books, Toys, games, etc…. Like the guy above me said, delays and shit happen. This is safer
Another thing that happens though is employees don’t check street dates. The amount of times I’ve had to pull items off the shelf because employees don’t check is ridiculous.
@@coolyeh1017 Nah, back in the day, photoshop was not that normal, so a picture of him with the box and the disc of the game would be more than enough proof and if those morons wouldn't believe you is their problem... Still I think Nintendo should have sued the store that released the game early, as, if they didn't do that nothing of this would have happened.
@@manusoftar ITS NOT THAT UNCOMMON, POKEMON BDSP 1.0 SOFTWARE LEAKED 10 DAYS BEFORE OFFICIAL RELEASE, AND ALREADY PLAYED BY THOUSAND PEOPLE AT THAT TIME
I dont get why they didnt press charges on the store
I initially read the title "The man who sued Nintendo for $..." Needless to say I was expecting quite a different video
Same tho, and I read it twice and didn’t realis until I read it a third time when you said it
LOL same
I came in with the exact same expectations until I read the title again
Same
Same
Entertaining and informative, thanks mate
cheers for the info.
If I had a coin for every time a huge company sued an ordinary man for 1.6 million dollars, I would have two coins. Which isn't a lot but I think it's weird that it happened twice
Roblox?
what's the second one?
@@aryan-gi1hw Ruben Sim
Don't upload something you don't own and it won't happen
@@jr2904
You the time of person that side with the cops when they m*rder a black dude for driving 1 mph over the speed limit.
hey, sorry for disappearing for a bit! I needed a bit of a breather, but I'm glad to be back on www dot youtube dot com
yay, love you!
Welcome back
Welcome back! :3
Good to have you back, no need to apologise for the break
And it’s not another voice video *:0*
Internet access through the decades was new, video games before were not able to upload, the charges by Nintendo was equal to somthing you impose on other infringement companies, NOT to a single individual, that was like a life sentence.with a sentimental 6:55 TOY, in your prison cell.
But this is something so common in the warez scene. I remember reading NFOs files back in the day with groups asking people who worked in retail to join them, in order to have access to games before they were put on sale.
I actually feel really bad for the guy, getting sued by a gigantic company for such a huge amount, all because of one stupid mistake
I know right? Its only a game, game is for fun, not life
Well, not to brash at Nintendo, but they can get pretty petty and jump to conclusions on not so extreme things, and they still sold a lot of copies, so what was really the point for them?
right?? it's just...with this, i kinda have to look at it in a relative manner. it's fair and not fair. fair to demand the amount lost, sure, but of a presumably working class individual? while you're a multimillion dollar corporation who is doing literally More than Just Fine? like........im no expert on law, but this just reeks of...idk, greed, in a certain light. a very strange, airquotes-"fair" greed. it's quite sticky to think about.
edit: i suppose the word i am looking for is merciless. it is rather merciless
@@G_Fantastic well thousands of peoples lives are tied up in paying to make and distribute these things, and too many people think its okay to steal because LAWL NO RESPONSIBILITY! I'M A KID FROM A RICH COUNTRY WHAT IS THAT?! Nintendo will show you cuz your dad failed to
@@prismaticc_abyss 1.5M is actually less than what he cost them. I don't know how much new Games go for in Australia but I'm pretty sure it's not less than 50$. If the game was downloaded 50.000 times they could have sued for at least another million had they wanted.
Just because he happened to find the game a week early doesnt mean he was the first person ever to buy the game. If the game was stocked on the shelf they most likely sold other copies
It's funny you mention the Ganon figure. I remember getting that exact same call from EB Games saying that I'd been selected for one. Still got it all these years later!
Great video!
1:02 no way that's real
yeh
Yay you’re back ❤️ Missed your fun content dude. Happy Hollidays!
Same! Glad he is back
Title says they ruined his life, but they didn't.
@@TimothyTimPSP yes they basically did they sued him for 1.6 million dollars. you think he didn't care?
@Werty Deluxe
That sucks, but ruin your life? His life has been ruined? Life no good now.
@@TimothyTimPSP Not quite ruined, but it must have been devastating for him to have to pay 1.6 mil. Also if you want to make money on YT you have to do a little exaggeration on the titles .
2:42 "According to James's father"
His father is Shigeru Miyamoto?!
Ahhahaha at 5:21 the gavel and wooden block, the block is upside down…..I’m guessing a FAKE black judge too…..gotta love royalty-free stock.
