Retro reviewer could face up to three years in jail over copyright — Italian authorities investigate creator for 'advertising' Anbernic handheld game consoles

(Image credit: Once Were Nerd / YouTube)

Italian content creator Francesco Salicini, who owns the YouTube channel Once Were Nerd, says he is currently under investigation by Italian authorities for allegedly promoting piracy by “advertising” Anbernic game consoles. Anbernic is known for its retro handheld gaming consoles that can emulate classic titles from Nintendo and Sony. However, the company often ships its products with microSD cards that contain hundreds of copyrighted ROMs. This is definitely against the law and a form of piracy, but Salicini claims that he only reviewed the hardware and that no manufacturer sponsored his videos. He even went further and refrained from adding affiliate links to his content.

MI HANNO DENUNCIATO. ADDIO o ARRIVEDERCI?... - YouTube

Watch On

Salicini is currently accused of violating Article 171 ter of the Italian Copyright Law, which metes out a maximum penalty of €15,000 (around US$17,000) and three years' jail time. At the moment, his case is still under investigation, with the Italian Guardia di Finanza (Financial Police) seizing more than 30 consoles, including those from Anbernic, TrimUI, and Powkiddy. The police also hold the creator’s phone, as well as the transcripts of his conversations with these gaming handheld makers.

The initial investigation takes about six months, after which the authorities will have to decide whether to drop the case or to go forward with the criminal proceedings. But in the meantime, Salicini also runs the risk of having his channels taken down even without definitive proof that he’s in the wrong.

Nintendo is known to be extremely protective of its intellectual property and is known to serve copyright strikes against YouTubers who emulate its games on their channels. The company has also taken down thousands of Yuzu emulator repos on GitHub and successfully shut down Ryujinx. At the moment, we don’t know who filed the case against Salicini, but if Nintendo or Sony (or both) is behind this, then they’re taking things up a notch with this potential case.

There’s currently a tug-of-war between game studios and game preservation enthusiasts on the legality of emulators. On the one hand, developers and studios want to have total and complete control over all their titles, even those that have been published almost 50 years ago. But as the hardware designed to run these games is slowly dying out and keeping them running on current-gen consoles might not be profitable for developers, the only way we can enjoy these is through the use of emulators — or else we risk losing these games forever.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.

TOPICS

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

10 Comments Comment from the forums

pug_s

That sucks. Guess you can't do that kind of stuff in EU specifically Italy.
Reply
TerryLaze

pug_s said:
That sucks. Guess you can't do that kind of stuff in EU specifically Italy.
However, the company often ships its products with microSD cards that contain hundreds of copyrighted ROMs. This is definitely against the law and a form of piracy,
You can't do that kind of stuff anywhere, legally.
Now in many places the gov is not going to care enough but that can change at any moment, all it takes is for one company (nintendo) to make an official complaint and any government is going to chase that.
Reply
coolitic

TerryLaze said:
You can't do that kind of stuff anywhere, legally.
Now in many places the gov is not going to care enough but that can change at any moment, all it takes is for one company (nintendo) to make an official complaint and any government is going to chase that.
Actually, US courts have ruled emulation, and reverse-engineering in general, to be legal.

See: one of the relevant court-cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp
The backing up of ROMs itself (that is, for personal use) is a somewhat grey area; but, for the general case, even Nintendo has been too cowardly to challenge that directly, which indicates that they think courts would rule it legal in the general case.
Reply
ezst036

It's always Nintendo.
Reply
TerryLaze

coolitic said:
The backing up of ROMs itself (that is, for personal use) is a somewhat grey area; but, for the general case, even Nintendo has been too cowardly to challenge that directly, which indicates that they think courts would rule it legal in the general case.
What about the part I quoted did you not see/not understand?!
This is not personal use, this is a company giving them out for profits, this is the same as any of the many emulation rom webpages that nintendo initiated being taken down.
And knowingly buying something illegal is also illegal in most places on this world, you have to be able to proof that you thought you did nothing wrong.

However, the company often ships its products with microSD cards that contain hundreds of copyrighted ROMs. This is definitely against the law and a form of piracy,

Reply
mrmessma

TerryLaze said:
What about the part I quoted did you not see/not understand?!
This is not personal use, this is a company giving them out for profits, this is the same as any of the many emulation rom webpages that nintendo initiated being taken down.
And knowingly buying something illegal is also illegal in most places on this world, you have to be able to proof that you thought you did nothing wrong.
Not replying to the back and forth with you and coolitic, but is receiving something illegal unprompted in the mail wrong? Or should he have known the origins of this and reported it?

