SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
When 54-year-old Gary Bowser pleaded guilty to his role in helping Team Xecuter with their piracy-enabling line of console accessories, he realized he would likely never pay back the $14.5 million he owed Nintendo in civil and criminal penalties. In a new interview with The Guardian, though, Bowser says he began making $25 monthly payments toward those massive fines even while serving a related prison sentence.
Last year, Bowser was released after serving 14 months of that 40-month sentence (in addition to 16 months of pre-trial detention), which was spread across several different prisons. During part of that stay, Bowser tells The Guardian, he was paid $1 an hour for four-hour shifts counseling other prisoners on suicide watch.
[...] Nintendo lawyers were upfront that they pushed for jail time for Bowser to "send a message that there are consequences for participating in a sustained effort to undermine the video game industry."
[...] Bowser also maintains that he wasn't directly involved with the coding or manufacture of Team Xecuter's products and only worked on incidental details like product testing, promotion, and website coding. Speaking to Ars in 2020, Aurora, a writer for hacking news site Wololo, described Bowser as "kind of a PR guy" for Team Xecuter. Despite this, Bowser said taking a plea deal on just two charges saved him the time and money of fighting all 14 charges made against him in court.
[...] Now that he's free, Bowser says he has been relying on friends and a GoFundMe[https://www.gofundme.com/f/garyopa-restarting-his-life] page to pay for rent and necessities as he looks for a job. That search could be somewhat hampered by his criminal record and by terms of the plea deal that prevent him from working with any modern gaming hardware.
Despite this, Bowser told The Guardian that his current circumstances are still preferable to a period of homelessness he experienced during his 20s. And while console hacking might be out for Bowser, he is reportedly still "tinkering away with old-school Texas Instruments calculators" to pass the time.
Alternate source with GoFundMe link (added to the story above): Nintendo Sued a Man So Severely That He Can Only Survive on GoFundMe
Similar on SoylentNews:
Denuvo Promises to Kill Nintendo Switch Emulator Piracy With New Protection - 20220828
Nintendo Confirms Breach of 160,000 Accounts - 20200425
Nintendo Wins Lawsuit Against ROM Sites, Defendants Agree to Pay $12.23 Million - 20181114
Nintendo Sues ROM Sites - 20180723
Nintendo Begins Locking Out Switch Hackers From Online Services - 20180523
Hacking Group Fail0verflow Shows Linux Running on the Nintendo Switch - 20180213
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday February 05 2024, @04:56PM (4 children)
Fair point; although one is not required to make such a plea, it is always a possibility to fall back on the court.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Tuesday February 06 2024, @10:06AM (3 children)
Consider the fine print in those "contracts of adhesion" that many businesses demand agreement to ( usually in the "Terms and Conditions" behind the "agree" button when visiting a business on the web ) where you agree to "binding arbitration" aka "Kangaroo Kourt" and waive any right to a jury trial.
When I see that kind of business talk in a contract, all sorts of red flags go up, almost as if they were flat telling me they have already prepared for my disappointment should I buy their offering.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday February 06 2024, @10:22AM (1 child)
Hmm, I have never noticed that and I do (sometimes) read the T&Cs. But perhaps it is one of those USian things? I couldn't find much detail about it from a UK point of view.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday February 06 2024, @10:25AM
ps: OTOH TFA refers to US case so UK or elsewhere law is somewhat irrelevant.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Wednesday February 07 2024, @12:18AM
A lot of those, hilariously, have been getting removed from contracts. To ensure the correct ruling, it's written in there that the corporation will pay for the arbitration.
....turns out if you get a class-action amount of people demanding that the company pay for arbitration, that costs the company a whole lot.