The funny thing about piracy is legally you can’t prove these people would have actually bought the game. So they are insane to think that they actually lost sales.
@@DoubleJ-jt1tyengrish moment
that is why its civil. civil courts have lower standards. it can generally assumed a good portion wouldn't have bought the game.
I wouldn't want to go against Nintendo's legal team, but I imagine it'd be pretty difficult to prove loss of sales from piracy. And how can they pin it all on one person? Surely every individual who downloaded it is responsible for a portion of the damages? And what about the people that cracked the copy protection? Could Nintendo go and sue each of them for over a million dollars? And if the law bizarrely attaches more weight to the original breach, that would be the shop that released it early no?
The answer is simple, Australia's laws are a clown show.
Given the game was released for free online before it was released officially, while there's no way to prove each downloader would have paid for the game officially, as it's impossible to prove a negative, it's feasible as an argument to suggest as such because it was no longer necessary for them to consider paying.
It's impossible to go after individual downloaders, as it creates an issue in the legal code related to the right to make copies of anything for your own usage, whether you own the thing or not. The entire copymachine industry, tape recorder industry, cd/dvd/blu ray recorders, etc. would be put into jeopardy fighting to maintain their right to exist, as well as customers their right to make copies, as well as professors and teachers the right to make copies of books and magazines for classes, as well as researchers from every field imaginable the right to make copies of anything from any source regardless of ownership. While there has been some luck going after people who have downloaded content, essentially it's not illegal to do so. Only to distribute with intention to cause harm and deny profitability/compensation for their work. This is still tricky as common law requires one to actually have removed said item from the individual who rightfully owns it, and digital copyright laws border on unconstitutionality and are constantly abused by companies, they're so grey and open to interpretation it's a very muddy legal ground to tread upon.
It's why Nintendo/Sony/MS have had a hard time going after ROM sites, given they hand out games for free, and for games that are not made available in their original form for their original system in any capacity to where any of those companies, and third party companies can claim loss. However most sites shut down at a C&D because while they can win in court, it's a costly venture. The exception is when said ROMS are for actively available systems. For this reason certain sites that used to offer hacks and cracks like GBAtemp, have a separate private forum that allows such sharing, but not a public forum anymore, as even manipulation or add-on content not sanctioned by the original creator while said original content is available is within the legal gray area, where it is technically legal and illegal at the same time.
So in lieu of that the only guilty individual whose actions caused potential loss of profit and revenue for Nintendo, is the original uploader and copier of the game. Going after individual downloaders brings up the same legal mess that the music industry attempted and failed hard at in the early 00's after Napster was brought down. Sure they managed to get some kids and their families to pay multi-millions by using gray areas because Napster was both upload and download (whatever you had in your folders was automatically uploaded to other people and it was considered community goodwill to help "share" the wealth that you yourself collected). However the public ramifications were heavy. They still lost money because they looked like monsters making absurd claims of 10's to 100's of millions of dollars for a 14 year old as we also get into the other issue: it is VERY hard to build a case against a large number of people from different states, different counties, etc. There are bylaws even between US cities that have to be respected that make it a legal nightmare. It's not the same as say, going after a group of men robbing a bank, as all of those individuals were in the same town at the same time. There's also intent to do harm, which is MUCH harder to prove.
Nevermind proving those downloaders also shared themselves, notwithstanding it's almost impossible to track down torrent files unless the original file itself has a tracker in it, in which you can track WHOSE computer has it, but not if they shared bits of the same game with other people who might have finished it from another source, or just never opened or triggered the tracker (or they had something check and remove it before so much as touching it).
Cracking copy protection is NOT illegal. That would create a whole heck of havoc on EVERY security industry, EVERY tech maintenance worker that might have to hack a file because the owner forgot the password, or a folder. Nevermind there are whole industries built around breaking into older code. Making SPECIFIC laws related to this is also very tricky given the security industry. It's almost impossible as some are private firms, not just government affiliated. Nevermind the act of cracking in general is a necessary thing for some game companies and software companies to hack into their own code at times. ALL game companies in the 1980's, 90's and up through 2005 almost never used databases to hold onto code, and often when going back to older libraries, would find their finalized game discs missing, and any computers with their old dev kits long since destroyed. There was little concept, except for very popular games, for preservation for future releases in newer consoles, let alone remakes and remasters. That didn't happen until around the late 90's, and even then, Nintendo, Sega, and Square-Soft for the most part. Capcom around the early 00's along with Konami. American companies just moved forward with new games for the most part, but they were the first to incorporate storage systems for later usage of older code as it was a more common practice for programmers starting in the late 90's in the US. So what a lot of older games today are, are dumps of the finished game cartridge, then hacked, then have some elements retooled, not unlike what game crackers do with older titles for ROM translations and game hacks...actually, it's the same thing.
