Australian NSMB Wii pirate to gamers: 'Don't do what I did'

It's more like printing money.

If he were an end-user pirate, i would agree, but this guy uploaded it as an original copy, part of the group that should be punished for piracy in the first place, if anyone should.

Im not saying dont fine him at all, but it's not like he's a murderer or some serial rapist drug dealer. He uploaded a game onto the internet, that's worth ruining his life over?

Technically yes your right and under normal circumstances i would agree with you but in this case your stealing and sharing it with millions of people.

he only shared it with 50,000 people. Hardly worth a mans life. Because unless what Mr Khan said in his post down there is true, he might as well be dead.

What exactly did this guy steal

he uploaded a file to the internet if when hed posted it hed said for back up purposes only its not his fault if people use it to pirate the game

also i would debate the fact they said they lost 50000 in sales

ive downloaded games before they were out and still purchased the legitimate copy upon release there is an overlap between them

Agreed, the punishment is more severe than the crime he performed... But it's no different than the RIAA charging what they did to the various people they caught.
... Well, it's different in that he's the uploader, while the RIAA's targets were downloaders...

Point is, while this could have done some monetary damage to Nintendo (50k downloads x $50USD = $2.5M USD), it's to serve more as a deterrent to other would-be uploaders. I don't think Nintendo honestly expects him to pay.

Right or wrong, they have to do what they can to deter piracy, because they sure as hell can't outright stop it.

The more i think about it the fairer it seems I guess. Even taking out a 12 dollar retailer cut, 50,000 copies still costs Nintendo around 2 million dollars, and he is the uploader like you guys have said. I guess this is a fair punishment after all, but not the cases where the downloaders get fined this much for 1 copy, that's bs

The fine absolutely isn't fair. There were thousands of people breaking the law, but because they'd be a pain in the ass to apprehend and take to court, they just scapegoated the one guy who allowed it.

It would be like one guy busting into a store, but getting charged for the things other people who climbed in after him stole.

He should get a bigger fine for allowing it, but sticking him with the entire tab is wrongo.

I imagine that if they caught every single one of the supposed 50,000 who downloaded it, then each one of them would get fined $50 for the game (or whatever the Australian price is, since I'm sure it's higher), and they'd probably also fine him a shit load as well for being the uploader.

Either way I doubt he'd get a fair penalty. As I said below though, $50,000 plus tons of community service sounds like a much better outcome.

But think, of those 55,000 copies each should be sold at 50 USD. That's way more then 1.5 mil. He's lucky he doesn't get charged per user.

> Cleric:
> It's more like printing money.

I doubt that. Afterall, they aren't going to get $1.5 million out of him. Let's say that he doesn't declare bankruptcy and he pays $100,000. There were 50,000 downloads. If Nintendo lost an average of $2 on each download, then they'll break even if they can get $100,000 out of the guy.

Quite frankly, he probably got off easy. The RIAA is absolutely insane because the fines greatly exceed the cost of the pirated material. Our Australian pirate here on the other hand is paying about half of what he gave away for free (1.3 Mil USD as opposed to the 2.5 Mil USD in pirated copies downloaded).

But this is EXACTLY how you combat piracy. You don't go after those who download here and there, you go after the suppliers. You take them out and make an example out of them and you will kill the problem right then and there. If people are too scared to give away the material, nobody can download what doesn't exist. This is what the RIAA has yet to figure out (that and that the price paid in damages should match the crime).

Well at least he's not in america, where big companies give themselves 1.5 million dollars of our money without even asking.

Shoplifting and aiding in thousands of illegal downloads are 2 different things. This guy got what he deserved.

No, he means upload from your home computer without TOR and using the same screen name you use everywhere. Gotta be smart, thats all ;)

You're not too smart, are you?

Did you know that 'Australia' is English slang for 'Prison Island'?

*The More You Know jingle*

It's spelt gaol here you hicks

Oh yeah, who wants to live in the country that does Fords better than the US does, has half the unemployment rate of the US, free universal healthcare and all the same infrastructures and technologies as the US with nowhere near the same level of crime, homelessness and prejudice? Yeah um, i certainly wouldn't wanna live there.... Nevermind we never get earthquakes or tornadoes either and single parents like myself get en-masse payments from the government just to BE parents. I can't fault this country, except for the game-rating system (which has only ever affected 1 decent game anyway, why everyone makes a big deal is beyond me) and the more expensive games/consoles.

Agreed.

Because Wii games are more important than the economy.

