Analyst: Used Game Boom Correlates With New Sales Decline

[corronchilejano]

You pulled me in to this, so prepare.

Must we always be so violent against each other online?

First off, don't compare the game industry to any other, because they're not like each other. Far from it.

Everything is unique, but what am I comparing it to? Another industry that sells something PHYSICAL that can be resolved. Of course each example is different in the way it happens.

Automobile industry? Do you think every single car is being resold 5 times (or more) for the same, just a little lower price than they cost originally? No, a car generally will be sold after the original owner only one or two times, at a significant price drop each time. Because cars have a knack for:
a)"breaking to pieces"
b)"costing to repair"
c)"gradually deteriorating despite said repairs"

Can you post figues, statistics from some source that support those claims? As in how many times can a single video game be resold Vs how many times do cars get sold?

Music industry? Movie industry? Come to think of it, I've never even heard of second hand sales of DVDs or even CD albums. The closest to that is piracy but I won't get into that now.

Maybe over there. Over here it's pretty common. People like collections, so sometimes reselling is the way to get certain less famous movies after their hype is long gone.

Book industry? Books, just as cars, lose their value, and books have a lowest re-sale rating of the mentioned products, and let's leave it at that. It's far from being a threat to the industry. Libraries are free, so buying a book and then turning it in cheaper just to buy another one is pretty stupid.

It seems you don't know that people sell books they don't use anymore, so other people can buy them. Over here they're called "flea markets", but I don't know if maybe you've never seen those.

Let's just agree on this - when used games are starting to pull in more money than the actual retail games, something is fucked up.

Do you have figures?

Now the PC thing... Look, it's been proven time and time again that PCs are better than consoles

Might be true, but there are differences on why a person might buy a console instead of a computer to play. Some parents (and people with younger siblings, be them younger brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, etc, I include myself there) prefer to have a console because it's easier to actually play games with. You don't need to worry about upgrading it, or it being used for different purposes other than gaming. When you're older, some games just feel better with the controller (First person shooters not withstanding) and, for my part, four player split screen gaming is pretty much impossible on PC.

In our current times, most games come out for consoles, and some people don't really care for graphics, so the "superiority" of computers just doesn't hold a candle right now to the ammount of variety available on home consoles.

So no, don't give me any of that bullshit just because you don't know any better.

Again, you have no idea how much a computer costs here against a console, and could you please, with examples, expose your cheap computer? That is, please indicate with links the parts you would build it with. Maybe that way I'll know better.

Although you lose the respect of those without the commodity of common sense.

Your common sense, and I apologize if it sounds rude, is a bit pretentious. You asume a lot of things don't exist or reality is just what you say it is, without giving actual facts. Please, present statistics, and maybe then we can say they are true.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

-snip-

Wrong on all points. If you're going to argue with me, you need to function on a level beyond rhetoric.

There is simply no evidence piracy harms anything. No proof that any downloaded game is a lost sale. While this proves used games are lost sales, ya know, beyond rhetoric.

... Hmm. I was going to go point by point, but I don't think I need to. I think I see the problem. Where the great divorce between piracy and used sales lies.

On a purely rhetorical level, piracy is damage, pure and simple. People playing/watching/listening for the exchange of no money. While used games, (on the same level) aren't. They're purchases. Money changes hands, capitalism is obeyed, everyone is happy.

Then, once you get beyond simple theory, the effects flip completely.

Like I said, theres no quantification of any damages as a result of piracy. Its blamed a lot, someone is always releasing figures stating eleventy bajillion dollars were lost to piracy, but these numbers are completely hollow. For to even argue as much disposable income even exists is utterly delusional. Then you have other people releasing studies that find pirates actually purchase more than non-pirates. They're exposed to more, they like more, they buy more. Then further find pirates are actually a massive force of free advertising. During that period where no one could pirate assassin's creed 2, the internet was completely silent on that game. Then, once the game was fully cracked, general interest had already faded, meaning no one was talking about the game at all.

Then you have used sales. The fact used games sell at all is clear proof they're lost sales of new copies. You can't have a used game without a new game, thus, its simply impossible to argue it isn't a lost sale. Then while used sales are fueling extreme levels of expansion of massive retail chains, it becomes impossible to argue they're not harming the industry. A portion of every sale should have gone to support the people responsible for the creation of that work. But instead, it supports parasitic entities who's only purpose, function, and business model is to stand between the producer and the consumer, while insisting they're the only way one can reach the other.

