Potentially Risque Subject: Pirated Famicom Wholesalers
So, I came across this site while looking up pirated Famicom games, and was surprised that they could sell these games for so little. They could especially sell them as wholesale if they wanted, which would make for a decent business in poorer countries with devastated economies, such as Greece.
http://soiboughtallthesegames.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-really-235for-some-of-best-games.html
However, I went on those sites, and little did I know that they are online. So I went to order a few games from one of them, to be told that there was an error and the page could not be found when I was checking out. Are these sites technically dead, or did I do something wrong? If these sites are dead, know of any places I could get these beauts for far less than what eBay would ask, cause I am considering my little business idea for Greece. Thanks in advance!
http://soiboughtallthesegames.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-really-235for-some-of-best-games.html
However, I went on those sites, and little did I know that they are online. So I went to order a few games from one of them, to be told that there was an error and the page could not be found when I was checking out. Are these sites technically dead, or did I do something wrong? If these sites are dead, know of any places I could get these beauts for far less than what eBay would ask, cause I am considering my little business idea for Greece. Thanks in advance!
Comments
I'm sure i'm not the only one that remembers the demise of Lik Sang and how hard Customs can come down on stuff like this.
My question was, are these sites dead, or did I do something wrong?
Good luck, though.
In a dirt-poor country they just buy pirate CD's, burned at the game store. Doubt they're bothering with something like famicom carts.
Also, on the Lik Sang thing, it was US Customs that was seizing and destroying their packages. Maybe it was at Sony's request, but part of what Customs Enforcement does is seize pirate goods at the border.
And I don't feel like paying $20 dollars for a pirated Famicom cart when I could buy them from China for a fraction of the cost.
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
I think you do business with a site that wholesales pirated items at your own risk...
I'm sure i'm not the only one that remembers the demise of Lik Sang and how hard Customs can come down on stuff like this.
I still miss Lik-Sang.com I never bought any PSPs from there however I did order a few things. I got my cherished Super Mario Brothers 2 Famicom Disk System mini series GBA cart from there, and a couple of other Japanese Game Boy games I ordered, and they took nearly 4 months to arrive back in 2004/2005. Were customs really destroying the packages without even checking them for infringing contents first? Maybe that is why my stuff sat in transit for over 4 months...
By the way, those Japanese PSPs were not pirated goods. Sony was making money off them whether they were imported or not.
Originally posted by: stardust4ever
By the way, those Japanese PSPs were not pirated goods. Sony was making money off them whether they were imported or not.
Yes, but Lik Sang did sell quite a bit of pirate stuff, as well as flash carts for modern systems.
Once the investigation started, the latter is what actually shut them down, since they got caught up in a gigantic DMCA violation that made it impossible for them to have any of their goods clear US customs.
Originally posted by: stardust4ever
By the way, those Japanese PSPs were not pirated goods. Sony was making money off them whether they were imported or not.
But according to courts in the UK (and therefore all of EU), importing them was illegal. Any Lik-Sang package would be inspected by customs and if it was a PSP or other banned game/device would be destroyed. If customs even think its a banned product (and you know how smart those guys are) it would be destroyed (aka taken home by customs agent).
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
Originally posted by: stardust4ever
By the way, those Japanese PSPs were not pirated goods. Sony was making money off them whether they were imported or not.
Yes, but Lik Sang did sell quite a bit of pirate stuff, as well as flash carts for modern systems.
Once the investigation started, the latter is what actually shut them down, since they got caught up in a gigantic DMCA violation that made it impossible for them to have any of their goods clear US customs.
If I remember well, Lik-Sang stopped to sell pirated stuff and mod chips some time before the Sony issue (I don't remember seeing those kind of things the last years, and according to Wikipedia, the store stopped selling them in 2002). I think the sole reason for them to shut down was that they couldn't pay the legal expenses to defend themselves.
Maddox summarizes this well: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sony_bullshit
Originally posted by: buttheadrulesagain
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
Originally posted by: stardust4ever
By the way, those Japanese PSPs were not pirated goods. Sony was making money off them whether they were imported or not.
Yes, but Lik Sang did sell quite a bit of pirate stuff, as well as flash carts for modern systems.
Once the investigation started, the latter is what actually shut them down, since they got caught up in a gigantic DMCA violation that made it impossible for them to have any of their goods clear US customs.
If I remember well, Lik-Sang stopped to sell pirated stuff and mod chips some time before the Sony issue (I don't remember seeing those kind of things the last years, and according to Wikipedia, the store stopped selling them in 2002). I think the sole reason for them to shut down was that they couldn't pay the legal expenses to defend themselves.
Maddox summarizes this well: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sony_bullshit
They were still selling R4DS and similar devices up until their demise. I was trying to buy a GBA flash cart, at the time, and they cancelled my order after about a month of being offline, and the emails I then received implied that, in the USA at least, they were under the gun for DMCA violations related to flash cart hardware.
Originally posted by: Luigi_Master
Well, the site I linked to was a reviewing site, and he mentioned that he bought the five or so games that he reviewed from the first site he linked to. All those sites accordingly are based in China.
And I don't feel like paying $20 dollars for a pirated Famicom cart when I could buy them from China for a fraction of the cost.
If they're the same ones I'm thinking of, the quality is really crap. They don't use the similar plastic of real famicom games, it feels like milk-jug plastic.
Originally posted by: buttheadrulesagain
Maddox summarizes this well: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sony_bullshit
While the animated gif is awesome, that is a horrible summary with many errors. Lik-Sang was certainly not a small time importer, they were massive. They chose to not defend themselves to keep their huge profits instead of paying legal fees and damages. They probably would have still lost, but they didn't even try. It was just a smooth way to shut down everything. How did PSPs to UK take down the whole company when previous lawsuits from Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft didn't?
Originally posted by: captmorgandrinker
Originally posted by: Luigi_Master
Well, the site I linked to was a reviewing site, and he mentioned that he bought the five or so games that he reviewed from the first site he linked to. All those sites accordingly are based in China.
And I don't feel like paying $20 dollars for a pirated Famicom cart when I could buy them from China for a fraction of the cost.
If they're the same ones I'm thinking of, the quality is really crap. They don't use the similar plastic of real famicom games, it feels like milk-jug plastic.
I have several of them, and yeah, the plastic casing is horrendous, even compared to the Pirated Famicom-style shells. If there was a place to find a whole batch of dead Famicom games for their shells (or even RetroUSB making Famicom cart shells ), I'd do the replacing once they start to fall apart upon being used.