@sereal: Sorry my mistake, either way then it's illegal copying and selling which should be stamped down on all the same if it's on PC's or consoles.

Llost

@-EDGE-: Nope.

ChaosBahamut

Well that'll funcken learn them...wont it?

-EDGE-

@juc:
Due to the amount of money that is being thrown around, these pirates sound like real ones, as in selling hard copies of the game. You don't settle for $100,000 if you seeded a CoD3.iso torrent.

Benjammn

"Read the Hyman settlement"

Is it immature that I found that absolutely hilarious?

bkchurch

Wait, wait, wait?

Nobody pirated a PC title?

Isn't piracy the reason why the PC market is going to be dumped in favor of consoles?

If you have to bluff, please, learn to bluff, first :)

z.e.r.o

@Llost: um, this article is about console games.

sereal

Heh it's true..

They should be thankful that COD3 is still being played, let along people paying for it.

Whiternoise

Wow, two days late on the story and you didn't even bother reading the follow up.

Thater

!! CORRECTION !! CORRECTION !!

[www.gamepolitics.com]

!! CORRECTION !! CORRECTION !!

Would you please update this news? Thank you :)

Kajetan

Maybe these people should have used the defense that buying the game would be like being thieved by Activision.

Kirk Douglas

If people were making money off of copied games then I'm glad they got sued.

daschupa

I find the bias against a company protecting itself and for the individuals that are stealing from that company contained in this article very disappointing.

BigWeather

@juc:
Really playing it fast and loose with the 'customer' thing, eh?

Mact

Looking at those titles, they should be fined for having no gaming taste too.

Bananabox-Ninja

That's great and all, but if they're making up lost revenue through litigation, they should stop using any sort of DRM on PC games. Give the honest customer a break.

homernoy

@quen: Well what's the point in just letting them illegally download stuff until they destroy the industry? It happens with anime, it happens with games and if it happened with other stuff like music then it'd become and even bigger problem. We have a bad culture of taking what we don't earn and if that's destroying businesses then I think it's only fair businesses fight back.

Llost

On the other hand, a quick reread of the story makes me think that the guys in question here aren't really pirates, but good old fashioned bootleggers.

DimensionWarped

Stop, guys. This isn't some Jammie Thomas case, where some dumbass had something in a shared folder.

Unless I'm way off - and I'm 98% sure I am not - these guys were copying AND selling - willfully distributing - the games. Again, this is not a case of "lol, I downloaded a music torrent and it kept uploading". This is "copy game, crack game, burn game, sell game". THAT is a big no-no.

Seriously. This is just six guys; if this were a case of going after people downloading the game off of torrents and the like - like the RIAA is doing - then yes, that would be the time to rage, if anything because they'd be using the same dirty and irresponsible tactics of John Doe inquiries, relying on dynamic IP addresses and randomized logs, etc. As it stands, no, these are the guys they really do have to go after, and though it pains me - severely - to say the following words... ugh... I su-- supp-- urp... I support Activision.

superbus

@LastFace:
depends on how many copies they made and how many they distributed and made a nice sum of money of thats more likely to explain the 100,000 dollars.

tyddraig

@Llost: I love your sarcasm!

Oh, wait. *checks next post*

That wasn't sarcasm?

*facepalm*.

quen

Activision learned quite a bit from Atari. The fine art of suing.

Kenofthedead

It's pretty stupid considering that you'd get a much smaller fine if you shoplifted the games from a brick and mortar.

DimensionWarped

@LastFace: Yeah it'd be much simpler to just charge them two or three times the retail price of everything downloaded (after an analysis of the PC to see if there has been more downloads in the past) and then a strict fee of around 500 or something. Then simply monitor them now and again for if they've been installing fake stuff.

Llost

Actually Owen, it'd be 244,500 MS points. I see Microsoft's nefarious plan of confusing the consumer over how much they actually pay is working. Those rotten bastards.