Spoiler: Argument inoculation disregard if you're not stupid enough to try these:

You can spew a bunch of crap about the consumer bill of rights or whatever, but it doesn't matter, because large corporations and retail chains aren't who that document are targeting. Trying to argue its your right to trade in old games (for about a 10th of what they're going to be sold for) for used games (that were bought at a tenth of what you're paying) is just saying "its the retailer's right to con the shit out of me."

So... yea, if money is tight, pirate. Its easier to justify than buying used because you save a lot more money and get pretty much the exact same thing.

 

[BlueHighwind]

Buying a used product isn't stealing from the publisher. I'm merely purchasing the product from an alternate source that is more economically feasible for me. I don't want to burn every bit of my (extremely modest) savings into my video game hobby. So whatever price I find that is best for my budget is the one I'm more willing to buy. Occasionally I find that I simply cannot wait and buy a game right off the kiln like Pokemon SoulSilver, but that's the exception not the rule. There's nothing wrong with being a smart consumer. I love Nintendo, but I'm not going to throw away an extra thirty bucks for an overpriced game, unless I seriously have to have it NOW (you know the emotion). And really, I only have that kind of attitude for Zelda and Kingdom Hearts.

Look at it this way: Nintendo sells Super Mario Galaxy 2 to some dude for $55. Then I go out and buy his copy of the game off him for $25 six months or a year later. Nintendo still sold one copy of the game at full price: their profit for that game is entirely unchanged. I'm not going to feel bad over "potential profits" they might have had if I was willing to indulge their insane prices. I'm not a sucker, and definitely not a willing one.

It doesn't really matter if it is legally right outside of a courtroom or however you're trying to justify doing it (and we're talking a big billion dollar industry here leeching off the gaming industry, not little Timmy from the block).

Fact of the thing is, if you buy used... not a single penny of the money spent goes to the people that made the game, all the profit goes to the store/person you've bought it from. Could have as well pirated it in the first place. (And in this case, the buyer apparently was willing to buy it/make a transaction so it is an actual lost sale, not imaginary numbers pulled out of the number of people who pirated the game to try or cause they could, without ever having the intention of actually buying it)

If you like certain games and want them to continue making them or encourage the devs that this is the right direction to take you should buy new. By getting that 50$ game for 45$, you're not only not supporting the devs but also legitimizing GameStop/WalMart/whoever in what they're doing.

The price doesn't really matter that much either, even by buying games on Sale (see Steam for 3-5$ or even less) or from the DVD of some magazine, at least that money does some good and goes to the company that made the game (unless they're defunct, in which case it goes to whoever published it)... buying used breaks that chain and the people responsible get nothing.

This can also be used consciously, for instance if you don't like a company but don't want to outright "boycott" their products (take Activision for instance) you can buy used and will know that this will not generate them any revenue.

I'm terribly sorry I even made that first post in this forum in the first place. I seem to have stumbled upon a well of insanity beyond anything I had possibly imagined before. Dude, if you want a company to survive and continue making games, investing money is a much more active way of keeping them afloat. Remember, a resold game is reSOLD, they've already moved product. (And then Blue here leaves this particular forum forever.)

 

[Naheal]

-snip-

Wrong on all points. If you're going to argue with me, you need to function on a level beyond rhetoric.

There is simply no evidence piracy harms anything. No proof that any downloaded game is a lost sale. While this proves used games are lost sales, ya know, beyond rhetoric.

... Hmm. I was going to go point by point, but I don't think I need to. I think I see the problem. Where the great divorce between piracy and used sales lies.

On a purely rhetorical level, piracy is damage, pure and simple. People playing/watching/listening for the exchange of no money. While used games, (on the same level) aren't. They're purchases. Money changes hands, capitalism is obeyed, everyone is happy.

Then, once you get beyond simple theory, the effects flip completely.

Like I said, theres no quantification of any damages as a result of piracy. Its blamed a lot, someone is always releasing figures stating eleventy bajillion dollars were lost to piracy, but these numbers are completely hollow. For to even argue as much disposable income even exists is utterly delusional. Then you have other people releasing studies that find pirates actually purchase more than non-pirates. They're exposed to more, they like more, they buy more. Then further find pirates are actually a massive force of free advertising. During that period where no one could pirate assassin's creed 2, the internet was completely silent on that game. Then, once the game was fully cracked, general interest had already faded, meaning no one was talking about the game at all.

