ESA targets Anbernic emulation handhelds as "superfake" piracy enablers

For years, Chinese hardware manufacturers have carved out a market niche with an array of handheld Android gaming devices focused on retro emulation and/or more modern game-streaming capabilities. Now, though, a major game industry trade group is targeting one of those manufacturers, Anbernic, asking the US Trade Representative (USTR) to add the company to its list of “Notorious Markets” that “engage in or facilitate substantial copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting.”

多年来，中国硬件制造商通过一系列专注于复古模拟和/或更现代游戏流媒体功能的安卓手持游戏设备，开辟了一个市场利基。然而，现在一个大型游戏行业贸易组织正将矛头指向其中一家制造商——安伯尼克（Anbernic），要求美国贸易代表办公室（USTR）将其列入“恶名市场”名单，理由是该公司“参与或促进了大规模的版权盗版或商标假冒行为”。

TorrentFreak was among the first to notice the request from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which was submitted to the USTR last week. In it, the US trade group—which represents major publishers including Nintendo, Microsoft, PlayStation, Amazon, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, and more—notes that Anbernic devices “are routinely offered or shipped with removable memory cards preloaded with hundreds or thousands of unauthorized copies of copyright-protected video games published by ESA members.”

TorrentFreak 是首批注意到娱乐软件协会（ESA）上周向美国贸易代表办公室提交该请求的媒体之一。在该请求中，这个代表任天堂、微软、PlayStation、亚马逊、Epic、EA、育碧等主要发行商的美国贸易组织指出，安伯尼克的设备“通常在提供或发货时，会附带预装了数百甚至数千份由 ESA 成员发行的受版权保护视频游戏未经授权副本的可移动存储卡”。

While many online sellers do include an SD card full of ROMs alongside emulation hardware of all types, Anbernic itself does not appear to do the same when selling directly from its website. Regardless, the ESA argues that these ROM-laden Anbernic devices selling through “normal retail channels” help to “normalize hardware-based piracy by delivering illicit catalogues through a polished consumer product.” This, the ESA says, meets the threshold for a “superfake,” an ill-defined designation that applies to “high-quality counterfeit trademark goods … on a commercial scale.”

虽然许多在线卖家确实会在各类模拟硬件中附赠装满 ROM 的 SD 卡，但安伯尼克在通过其官网直接销售时似乎并未这样做。尽管如此，ESA 认为，这些通过“正常零售渠道”销售的、装载了 ROM 的安伯尼克设备，通过“精美的消费产品提供非法目录，从而使基于硬件的盗版行为常态化”。ESA 表示，这达到了“超级假货”（superfake）的门槛，这是一个定义模糊的称呼，适用于“商业规模的高质量假冒商标商品”。

Being included on the USTR’s Notorious Market List wouldn’t bring any additional direct legal consequences for a company like Anbernic. However, the USTR says the list “encourages the responsible authorities to step up efforts to combat piracy and counterfeiting” and notes that the list itself “increase[s] public awareness and help market operators and governments prioritize intellectual property enforcement efforts that protect American businesses and their workers.” Inclusion on the list could also presage a Section 301 investigation that could lead to legal consequences or restrictive import controls on the devices.

被列入美国贸易代表办公室的“恶名市场”名单并不会给安伯尼克这样的公司带来任何直接的额外法律后果。然而，美国贸易代表办公室表示，该名单“鼓励相关负责部门加大打击盗版和假冒行为的力度”，并指出该名单本身“提高了公众意识，并帮助市场经营者和政府优先考虑保护美国企业及其员工的知识产权执法工作”。被列入名单也可能预示着“301条款”调查的开始，这可能导致法律后果或对这些设备实施限制性进口管制。

“Includes thousands of games!” The ESA’s call-out of Anbernic to the USTR highlights the breakdown of a polite fiction that has long undergirded the distribution of emulators and emulation-focused hardware in the United States. In the not-too-distant past, software and hardware distributors that wanted to appear legitimate took pains to push perfectly legal emulators while completely disavowing any knowledge of the kind of copyrighted ROMs that could get them in legal hot water. If an end-user wanted to later find and load up those kinds of illegal ROMs on their own (instead of running legal homebrew games or backups of their own cartridges), well, that was nobody else’s business, was it.

“内含数千款游戏！”ESA 向美国贸易代表办公室点名安伯尼克，凸显了一个长期以来支撑美国模拟器及模拟硬件分发的“礼貌谎言”的破灭。在不久前，那些希望显得合法的软硬件分销商会费尽心思推广完全合法的模拟器，同时彻底否认对任何可能让他们陷入法律麻烦的受版权保护 ROM 的了解。如果终端用户后来想自己寻找并加载那些非法 ROM（而不是运行合法的自制游戏或他们自己卡带的备份），那么，这就不关别人的事了，不是吗？

These days, though, it’s trivial to find third-party sellers on Amazon, eBay resellers, annoying TikTok advertisers, or even reputable news sites boldly trumpeting and selling devices that include “thousands of games” from the past, ready to play from the moment you turn them on. To court customers who have never even heard of BitTorrent trackers or Warez sites, these sellers have brought illicit ROM distribution out of the Internet shadows and made it a core part of their business. As major online retailers continue to ignore this blatant copyright infringement on their platforms, it’s no wonder the ESA has felt the need to act. But focusing on Anbernic, which just makes the hardware that powers these emulators, is an odd choice when these centralized e-commerce sites could do a much better job at preventing the wholesale advertising, sale, and distribution of illegal ROMs directly to consumers.

然而，如今在亚马逊上的第三方卖家、eBay 转售商、烦人的 TikTok 广告商，甚至是一些知名新闻网站上，都能轻易找到那些大肆宣传并销售内含“数千款”过往游戏、开机即玩的设备。为了吸引那些从未听说过 BitTorrent 追踪器或 Warez 网站的客户，这些卖家将非法 ROM 的分发从互联网阴影中带到了台前，并将其作为业务的核心部分。随着大型在线零售商继续无视其平台上这种明目张胆的版权侵权行为，难怪 ESA 会感到有必要采取行动。但当这些中心化的电子商务网站本可以在防止非法 ROM 直接向消费者进行大规模广告、销售和分发方面做得更好时，将矛头对准仅仅制造驱动这些模拟器硬件的安伯尼克，是一个奇怪的选择。