The man who owes Nintendo $14m: Gary Bowser and gaming’s most infamous piracy case
The hacker whose involvement with anti-piracy software ended in a jail sentence has emerged from prison struggling to make rent as he starts paying his fine. ‘It could be worse,’ he says
If only the legal system would also fine companies many times their earning potential for their infractions.
Well they should have fined Facebook for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a couple of trillions. That would have taught a lot of companies about ethics how to not lose all your money.
Legally, he’s not allowed to mess around with modern gaming hardware.
I find these things very disgusting. Not sure if that extends to computers in general. But courts can and have basically prevented "hackers" from taking part in modern life or use the skills they are good at to make ends meet.
And make products better
No one seems to be enforcing that part of his sentence, judging by the fact he recently came out with a new flashcard for the Nintendo switch, and people already found proof he is behind it
Free Kevin!
He's dead dude.
Hey Nintendo, FUCK YOU
At this point, I refuse to give Nintendo any money. I love their games, but the way they run their company is horrible. Screwing this guy over is just one point on a very long list.
Honestly if I had heard about this case before I bought my switch I probably would have said the same now I feel like I have a piece of Hardware that I barely use anyway that I feel like I shouldn't have bought.
Granted I feel like this is kind of his own fault, not because of his involvement with it but because it seems like he just literally folded without a fight. I think it's yet actually fought the charges, yes it would have cost time and money in the long run but I don't think it would be as bad as what the punishment they gave was.
14 million dollars. What a stupid and useless punishment, even as an example to others. Cruel and unusual. Anyone going to the piracy level of the crew he was involved in isn't going to be deterred. They'll take their chances. All this did was make some dude with a hard life suffer more. That's multiple lifetimes of money that a billion dollar corporation will never see, or need. Way to go, court system. Ruining a life for no good reason.
Just 8.2 lifetimes. No biggie.
Financially enslaved for life by a corporation. What a sick world we live in. Fuck Nintendo.
fuck paying Nintendo for life. I hope he can move to a country where Nintendo won't be able to enforce anything and start a new life. He committed a victimless crime which shouldn't even be a crime IMO and even worse, he was imprisoned for it. And now he has to live as a slave for Nintendo the rest of his life?
I don't really know which countries would legally shield him from Nintendo's bullshit tho.
Bowser maintains that he could have fought the allegations, and that other members of the hacking group remain at large. … It was easier, he claims, to plead guilty … Bowser now has to send Nintendo 20-30% of any money left over after he pays for necessities such as rent.
… Bowser … thinks that after rent, he has a couple of hundred dollars leftover for food and other necessities. He assumes he’ll be turning to food support services.
Love charities supporting Nintendo. Good making an example out of him! That’ll teach future hackers to use TOR, I mean not do it!
More proof that justice is a multi-tiered system in America. Restrictions over cruel and unusual punishment don't apply to to the bottom rung of society when you have made the mistake of offending a rich capitalist or corporation.
I feel sorry for the poor bastard
You should be allowed to modify your own hardware. Bowser does not "owe" Nintendo, they and the law gave him an offer he can't refuse.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He got briefly caught up with the law during a stint fixing games consoles at flea markets, which nearly implicated him alongside vendors who sold pirated movies.
It was here that Bowser – who, in a case of nominative determinism that feels almost too trite to acknowledge, shares a name with Super Mario’s in-game antagonist – started becoming the face of Nintendo piracy.
In the late 00s he made contact with Team Xecuter, a group that produces dongles used to bypass anti-piracy measures on Nintendo Switch and other consoles, letting them illegally download, modify and play games.
While he says he was only paid a few hundred dollars a month to update their websites, Bowser says the people he worked with weren’t very social and he helped “testers” troubleshoot devices.
“And suddenly I wake up and see three people surrounding my bed with rifles aimed at my head … they dragged me out of the place, put me in the back of a pickup truck and drove me to the Interpol office.”
While inside, Bowser couldn’t always get the medical attention he needed, he claims, and even when he did, the realities of prison still exacerbated his health issues – he has elephantiasis in his left leg.
The original article contains 1,444 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 86%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I'm always surprised with the enormous show of force in cases like this. I would imagine sending him a letter informing him that he and his lawyer need to show up at the police/fbi/otherAlphabetAgency office on date X would have been sufficient.
Don’t worry, if a big corporation would have defrauded him for a few millions, I’m sure they would have gotten a letter.