Then you have used sales. The fact used games sell at all is clear proof they're lost sales of new copies. You can't have a used game without a new game, thus, its simply impossible to argue it isn't a lost sale. Then while used sales are fueling extreme levels of expansion of massive retail chains, it becomes impossible to argue they're not harming the industry. A portion of every sale should have gone to support the people responsible for the creation of that work. But instead, it supports parasitic entities who's only purpose, function, and business model is to stand between the producer and the consumer, while insisting they're the only way one can reach the other.

Spoiler: Argument inoculation disregard if you're not stupid enough to try these:

You can spew a bunch of crap about the consumer bill of rights or whatever, but it doesn't matter, because large corporations and retail chains aren't who that document are targeting. Trying to argue its your right to trade in old games (for about a 10th of what they're going to be sold for) for used games (that were bought at a tenth of what you're paying) is just saying "its the retailer's right to con the shit out of me."

So... yea, if money is tight, pirate. Its easier to justify than buying used because you save a lot more money and get pretty much the exact same thing.

So, what you're saying is that you support piracy?

 

[Cynical skeptic]

So, what you're saying is that you support piracy?

Again... did I stutter? Are you trying to bait me into getting banned or something? Because we've had this thread before, and no one ever gets banned on either side of the issue, because that would be completely hypocritical.

Yes, piracy > used games. Always and forever.

 

[KDR_11k]

I'll point at Iwata's "sales decline because of boring games" argument, since a used copy can only exist if an owner of a new copy decides the pittance Game Stop offers is better than holding on to the game there must have been a massive decline in the value to the customer between purchase and resale. If the used copies pop up within days of release that means the game only took a few days to become almost worthless to its owner.

 

[JEBWrench]

I consider pretty much everything that has been a part of the project $10 program to have been integral to the gaming experience. Shale for example turned out to be a big part of a major plotline involving Golems in general, and I considered the "Firewalker" stuff that was part of "Cerberus Network" to be an entire aspect of the game. What's more it's not being extended to making multiplayer a $10 DLC that only comes included with an original game purchuse.

Fair enough.

When it comes to the price of games, all semantics arguements about comparitive pricing aside, $60 is a lot of money. That's a signifigant hit out of someone's paycheck, especially in this economy.

Agreed.

There is no way around the simple fact that games are expensive. Things like the used market (trading in) and the like are a way of deferring that cost for a lot of people. Things like "Project $10" and similar initiatives ultimatly wind up making games more of a financial burden for many people who buy them.

I will also agree with this.

*snipped for some brevity* Greed is fine to an extent, however when your looking at a multi-billion dollar industry, pulling in record profits, and experiencing explosive growth (in a general sense, there are always exceptions) sitting down and saying "well we can squeeze even more money out of people through DRM, and attacking used game sales" is going a bit too far. The industry doesn't need these things to stay afloat or remain competitive, they simply want to remove rights consumers always had with their products so they can make even more money.

This is where I disagree with you. A multi-billion dollar industry, that is having no problems at all selling its product at its established price point, should not be required to lessen its profits in order to accommodate people with a lesser budget. Keeping mind the economic times, the fact that Modern Warfare 2 had such a ridiculously high sales just reinforces that the average consumer doesn't seem to have a problem with the cost of games.

(Once again, I will point out that the average consumer is not what most people would label a "gamer". But there's a whole lot more of those than "gamers".)

(Also: Thank-you for your well-written, well-thought out post. It's refreshing to read something with substance rather than the standard "teh gamez r 2 much")

 

[Asehujiko]

Because it's already against the law

There's this mysterious place called "the rest of the world" that houses 95% of the world population where american laws don't and shouldn't apply but where american companies keep throwing giant piles of money at legal systems in order to ruin random people's lives as poropaganda for their monpolistic schemes.

For example, the most recent TPB trial, where the organization that sued them also provided all of the judges and most of the swedish equivalent of a jury. And convicted them according to american law instead of swedish law. On behalf of american companies.

Or Stichting BREIN, which won several major court cases "ex parte" rulings(which aren't allowed in copyright cases according to dutch constitution because those default to a win for the claimant if the defendant doesn't show up) for file sharing, which is legal in the netherlands. On behalf of american companies.