Toasticus

Uh, well I think suing them makes sense, but $100 000? srsly?

That's fucking insane.

What are those games all together, like 200 bucks? goddamn.

LastFace

Man. Sucks to get sued over stealing a game as worthless as Cod3 too. Cod4 or 2 at least you got your (lack of) money's worth. Maybe.

serotoninzero

@juc: Illegal downlaoders are not customers, and they're not suing them for the stuff they do buy but the stuff they illegally download so it has nothing to do with the fact they are customers but the fact that they are piraters of software or merely downloading illegal copies to have fake copies. DRM wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for these pirates anwyay.

Llost

Well done activision, find them, sue them, stop them. Simple as that and then maybe people will stop pirating games. Then the PC industry would restore itself in no time.

Llost

@mentalboy11:
Don't you dare sully the ninja name by equating it to Activision. Activision's more like the Borg or the Flood.

Archaotic

Ugh, and I was wondering how anybody could possibly piss off their customers more than EA did with the spore DRM.

juc

wow, activision is quite the ninja.

ninja vs pirates.

mentalboy11

@Roto13: I was thinking of people who copied the games on consoles (as I keep mixing the argument between these illegal copies being sold of console games and illegal file downloaders) but if your asking about profit then there's none on the PC side but it does lose the companies themselves profit so it's not automatically acceptable just because people don't profit from it.

Llost

@NeoAkira: Reason to buy over pirating? What reason is there? You know they choose to pirate so they can get the stuff for free and conveniently so unless we're going to get an activision donkry rider strolling down the streets to local houses giving away free copies of games I imagine they'll keep downloading. Even if you did have the game available online they'd probably just download it anwyay for the sake of the price. Steam is not a solution, it's a well accepted lock down. It's a DRM heavy system that merely makes it much more complicated to get an illegal copy so that's why they don't get as many of there games copied.

Unless ALL consider themselves illegal downloaders and customers at the same time and a part of these peoples copying group I don't think they need to worry. I'd simply charge them 2 or 3 times the retail price if they settle out of court and if they were resiliant so made court necessary then add the court charges too.

Llost

Stealing is stealing regardless if you are stealing a single copy of a game, a single movie, a single song or distributing a million stolen copies.

Just because it is easy doesn't make it right.

Kewk

I really wish I would've pirated Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hawk's Project 8. Those games were mediocre at best.

ZillionDollarSadist

@shatteredhalo:

Just because you don't have a use for installing the game more than three times doesn't mean other people don't. Ever have to reformat a HDD? or buy a new computer? Or any number of other things that would require you to install it more times? If not then that's great for you, I'm jealous. But many people would need to install a game more than 3 times (although they've now raised it to 5).

Point being. Spore's shitty DRM is a slap in the face to consumers when there are much more viable methods to stopping piracy in PC games via Steam.

NeoAkira

@Llost: "Spore treat everyone like a criminal with poor DRM features which also hampered the amount of times you could even install it whereas this is sueing illegal copy makers of games that choose to profit off of another companies invention."

Profit? Where?

Also, I think it's absolutely precious that you think piracy will ever go away.

Roto13

So, did he sell them at a shop or something? I'm confused.

Ryumeka

@Llost:

It's not about making piracy via filesharing free territory. It's about finding a solution that will appease people who pirate and thus give them a reason to buy instead of pirating. Much like how iTunes was a part of the solution for music piracy. And much like how Steam is part of the solution to PC piracy.

You're saying sue the people who do the smaller stuff (ie pirate via filesharing), but for less. Although the amount of money you sue for is a large part of it, it also comes down to the principle for suing a potential customer. And yes, while you may say that the company doesn't see someone downloading their software illegally as a customer, other people do. In other words, you sue one, you insult all.