Theoretically (likely not the case), perhaps someone at anberic owns all the games on the console, and shipped just this one (with personal backups) to the reviewer and is not using the originals while he reviews said product. That would be legal just as you would loan a game to someone (and not simultaneously use the backup while they're in possession of it).
Reply
DS426

Regardless of what everyone interprets of the law around the world, I wouldn't touch Nintendo emulation with a 10-foot pole. There's been plenty of legal actions at this point that showing the world on YouTube clearly isn't a good idea -- does this even have to be said!?

Even if Nintendo is in the wrong (as a legal fact/court decision), they can punish folks in gray areas with legal fees, temporary take-downs, reputational harm, and so forth. Laws themselves tend to have ambiguities that allow for a degree of interpretation, often meaning the outcome in court isn't clear from the onset, but it certainly helps the side with the MUCH deeper pockets.
Reply
TerryLaze

mrmessma said:
Not replying to the back and forth with you and coolitic, but is receiving something illegal unprompted in the mail wrong? Or should he have known the origins of this and reported it?

Theoretically (likely not the case), perhaps someone at anberic owns all the games on the console, and shipped just this one (with personal backups) to the reviewer and is not using the originals while he reviews said product. That would be legal just as you would loan a game to someone (and not simultaneously use the backup while they're in possession of it).
That's why it's an investigation and not outright incarceration, they will look into it to see, if this reviewer got several of these handhelds and all (or even just some) of them had roms on it, then it was the reviewers duty to check with whomever sends these out to see if they are legal copies (which they never are) .

Since there is no way to proof that the other party doesn't play the same games while having send you their copy that part would pretty much not stand in curt as a defense.

As a reviewer you never show backed up roms unless you have the original game and show that as well.
Reply
atomicWAR

TerryLaze said:
What about the part I quoted did you not see/not understand?!
This is not personal use, this is a company giving them out for profits, this is the same as any of the many emulation rom webpages that nintendo initiated being taken down.
And knowingly buying something illegal is also illegal in most places on this world, you have to be able to proof that you thought you did nothing wrong.
I mean fair point but I bought a Anbernic online via Amazon and it came with zero Roms. Had it come with roms I would of reported the seller as I do not condone piracy. Pay for what you play, period.

Point being as long as they aren't shipped with roms I think these retro handhelds/consoles are great products. I have a ton of old carts I can use. But I also have a very large database of old Roms I have backed/picked up over the years and own that get played often enough. If I run across a rom I don't own and I decide to play the game... I always purchase the title if it is humanly possible but so many games evaporate. Publishers make it hard to pay them for their old content if not outright impossible. Personally I'd like to see a rom database of everything more than a gen old that gives the user the ability to legally purchase old content while ensuring the proper parties get paid for their work.

We are losing our gaming history. If we continue to allow devs/hardware makers like Nintendo to dictate the terms of EOL content/hardware there may come a day where more obscure titles no longer exist. Heck imagine a day where no one knows Pac-Man or at least cannot/has not played it.

Game preservation needs to be considered more important issue in the tech community and in the general populous as a whole. That is why I also believe that TOS's that steal/limit your ability to sell/will or otherwise do as you wish with your digital (and physical) games needs to be changed. Devs/publishers need to get their fair cut but not at the cost of the consumer's agency over their purchased games/content.

Remember Bungie with Destiny 2 garbage binning hundreds of dollars worth of content you can no longer play? That should be illegal and the kind of thing laws should be drafted to prevent, not sending law enforcement after gamers for simply trying to play titles they can no longer buy or get their hands on easily. BTW That was when I stopped playing Destiny and said never again to Bungie...
Reply
Alvar "Miles" Udell

Should be a law to where if a game isn't being actively developed or commercially sold for a period of time, say 10 years after last release or date of sale, it is classified as "Legally Abandoned" and free for anyone to distribute on a non-commercial basis, much like public domain laws for books and other media. If a game studio, console maker, or developer wants people to be charged with pirating games, they should be required to prove loss of revenue, and if they aren't selling it then they aren't making any money, so the value is zero. No loss, no crime. The period of time is to keep the options open for them to be ported to newer consoles and such.
Reply

Show more comments