The story and work of Gary Bowser is pretty badass and would make for an interesting ama and event on lemmy. Here’s a recent article on Gary Bowser https://torrentfreak.com/gary-bowser-how-a-1980s-hacker-became-nintendos-nemesis-decades-later-230702/
I mean it sucks but whats the alternative? Life in jail? He did those things and did cost them 65 million, I’m never one to defend corporations but he is a criminal and deserves some kind of punishment.
Money is made up, I doubt his actions actually cost them 65 million. If they did - so what? Taking that out his wages will never get them that amount of money back, ever. That is a ludicrously large amount that will never be reached, they just want to ruin a person’s life.
I don’t agree with the punishment one bit.
But it was never about getting their money back. Instead they just wanted a life-ruining sentence and large number to give to the media to scare people into not fucking with Nintendo.
Nintendo knows they’ll never see even one million of that 65. Hell, they’ll probably never even make enough to cover the lawyer fees. They don’t care as they’re playing the long game. They’re trying to prevent the next Bowser before it happens. Which won’t work, but they’ll never understand why.
Sir, this is a piracy instance. Know your place
Maybe not ensure he’s fucked for the rest of his life?…
He didn’t cost them 65 million. That’s a pretend number made up by soulless lawyers. If people could actually do that much “damage” to corporations, we wouldn’t be so beholden to their whims.
You’re never one to defend corporations, except apparently when you do.
Ignoring the fact that not getting to make money Nintendo had wanted to make isn’t the same as losing money, how is this person ever supposed to pay that money back? They can’t reasonably expect to see that money ever. All they are doing here is literally financially ruin a man for the rest of his life, it is completely ridiculous such a sentence is even legally possible.
So they essentially won the right in court to keep a person poor for as long as they live. Because they lost out on projected income. Why can’t I sue the fuck out of someone because my projected income of a gorillion dollars isn’t actually coming in?
Ok what should be done then?
Throw him in jail for a few months, give him a painful but reasonable fine (something mid 5 to low 6 figures) that he can possibly afford to pay off, and then leave it be ffs.
The rich and powerful steal literal billions of public money, cheat their way out of paying their fair share in taxes as a hobby, and they don’t get close to such a sentence ever. Why is this low to mid tier huckster deserving of indentured servitude for the rest of his life when people who cause economic damage and steal public money get off with a resignation, a severance package and two months house arrest?
Sounds like the problem is lack of enforcement then right? Making the punishment a slap on the hands only makes it easier for rich to get away with their theft. If you have a problem its not woth his punishment but rather the lack of equality in the enforcement.
Even in a fair justice system the punishment would be extreme in proportion to the crime. He caused the made up number of a global corporate giant to be a bit smaller than they had imagined.
I find the whole premise ridiculous, society or in this case an individual doesn’t owe a company its profits. If a person can be sued over this, then why don’t they sue Sony over competition? Why can’t I sue someone because my projected income isn’t what I wanted?
Because this loss was over explicitly stolen product and information. If this was old games they didn’t sell any more it would be one thing, but this was current hardware and games, which piracy on a grand scale has killed consoles before. I defend piracy as a means of preservation or to escape shitty DRM programs every time, but this was strictly harmful. This isn’t even tpuching on his laundering, which is what got him the jail time he did, not the piracy.
For an example, I used an emulator to play try Pokémon Arseus (however that’s spelled). I had very little desire to play it in general, but I did want to see what they did with it. It was garbage. I never would have purchased it, especially since I would have had to purchase a Switch too. Did that “cost them money?” Absolutely not. They likely include that in the supposed cost though.