NeoAkira

@Llost: Okay, I have Spore, and while I knew about the DRM beforehand, I was fine with it, I knew they were doing what they had to do in order to prevent the piracy from getting worse. Do I feel like a criminal because of what they did? No, not in the least, and I enjoy the game immensely. Honestly, who NEEDS to install this game on more than 3 systems???

I think people just LOOK for any reason at all to bitch about something. People say that they're sick of this crap because they feel like EA or Activision or whoever is treating everyone like criminals and it's uncalled for and blahblahblah, but seriously, look at these lawsuits.

The problem is very real, and it's NOT going to get better by saying "Pirates? lawl" and then going about your day ignoring it. Something needs to be done, and I'm sorry to say this, I do believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. Get used to it people, this stuff is here to stay.

shatteredhalo

I'm glad Activision is kicking their asses. Pirates are stealing and they deserve to get punished.

DukeOfPwn

@NeoAkira: You sue the people who do the big stuff and you sue the people who do lesser stuff (you just sue them for less). Yeah that was the case but either way illegal downloads shouldn't be a free territory just because people want free content.

Llost

@Llost:

I'm not saying suing people who pirate and sell games AS a business is wrong, I'm saying that suing people who pirate (via filesharing and stuff) is not the solution. I think you're speaking about the former while I'm speaking about the latter.

NeoAkira

@Llost: I meant 'so you honestly believe that a company stopping people profiting from illegal copies of there game is a bad thing and going to to get good honest people to back lash against them (activision)?

Llost

@NeoAkira: Spore treat everyone like a criminal with poor DRM features which also hampered the amount of times you could even install it whereas this is sueing illegal copy makers of games that choose to profit off of another companies invention. Slightly different thing we're dealing with I'd imagine.

Ofcourse there's no backlash from police for stopping people doing illegal things and that's why there's not a public ouroar about this either. So you honestly believe that a company stopping illegal downlaoders is bad and going to get good honest people to back lash against activision?

Llost

@superbus: Okay, I missed the selling bit.

Still, slippery slope. And that's quite the RIAA-esque exhorbitant fee.

HikariOblivion

You can't sell pirated games, thats just stupid.

flukielukie

@HikariOblivion: What is evil about protecting their investment, trying to stem a growing problem, and taking out people that are pirating their games and selling them for a personal profit?

Again. This is not P2P file sharers they're attacking. These are people that deserve to have their asses kicked.

superbus

That's right, suing a criminal who runs a business of pirating your games is evil. I love the hypocritical hysteria coming from these pirates.

royaljester

@Llost:

No it's failed logic from you as your analogy doesn't represent the situation well at all.

You sue people for piracy, or try to restrict them from taking part in it, you get backlash. See Spore's piracy rate.

You arrest people and put them in jail, other people do not backlash against it.

Stupidity from you, unfortunately. Try again.

NeoAkira

So, let me get this right... Activision suing people who are STEALING their property... is wrong and they shouldn't do it???

Using that logic, if someone stole your car and then gutted it for parts, and then sold all the parts for some mucho dinero, it'd be wrong for you to sue them because the car manufacturers shouldn't be making their cars so crappy yet so expensive in the first place, right?

shatteredhalo

@NeoAkira: Well if these guys who copy and sell copied games are actually selling any copies at all (which they obviously are or they wouldn't have been picked up on) then it is going to effect piracy even if minimally. It's like saying it's not worth trying to stop criminals cos if you catch one then there's more. Failed logic from you unfortunately. It's the problem that if they do nothing it will spiral out of control whereas taking action will slow down the problem if nothing more.

Llost

Yee, good to see Activision turning even more evil.

HikariOblivion

@Llost: There's nothing wrong with trying to keep your business safe. But what you're supporting (ie Activision's actions) is just stupid. Do you think suing these people will deter piracy at all? Because if you do, I'm extremely amused right now.

