ELSPA: 90 percent of American DS owners are pirates, Us: Huh? [update]

Sometimes inaccuracies are hard to spot. And sometimes, they just kind of jump up and slap you in the face. For instance, our truth-o-meter dropped into the red zone when we saw this story from Scotland's Sunday Post in which John Hillier, manager of the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association's Intellectual Property Crime Unit, says that "In America it's thought 90 per cent of Nintendo DS users are playing pirated games because of R4s."

...Ninety percent? Ninety? There are 20 million DS users in North America, and we're supposed to believe that 18 million are dirty, dirty pirates? Listen, one person ripping off a company is too many, but exaggerating the problem only marginalizes it in the eyes of the people you really need to reach: The gamers.

We've emailed the ELSPA for confirmation, and we'll let you know what we hear. But if they insist that the 90 percent of Americans are pirates, we're hanging up our blogging pants and opening up a personalized eye patch store.

Update: Apparently, the Sunday Post misquoted Hillier entirely, reports DS Fanboy. "[Hillier] didn't quote the Sunday Post on any figures whatsoever," said a spokesperson for the ELSPA. The unverified 90% figure supposedly comes from an article published by The Straits Times about piracy in Singapore. Go figure.

[Via DS Fanboy]