Reviewer Faces Jail for Reviewing Retro Handhelds

Sometimes news hits real close to home in the Retro Handheld space.

According to Android Authority fellow Retro Handheld reviewer Once Were Nerd is facing jail time for his reviews of Anbernic, Powkiddy, TrimUI and other handheld gaming devices. His legal problems don’t seem to come from the manufacturers however.

Why

According to the article found here, Once Were Nerd had more than 30 handhelds confiscated from his collection by the Italian Customs Enforcement. It wasn’t the handhelds themselves however that were the problem, but instead the ROMs that are shipped with the devices.

The search warrant used was for promotion of pirated copyright materials. I’m in no way a lawyer (don’t even play one on the internet) but my understanding is by showing handhelds running pirated ROMs on his YouTube channel it is akin to promoting piracy. Making recommendations to handhelds that may contain SD cards loaded with ROMs appears to be a no go in Italy.

How

This is so much worse than the copyright strikes most of us worry about in this reviewer community. Likely with most of these devices there isn’t even an option to getting them without some ROMs included as they are installed on the same card as the handhelds operating systems.

Result

It’s too early to tell exactly what the charges are going to be if brought at this point. It sounds like Italian law doesn’t require police to reveal who is bringing suit or for what until charges are formally filed at the completion of the investigation. The charges could also be brought directly from the government themselves. At completion of the investigation the case will either be dismissed or it will be going to trial.

Authorities have the option to shutdown the Once Were Nerd channel while investigating, as of this posting the channel is still online. There is a video from the creator explaining the situation which is pretty interested embedded below:

I hate seeing bad things happen to anyone and this is a little close to home as well. Hopefully Once Were Nerd will get this all figured out and be back to uploading in no time.

Update

It appears that OnceWereGamer was hosting ROMs and BIOS files on his website as well as selling Retro Handhelds with loaded ROM cards to viewers. This addition to the story seems to make a lot more snese. As I always advise it is best to use ROMs created from the games you personally own. Linking to ROM and BIOS sites is a big No No in this space and to be linking to a site you are hosting them on adds yet another level of accountability for OnceWereGamer.

If anything else with this breaks I’ll post an update for you.

Do you think Once Were Nerd should be getting investigated for showing handhelds that by default often contain ROMs?

GameOn

CellPhish

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