Nintendo could try to sue, but again, it depends on a lot of factors, and they're unlikely to win or get anything out of most of those lawsuits, nevermind the legal costs, time, etc. in court, when they're already embroiled in multiple other suits like hardware lawsuits over the 3DS in the past, now the Switch itself. The Wii mote had lawsuits. It's not something they can infinitely due, and they would know most of those suits would again, amount to no money won at all as they cannot prove damages, and even within the legal gray area it would trigger multiple issues related to perfectly legal actions, nevermind the number of police departments who would never spend the man hours tracking down and looking through all of those computers for evidence of who downloaded and when. Nevermind again, even if they could prove someone downloaded it, it's a tricky issue of proving damages (revenue loss) and intention. They'd also earn some ire when their position relative to gamers is very tenuous these days as a lot of gamers like to pick fights or get rather explosive and violent in their language.
Because of what happened to him too I doubt he makes little, if any money at all. He'll never "pay it off" and probably lives like a shut-in ironically playing even more videogames he probably has to pirate from having no job/money now. Lmao
Yeah what the one who cracked the copyright as well.why didn't go after them as well.
You’d probably go broke just paying a lawyer long before you even saw a judge. Hence the settlement
So does Nintendo expect someone who pirates games to have millions in their bank? How did he pay that?
@@100toonlink "the good ending"
He didn’t. He just filed for bankruptcy
No. Nintendo is an evil company owned by Satan to ruin the lives of everything they touch.
How do I know?
The Nintendo CEO chair drama, Oh and Satan was spotted there, that too.
Slowly, over time
no, but that's a deserved punishment for him and a warning for pirates.
the lawsuit wasn't to get money from him but to set an example.
I find it extremely difficult to believe James was the ONLY PERSON to purchase a copy of that game in the window it was available for sale before its release date at this particular location. I'm sure other people uploaded pirated copies of their own as well, and it isn't right that he had to take the entirety of the blame when it could have easily been a plethora of others publishing it onto ROM sites and whathaveyou. (Especially considering James only uploaded it on a forum, not the third party game piracy sites mentioned in the video.)
I got the Mario Kart DD Gamecube bundle 2 days early. A lot of "shady" businesses will sell it early but won't display it. As a "gamer" I set it up and started playing. Getting things early isn't exceptional. All shops get the inventory before launch date.
I worked at Target. Sometimes the employees would stupidly put items up early, not reading the stock box. At the register though, it would never ever let us ring it up. It sent a error message with the release date. Had a few experiences when Hatchimals came out of people trying to sue us for our employees putting the stock out early.
Yeah the store should have been held reliable for this
@@Earth2McKay
They where as they have a contract with Nintendo for distribution. It would of been outlined in the contract what happens if they broke it. But that wouldn't of been in any public record for us to know exactly what happened without finding a Management or higher level employee to learn what was done. Last time I heard something like this happening Nintendo pulled the distribution rights from the store location.
@@Splatoon_KirbyI know I’m 8 months late, but what if someone used a self checkout to buy the product? Would it still give an error?
Omg my daughter's loved those things..... For a couple weeks lol.
3:30 You can't fool me, that's Shigeru Miyamoto's silhouette!
7:08 that’s not an amiibo
I like how there was a Switch ad before this lol
7:00 "[...] James Burt has paid his dues".
What...? How? O_o
0:51
I misheard it and thought he said
Mario Bros: Smokes Weed
Just to note a lawyer made a video as to why Nintendo is very overprotective of its intellectual property. It explains everything people want to know why. Nintendo doesn’t do this because they’re greedy, but because they are kind of forced to, otherwise they might risk getting irreparable damage to their trademarks and copyright.
That sounds like a band suing someone who posted a video of them on RUclips bc they fear people will no longer buy tickets to their concerts!
I had heard this story before but I had no idea that what James distributed wasn’t even in a playable state. That makes this entire thing so much worse. Why didn’t they go after the people who had the hacking chops to piece the ISO back together in the first place??
He uploaded it, there for made it playable altogether. If he never uploaded it, those hacking chops wouldve never made the game work.
@@drewlemley6313 by that logic. Responsibility should lie with the shop that sold it early.