Ruby Ridge.
Waco. They sent in fucking tanks, burnt the place down, with kids inside.
Those are two off the top of my head.
With Ruby Ridge the FBI entrapped him, then shot his dog, and then his son who was protecting his dog. Then his wife.
Every cocksucker FBI agent involved should be on billboards, then hanged (the old fashioned way) on the White House lawn.
Bowser says the people he worked with weren't very social and he helped testers" troubleshoot devices.
"And suddenly I wake up and see three people surrounding my bed with rifles aimed at my head ...
Wow, that escalated quickly
People like Gary Bowser are the reason why we need copyright reform.
Won't someone please think about Nintendo!?
I wonder if they send a person out to make sure he is eating gruel.
If I was stupidly rich I'd pay the entire fine to nullify the punishment to Gary. It isn't about the money to Nintendo; it's about making an example of him.
All that talk about the punishment fitting the crime in the justice system, unless you ruffle the feathers of some rich corporation.
Here's a fantastic video from an actual lawyer who talks about this case.
He implies that Bowser isn't necessarily innocent, but he is probably the fall guy for a much larger operation.
Except, of course, that he is innocent in the sense that what he did shouldn't have been a crime to begin with.
What he did was nothing more than facilitate console owners' property right to modify their devices.
I never stated my opinion on the matter. Just restating what a lawyer is saying about the ruling and why it went the way it did.
But the founding fathers put the DMCA in the constitution for a reason!
/s
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/j9_1Wl9pjLU?si=tk-6KAjg0FtbJABf
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I would literally attempt to assassinate the head of Nintendo if this happened to me.
Reggie disliked that.
Let's change the crime to a pie..... I take a pie and leave it out in front of my house on the front of the fence (aka firewall). Now the pie is special because It comes with instructions on how to make it under the plate.
Mr Gary is walking his dog down the street. His dog torrent smells that pie and grabs the plate carefully bringing it to Mr Gary. Mr Gary is a little embarrassed but hey it's outside the wall so what could it hurt.
They get home and Mr Gary eats the pie with his good ol friend torrent, and he notices the recipe. He loves the pie so he gives the recipe to all his friends. Sure the ingredients do cost money but in the case of software they do not. Now everyone is enjoying this new pie flavor and not buying it from Mr Nintendo the pie makers and plumbing company. So Mr Nintendo sues Mr Gary for all the pies that would have been sold. 14million dollars based on the pecan recipe previously sold.
So who is at fault? Fucking Nintendo! Don't leave your brand new pies out in the public you dumb asses!
Now, judge Dread suggests..."the fence is still in Mr Nintendo's Property"..... 🤔.! Really?
Then why does Mr. Google and all his friends go up to my fence to collect cookies when I leave my fence open? Shouldn't I be able to sue their ass just because I can't quite close my fence to them?
Link to his gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/garyopa-restarting-his-life
Don’t donate too much, Nintendo’s gonna take that shit.
Dude needs to move to a country without Nintendo jurisdiction and restart the GoFundMe. I’d give the dude $100. Fuck Nintendo over that.
Is no one going to comment on how ironic it is that the guy's name is Bowser?
They did comment on that in the article. It's also the name of Nintendo of America's president.
Lol this man has to be on public services because Nintendo wants him to send them 20 bucks every month for the rest of his life. Fucking petty AND basically passing lots of cost on to taxpayers AND they still will never stop pirates. Fuck Nintendo, yo.
Darknet diaries had a really good episode on this guy and his mod chip business. It's really fascinating stuff, but Nintendo really ruined his life.
What's funny is that pirates often become paying customers when they can afford it. So it's not unlikely that Bowser helped stoke the flames of nostalgia in thousands of gamers. And what kind of console do you think those people are going to get for their kids if they ever start a family?
Maybe we should crowd fund someone who will pay for everything for this guy while it's not technically his money so a part time nothing job can cover the technicality of him needing to pay Nintendo.
why the hell doesn't he just declare bankruptcy and move on? That's what those laws are for.
Not a lawyer, but bankruptcy laws sometimes won't apply to criminal penalties / restitution.
I've learned from this community that piracy isn't theft, yet Nintendo's attorney said to the court, "It’s for that reason that we do all we can to prevent games on Nintendo systems from being stolen."
Why is the attorney allowed to lie to the court? Shouldn't he be disbarred and prosecuted himself?