Publishers to fine 25,000 game pirates

[elk1007]

Don't fall into the trap of assuming laws are always right.
Legally, yes, copying a copyrighted material is a crime.

But think about it logically.

Laws like the DMCA act on the premise that downloading a piece of copyrighted material will somehow hurt the author of that material.

Generally speaking, that if the person made a commercial product (digital software, games, music, etc) then by downloading it, you are taking money out of their pocket.

This in not a logically valid argument. The arguer assumes that the person who downloaded the material would have purchased it if they could not get it for free. While this is true for a few things (like EPIC games and music) it's certainly NOT true about everything.
Do you know how many Wiiware games I've 'pirated' and then decided were WORTHLESS and actually deleted? Most. In fact I've only kept two, and I STILL wouldn't have paid the expensive prices for them if I could not download them.

Secondly, how often do you see other copyrighted material being offensively horded? Most images are freely available online, regardless of their copyright owner's intentions and desires.

No no, this isn't about intellectual property, nor is it about 'protecting the author and their copyright'.

This is about money.
And the logical fallacy you must make in order to argue that piracy somehow 'takes money from the author' is too big for the issue to go unnoticed.

Copyright laws SUPPRESS our freedom to run whatever digital code we want. We can't decide what to do with our own electrons anymore.
Electrons WE purchased!
We can't control the magnetism of our own hard discs anymore!

You wouldn't steal a car would you?
No.
But if you could copy that car at no loss to the integrity of the original car, then why not?

Think before you fall prey to the industry and their bad arguments for destroying your freedoms.

[watupgroupie]

I agree with elk
and for frick sake, if your gonna pirate start using the proper things, using a torrent or using something a bit more anonymous, like protected rapidshare links or something.

[Darksaviour69]

she had to pay 16000 total, 10,000 in legal fees and 6,000 for damages, seems like a lot, but because she used p2p she helped others "steal" the game, thats why its more than the price of the game.

[____anders____]

que?

well... i guess that's a pretty expensive game then

it's great to live in sweden cus no one cares about that little green dot on the map

[jonboy25]

25,000!!!

Good Lord! That would cost them 25 million in court costs. It would take the courts 25 years.

Is this a joke or what. I cant even imagine where thay would keep all the files. What, they just send them all fines without a chance in court. I don't think so. This kind of stuff is difficult. Just one of them is.

I have spent $50 dollars on lots of crappy games.
This makes me want to stop buying them. Especially when they turn around and sell them for $10 a little while later.

[steve-b]

How is this not blackmail?

Isn't blackmail a crime?

[trugamer]

No it isn't blackmail. I think a lot of people here don't understand the law at work here.

They are demanding a £300 "fine". These people have broken the law and the law states these game publishers are entitled for compensation for that, in the individual case, taken to court, it was £6000. The £300 is simply an out of court setlement, except the publishers are making it perfectly clear they won't except any less, and as previous court cases have failed it is very likely anyone who takes the fine to court will also fail. It might be compenstion, but the companies will use it as a deterrent, to put people off cloning their games.

The reason it's £300 is its damages. The price of the game is irrelevant, by copying a game and distributing, or downloading it and distributing as is the case with many p2p networks, the publishers are losing money. If i copy a game and then my punishment is simply paying the full price for the game, what do I have to lose over buying the game from a shop?

And this "big company can survive if I pirate games I [supposedly] wouldn't buy anyway" is wrong.

There is no way everybody who pirates games wouldn't buy any of the games they pirate, look at music priacy, how much does a song cost?

The way a company works is a company borrows money, invests money developing a product, sells product, pays debt and anything left over is profit. If a company doesn't make enough money to pay off the debts the company becomes bankrupt, assets will be sold off to pay for debts and people will be layed off, and the share value will plument, possibly become worthless. You might not care about this, but this is the sort of thing thats causing the credit crunch right now, wondered why the pirce of capital affects economic growth? Less capital being shared between the banks means businesses are getting less credit than they were, and therefore can't operate to the same level.

And about using sharing networks as a defence, it isn't. Firstly the case that has gone to court has proably proven this as lawyers would try it from every angle, and as this isn't criminal law I'm not sure the burden of proof applies, it is a possibility it wasn't you, but there is a very good chance it was (I **think** thats how civil court cases work, correct me if I'm wrong). Also, owning and managing a network means it is your responsibility to keep that network secure, any crime on the network is your responsibility.

[goity]

But you aren't allowed to use these fines as deterrents. They're by law supposed to be damages, and if you charge everyone who downloaded it £300 then that's far, far more than the actual damage anyone's theoretically caused.
Besides, what's the difference between 43 and 44 seeders? Somebody seeding a file when loads of others are too isn't really a direct case of making available, since it's already there.