Outside your little bubble of nationalism and myopia, your corporations are the cancer that keep fucking up society, not the pirates, unlike what the media(which is owned by said corporations that have no qualms about lying and breaking the law themselves) tells you.

 

[superbatranger]

I've always been buying used games, this isn't anything new for me. Why the heck should I pay more just for some annoying plastic wrap that you need a knife to get through? I also wait several months before I buy a new game. Do I look like I have 50 bucks for "Super Mario Galaxy 2"? The game will be just as good at Christmas as it is now.

50 dollars is nothing. You should consider yourself lucky. Try paying 100 dollars for a game that came out 3 months ago.

 

[matrix guardian]

Cause if you like (a) game, and want to see more of it in the future or want to reward the developers for making such a great game you need to buy a copy where the money you pay actually goes to these channels (well... it'd still be better without publishers decimating that kind of money but whatever). When you buy used, all your money goes to the guy or shop and they make a profit, but not a single penny reaches the devs (or the people taking a risk publishing it).

This seems like a neat idea, but there is a problem with your plan. You say to buy new and pay the full $60 to reward the developers for making a good game, and to tell them they are on the right track (make more games like this). But, for me at least, I don't know if I like a game or not until AFTER I play it. Which would be AFTER they already have the money for it. So with your plan, the reward and the message "keep doing stuff like this" is given to the developers/publishers, regardless of whether it's a good game or not. So if it turns out to be a shitty game, they still get the message "keep making shit" and get rewarded for making shit. So the real reward comes not from making a great game, but from their ability to convince me that they have made a great game and that I should buy it.

While I like your idea, it doesn't really work out in the current system. If we really want to implement that concept, what we should do is play every game for free, and then afterward evaluate how much that gaming experience was worth, and then donate money to the developers with an attached note or letter stating what we did and didn't like about the game, and what we would like to see in the furture from them. Maybe even, "Here is $X for the game, because it was a great game and deserves that much for your work. And as a bonus, here is $Y more money to help fund your next project, because I look forward to your future games."

Or maybe if that doesn't work we could do something like commission developers to make games for us. So take pre-order to a whole new level. You pay money into a pool to "pre-pre-order" or commission a game. Then once they get all the people who want the game to donate funds, they work with that budget to make the game that the people want to be made. "Everyone who wants to see a new [insert great game name here] game raise your hand and send in $X for funding."

So anyway, the problem with your idea is that for it to actuall work, we either need to: get the money to the developers BEFORE they make the game (or before they finish making it anyway), OR get money to the developer AFTER you play the game and evaluate if it was an experience that merrits encouragemnet with financial incentive for future continued production.

 

[matrix guardian]

snippity

Ever heard of the Internet? It contains information about practically any game ever made, and for the newer ones, said information includes gameplay videos, developer diaries and trailers.

If you buy games blindly in this day and age, well, I don't know what to say to you.

If you don't, however, your whole argument, whichever side you tried to argue, is moot.

I personally do research games before I get them. I do internet research (and try to take into account possible motives or incentives that a reviewer may have to skew their rating) and usually rely mostly on word of mouth recommendations from friends who know my gaming tastes and suggest games that they think I would like. I also am kind of behind on the curve of the new, hot games and I rarely get games that recently came out (I already have enough on my shelf that I haven't played yet). So I don't feel that I personally have much of an impact on the "voting" process of buying games to "talk with my money" since by the time I get a game, it's usually after it's no longer that relevant to the game's success (in terms of new copies sold and such).
Anyway, it seems to me that there are still a lot of people that don't do much research, such as casual gamer mainstream consumers, or grandparents that barely know what a nintendo station is and get a gift for their grandkids. And there are countless video games of movies that are made with little effort (though some are) but people still buy them anyway. It seems to me that there are enough people that don't mind buying bad games, and will get them anyway, that it sends the message that "hey, don't worry too much about making great quality games, because a mediocre game will still make you money." And part of this is due to the flat rat of new games, regardless of the varying production values and quality. So I think the capitalist "$ = vote" idea doesn't work as perfectly here.

Although the WoW setup is a good example of a way to make the timing work for my previous post, because the player continuously pays as they keep playing (or stops paying) depending on how much they like the game. So in that case it's a pretty good "$=vote" scenario because the payment is not a one time deal. So they are continuously getting feedback (through money spent) on how well they do at making their game.