NeoAkira

Gamepolitics debunked this days ago. Activision's lawyer said that none of these cases are P2P filesharing cases.

markusdragon

@NeVeRMoRe666: If the little guy is a group of organised illegal game sellers then I'd never understand how anyone could not see the reason for it. If the little guy is simply someone downloading an illegal copy then it's more understandable but either way it's illegal activity being stamped out on by a business so I'd rather support them.

I agree on that but it's also a way of covering the cost of the court cases, a punishment and a way of dettering others.

Llost

If they are going to go after people. go after people who sell copied games, or go after the source. If you're just going after regular joes, then it's not even about protecting yourself, it's about making more money.

ysdarkfact

Unless these people were profiting from their pirating, the fines in $100,000 range seems a bit excessive to me. I hope Activision doesn't really plan on seeing any of this money, because I bet many of these people will never be able to fully pay such exorbitant damages.

stupid_mcgee

Batman should really get on these software pirates.

(A kid is sitting at a computer late at night, scrolling through a torrent site)

Kid: Man, EA blows. Lets see now, where would Spore be...

(Just then Batman jumps in through his window, grabs him by his collar and growls at him in a smoker voice)

Batman: Didn't your mom ever teach you not to steal?
Kid: But I already bought the game... I just don't like the DRM, and my brother wants his own account.
Batman: DO YOU HAVE A RECEIPT?
Kid: Yes! Here!
Batman: Alright. Tell your friends about me, and I'll let you go.
Kid: I swear to god-
Batman: SWEAR TO ME!

Thorax

@Llost: "Yes I believe in systems like Steam too but not all companies have the time, staff, knowledge or money to build steam like systems just to stop these illegal downloaders."

Frequently, they do. It's called "using Steam".

Also, while I'm not defending piracy, there's obviously a HUGE difference between downloading something for personal use and, say, downloading something so you can then copy it, burn it, and possibly -sell- it. All kinds of things come into play, including the fact that you are then -profiting- from the copyright violation.

Oh, and that bit about "well, wouldn't you be mad if someone came in and dismantled your car?"...sorry, that's a completely fallacious argument. Apples and oranges.

Again, I'm not defending piracy. I just irritated when people use illogical, knee-jerk arguments against it when there are perfectly -valid- arguments to be made instead.

EmpressInYellow

How the hell do you agree to pay anyone $100,000 and not bother to hire an attorney?

Tyrannical

@shatteredhalo: I think. Oh i don't know anymore.

shatteredhalo

@shatteredhalo: wait now my math is fucked up.

nevermind :P

shatteredhalo

@Akuma147:

Um, no lol. 80 MS points=$1.00 so every MS point equals 80% of a cent. So $326,000=260,800 MS points.

bkchurch

@Akuma147: your math is off.

80 MS points = $1, right? so .8 x 1 = .8

.8 x 326000 = 260800

shatteredhalo

@Llost: I think what juc: was refering to was the fact that a "big evil" corporation was coming down hard on the little guy, a common perception that stands to hurt their PR. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, with supporters on both sides.

I call bullshit on this, $100 000 for distributing COD 3?!?! Who would buy that shit? Even a pirated copy...I seriously doubt Activision would have lost that much profit in the first place.
COD4 on the other hand...

NeVeRMoRe666

@NeoAkira: No, the customers won't be screwed, they've already said that if they ever shut down the servers, they would release a patch that would get rid of the authentication process. Seems to me like a lot of these people don't entirely understand what they're trying to do here, and what's going to happen down the road. EA, as much backlash as they get from everyone, isn't stupid, and I can rest assured that they're not going to bend over their customers and rape them.

shatteredhalo

@shatteredhalo: I think you just caught one of my posts that made it sounds like I was supporting them so no problem.

