Aah, the Guardia di Finanza, the one police organ all italians actually respect and fear ( or so I hear ).
The charges don’t make sense though. Maybe by reviewing “pirate” material he was indirectly bypassing paying the italian state its due and thus they jumped him?
Alternativelly, some higher-up got pressure via some politician after talking to some lobbyist or golf-buddy, to “do something”, and some lower-down who got the hot potato covered their ass by finding something they could do, all of which quite independently of any strategical considerations.
If one doesn’t assume the Justice System aims be Just, a lot of things become easilly explained without the needed to find some kind of Master Strategy Beyond Our Comprehension to explain them.
Yeah, it’s weird bcs as I understand that copyright law from 1941 is for the actual distribution, and if he never got paid by anyone in the distribution chain (tho as understand he did get some free consoles to review), then he wasn’t part of it - just filming himself saying what can be bought on the market.
The exact specifics change country by country, in Italy there are a lot of horseshit rules around it because one of the most powerful unions lobbies (our equivalent of the RIAA) for more exclusive control over media at every chance they get, to the point that you’re not allowed to distribute even your own media through physical sales without paying a cut.
Almost certainly there was some kind of pressure by somebody well connected on some higher up in the Italian Justice or Political Authorities of the
“Something Must Be Done!”
kind.
Followed by whomever was the last link in the shit chain coming from above, following the mental process of:
“This is Something we can do”
“We shall do This!”
It’s pretty standard in the stuff which isn’t their daily bread and butter that Justice Systems are driven by cronyism at the higher level and cover-my-ass at the lower level, especially in countries which have a culture of Cronyism.
(People are people, and even in Justice Systems they’re no more impeccably honest and fair than elsewhere - in fact positions with power tend to attract people who are less honest and fair than average, IMHO).
Often this shit gets overturned when it gets to court or on at least appeal (generally the system gets less crooked as you go up, though I know of cases in other similar countries in Europe were only when it got the European Court Of Human Rights did the injustice go made right) and once the Press’ (and the higher up’s) attention has moved on, but that is a mentally and economically very costly fight for individuals to fight, which is why poor people almost invariably get shafted in such a system when they cross the wrong person or “don’t know their place”.
According to the video, officials are not required to disclose what exactly the charges are or who has brought them until the initial investigation is complete under Italian law. At that point, the case is either dismissed or goes to trial. The complaint specifically mentions reproduction of copyrighted material from Nintendo and Sony, but the case may originate from the agency itself.
So for now we don’t actually know the charges or if the trial will procede, but yeah definitely not fair.
Fascists care about setting precedent and “purchased vaguely illegal content” is some great precedent.
This just also is a smart attack because the usual crowd is going to come out to insist that it is OWN’s fault for playing Nintendo games and piracy is the greatest problem facing the world and that Nintendo Switch Online™ is a great service.
Its the same as when the christofacists attacked Pornhub via Visa et al in the US. Everyone hates revenge porn and child porn (well, except for certain heads of state…) so nobody is going to complain but it made it very clear the path to destroy content that goes against the fascists’ interests.
Italy has always been a bit odd - I remember a group of scientists were convicted of manslaughter because they didn’t predict an earthquake that killed a few hundred people.
The USGS still claims, as it did in 2009, that earthquakes are unpredictable. At best they’ve been able to communicate when/where seismic events happen slightly faster than they propagate through the earth.
most of the time i get the “you’re having an earthquake” text a few seconds after the shaking stops, but a few times it’s come before it started so hey
What about that American college girl whose roommate died and they accused her of murdering her in a satanic ritual which all turned out to be made up by the Italian prosecution?
YouTuber Faces Possible Jail Time for Reviewing Gaming Handhelds
I’m so tired of these titles “Person arrested for perfectly legal thing”. He wasn’t arrested for reviewing gaming handhelds, he was arrested for copyright infringement.
Exactly. Copyright infringement? He was reviewing handheld that came with ROMs which is the copyright infringement apparently?
I agree the title is fine because the whole reason why he was arrested because he was reviewing the handheld that had the games on them. That is making an argument out of nothing
I understand your concern, potential employer, but I was never arrested for Chicago Sunroofing the Popemobile. There aren’t even any laws that say it’s illegal, I don’t know why people keep calling me that
It’s not pedantic. The title not only intentionally misrepresents the situation but it explains absolutely nothing. Reviewing hardware on YouTube is not a crime in any country to my knowledge, so how could he be arrested for it?
I agree, the title is literally false, just to get more engagement.
(If it was literal than any ads about such handhelds would be in the same category, not to mention YouTube as it allows this en masse.)
And this isn’t a comment abut the arrest (megacorps are always scumbags), just how “journalism” works nowdays.
It’s just a fact that the title could have easily explained why was he arrested - and it’s a fact that was omitted on purpose so that you have to click on it to see what the actual reason was (what potentially isn’t in accordance with the law).