 

[Seldon2639]

There's this mysterious place called "the rest of the world" that houses 95% of the world population where american laws don't and shouldn't apply but where american companies keep throwing giant piles of money at legal systems in order to ruin random people's lives as poropaganda for their monpolistic schemes.

For example, the most recent TPB trial, where the organization that sued them also provided all of the judges and most of the swedish equivalent of a jury. And convicted them according to american law instead of swedish law. On behalf of american companies.

It's one of those fun things about the law that it's occasionally counter-intuitive. America, and most of the rest of the first-world countries on the planet, share two things that are important here. The first is what's called a reciprocal trade agreement, the second is (essentially) reciprocal law enforcement.

The importance of this is twofold. First, it's the difference between "subject matter" and "personal" jurisdiction. Technically, any court of the right stature would have had jurisdiction over the actual event itself (subject matter jurisdiction is conferred by the rules of the court); personal jurisdiction requires that the trial take place either where the event occurred, or where the plaintiffs and defendants reside. We can get into the whole long-arm statute thing later, if you'd like.

So, how does American law apply for American countries in Sweden? Mostly because Sweden recognizes American law as being just as valid for legal purposes as its own local law. In the same way we recognize the laws of many foreign countries here. For instance, a client of my firm sued a man in Canada using Canadian law (even though the defendant was American). Our client won a judgment, and brought it into America for enforcement. It domesticated, and the American court basically fully accepted the validity and enforceability of Canadian law.

So, in this case, American law can, should, and does apply.

Or Stichting BREIN, which won several major court cases "ex parte" rulings(which aren't allowed in copyright cases according to dutch constitution because those default to a win for the claimant if the defendant doesn't show up) for file sharing, which is legal in the netherlands. On behalf of american companies.

See above. If it helps, think of it less as American law applying in Sweden, and more as if an American court had decided, and the triumphant party decided to domesticate the case to Sweden for enforcement.

Outside your little bubble of nationalism and myopia, your corporations are the cancer that keep fucking up society, not the pirates, unlike what the media(which is owned by said corporations that have no qualms about lying and breaking the law themselves) tells you.

*whistles*

The conspiracy theorizing here aside, I have a difficult time believing that the enforcement of a copyright as protected by reciprocal trade agreements is a "cancer". Technically, Sweden has a duty (under treaty) to respect and enforce American copyrights and the protections therein, as established by American law. So, the fact that file sharing is legal in Sweden doesn't mitigate that they have violated American copyrights, which are sacrosanct by Sweden's own authority.

Sorry, man, you're not gonna wring much guilt out of me on this one. Especially since American copyright law is among the sanest in the world.

 

[Asehujiko]

It's one of those fun things about the law that it's occasionally counter-intuitive. America, and most of the rest of the first-world countries on the planet, share two things that are important here. The first is what's called a reciprocal trade agreement, the second is (essentially) reciprocal law enforcement.

The importance of this is twofold. First, it's the difference between "subject matter" and "personal" jurisdiction. Technically, any court of the right stature would have had jurisdiction over the actual event itself (subject matter jurisdiction is conferred by the rules of the court); personal jurisdiction requires that the trial take place either where the event occurred, or where the plaintiffs and defendants reside. We can get into the whole long-arm statute thing later, if you'd like.

So, how does American law apply for American countries in Sweden? Mostly because Sweden recognizes American law as being just as valid for legal purposes as its own local law. In the same way we recognize the laws of many foreign countries here. For instance, a client of my firm sued a man in Canada using Canadian law (even though the defendant was American). Our client won a judgment, and brought it into America for enforcement. It domesticated, and the American court basically fully accepted the validity and enforceability of Canadian law.

So, in this case, American law can, should, and does apply.

See above. If it helps, think of it less as American law applying in Sweden, and more as if an American court had decided, and the triumphant party decided to domesticate the case to Sweden for enforcement.

*whistles*

The conspiracy theorizing here aside, I have a difficult time believing that the enforcement of a copyright as protected by reciprocal trade agreements is a "cancer". Technically, Sweden has a duty (under treaty) to respect and enforce American copyrights and the protections therein, as established by American law. So, the fact that file sharing is legal in Sweden doesn't mitigate that they have violated American copyrights, which are sacrosanct by Sweden's own authority.