Llost

Doesn't 80 MS points = $.99 or rounded up is $1.00?
So, $326,000 x 80 MS = 26,080,000 MS Points

Akuma147

@NeoAkira: Well then it's simply the problem that they choose not to pay for it at all just because they don't want to pay as much. As you said price is one of the main problems they posted but PC titles are generally cheaper than console titles and shortly after the release would come to £15 or £20. If that's not cheap enough for new games I don't know what they're expecting. Clearly they want them for a price that's not profitable for these companies and there own unrealistic expectations is given as an excuse to downlaod it for free. I'd argue most people don't know the DRM of most games until they get them too and I doubt DRM is much of an issue anyway since it rarely is that bad that it's an excuse to boycott a game.

I doubt it's as small as you think, they merely use any excuse to download the titles as far as I can see. 'Oh shi- this game needs a keycode to play and then you can't install it much so now I can download it for free'. Yes I believe in systems like Steam too but not all companies have the time, staff, knowledge or money to build steam like systems just to stop these illegal downloaders.

Llost

@Anaralia: Not from downloading the game in general, but using ANY of its online features? Yes, it prevents that. Did you think you were being witty? I loled.

NeoAkira

@DirtySyko: are you seriously advocating piracy as long as it's not being sold to others?

shatteredhalo

@shatteredhalo: Very true, if EA will reauthorize you to install again just by explaining your situation to them then that's good. But I think that's a small problem with Spore's DRM.

What many people were saying before is that since spore needs to be server-authorized every once in a while it means that if EA were to ever remove their server the customers who purchased the game legally would be screwed since they would no longer be able to get authorized to play their game anymore. And considering how many expansions and version of Will Wright's previous game (The Sims) there are, I wouldn't be surprised if EA shut down Spore server-authorization when Spore 2 comes out.

Anyways, I'm not complaining about Spore's DRM, but I'm not condoning it either. I'm just trying to show that the complaints about the DRM are viable even if they are a tad exaggerated.

NeoAkira

@Toasticus: I'm not seeing how either of you are getting those numers...

80 MS points per dollar times 326,000 dollars would equal 26,080,000 MS points

zalbaag

The only pirates who are getting in trouble are the ones actually making a profit. RIAA and MPAA have basically given up on downloaders, it's too expensive and too hard to prove them guilty. So if you want your butt-hole to be safe, just don't sell any of your illegal warez.

DirtySyko

@Nelsormensch: Even then, piracy is piracy and it should be stopped, regardless of if they were bootleg copies or torrent sharing.

shatteredhalo

*shrugs* Wasted effort if you ask me. Why go after the handful of underground sellers in the west when you could go to China and rape the thousands of illegal sellers that the authorities there turn a blind eye too?

@NeoAkira: Steam prevents piracy? I loled.

Anaralia

@Llost: Oh, then let's just say my comment isn't direct at you anymore haha. It's good to see other people who feel the same way I do on this issue. Sorry about that.

shatteredhalo

@quen: Okay then we'll avoid that.

I know this alone won't do it but I'm hopeful that through a mix of strategies like the RIAA targeting file sharers, actvision stopping illegal copies of games and better DRM solutions like Steam that we can atleast minimalise the amount of illegal downloading and fake copies.

Some people seem to have misunderstood me, I don't believe this will have a huge impact on piracy. I just believe it'll help somewhat which is going to be way below 1% but it still helps and it still gets the company more lost money back which keeps them alive.

Llost

As mentioned upthread, please read this update:

[www.gamepolitics.com]

Notice how these were all console games? This isn't BitTorrenting Spore here. This very much appears to be bootlegging for profit.

Nelsormensch

@Llost: Eh, I forget the name of the guy. But a game developer recently put a question up on his blog asking why people pirate. And he sincerely wanted to know. So basically he got thousands of responses and stuff and when he sorted out the data it came down to this. DRM and Price were the top 2 reasons that people pirated games. And Pirating simply because you could get it for free and thus wouldn't have to pay was the least given response for pirating.

Point being, yes, there will always be piracy because some people will pirate just because they can, but that's is an extremely small minority in the piracy community. Thus programs like Steam (while they have DRM) are very good solutions to piracy problems because they give reasons not to pirate and implement DRM well.

