So long Gary Bowser!

So long a sentence that is...Forty months? Forty months? That's what Gary Bowser got for running a group that sold mod chips for Nintendo Switches. And it's a lot, right?

Yeah, so about the title, I'm not trying to be a jerk, it's just that at the end of
Super Mario 64 Mario swings Bowser around by the tail and says something that, thanks
 to garbled mid-90's technology, sounds like "So long gay Bower" and I couldn't resist.

I mean, just wait a few decades
until it falls into public domain.

To be clear, I think that the theft of someone's intellectual property is 100% a crime. In fact, it doesn't even matter what I think, because it is actually a crime. Even if it is one that usually only hurts massive multi-national corporations. And speaking of, it's a crime Amazon, which sells knock-off game consoles loaded with hundreds of pirated game ROMs, seems to have been getting away with for years. Anyway, it doesn't matter. A good policy is just to not pirate other people's stuff. 

So in all, $14.5 million. Of money. Kind
of makes Nintendo look a little, I don't
know, What's the word? Wario-esque?

Gary Bowser's crime was that he was the public relations person for a group called Team Xecuter--dumb name--which made and sold kits that people could use to modify game consoles so as to allow them to play pirated software. He was also doing some wire fraud and money laundering, but pled down to distributing circumvention devices. Nintendo also sued him in civil court and he agreed to pay them 4.5 million in restitution and then a judge added another ten million on top of that.

Yeah, I'll stop harping on this when the
GOP admits its members bear responsibility
and expels everyone involved. So never.

And yesterday, Nintendo released a statement thanking and praising the efforts of the FBI, Homeland Security (what?), and other agencies involved in protecting their intellectual assets and there's just something a little, I don't know, gross about all this? Like, there's no denying that Bowser and presumably the other members of Team Xecutor (still dumb) committed crimes, but it's not like they defrauded people out of their retirement funds, jacked up prices on life-saving medications, or stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the government. 

So yes, crimes, but crimes against business, not against say humanity or democracy. It just seems like Homeland Security and the FBI and the DOJ should have better things to do and maybe Nintendo should, I don't know, seem a little less proud of sending someone to prison for three years.

I think this scene in New Super Mario Bros. where Mario drops Bowser
into lava and then watches with satisfaction as he flails in agony before
sinking beneath the flames, neatly encapsulates Nintendo's behavior here.