Nintendo Pirate Settles Dispute for $1.5 Million
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
He won't pay it, i believe he will be paying so much of the money he earns a month to nintendo for so many years. The point is when you hear 1.5 million you think "HOLY SHIT", imagine how many people who upload these games are now scared that they might be next. The whole point of this was to send a very clear message to consumers about piracy, and I think it's a mission accomplished.Therumancer said:
As to the arguement of whether this mans life is ruined, Nintendo knows that he can't pay them and won't expect him too and i'm pretty sure the justice system won't allow for someone to have all their money taken away for the next 30 years so they have to life off scraps in the alley.
I'm pretty sure they know that. But I bet he didn't know he would be caught. Pirates/thieves now-a-days don't expect any consequences for their actions. This is an example of expect the unexpected. Don't mess with corporations.zauxz said:
Piracy isn't theft.Benjeezy said:
I go out and steal a copy of the game from a someone, that's theft, he or she has now lost a game. (herp derp u lost the gaem lol)
I pirate a game online, that's piracy, it's shared online. Noone is losing anything.
They are two different things and should be treated as such.
You can also bring in different factors such as how many people were bothered enough to go and buy the game anyway if they couldn't pirate it and the few people who buy the game after pirating to support the developers. In any case, a $1.5 million is vastly disproportional to the crime commited and the impact it had on Nintendo.
Way to miss important information from the original story, guys. This is not some random guy who happened to be seeding stuff on bittorrent or whatever. He was a manager at a store that had copies shipped to it ahead of release in order to have them to sell them on release day, which is standard practice. He ripped a copy of the game taken from the store and distributed it, obviously knowing exactly what he was doing. It's not only against Nintendo's interests but his own store's, considering that no one's going to buy it from him after he's given it away for free.
Anyway, the point is that this is not casual piracy, just clicking a link on a torrent site or something like that. People always complain about the big companies going after the little guys for downloading a few songs here and there and say they should go after the "real" pirates responsible for it in the first place, if anything. Well, that's what they did here. This is one step below the places in China that mass-produce bootleg copies of DVDs and game discs. People doing crap like this gets in the way of the work everyone else is doing to get copyright laws/enforcement made less ridiculous/harmful/damaging.
That said, I'm not really sure what the justification is for needing access to all his accounts for everything on the entire Internet. That part's a little...something or other.
Anyway, the point is that this is not casual piracy, just clicking a link on a torrent site or something like that. People always complain about the big companies going after the little guys for downloading a few songs here and there and say they should go after the "real" pirates responsible for it in the first place, if anything. Well, that's what they did here. This is one step below the places in China that mass-produce bootleg copies of DVDs and game discs. People doing crap like this gets in the way of the work everyone else is doing to get copyright laws/enforcement made less ridiculous/harmful/damaging.
That said, I'm not really sure what the justification is for needing access to all his accounts for everything on the entire Internet. That part's a little...something or other.
Ah crap...Hmm...This will never end. How bout...You hate Nintendo for their actions and I like Nintendo for their actions. We good?zauxz said:
Well I'm not gonna judge on if the massive fine was too harsh a penalty to pay but at least Nintendo found the right person to go after. The person who uploads the pirated stuff in the first place.
Plus he uploads the game BEFORE it's official release? That had to put up some kind of red flag for Nintendo.
Plus he uploads the game BEFORE it's official release? That had to put up some kind of red flag for Nintendo.
This article [link]http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=5954[/link] says nsmb wii sold 1.3 million units. How exactly did this upload harm sales? The stupid part is that even if they sold 2 copies for every man woman and child on earth they would still claim that an uploaded game had hurt sales.
And for you publicly educated mouth breathers out there: piracy = stealing shit on the high seas, distributing a configuration of bits that someone claims to own = copyright infringement
handy graphic
And for you publicly educated mouth breathers out there: piracy = stealing shit on the high seas, distributing a configuration of bits that someone claims to own = copyright infringement
handy graphic
You know why they didn't go after a case like this in the US? They were already told they couldn't get access to accounts, records and hardware without a subpoena. The process would have given the guy time to clear all the information and they would have gotten nothing to take to court. That and in the US the guy would have gone to the court room next door and filed an appeal (it's illegal to force someone into bankruptcy in most states with a lawsuit.)
Good, I'm sick of games going down the crapper because everyone pirated the game
I don't understand where they think the man is going to get the money from but he should have thought of that before he pirated the game
It's good that Nintendo are taking such a strong stand
I don't understand where they think the man is going to get the money from but he should have thought of that before he pirated the game
It's good that Nintendo are taking such a strong stand
I don't think he figured that the "time' for his "crime" would end up being 1.5 mil.
So much for excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishment laws. I'm not an expert on Australian law but as always I'm not thrilled with the large corporation or the justice system here. His case was screwed from the start and Nintendo knew it so they milked him for every dollar possible, plain and simple. I highly doubt his upload hurt Nintendo's sales enough to warrant such an excessive suit.
On a separate note, I almost can't blame him. Almost. Australian game prices are ridiculous and I can ALMOST see where file sharing would be warranted. Unfortunately, I am a firm believer in math and if I'm not mistaken then: Good games= More games sold= More money for corp= (Hopefully) More good games.
But if the debate here is whether or not the suit is excessive, IMHO it is. Very excessive. If he profited, though, then I could understand a large suit, which is possible seeing how it seems he uploaded it before the release date.
So much for excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishment laws. I'm not an expert on Australian law but as always I'm not thrilled with the large corporation or the justice system here. His case was screwed from the start and Nintendo knew it so they milked him for every dollar possible, plain and simple. I highly doubt his upload hurt Nintendo's sales enough to warrant such an excessive suit.
On a separate note, I almost can't blame him. Almost. Australian game prices are ridiculous and I can ALMOST see where file sharing would be warranted. Unfortunately, I am a firm believer in math and if I'm not mistaken then: Good games= More games sold= More money for corp= (Hopefully) More good games.
But if the debate here is whether or not the suit is excessive, IMHO it is. Very excessive. If he profited, though, then I could understand a large suit, which is possible seeing how it seems he uploaded it before the release date.
Pirating games is stupid, and I don't say that just because I work at a video rental store and it hurts my employer, but think, if the companies don't make as much they think they would for a game, they have to raise the price of the next game to match how much they think they'll make.
True, gaming has gotten expensive and in these times it's hard to keep up with the costs of being on top of the newest games, but there are other ways, borrow a copy from a friend, or split the costs with someone and share the game, or buy older games and trade them back for a bit of cash, there are ways...and don't be like "oh, but 1.5 million is a lot for pirating", but think how much he could have made for something like that for a week before the release, plus, how much they'd lose, if people could download the game, they'd lose a lot of money, and without the high penalty, people would keep doing
Would YOU pirate a game if you knew the cost of getting caught was a million plus? I doubt it unless you're Bill Gates, but they'd go for billions from him
True, gaming has gotten expensive and in these times it's hard to keep up with the costs of being on top of the newest games, but there are other ways, borrow a copy from a friend, or split the costs with someone and share the game, or buy older games and trade them back for a bit of cash, there are ways...and don't be like "oh, but 1.5 million is a lot for pirating", but think how much he could have made for something like that for a week before the release, plus, how much they'd lose, if people could download the game, they'd lose a lot of money, and without the high penalty, people would keep doing
Would YOU pirate a game if you knew the cost of getting caught was a million plus? I doubt it unless you're Bill Gates, but they'd go for billions from him