NeoAkira

@shatteredhalo: That's good for you and it doesn't make me feel like a criminal either but a large amount of people do feel bad having to brunt the weight of DRM just because illegal downloaders are too cheap and lazy to go to a store and buy a copy.

I don't really care about the DRM either as I see it as a way to stop piracy too but it's the illegal downloaders that do most of the complaining to try and keep this stuff DRM free and allow there shady practices to go on.

I think you didn't read my previous comments, I'm against piracy too so I am in agreemant with you that this stuff needs to be done. I was just saying some people feel spore treat them like criminals but it was probably just a vocal minority of whiners.

Llost

@Llost: Well, I don't particularly want to get into a discussion about whether piracy has good points as well as bad ones or not. And I'm certainly in favour of shutting down anyone who sells pirate copies of anything.

I was actually commenting on the suggestion that (a) stopping a few pirates would have any significant impact on piracy as a whole, or that (b) if this happened the hardcore game PC market would somehow be revived. (That's assuming these people were BitTorrent pirates of PC games anyway, neither of which turned out to actually be true, but whatever.)

quen

@NeoAkira: Yes, yes, and yes. I'm not saying there won't be instances where this won't happen, but it seems to me like EVERYONE is yelling about this, but honestly, EA/Maxis has said that you can give them a call, explain to them the situation, and they'll help you out. Hell, I just had to do this last week several times on a product that can only be installed on ONE machine at a time (Crappy computers that couldn't run the app, to Vista 64-bit not being compatible, to buggy installs, etc).

It's not the end of the world just because you have to pick up a phone and talk to customer service. If you're an honest customer as these people claim to be, it wouldn't be a problem.

shatteredhalo

@Llost: RE: the car thing...no, sorry, I was replying to @shatteredhalo and I should have been clearer.

@Kajetan: Also, yes. Is "copyright infringement" so hard for people to comprehend? If I were having a discussion about, say, plagiarism, using the word "stealing" instead (and making labored analogies about shoplifting or whatever) would be equally misguided. Like I said, there are plenty of reasons to argue against copyright infringement without muddying the waters with lazy, inaccurate language.

EmpressInYellow

And nearly everyone is using the wrong words, therefore making the same old mistakes, the entertainment industry is making when dealing with this matter.

Its "COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT" and not "STEALING". And no, your personal morale has nothing to do with it ...

Kajetan

@zalbaag: Oops, my mistake! You're completely right. I was using a conversion of 3/4ths (counting the last two digits as "MS cents" so to speak) and Owen used a conversion of 5/4ths, when it's actually 4/5ths, or to be precise, 400/5ths. Too many fractions, augh!

Toasticus

@arstal: Well...these were settlements, so if they (the pirates who oddly didn't have lawyers) thought they could reduce the fine, they could have gone to court. Theres a side we don't know, such as how these illegal copies were being distributed.

NeVeRMoRe666

100% behind Activision here, and then some. I utterly loathe pirates, be it in regards to anime, video games, or whatever you want to look at. If only they would take a stauncher stance on piracy instead of just cracking down on the big guns, though at least this is a step in the right direction.

Kia

I've got no problem with the suing. What I would have problems with is if the $100,000k was for 1 games worth of damage. Remedies need to fit the tort.

For DLing a game, damages should be capped at around $100+legal fees at most.

arstal

And while you're all arguing over the merits of piracy, I'll be playing Lego Batman.

Poo_and_Weeeee

I think there's a gigantic difference between, copying a game of the internet and SELLING the game after for personal profit. Making money out of someone else s work, that's dumb and unacceptable.

Steal my cd to listen to it fine, better that then being unheard but...sell it, for your own ass that's too dumb to make money out of another way, hell, selling drugs is more acceptable.