Perhaps something around $50,000?

That's a huge debt to have, but still easily worked off. They should also consider throwing in a few extras, like ## amount of community service hours, and perhaps make a public speech or two against the whole thing.

I mean they could've used him to really drive the message home to pirates by making him the poster boy for anti-piracy. Instead I feel like most pirates will probably just think, "Guess I should finally start using proxies".

Great comment, completely agree with you. The only reason he's being fined that much is because he is an easy unimportant target.

Wow sonicspike!

I don't really comment here much but I had to vote you up and comment here. You really thought this through huh? That is a splendid idea.

Whoever said the rhyme musta done the crime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyAY06IcH4Y
Yes, I'm a real MC.

SPA Exec 1: "How do we get our message across to teenagers that pirating software is wrong?"

SPA Exec 2: "I know, lets make a rap! Kids love rap, and it will make us seem cool, hip and happening!"

SPA Exec 1: "Awesome! But wont it be expensive to hire a professional rapper for the video?"

SPA Exec 2: "Yeah true... Oh wait a sec; isn't Michael who works in legal black? He could do it."

SPA Exec 1: "Genius!"

if that's true that's not so bad, but it's not like this shit doesnt happen all the time in America with the RIAA. Like that lady that has to pay 24 million for like 1 album worth of songs or something. If I stole a gold plated M1 Abrams i wouldnt be fined that much

wait, Khan, is that another avatar from Megas XLR?

I think it's Goat, the junkyard man.

BPM got it. I've been feeling in a Goat-esque mood lately.

DSG is with us at all times

I might be arguing for lesser punishments, but that doesn't make pirating a crime that hurts no one. Studios and publishers still lose shitloads of money of piracy, and if last year was any evidence, it costs a lot of jobs

That may have been an exaggeration but the point remains that 1.5 million dollars for sharing a 60 dollar game is ridiculous.

To quote BPM:

"Point is, while this could have done some monetary damage to Nintendo (50k downloads x $50USD = $2.5M USD), it's to serve more as a deterrent to other would-be uploaders. I don't think Nintendo honestly expects him to pay."

Though I really doubt this will deter anyone. Most of the hardcore groups are likely very cautious. There are also tons of different groups. When I lost my disc for Halo 1 (for the PC, and I have it... somewhere around here) I went to see what the download options were and saw at least 2-3 releases from different groups. Reloaded, Raven 1911 or something like that, and I've seen "klaxxon" and "axxo" mentioned on a lot of sites as well.

It seems like he is getting off with less than he should. what with it being downloaded 50,000 times, and at $60 of "potential" loss for downloads, that's $3,000,000 of "possible" lost revenue.

Even if it was $40 a copy, that's still $2,000,000 in "potential" lost revenue. So, I think he's getting of a little light.

Just because the torrent was d/l 50,000 times does not mean there were 50,000 potential lost sales there. Companies try to twist that number and pass it off as some "fact", but really, for all they know the torrent could've raised awareness about the game and actually stimulated sales.

It would be wicked funny if piracy in all its forms were somehow, inexplicably, purged, and the gaming industry crashed as a result.

The truth is, it's hard to determine how big of an impact piracy has on the game industry. On individual games, it can be easier to tell. 50k downloads is nothing compared to the 10.55M NEW copies of NSMBW sold worldwide... whereas something like World of Goo was pirated more than it was purchased (at least, initially... don't know if that still remains true).

There are a few types of game pirates:
1. Those who pirated it just to play it, but wouldn't have bought it anyways.
2. Those who pirated it to play it early or before they have money, then buy it once they can.
3. Those who pirated it because they could, but would've bought if it wasn't available "for free."
4. Those who pirate it to "stick it to the man", usually because of DRM (whereas the pirated copy is cleaned of the intrusive software). May or may not have purchased a legit copy.
5. Those who pirated it because "it wasn't good enough to buy" (which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard... if it wasn't good enough to buy, why would you even waste the time to download it?)

Pirate #1 didn't really "harm" anything, because regardless of the quality of the game, he wouldn't have bought it.
Pirate #2 didn't "hurt the industry" either, as he still paid for the game eventually.
Pirate #3 has no sense of money or how the world works.
Pirate #4 may or may not have contributed to a game's success, but the publisher is getting the wrong message anyways (either that people don't care about DRM, or they need stronger DRM to protect themselves)
Pirate #5 is just an idiot.

Piracy isn't always a lost sale, but it certainly does less good than harm.