Sorry, man, you're not gonna wring much guilt out of me on this one. Especially since American copyright law is among the sanest in the world.

You're either reading only half of what I'm typing or you are being obnoxious on purpose. An american company paid a ton of money to a swedish representative group, which sued TPB for something that would have been a crime in the us but isn't in sweden(where both TPB and the american proxy group are based), then used said money to weasel themselves into the position of prosecutor, victim, judge and to redirect TPB's query for an investigation to a possible conflict of interest to the very judge/prosecutor/money receiver the query was about, who unsurprisingly found himself not corrupt, then ruled in favor of himself and awarded himself several million euros.

Stichting BREIN is a dutch organization, based in the netherlands, which sued several dutch groups for things that would have been a crime in the us but aren't in the netherlands. In copyright cases, the burden of proof is on the defendant(as opposed to every single other crime, because your corporations had been bitching to the dutch government that supplying their own evidence is too hard.) and not showing up equals admitting defeat(only goes for amercans too, the rest of the world has to do with the defendant being summoned to court forcibly). Ex parte cases are for minor crimes like traffic offenses where one side can produce irrefutable evidence on their own. These are mutually exclusive by dutch(where both the defendant and the prosecution are based). Yet stichting BREIN got both of their cases handled without the defendants being informed that they were being sued, over the course of about 30 minutes each. And ended up ?300000 richer from it. And the defendants got a hugeass NDA that said that if they were to ever talk about the case(including filing a complaint with the court system about the incorrect use of ex parte rulings), they would have to pay a few million more and got to jail for quite some time.

Is it so hard to see how both of these american orchestrated events are completely fucked up in the name of the big money(ie, americans)?

 

[Seldon2639]

You're either reading only half of what I'm typing or you are being obnoxious on purpose. An american company paid a ton of money to a swedish representative group, which sued TPB for something that would have been a crime in the us but isn't in sweden(where both TPB and the american proxy group are based), then used said money to weasel themselves into the position of prosecutor, victim, judge and to redirect TPB's query for an investigation to a possible conflict of interest to the very judge/prosecutor/money receiver the query was about, who unsurprisingly found himself not corrupt, then ruled in favor of himself and awarded himself several million euros.

Those are my only choices? Talk about a false dichotomy.

As I stated, even if the act "would be" legal in Sweden (it really isn't, and I'll get to this in a moment) the reciprocity of law between American and Sweden renders your point moot. The Swedish court was exercising its jurisdiction over the defendants, but using American law as the basis for its decision. Kind of like how I can sue an American in British court, and get the judgment enforced in Germany.

If there were shenanigans with the actual way the trial ran, I can't speak to that. I doubt that the legal system of any modern country would be quite so amiable to being buggered like that, but I've been surprised before. That said, unless Sweden has a very different legal system from every other legal system I've ever seen, the string of events you describe would be impossible.

Stichting BREIN is a dutch organization, based in the netherlands, which sued several dutch groups for things that would have been a crime in the us but aren't in the netherlands. In copyright cases, the burden of proof is on the defendant(as opposed to every single other crime, because your corporations had been bitching to the dutch government that supplying their own evidence is too hard.)

That's not really how it works. Proving that copyright infringement has taken place is really, really, straightforward in this kind of case "did this program/group/individual/community infringe on the copyright by violating the right to sole distribution, reproduction, or derivation? Well, your honor, they traded torrents and shared copyrighted materials". At that point, the defendants must prove it to be legitimate use (under fair use requirements as in American statutory law).

Kind of like how once you've proven I committed assault, it's my duty to prove that the assault was justifiable under the affirmative defense of 'self-defense'. Don't mistake "nurr, the defendants had to prove they didn't do it" with "once the plaintiff had proved (and it would be easy to prove) the infringement, the defendant has the burden to prove any defenses to the claims".

Again, unless Swedish law is very different from any other legal system I've seen, this sounds more conspiratorial and paranoid than actual legal analysis usually does.

and not showing up equals admitting defeat(only goes for amercans too, the rest of the world has to do with the defendant being summoned to court forcibly). Ex parte cases are for minor crimes like traffic offenses where one side can produce irrefutable evidence on their own. These are mutually exclusive by dutch(where both the defendant and the prosecution are based). Yet stichting BREIN got both of their cases handled without the defendants being informed that they were being sued, over the course of about 30 minutes each. And ended up ?300000 richer from it. And the defendants got a hugeass NDA that said that if they were to ever talk about the case(including filing a complaint with the court system about the incorrect use of ex parte rulings), they would have to pay a few million more and got to jail for quite some time.

