Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 15, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The starting point of the proceedings is research by the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements e.V. (GVU) on eBay. The perpetrators had sold numerous popular GameBoy Advance games via this Internet auction house. A piece of evidence purchased by the GVU by means of a test purchase could be identified as an industrially manufactured pirated copy, whereupon the organization filed a criminal complaint. The cartridges now confiscated have identical counterfeiting characteristics. Among the seized items are the titles “Fifa 2007” and “Need for Speed”, as the North Hesse Police Headquarters states in a press release:
That dealing with pirated copies can entail sensitive criminal and civil-law consequences is currently being felt by two women from the Waldeck-Frankenberg district and the adjacent Schwalm-Eder district. Officers of the criminal police in Korbach seized almost one thousand copied games for the GameBoy Advance games console with a sales value of approx. 40,000 euros during a search of a home in a district of Bad Wildungen. The detectives also placed two computers through which the computer games were sold into official custody.
A tip from the public put the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements (GVU) in Hamburg on the trail of two women who are suspected of having sold the games commercially via an auction house on the Internet. A test purchase confirmed the suspicion that the game purchased was a pirated copy. The consequence was that the GVU, at the public prosecutor’s office in Kassel responsible for the place of residence, a criminal complaint for the unauthorized exploitation of works protected by copyright
filed.
Detectives from Korbach and Homberg recently arrived at the two main suspects with search warrants and found what they were looking for. Alongside the seller’s address in the district of Bad Wildungen, they also searched at the so-called account holder in Bad Zwesten. In the district of Bad Wildungen, the officers then also discovered an entire folding box full of copied goods that were distributed on the Internet by a 28-year-old housewife and mother. The unauthorized, apparently lucrative sideline, which the woman operated without registering a business anyway, now has consequences.
In Bad Zwesten, the investigators found no further pirated copies, but the 43-year-old acquaintance living there had been identified as the responsible holder of the Internet account.
The seized pirated copies are currently sought-after games, such as “Fifa 07” or “Need for speed”. The 28-year-old had a large range of common games on offer. The titles were offered as original goods in the auction house, where they are regularly traded at retail prices of between 20 and 60 euros. Some of the copied goods changed owners for half the retail price.
The games declared as warehouse goods were offered without the usual transparent plastic packaging. According to investigations so far, the 28-year-old obtained the goods from an Asian country. Product pirates produced the copies, which cannot be distinguished from originals in terms of display quality.
Alongside the criminal proceedings, the two responsible parties now face sensitive consequences from civil-law claims for damages by the owners of the manufacturing rights.
For the buyers or users of such pirated copies, even loading them onto a games console means unauthorized and therefore punishable copying.
Therefore the tip from the public prosecutor’s office and the police: Hands off copied goods, regardless of whether they are games or music. The prospective buyer should be cautious with particularly cheap offers. Alongside a bargain price, missing but customary original packaging can also indicate pirated copies.
