Aussie NSMB Wii pirate suffers $AU1.5 million fine

[Cermage]

Personally, I find the whole compensation thing complete bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I am against piracy, but once the software is already made, it costs the publisher just a few cents to make a single disc. There is little loss of profit, considering they make about 1000% profit on every game sold. I understand them targeting distributors, but the only fair punishment should be 100 hours of community service (if no monetary gain) or 5 years in prison (if monetary gain).

so the money they put into employing people to develop the games simply goes to nothing? people don't work for free. average budget is a couple million and most wii games get no where near that amount back in sales. heck the only games to make money on the wii so far have been first party titles i think.

 

[nitrostemp]

about 10,000 to 100,000 people downloaded this game multiply that by 100$au and you get the idea of the loss in profits, but how many of theos would of bothered to buy the game if the option of piracy was available. about 10% would really buy the game

 

[Bladexdsl]

how the fuck is he even going to pay 1.3m back?!!

 

[DukeDizko]

Crap for kong, but telling crimes online isn't the best way to go nowadays...

Anyway, I'd LOVE to see and hear scenes from from Big N Boss offices in the US of A and Japan from the moment it became clear that the game was leaked!
I imagine an elder japanese man in a dark blue suit, pointing his finger at the whole office and angrily crying. Something like"Get me this fucker. Call my Yakuza-Leak-Connections! I WANT THIS DONE!" but in japanese of course. Dudes, I'd SOOOO luvvit....

 

[Elaugaufein]

I always feel conflicted about this kind of thing. I don't support piracy and I feel there should be an appropriate punishment, but "settlements" like that one usually don't even seem remotely just. I could destroy someones house and get a lesser sentence than that and I know which I regard as morally worse.

I think this is at least in part because I regard magnifying a punishment on one person as a deterence to many as morally unacceptable, you're essentially convicting someone for the crimes of others. If we only caught 1 shoplifter out of every 10 would it be right to multiply their sentences 10 times ? Being able to charge 1 person a massive amount because you can't find any of the other guilty parties is creepy.

Though at least given the price of a Wii Game the fine isn't actually too bad, it only suggests he lost them 17 000 sales as opposed to the far more inflated figures the music industry usually use and given this was basically a world wide pre-release that may actually be possible. Though that brings up the question of how much of those losses he's actually responsible for and how much the downloaders are since there's culpability on both sides.

It'd be nice to actually have some real numbers on the actual loss caused by piracy. That actually takes into account things like:
a)people who own (or will buy) a copy of the game and download a pirated copy anyway for whatever reason e.g. to be able to use it without annoying copy protection or without having to carry around inconvenient proprietary media (these aren't actually a loss at all as the purchase was made)
b) people who actually do buy a legitimate copy because of having been able to use pirated copies (which is to say a download actually causes a profit) and
c) people who download these things and either:
1) would never have bought it irrelevant of the store price (eg not available in there region or people who are downloading something just because they get a thrill from "stealing" it) (so there is no loss here to claim)
2) wouldn't have bought it at the price it was being sold for but might have bought it at a cheaper price (which means this is only a partial loss and its a partial loss two or three times, its only a chance of sale, its a sale at a reduced price and given inflation its practically speaking at a further reduced price)
d) people who download multiple copies of these items (the chances they would have bought multiple physical copies is close to 0)
e) People downloading copies of what is essentially abandonware (games that are out of print and the publisher wouldn't be making any profit anyway even assuming copies can be found).
Rather than assuming 1 download = 1 loss.

It'd also be nice to have hard data on how much piracy of the "could actually have actually made us money if it didn't happen" would go away if online methods of distribution were better embraced. Although there have been lurching steps in this direction they are hindered by
a) charging as much for a physical copy which both includes a pretty box and manual as well as production costs of the actual media (which will minor should result in at least some decrease in price) and also ignores that after production costs are recouped sales of electronic property is almost purely profit (server, bandwidth and administration costs avoid it being purely profit) so increasing sales at a reduced price could actually yield a significantly greater profit than trying to replicate the physical economy in electronic form.
b) The world's most irritating forms of copy protection such as combining only having a limited number of installs or only being able to retrieve the media for X period after buying it with locking one installation to a specific computer or requiring you to be online to verify you actually own the product without a mechanism to sign the product for offline use (for at least a reasonable period of time to allow for travel or lack of internet access). iTunes proves you can be wildly successful without that particular kind of stupidity.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Anyway, I'd LOVE to see and hear scenes from from Big N Boss offices in the US of A and Japan from the moment it became clear that the game was leaked!
I imagine an elder japanese man in a dark blue suit, pointing his finger at the whole office and angrily crying. Something like"Get me this fucker. Call my Yakuza-Leak-Connections! I WANT THIS DONE!" but in japanese of course. Dudes, I'd SOOOO luvvit....

miyamoto gave the order!!!

 

[DKAngel]

Personally, I find the whole compensation thing complete bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I am against piracy, but once the software is already made, it costs the publisher just a few cents to make a single disc. There is little loss of profit, considering they make about 1000% profit on every game sold. I understand them targeting distributors, but the only fair punishment should be 100 hours of community service (if no monetary gain) or 5 years in prison (if monetary gain).

