http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=499» Nintendo Cracks Down on Counterfeiting
Published on 10/30/2004 by Kenny
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This Friday US District Judge, John C. Coughenour, temporarily prohibited the sale of counterfeit video game hardware and software at kiosks in Seattle-area malls, as well as the seizure of these materials in response to a lawsuit filed by Nintendo of America. The federal judge agreed that a loss of income and goodwill, along with the depreciation of company trademarks would result from the continued import and sale of these pirated goods. The hearing for this preliminary injunction will take place on November 4.
In Nintendo's first major effort to stop counterfeiting and piracy in the US, Jodi Daugherty, director of anti-piracy efforts for Nintendo in both the United States and Japan, said that this endeavor was backed by more than 400 tipsters. The pirated products are made in China.
However, Daugherty insists that this is only the beginning of what Nintendo believes to be "connected to a network of distribution."
Nintendo is currently working with federal investigators and the US Immigration and Customs Service to seize the goods, and according to a news release from the company, has collected tens of thousands of these infringing devices. These devices, known as the" Power Player," "Super Joystick," "Superjoy" and "Powerjoy," have hundreds of Nintendo video games directly imbedded into the hardware, which players plug into their television sets and play using a copied version of the Nintendo 64 controller. The company has already identified kiosks in more than 40 states selling these illegal products.
While the compensatory and punitive damages will be determined at the trial, Nintendo expects it to be in the millions of dollars.
Nintendo has arguably been in the forefront of preventing piracy from spreading in the video game industry, with heavy protection on its Nintendo GameCube console system. The hardware, which along with its general safety measures, also reads proprietary discs backwards to prevent hackers from reading off the information. While those efforts have been ultimately nulled, the nature of the proprietary optical disc reader on the GCN has still stopped the data from being transferred and read from more standard media, such as the DVD. As well, it will be interesting to see how the Nintendo DS, which features dual display touch-screen capabilities, will fare against counterfeiting once it is released on November 21.
Source: USA Today
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