Italian YouTuber faces prison time to display Android handheld in emulated game
There are countless Equipped with Android Game HandheldHowever, they are beyond the slate of regular Android games by providing console emulation support. The problem is Gamerom It is not completely legal on these devices.
Italian YouTuber I was once an otaku After some rights holders appear to confiscate his console, they are learning how seriously some rights holders take copyright infringement in the game. He now says the investigation could lead to criminal charges and the end of his channel.
Once upon a time, nerds created YouTube content covering many gaming topics, including Android-based handheld gaming machines such as Powkiddy and Trimui. These devices typically run older versions of Android, which have been significantly modified for gaming, and have built-in emulation support Retro Console Like SNES, Nintendo 64, PlayStation Portable, GameCube, etc. With the declining costs of mobile hardware, it has become so popular that you can essentially buy an updated PSP or Game Boy Advance for under $100.
Recently, otakus were once attracting attention from the Italian Ministry of Economic and Finance. In the first video discovered Android Authority (This has an English track with AI generated), YouTuber explains that Guardia Di Finanza appeared at his door in April with a search warrant.
Agents accused the creators of promoting pirated copyrighted works resulting from coverage of the Anbernic Handheld game console. Emulation software is not illegal, but the surprising number of these devices is packed with preloaded ROMs. The channel showed multiple Sony and Nintendo games running on the device. However, nerds were far from the only channels that post only channels for these devices.
Authorities seized more than 30 handheld consoles and requested copies of the former. The once-dead nerd says he worked perfectly with the investigators and insists that he has done nothing wrong.
Legal grey area
All of these handheld companies operate from China and go beyond the scope of Western copyright laws. They still sell their devices internationally and are stuck in a vague language about including game ROMs. For example, Anbernic offers a bundle with MicroSD cards marked “7,000+ compatible games.” This makes this approach to revisiting retro games at least a legal gray area. Authorities believe that once nerd activities could violate Article 171 of Italian copyright law.
It is unclear who committed the original complaint against the channel. Geeks once saw documents citing copyrighted materials from Nintendo and Sony, but Guardia di Finanza doesn’t need to disclose details until the preliminary investigation is over, and the agency itself can raise the case. (Nintendo is one Especially the litigation That they will defend intellectual property. ) Once the investigation is complete, the government will either file charges or dismiss the lawsuit. The current law also gives authorities the authority to shut down the former shutdown that was once a nerd channel while the investigation was underway.
Italy has a history of copyright enforcement. Recent national internet regulators Requested from Google Poison DNS Block illegal soccer streams. So it’s not hard to believe investigators will pursue lawsuits against people who post videos featuring pirated games on YouTube.
This story originally appeared Ars Technica.