It doesn't matter how much it costs to produce. The fact is if, say, 10,000 people downloaded the game, that's 10,000 x $80 or so that should have been spent, but wasn't. The cause would be the guy who leaked the game. Add on to that the court costs, and the fine doesn't sound so unrealistic.

it doesnt work like that

not everyone that downloaded it had any intention of buying it, i for one isnt going to buy that game so they lost nothing from me having ac copy of it so to speak. so if i wasnt going to buy it then how can they loose money?

 

[redact]

We would like to remind all members it is generally not a good idea to post images of you with an early release, a receipt with your details and store name on it, and then brag about uploading the game.

my god, that is truly priceless

 

[Cermage]

it doesnt work like that

not everyone that downloaded it had any intention of buying it, i for one isnt going to buy that game so they lost nothing from me having ac copy of it so to speak. so if i wasnt going to buy it then how can they loose money?

its the fact you used the property without the license/right to do so. you may say "but i never intended to buy the game!!!!" but it doesn't change the fact you played the game without the right to do so.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I don't think anyone is debating that, its certainly illegal to do so. What is debated is if that actually causes a lack of profits ie any damages. And if it doesn't cause damages why are the punishments assessed like it does ?

 

[DJ Hobo]

tell me one legal thing you can do
with a blank cd or dvd dont say make a legitimate copy cause nowadays that
can be considered illegal aswell.....

Backing up files. Not the best way to do it, but it's cheap and can be done. Blank CD's and DVD's can also be used to store your own music and movies.. ones you make yourself...

 

[Shebang]

We would like to remind all members it is generally not a good idea to post images of you with an early release, a receipt with your details and store name on it, and then brag about uploading the game.

A bit of common sense should be applied if you do things illegally.

.

 

[zeromac]

Why the fuck would you take a picture of your rexiept and then post it on the internet? -.-
Its like writing where you live and posting it on the internet, except Nintendo can't sue you for the latter

 

[Phazon13]

I hope Nintendo's next console will have a good security like the ps3 or something.

 

[Jacobeian]

I don't think anyone is debating that, its certainly illegal to do so. What is debated is if that actually causes a lack of profits ie any damages. And if it doesn't cause damages why are the punishments assessed like it does ?

I don't think the lack of profit have been so precisely measured, I think this is put this way to discurage people from doing that, that's all. Off course, there will always be scene groups releasing pirated games but if they succeed in scaring a few from doing that, they consider they have won.

And off course there is lack of profit in a way, as soon as a console can easily be pirated and software dowloaded, the company is losing money because people are not stupid and will always prefer getting games for free when they can. It does not mean that every downloaded game counts as a non-bought game, even Nintendo won't say that, but still, these are less money in their hands at the end, which, considering the current game development budgets (not talking about crappy 3rd parties games) is apparently worth taking legal actions.

 

[superrob]

I hope Nintendo's next console will have a good security like the ps3 or something.

Comeon... its nintendo... keep dreaming.

 

[damysteryman]

This is very conflicting for me.

I feel kongsnutz was stupid for uploading pictures of hemself with the game he leaked, instead of concealing his identity.

I also kinda feel sorry for kongsnutz, since he took a huge risk to help others out for free, and got hit bad by the consequences. For this I respect him. He paid for the game, then gave it to everyone for free, and got hit hard.

I thank him for doing this, even though I bought the game.

I also thank him, for if he didn't leak it, the AP attempt in the game wouldn't have been dealt with so quickly.

However, I think he got too hard. $1.5 million dollars, in any currency is a HUGE amount of money.
I doubt that ninty wouldv'e "lost" that much money, since it is a very popular game.

I mean, bdoing something stupid is one thing, but a $1.5M fine for giving something to people at your own expense?
I think that $1.5M fine is just a dick move by ninty.

When I read this thread, I felt like I wanted to rally a huge group and sing this song simultaneouly with said group:

Hoist the Colours
Walt Disney Records
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...07181721AAA7IdC

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

I wonder, what do you GBATempers think about this:
Should we set up a charity where we can donate some money to kongsnutz to help him out?
Sure, ninty will get the money, but at least it won't be sucked from one person while all the real pirates get away.

I think it would be really nice if anybody who illegally obtained this game would be kind enough to pay their debt and donate even a small amount, espcially if they used the specific release that kongsnutz dumped.

Or do you GBATempers think this is a bad idea?
Do you think that the donations will be traceable, and then ninty would try to accuse every donator of piracy, regardless of whether they actually pirated or not?
Do you think that one person should have to deal with the problem, as it's due to them being stupid?

So, is donations to kongsnutz good or bad?
What do you think?

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

real release groups don't show off their personal details.
its all his fault.

 

[bolex17]

ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddwww

 

[hyr8]

i don't think nintendo are actually serious about that amount of money, probably the guy won't pay that much.
to me, it was more like a way to promote themselves, since now everyone will talk about this and all, and to try to create a image of a 'whoa see we're badasses, pirate our games and we'll sue you'. at all, i think it was a lame attempt, they're just trying to make a fuss, scene groups won't stop releasing their stuff.