According to DealExtreme and GBATemp, the ESA(Entertainment Software Association) has been starting to send notices to different dealers of the card to cease and desist otherwise they will face legal charges.
The e-mail:
Spoiler
Please see the following link regarding circumvention of copyright protected systems:http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html#1201
These devices circumvent copryright protection measures implemented by the console's manufacturer and are used to play pirated Nintendo GBA and DS games directly from a flash memory card. Additionally, Nintendo engineers have tested devices such as these and some, including the R4, contain copyrighted boot code that is normally found on authentic DS cartridges. Please remove or disable access to the infringing material as requested in the DMCA notice below.
Regards, Jake Snyder
Manager, Internet Enforcement Entertainment Software Association 575 7th Street, NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 Phone: (202) 223-2400 x134 http://www.theESA.com jsnyder@theESA.com
As you see, it looks like a joke, even if it has a couple mis-spellings, but DealExtreme got the same e-mail as well.
Hit of GBATemp was recently sent an e-mail from the ESA, and is scared, because of it, he works for one of these companies, so I don't know. Anyway, here's his post:
Spoiler
Hello ESA (http://www.theesa.com/index.php) recentely contacted my boss to stop selling R4's But we don't trust it(Could be a rival as we are cheaper then others) As why wouldn't they contact R4 Manufactor My boss has a headache so I'm helping him and maybe somebody that knows more about R4 can help us The email says the R4 contains Boot Codes from nintendo And we only offer the R4 as Homebrew device!
Please some one with the knowledge help us! Also ESA says R4 Company reverse engineered for the code How's that possible as that is not possible Also Company is located in HongKong and ESA is USA only right?
The owner of DealExtreme(Thread in URL) got the e-mail as well, and has stopped shipping single R4 offers as well, (s)he is keeping the bundle until they get further notice(Like in mail). Here's the post:
Spoiler
Hi Everyone,
If you are wondering where did the R4 go, the following letter from the ESA (entertainment software association) explains it.
Meanwhile, although DX will not be selling R4/G6/X9 anymore, we are working with partners to bring you DX customer exclusive access to a lower-than-DX priced R4 package (free shipping too). Note that it will be sold on our partner site though, not at DX as we are banned from selling it.
You can expect to see the great deal on this coming Monday morning US time. We'll post the links to that deal at that time. Just hang on for a couple more days if you want to catch the lowest price on earth R4 deals. In the meantime, if you have already placed an order with us, please be assured that it will be shipped normally.
Feel free to post any questions here. I'll be watching this thread and answer any questions you may have.
Here's the notice from ESA for everyone's reference (I've tried to ask why Amazon is able to sell it by the way, thus he mentioned about Amazon in the e-mail): (Same e-mail)
What do you think is going on
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I've no idea if it's real or fake... but whatever the case may be, the DMCA is a crappy and poorly thought through garbage that only applies to USA.
I totally agree, it is REALLY Crappy of them to even try to take them down. In my opinion I think that is some smaller company that is trying to compete with them and they are losing (obliviously) to R4, and they are just trying to take them down with a bunch of FAKE threats to try and scare them.
Maybe one day there will be peace in the Homebrew World.
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Apparently, the only problem with DX is that they are hosted in USA. I'm quite certain that their partner is hosted in Hong Kong, and that would circumvent the problem.
P.S. Next thing you know, all writable DVDs and CDs are gonna be banned, but Blu-Ray (or HDDVD, depends on who pays more) is gonna be the only format allowed. Talk about finishing the format war fast!
Its been really hard recently to get single R4s from dealers near to Britain but Australia and New Zealand seem to have loads of them. For a capitalist country, USA are really strict.
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Hey guys, sorry to hear about this, but if people still want to get single R4s I just got mine from gameyeeeah.com about 3 weeks ago, and at latest check it still seems to be selling them. This is probly just cuz they're shipping them from China, but mine came and works fine, so.....
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1st its [WAREZ SITE THAT STILL RUNS..kind of) (can't say) THEN ITS 1 ROM NEXT,[WAREZ SITE THAT STILL RUNS](can't say!)their premium links got shutdown!!
AND NOW those mother-fuc*ers are tring to shutdown the very things that play these games!!! i HATE THE ESA AND I ALWAYS WILL! (mostly for them protecting abandonware EVEN after a company doesnt exist anymore!) but that's another story
lol there is even a "report piracy site's annnonmously" link on the ESA's website
i heard from nintendo intel (YES i have slight connections to info) that the ESA's goal is to STOP DS PIRACY 100% (that will NEVER happen)
if there is: - R4 SITE=NO NEW R4 FIRMWARE=R4 DS IS USELESS 4 NEW GAMES=ESA WINS
remember folks...repeat with me....
DOWN WITH THE ESA!!!!!!!!
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