Item — HN Reader

This is a conclusory argument since it doesn't explain why this particular alleged act of selling video game saves is illegal.

https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/85973/how-to-address...

I'd like to know whether this Japanese law explicitly says "selling video game save data is illegal" (seems less likely) or if there is an interpretation of the Unfair Competition Act that the alleged facts constitute counterfeiting or something.

https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/2803/e...

I'm not a lawyer so I'm not an expert on the Japanese legal system but merely asserting that the law bans a specific act isn't helpful because it doesn't explain how.

2 comments

As outlined in Article 3(1) of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act, the unauthorized modification of Pokémon data can potentially diminish the enjoyment derived from the game, leading to detrimental consequences for game sales.

It's certainly not an applicable argument to a lawyer/judge but that's wholly different than being helpful for joe schmoe reading a news article summary of the situation on the web. You don't need to replace the understanding and process of the Japanese court system with personal understanding and investigation to start understanding a news article. Same as you don't need to spend decades studying maths to get a useful takeaway from a news article talking about Andrew Wile's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

I'm not saying nobody can ask further questions if they want , just that arguing you can have no new understanding of the situation without an explanation to the level of a Japanese lawyer arguing the text of the law in a way you personally understand and can follow is silly. You also don't need to personally and independently validate the dude's sales transactions to be able to get the takeaway that yeah, the article is probably right that he made sales of this service and didn't just modify personal files.

I got a reasonable level of understanding from "Japanese police arrest man for tampering with Pokémon Violet save data".

Expanding that by mentioning the Unfair Competition Prevention Act gave me no additional understanding.

It's not that I can't comprehend the situation just fine as a layman, it's that the quote above did not give me any perspective I didn't already have from the headline. It was not helpful as an addition to the headline. It only introduces a new mystery.

It also comes with a message explaining the exact act of selling the modifications is explicitly covered under said law rather than some assumed problem with generic copyright law or thing that might be easily defendable against. It could be declared as being against part of the "chips and cheese law" and the lack of personally being able to tie the title of the law to how it's related would still leave that extra context beyond what the title gives.

Concluding there must be no possibility to see new information to see out of something in the face of others doing just that is not something others can help you with. Either you're interested in extracting the extra information on your own or you won't accept someone telling you it's there. Either way: yes, it's still really additional perspective to most others regardless of you see how.