@@saxnev no cause they didn't upload it to a site of people who could make it available early illegally. Honestly, they should have gone after him and the guys who made it playable by fixing what he uploaded.
@@drewlemley6313 so sue the gun store if I break in and steal a gun and kill with it?
@@saxnev The shop probably had fines or something as per the contract they would have from Nintendo in the first place for breaking street date. And since most likely it was a large chain could have been removed from initial game launches or even not allowed to sell their software anymore.
FROM THE DEPTHS, HE RISES.
Dude, welcome back!
I'm hugely curious about what happened to said store that sold it early in the first place??
nothing much. prolly just some negotiations regarding contracts between the companies. they didn't pirate the game after all, just breach of contract (of the selling date)
I love his way of pronouncing "Mawio", Love you dude. Keep up the good videos.
3:00 Please don't show this C code about memory allocation anymore. We've all seen this enough...
Wow
Lol
Let us all appreciate how supportive James' father was. He stuck by his son even though it was clear he was guilty.
Lmao, you expected his parents to abandon him instead over a copyright violation?
@@kabob21 mine would but they're the evil authoritative type
@@kabob21 my dad would disown me
@@kabob21 you can hold them responsible for their stupid decisions without abandoning them.
Epic wingman dad
why they didnt go after the store that put the stock on the shelves a week early?!
That's honestly a kinda dope thing to say in your life time "I was sued by Nintendo"
True
"This is James Burt."
Nintendo: THAT MONSTER!
Also Nintendo: Give him and Amiibo.
An amiibo ❓❓❓❓❓
“Give him and Amiibo”
Learn English.
It was probably autocorrect. That happens to me all the time lol
@@superg6787 it was a typo. But if you read it in a bad Japanese accent it makes it funnier. So I'm leaving it as it is.
@Banana Boi thanks for your honesty.
1:23 Those 2 often go hand in hand.
it was uploaded as an iso file, which is basically impossible to convert to wbfs, the wii’s format. so technically, they still needed an emulator to run the iso, but dolphin emulator was probably not yet created, so he technically didn’t pirate it.
I am Australia and it only is more expensive because of currency changes. It is $80 at EB games (our games stop) but it it is like 40 there
Amazing content as always! Introduction already got me hooked!
Nintendo when you name your kid Luigi:
They wouldn't actually care, Luigi doesn't exist for them.
@@gacd2104 Nah that's Waluigi
2 twins in my elementary school were named Mario and Luigi
@@KatTheLavaGirl poggers
1.5 millions (but even 150k) it's ridicolous, it's not just punish piracy, it's sadism to completly destroy somebody's life, and the fact that he was a loyal customer makes you think even more what a sharks with no heart they are at nintendo
If Nintendo found a way to find the "silent archivers" they would have a heart attack by the shear numbers.
Did he end up paying the whole amount? I would be paying that for the rest of my life.
I'm pretty sure when you get sued by such large amounts, you have to declare bankruptcy. after that you have to pay cash each month (a reasonable amount based on your income) to whoever sues you until you pay it off or die.
if you check the reddit link on the description and search down, that guy stated:
"Declaring bankruptcies a bitch!
That's all I can say."
My comments got auto deleted for some reason, I wasted 5 whole minutes explaining this.
@@garden6008 when you declare bankruptcy most of your debt gets cleared so I don’t think he had to pay anything
@@vincevvn I just remembered that the guy that ran a Nintendo switch hacking/piracy website, had to pay like $50 every month when he got sued by Nintendo. its probably different per country and situation though.
There's a comment near the top of the comment section that seems to be from him, he said he declared bankruptcy. Due to having no personal assets and living at home, he didn't have to pay anything.
Love these! Thankyou so much for the content!
Didn’t Nintendo copyright the phrase “it’s on like Donkey Kong”?
How do people get away with selling hard drives with thousands of games on them? Many of the games are Nintendo wii, wii u,game cube,snes nes . I'm just curious why they don't track those down.
4:25 in latex terms, Nintendo illegally Spied on him and used illegal tracking to find out who he was and where he lived (Nintendo Ninjas are actually a think God Bless you Etika) and found out who he was
You can get away with anything when you're rich
I'm so happy to see you back. I was just wondering the other day if you were well!
Shows again to me how much power large companies have in this world. One bloody month and Nintendo got him to court.
