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

I completely agree with your post, poddie.

I mean I'm a Decepticon, and even I know this guy deserves to be punished.

Ridiculous. So, a guy uploads a game and 50,000 who probably weren't going to buy it anyway download it.. (because, seriously, who casually pirates on the Wii? Nobody is accidentally pirating NSMB..)

They must have lessened his fine or something for going on TV and giving an afterschool message, because it would be a perfect forum to shed some logic onto the matter.

And what is the point of charging him 1.5 million? Given his talents, I expect the only way he'll ever afford to pay that off is to pirate for money. Just don't get caught this time.. There must be some way to make examples out of people without stripping all their options from life except crime..

I am not sure how bankruptcy works in Australia, but I very much doubt he is going to be liable for all that. That said, going into bankruptcy is totally going to screw this guy over for the rest of his life, so I suppose it won't matter either way. Seriously though, 1.5 million? It's not like all those gamers were going to buy this game if it was available for sale anyways, they are pirates.

"For the genius who wants to compare piracy to rape, "

For the guy who needs a little better reading comprehension, my argument is "just because X isn't theft (in the sense of taking something away from someone) doesn't mean X is okay." Here's all the things that pirates THINK they should be allowed to do because they aren't "depriving anyone of anything":

(1) Park at metered spots and not have to pay a fine when they get caught (hey, if no one else was going to park there, then I'm not hurting anyone).
(2) Park for free in a parking lot that requires you to pay. (Hey, they only lost the *potential* for someone else to park there. They can't actually *prove* that someone would've parked there.)
(3) Break into concerts for free. (Hey, I wouldn't buy a ticket anyway, so they didn't lose anything.)
(4) Break into movie theaters to see movies for free. (Hey, if it isn't sold out, then no one can complain.)
(5) Cheat on their income taxes. (Hey, if I didn't exist or didn't live in this country, the government wouldn't get my taxes, so I'm not stealing anything from them. Rather, they're stealing something from me!)

I can go on and on. My point is that pirates don't understand basic economics, but think they should be allowed to get something for nothing, even though there are lots of costs associated with the stuff they're using. If everyone did it that way, you'd lose all the creations that you so desperately want to pirate.

Personally, I can't believe ChuckBarkowski got voted up. +1 for bad understanding of economics?

I have a problem with anyone who is trying to calculate the amount he should be charged here using US metrics. This occurred in Australia, so let's use Australian metrics, shall we?

A standard, new Wii game in Australia is (roughly) AU$100 [US$89]. I'm not going to account for not all of the downloads being lost sales, you can make your own inferences on that, but using these metrics instead...

50,000 copies at AU$100 a copy is AU$5,000,000 [US$4,466,421].

When you also consider also our bankruptcy laws (he can have all debts against him stricken, at the cost of being disallowed a passport and having a bad "credit rating" and probably a couple of other things as well...), it's still really bad for this guy, but this could have been a LOT worse for him.

Also, off-topic I'm also pissed off that Sony's decided they can charge AU$110 [US$98] instead of AU$100 and that Microsoft's decided they can charge AU$120 [US$107] instead of AU$100 [US$98] for a new game this generation.

To Sony and Microsoft: You've made me stop buying your games on release, because I won't pay >$100 for a game. This is equating to WAY less sales for you (from me) because I'm playing the games and being unimpressed before I buy them, or finishing them and deciding I can wait until they're like $30 before I pick them up. I play a shitton of games and I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this now. Well done.

Sony is lucky here: It's still getting some sales from me because their games are generally slightly cheaper (though still only if it's