I'll need to see some citation for this, since my quick googling didn't turn anything up which actually indicated any suit without notice going to the defendants. Nor anything about a non-disclosure agreement. For want of actual information, I'm going to decline to comment on this part.

Is it so hard to see how both of these american orchestrated events are completely fucked up in the name of the big money(ie, americans)?

The part that's (thus far unsubstantiated here) evil to almost a Kefka level, and indicates a massive fraudulent conspiracy against the good people of filesharing sites in Europe? Yeah, that's fucked up. But, I have no reason to believe any of it went down the way you say it did.

The part that's simply American companies making sure that their copyrights are (as promised under Swedish law) protected and respected? That's fair game.

I'll be straightforward, here:

Yes, filesharing sites are legal in Sweden, and if these were Swedish copyright holders suing under Swedish law, you might have a good point. But, this is the Swedish court system following its own law in the enforcement of international copyrights. Of course, even that's a false flag. Filesharing sites are legal in America, too; copyright infringement isn't. Unless you're claiming some Swedish law did away with copyright protections, which I doubt, even Swedish law would not accept copyright infringement.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

Wasn't there once a time where it was legal to own slaves? Where it was protected within laws to have a slave and treat him a certain way? Whatever happened with those laws? Oh yeah...they were changed!

Laws can be changed, and will, when society at large determines they have had enough of "people in charge" ordering them around like they were so much cattle.

Just because the way copyright is represented in the laws currently does not make it right, nor does it mean this is the way it should, nor will, be treated in the future. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later that people decide that they should stop giving up their rights to corporations.

 

[Asehujiko]

Reading comprehension is hard, isn't it?

The group that sued TPB is swedish. TPB is swedish. The court is swedish. The only part where americans come in is that it's that their swedish proxy group(and their bribery) is sustained by their money. By your logic, I could charge anybody here with laws from every country where I ever picked up a few local coins of the sidewalk.

Also, here's a piece of my previous post with some extra emphasis added:

Stichting BREIN is a dutch organization, based in the netherlands, which sued several dutch groups for things that would have been a crime in the us but aren't in the netherlands. In copyright cases, the burden of proof is on the defendant(as opposed to every single other crime, because your corporations had been bitching to the dutch government that supplying their own evidence is too hard.) and not showing up equals admitting defeat(only goes for amercans too, the rest of the world has to do with the defendant being summoned to court forcibly). Ex parte cases are for minor crimes like traffic offenses where one side can produce irrefutable evidence on their own. These are mutually exclusive by dutch(where both the

Yet you still seem to think sweden is involved.

 

[Seldon2639]

Reading comprehension is hard, isn't it?

The group that sued TPB is swedish. TPB is swedish. The court is swedish. The only part where americans come in is that it's that their swedish proxy group(and their bribery) is sustained by their money. By your logic, I could charge anybody here with laws from every country where I ever picked up a few local coins of the sidewalk.

The only part where Americans come in is that American copyrights were what were being protected and enforced by the Swedish court. If an Australian violated American copyrights in Australia, the Australian courts would be bound to enforce that copyright, even if that copyright wouldn't have existed under Australian law.

It's how international copyrights work.

Also, here's a piece of my previous post with some extra emphasis added:

Stichting BREIN is a dutch organization, based in the netherlands, which sued several dutch groups for things that would have been a crime in the us but aren't in the netherlands. In copyright cases, the burden of proof is on the defendant(as opposed to every single other crime, because your corporations had been bitching to the dutch government that supplying their own evidence is too hard.) and not showing up equals admitting defeat(only goes for amercans too, the rest of the world has to do with the defendant being summoned to court forcibly). Ex parte cases are for minor crimes like traffic offenses where one side can produce irrefutable evidence on their own. These are mutually exclusive by dutch(where both the

Yet you still seem to think sweden is involved.

The best argument you have is that I got the country wrong? Really.

No response to the actual international law, or the principles involved, you have to resort to "nurr, you got the country wrong, so you must be an idiot". Jesus, man.