(You don’t get the key info of the whole story until you pay for that info by clicking on the article so they get engagement monies.)
That is literally the charge/what they are investigating.
Afaik the difference will come down to if he was ever paid for a review (which would be the difference between a regular consumer buying a thing legally & showing what he bought vs him being part of the promo campaigns by the manufacturer … you know, like Google is).
And if there is no newer specific law (the old one ofc doesn’t explain shit since it’s from pre-computer era), it might come down to him receiving free consoles to review, and maybe having a bunch of SD cards full of ROMs in his apartment.
(Meaning that if they say free review merch is a form of payment, they go to trial. As I understand he didn’t/it’s not common practice to return stuff like this after review, tho some reviewers do it and some manufacturers demand it.)
He can be arrested for anything. If you want to argue that it wasn’t copyright infringement, you’ll have to take it up with the author. That’s what they said.
No, copyright infringement is a criminal offence in this case* - there won’t be any Nintendo/Sony lawyers in any part of the investigation or trial. They might have just reported a crime.
Nobody is getting sued by Nintendo (like would be the usual business in USA).
*it has it’s own jail sentence & a 15k€ fine, tho again not clear if per case or whatever bcs the law infrastructure just isn’t up to date (never was?)
Is anyone familiar with the channel itself? Because based on the article, it sounds like mostly (presumably he) is getting made an example of for reviewing hardware that comes with ROMs on an SD Card? But… a LOT of these “retro consoles” do and outlets just ignore it in favor of their totally legit collection that they don’t talk about.
Did OWN actually show what is on the SD Card and emphasize that these units came with it?
He seems super unsavvy when it comes to legal/formal proceedings or authority in general (I don’t mean that as a bad thing, we are all different, just that it can def affect how things go and escalate).
For one he got the notice in mid April & just continued to review (among other things?) such consoles this whole time (which makes me think now a trial is even more likely) & didn’t prepare for anything (his channels, personal things, SD cards with all them ROMs, etc).
The panic & the whole ‘why is this happening to me’ anger makes more sense in view of this (not that is isn’t warranted, from what I’ve seen it’s def stupid anyone is doing anything about this guy in general).
But other shit-showy things happened too - they took his phone to make a copy & didn’t return it for two months (it’s unclear if they had a warrant for it or if he volunteered it - or indeed if Italian law recognises what a “personal device” is as EU has yet to compile a delegated act that will unify definitions & personal rights for such modern necessities for all members).
(If a cop takes my phone & doesn’t promptly return it still locked I’m marring their mom & make them call me daddy before the trial starts. Then submit my phone in evidence with saucy newlywed pics. I would be angy too if they took my phone, not to mention some poor data retrieval specialist getting a lifetime dose of ptsd.)
An Italian youtuber with some legal experience explains a bit more (in Italian): youtube./zSEB4if2pJQ#.
What I was thinking is that the complaint had to be specific, ie some lawyer (for a Japanese megacorp?) found an exact thing to complain about (eg in this exact second of this specific vid he admits this personal gain and shows that illegal thing, etc). Not just something vague.
They are looking at all his communication, finances, and content on his channels (but might be focusing only on one YT channel - this and the fact they mention an Anbernic device makes me think it’s a very specific complaint).
I don’t know that much about Italian law enforcement but I agree that is a bit sus they went after him at all - there might be more to the story that he either isn’t saying or thinks (in your average “law ignorance” way) irrelevant but is very relevant. Idk.
Retro gaming YouTuber Once Were Nerd has been sued and raided by the Italian government.
That's insane. I know many of these handhelds come with pirated roms but taking it out on a youtube reviewer is outrageous. Why don't they just ban them from being shipped to italy?
Easier to stomp on one individual than to crack down on the businesses importing this stuff. They’re probably also collecting some kind of import duty on them too.
In fact, ever since the PS4 I’ve been strictly a PC gamer.
Seeing how Microsoft was able to lower everyone’s standards by charging for online really puts things into perspective for me.
It’s great because now I don’t have to buy hardware or software. Looking forward to emulating switch 2 games before they’re even released like ToTK, lol.
I think Nintendo first party games are great. And I certainly don’t think they’re losing money… the Switch has the most global sales of any current console by a lot. In fact, the PS2 is the only non-Nintendo console to have sold more.
Strange that they targeted Palworld but not any of the other monster collector games that came out in the last 10 yesrs that weren’t nearly as successful.
They don’t need the money, but them wanting other developers money is what makes them do these petty lawsuits. And if they really wanted the money then they could have just made the pokemon game that Palworld ended up filling the niche for.
But they’re lazy and greedy instead of a fun games company so they choose to hire lawyers to suppress real competitors
Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP suits or intimidation lawsuits), or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition
There are many, many variants. The idea is the smaller player can’t really afford to fight in court, so even if the larger actor has shaky legal claims they will still win.
androidauthority.com
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