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Nintendo ‘hacker’ out from prison early due to good behavior, has to pay 10 million
- Thread starter Spyxos
- Start date
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
A good point. The guy has just been court ordered to pay Nintendo. As it stands right now, that whole $10 million is immediately payable. But, seeing as the guy (probably) doesn't have $10 million lying around, his next step will be to come to a payment agreement with Nintendo's legal or finance team. If, for whatever reason, they're not able to come to a mutual payment agreement, then Nintendo has the right to file a wage garnishment with the courts. Once they take that step, then yeah he'll automatically have 25-30% of his take home pay from his job given to Nintendo to go towards the outstanding balance until it's paid off (never).
I've seen people get hit with giant fines like this, and the company agrees to some crazy low payment plan like $100 a month. Other times, I've seen people pay nothing and the company doesn't bother proceeding with filing the wage garnishment paperwork.
The ball is fully in Nintendo's court at this point to be as ruthless of benevolent as they want.
Nintendo.
Nydius
Member
Criminal level copyright infringement shouldn’t result in potential lifetime destitution. The damage done to Nintendo, while quantifiable, is negligible in terms of their total value and profitability. Meanwhile, this guy will go to his grave owing Nintendo money and his criminal record will limit employment options.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
But again. Don’t be a criminal, and you don’t have to be treated like one the rest of your life.
Beastclaw Raider
Banned
Some people who will commit way worse crimes will never get their lives as fucked as this guy's. Pathetic
Skifi28
Member
Being guilty and being made an example of for the rest fo your life is quite different. We might as well start executing everybody, they did commit the crime after all.
And what about that 10 million sum? How did they reach that amount? It's a silly estimate very unlikely to be realistic, it's a corporation stomping on an individual because they can. Yeah, they did commit a crime, but two wrongs don't make a right.
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Fbh
Member
This is an excellent point.
Basically
That's not to say I'm against the idea of a fine but it should be proportional to the earnings and net worth of the one getting fined.
Making someone who isn't a millionaire pay $10 million is ridiculous, he'll never be able to make that type of money.
Meanwhile companies like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft can screw over millions of customers and they get fined at most a single digit percentage of their yearly income
So you think Sony should have been fined $500 billion and all their Australian executives sent to jail for breaking the law, right?
All they had to do was not act as criminals
Morrie’s wig shop
Member
Totally worth it.
Gamerfan81
Member
Damn, he only made 320k over 7 years being part of this hacker group? Well, he got really fucked by Nintendo and the US Justice Department.
Oh well sucks for him, but I just don't really care about people who is part of a criminal scheme that profits from pirated material.
Oh well sucks for him, but I just don't really care about people who is part of a criminal scheme that profits from pirated material.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
The person did the crime is not some toddler, if you try to screw with big multi billion company, they will come after you with full force, he should have known this might happen.
Is what Nintendo is doing fair? Absolulty not, but big companies are not your buddy, they have no problem fuck you over if you cross them.
PSYGN
Member
That's what I was thinking. Dividing that up is like $45k a year, he must've made more money on some other side hustles or maybe he just genuinely loved doing what he did at that time and didn't mind getting paid so low.
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Cyberpunkd
Member
No, it’s the US. In Europe he would be fined liked 1000€, told to clean his shit, get some community service and be send home.
AngelMuffin
Member
ShadyAcshuns
Member
"don't do the crime if you can't do the time" and he did what? 65 million in damages? If that's the case, he got off easy with Nintendo settling for a 55 million dollar loss. At least they can make up some of that by using this guy as an example.
Skifi28
Member
The problem in this case is that regardless of what one did, should a corporation and their army of lawyers have free reign to exact unjust punishment as they see fit? They' re not the law, shouldn't the actual law protect individuals from situations like this?
It's easy to come up with some insane estimate with no basis on reality when it comes to piracy. How can you ruin a person's life based on damages you can't really prove?
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Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
No but they will because they can but thats reality with big companies, it like messing with wild animal and not expecting to get hurt, just dont do the fucking crime.
Portugeezer
Member
Would rather go to prison than pay that debt for life.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
He made his own life choices, so why should we care? If this was done to someone innocent, then yeah it would be worrisome.
Gamerfan81
Member
Yeah, 45k a year isn't a lot of money, even pre-covid for that kind of risk.
From what I've read Homeland Security and the FBI was investigating him. 45k a year to have the US federal government on your ass, and then after that Nintendo filed some civil suit for monetary damages. All that for 45k.
Sheesh!
DaGwaphics
Member
I hope he did well with that $320k, seems like a stiff price to pay.
Koppelthorn
Banned
You are barbaric if you would actually essentially financially imprison someone for a lifetime for something as meaningless and incorporeal as "perceived" lost profits, the jail time is enough as it is
ssringo
Member
You shouldn't care about him individually. I don't. He has to deal with the consequences.
What you should care about is what I mentioned previously: recidivism. If you punish a criminal so harshly or in such a way that they can't properly rejoin society then you just push them back into illegal activities just to get by. Then they wind up causing more harm to more people.
That's not to say criminals shouldn't be punished. They should but it needs to be balanced and I think most people's issue here is that the fine is excessive. Though as someone else mentioned what he winds up paying might not be that high.
calistan
Member
The amount is complete bullshit. It’s like when there was a spate of people getting busted for hosting music on filesharing services, and the record companies claimed their losses equated to the retail price of each album multiplied by the number of downloads.
Of course, when streaming services replaced Napster and Limewire, those same companies had no problem with paying the artists a few pennies per million streams. Bunch of scumbags.
Impotaku
Member
how do you think mod chips are made?
ShadyAcshuns
Member
As others have said, they're using him as an example. I doubt they ever even try to collect anywhere near that amount. It's scare tactics 101.
Thirty7ven
Banned
It’s fucked up.
8BiTw0LF
Banned
Through cracking?
Mr.Phoenix
Member
I hate to be the one saying this, but recompense isn't about what the victim has, but what was lost.
If you do something that cost someone over$60M in losses, even if they are worth $6B, when caught, you owe them $60M.
And while hating big corpo may seem woke or whatever, I can never advocate for piracy like this.
If you do something that cost someone over$60M in losses, even if they are worth $6B, when caught, you owe them $60M.
And while hating big corpo may seem woke or whatever, I can never advocate for piracy like this.
lukilladog
Member
Bro, for each captured hacker there are dozens or hundreds having it their way, we are ruled by criminals nowadays.
Bragr
Banned
Depends on what he did, I don't know enough about this case. But the idea that lawyers would hold back when someone sold their products for millions, well, that's not realistic. Not saying it's the right thing to do.You are barbaric if you would actually essentially financially imprison someone for a lifetime for something as meaningless and incorporeal as "perceived" lost profits, the jail time is enough as it is
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calistan
Member
In this case the amount was plucked from thin air, by Nintendo, and not questioned at all by the court.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Had this been done to Sony, his head would be demanded.
Hugare
Member
Thats the point
You bet that there would be many more hackers like him if he had onlt received a pat on the back
Brutal, tho
Fuz
Banned
Fredrik
Member
The article said he earned $300k over 7 years, and Nintendo want him to sit in jail and pay $10 million. The punishment is kinda extreme.
DemonGamerTTT
Member
Onironauta
Member
More like fuck the US legal system, of course companies will take advantage of it
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
I like how the victim trying to get back what’s owed to them are the bad guy in this scenario.
Won’t somebody please think of the criminals!!!
A Most Virtuous Cat
Banned
With how fluid the laws are today, today's model citizen can be tomorrows criminal. Thank God for crypto.