MottZilla wrote:
I've never heard Copiers were illegal except from great sources like Nintendo itself. Nintendo probably tried to get customs to seize them but the devices aren't illegal, or atleast weren't illegal back in the early 90s.
Nintendo did do this, and they were indeed successful. Nobody knows how exactly they accomplished this with customs (whether it be legal pressure or under-the-table handouts). My source is an individual at Fairlight (the Amiga/PC group) who was selling SWC DX32 copiers at the time.
My guess -- and this is speculative -- is that it probably a combination of "big corporate entity" and customs not truly understanding what it is they were dealing with. On the latter point, remember this was the mid-to-late 90s, the US government had absolutely no brains about technology at the time. Customs just does what they're told, and anything "grey market" customs can do whatever they want with. Consider that the companies making said copiers were incredibly shady; changing company names regularly and so on, just to be able to stay in business.
On the lesser point, Nintendo's international status and size/popularity at the time almost certainly had some involvement -- the same technique applies today; look at the whole Gizmodo/Apple fiasco. Steve Jobs just had to make a phone call and suddenly a raid happens. If this were some small mom-and-pop company, that raid would've never taken place (though an officer or investigator would have "eventually" gotten around to it).