So, I stumbled across this thing about Francesco Salicini — yeah, the guy behind the YouTube channel Once Were Nerd. Apparently, he’s in this weird situation with the Italian authorities. Why? Well, they say he’s promoting piracy. How, you ask? By talking about these Anbernic gaming consoles. You know the ones, right? Retro handhelds that can emulate old classics like Nintendo and Sony games.
Here’s the kicker: those consoles often come with microSD cards full of copyrighted games. Now that’s a whole different ball game. Illegal? Absolutely. But Salicini’s like, “Hey, I’m just reviewing the hardware, guys. No one’s paying me, seriously. No affiliate links, nada.” That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.
So here’s the deal: under Italian law, there’s this Article 171 ter thing. Sounds fancy but it’s serious — fines up to €15,000 and maybe even three years behind bars. Bet Salicini’s sweating bullets. The Financial Police, Guardia di Finanza or whatever they’re called, has already swiped 30 plus consoles from him. We’re talking all sorts: Anbernic, TrimUI, Powkiddy. They even took his phone and all the chat logs with the console makers. Yikes.
Now, they’re in this six-month limbo investigating the whole mess. After that, it’s decision time: do they drop it or do they go full courtroom drama on him? Meanwhile, Salicini’s stressed he might lose his channel. Imagine that, all while not knowing if he’s even guilty of anything.
And here’s a spicy tidbit: Nintendo, the big kahuna of protective IP, along with Sony possibly, might be lurking behind all this. They’ve torpedoed emulator GitHub repos like Yuzu or Ryujinx before, and plenty of YouTubers too. If they’re targeting Salicini, this could get intense.
There’s this ongoing spat between game developers who want to own their stuff till the end of time and game preservation folks. Emulators kind of keep those ancient games alive — hardware dies, folks! But devs don’t always see it that way because $$$.
Oh, before you go, if you’re a tech news junkie like me, give Tom’s Hardware a follow on Google News. They’ve got the good stuff, really. Anyway, back to whatever I was talking about… 😅
