A Pirate’s Life: Every year, the Entertainment Software Association calls on U.S. regulators to address specific problems the video game industry is said to be facing. This year’s list includes some really interesting targets, starting with Chinese-made handheld gaming devices that come with extensive catalogs of pirated game ROMs.
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) recently submitted its latest recommendations on piracy to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). The filing identifies key perpetrators accused of violating the intellectual property rights of the U.S. entertainment industry, with a focus on individuals and companies suspected of engaging in large-scale piracy.
The ESA recommendations target so-called “superfakes” sold by Chinese manufacturers of handheld gaming devices. These plug-and-play consoles resemble legitimate, mass-produced consumer electronics. However, their greatest commercial appeal lies in their ability to run hundreds or even thousands of pirated video games stored directly in their internal memory.
Supercounterfeit handheld devices pose a significant copyright infringement problem, but could also pose a security risk to U.S. consumers and businesses. According to ESA’s comments to the USTR, these devices could contain unsafe or defective firmware and other potentially dangerous software components. Additionally, they could “intentionally” contain malware developed by cybercrime groups, terrorist organizations, or even state-sponsored actors.
One of the major players in the superfake handheld market is Anbernic. The ESA told the USTR that the Chinese brand has been operating for around nine years and brings eight to ten new gaming devices onto the market every year. These devices typically cost between $40 and $200, while the company’s official website attracts millions of visitors every month. The ESA also pointed to an enforcement action by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza in which around 12,000 Anbernic devices containing more than 47 million copies of pirated video games were seized.
The ESA argued that Anbernic’s “harm goes beyond replacing authorized game sales. Anbernic normalizes hardware piracy by providing illegal catalogs via a sophisticated consumer product, which meets the definition of a supercounterfeit defined above.”
Notorious Market Recommendations submitted to the USTR will not necessarily result in immediate enforcement action against the targeted devices or products. However, a potential U.S. action against Anbernic could trigger a broader wave of prosecutions against other Chinese handheld gaming devices accused of similar practices.
Elsewhere in its application, ESA also calls on the USTR to designate the infamous Denuvo cracker Voices38 as a notorious market. The mysterious developer or group of developers undermined Denuvo’s reputation among game studios by repeatedly decrypting anti-piracy technology. The ESA argues that the unnamed individual or group should be considered a “notorious market” because it continually releases games that have been cracked to bypass Denuvo’s DRM.
