The man was arrested for selling a 'majikon' type card



Police in the Aichi region of Japan arrested a vendor of majikon adapters (AKA flashcarts). He sold three of the devices over the internet between February 14th and March 9th, but...

If you didn't know, Japan's newly-amended "Unfair Competition Prevention Act" prohibits the sale of equipment designed to circumvent security mechanisms.

Now, a 39 year-old self-employed man in the Saitama Prefecture, Japan, was arrested for selling devices that let users play pirated games (AKA flashcarts) on Nintendo DS consoles.

Looks like he will be the first to face criminal charges under the new rules for selling these kind of devices.

"Majikon" (magic computer) devices like the well-known R4 cart for the Nintendo DS and its variants have been sold for years online and in Japan’s electronics districts, in defiance of a ban that made sales illegal, but didn't carry any criminal charges. Before last December’s amendment, the Unfair Competition Prevention Act "only" applied to equipment that enabled "copying" or "access," but the "only" got dropped, and now devices that allow users to run homebrew apps and pirated software on their consoles are fair game. The maximum penalties under the act are up to ten years in prison and fines of up to ten million yen (about $126,000).
Apparently, he only sold three of the devices over the internet between February 14th and March 9th, for a total of ¥7,200 (about $91). However, investigators claim he has sold about 1,200 of the devices since August of last year!

Perhaps he didn't know the new Act was already amended over there? Bad luck for him!

NEWS SOURCE #1: Nintendo DS flashcard Japan arrest criminal (via) TheVerge
NEWS SOURCE #2: Japan arrests suspected vendor of game pirating hardware (via) ArsTechnica

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!