First, they had to find out about the downloads, then they had to find out who the one responsible was, which certainly overstepped some privacy laws, and then they got Australia to search his house from Japan. Do you know how much of a hassle international law and bureaucracy is, especially when it comes to these kinds of things?
And yet, here is Nintendo needing only a single bloody to get him to court like its nothing. Like, try to the something similar as a normal dude, it would take your entire life time with all the bureaucracy...
I once got a $29.99 version of FFX, days before it was supposed to be released. The jewel case was French, and I purchased it in Canada at Zellers. I was disappointed that my case was in French, but glad I somehow saved $60 on the game. Great memories.
And yes, the only thing worse than illegally distributing a game, is distributing one before its launch date.
1:57 is it target?
im having a horrible day then thomas uploads.
its amazing
haha I hope your day gets better!!! sending good vibes
@@ThomasGameDocs Hey Thomas, hope you're doing good. I wrote this comment becausei wanted to thank you about (basically) making me learn English. 3 years ago, i found your channel, and started watching because you had a very different content than what I watched and what was in my language (portuguese). I couldn't understand you but because you had portuguese subtitles, i could understand and slowly figure them out. After a while i started understand english subtitles and could understand yt videos in english. So thank you, for showing me the great world of English RUclips. I hope you're well and that your channel grows! (Sorry if i wrote in bad english,I'm still quite bad at it)
@@headxplosion That’s really awesome! I think it’s so cool that you learned an entire different language through subtitles, and I know how difficult it is (because I tried and failed 😓). I hope you continue to enjoy English RUclips!!!!
Wednesday was a very tough day for me
@@headxplosion good job!
"hey buddy, we here at nintendo felt bad for suing you, making your family spend their life savings, so take this ganon amiibo and forget about it, fine? fine."
Well it happened AGAIN with super Mario bros wonder!
Welcome back! You are one of my favorite RUclipsrs, your videos are extremely fun and entertaining to watch!
"no one got hurt" - I don't think you understand how money moves.
Nintendo lost 10 cents and that's enough for action. it's a serious matter what he did.
@@EmmettXIVI don’t care if it’s 10 cents or 10 bucks, the guy stole. I hate Nintendo but saying it’s 10 cents doesn’t make it ok to steal. Stop trying to justify it
I bet that Gannon statue had a hidden camera in it!
I think that courts should don't pay attention if someone will attempt to do Nintendo office t*rr*rist attack
That's a bit of a stretch to call him "the first person in the world apart from Nintendo employees to own the game". Any number of people could have bought it first in that store before he saw it, or another store for that matter. It's not uncommon for Australian stores to hand out games before their release date, especially when they've been pre-ordered. We're a bit cheeky...
thats what they were actually butthurt about since they know their games get uploaded day 1 on release but they couldnt sue target obviously
@@JP-xw2kf Technically, they could have. Pretty sure that's part of the standard contract.
@@flamingmonkays wont ever happen because target could decide not to carry their products anymore in retaliation. makes more business sense to sue a customer and lose one person's business than an entire store chain.
@@JP-xw2kf I mean, unless Target fucks up bigtime, they aren't gonna break their contract or sue them. But considering the contract benefits them both, Nintendo probably just reprimands them and leaves it at that.
Im sure someone else bought it before he did or the same day and wasnt dumb enough to brag about it on the internet
This is one of the most interesting videos essays I have every watched. Amazing how one game during its release can lead into a deep rabbit hole like this
They need to set an example, over a million dollars will definitely catch people eyes
I got a Nintendo ad right before the video started 💀
4:30 In this day in age I have no problems with downloading Wii games online, because I own the disk, the game is old, and the console it was made for is discontinued! So me getting games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii or Wii Sports Resort isn't much of an issue today! Awesome video!
There is no way that guy actually paid 1.6 million without just declaring bankruptcy.
He probly took a loan
@@parkermartin8308 You most likely voted for Biden.
@@2002films I was jokeing and I don’t like sleepy joe
@@parkermartin8308 OK, My bad lol.
bankruptcy still suck balls though
So some internet detectives can get full messages and DMs from the issue in question, but companies or the defendant can't and it's a "they said/no they said" scenario.
Nintendo was trying to subtly insult him with the amoibo I believe.
Ganon is the king of thieves.
2:36 HIs dad is miyamoto himself??
From what I know about aussie internet connections, I am surprised he managed to upload the entire game in less than a week.
How can they prove out of the 50k downloads those people were gonna buy the game anyway?
are you making a video about Tear of Kingdom getting release early too? i just saw people playing the game on pc