GodKiller0

@Llost: Oh don't get me wrong. I can see the reason why these pirates are being punished. I think legally, its well merited. People who steal, in whatever form, should be punished, and there really isn't an argument you can make for them. They violated a law, exploited a company and so, in turn, must face the consequences. I was merely pointing out the potential bad PR this could bring whether or not its warrented.

NeVeRMoRe666

@EmpressInYellow: I agree there's a difference so you just sue those guys for much less like say 2 or 3 times the retail cost of all the illegal downloads on there computer.

I never mentioned anything about dismantling a car so I think you mistook me for someone else.

Then make those arguments on behalf of the side that merely wishes to see less illegal downloads and piracy rather than nit pick at less well founded arguments.

Llost

@bkchurch: No, Akuma and I are correct...

If 80 MS points = $1

Then .8 MS points = $0.01

It still comes out to 26,080,000 MS points

zalbaag

@NeoAkira: You honestly think Steam prevents you from playing pirated Steam games online? I loled.

Anaralia

@stupid_mcgee: I think the reason for the high dollar figure is because it acts as a precedent and a deterrent against others from doing the same thing. If people knew the penatlties for pirating a game is usually around the $100 000 mark, they would think twice about doing it. Similarly, if this case comes up again, Activision could expect $100 000+ from future pirated copies of say, COD4, COD5. Its the classic legal framework of "one-shotters vs. repeat players".

NeVeRMoRe666

@GodKiller0: Selling drugs more acceptable? No. Most definitely not. I'm all for throwing the book at pirates selling copied games for profit, but drug dealing is a whole different league entirely.

MattB

Activision is a bloated corporation which has nothing common with the old games company which used to make games for fun...Now, profit drives it against the very people. Also, it consumes companies which had elite IP's and makes them do shit (just go [www.toysforbob.com] here and look at what shit are creators of epic Star Control making under Activision's rule...Lets hope they wont make the same to Blizzard turning them into a Wow money churner instead of elite game creator...In short, to hell with Activision

Zorba

@Anaralia: There's definetely ways to play steam games and MMORPGs and even Blizzard games online w/o buying the game. However it's no where near the same experience. Playing TF2 or CS on steam is a lot better than playing on some crappy server or using some crappy method to connect to people. Again fake blizzard servers are complete garbage compared to the actual thing. Another thing people forget to mention in these arguments is Blizzard. Blizzard is strong at stopping pirates or it could also be the fact that every game they make (well almost all their games) are so awesome that only an idiot (or a person who doesn't like their genre) would pirate it.

Desertwolf

They always look straight at New York..

Arelan

@Archaotic: Actually, the Borg are awesome, Activision is not, I'm all for the pirates winning this one, cause Activision sucks.

Ashkihyena

@superbus: Your wrong. If this was a case of download and keep uploading the person would obviously be fined $35,000,000, the RIAA are not some small shit, when they sue, they sue big..

Desertwolf

@Anaralia: You honestly think playing on a private server with 30-40 people really counts as using a game online as opposed to steam's servers which have 10's of thousands of players? I loled.

NeoAkira

If he's reselling their game, I'm on Activision side

ClutchWarrior

I fully support the free share of information and data, such as file sharing. But what these people did, take that and charge for it. They deserve whatever action taken against them. These aren't "Pirates" as called now, they are just bootleggers.

Xerxes 8933A

Because suing people makes a difference? Its not doing anything for the RIAA but making everyone angry.

Altima NEO

I hope the RIAA never comes after me. If they should, I'm 100+ GBs of fucked.

Intellectualdiot

Gaming is a curious hobby.
I don't know of any other pastime where there are so many people who line up to be fucked in the ass by the big companies like Nintendo.
The level of sanctimony from the anti piracy crowd reminds me of religious fundamentalists, they get their little chubbys at the thoughts of the sinners being punished. Well guess what corporate cocksuckers, I can afford to buy a new Wii, keep my current one, and Ii'll still be in profit with the number of games I haven't paid for.
Oh, and just like the religious fundamentalists, you're all hypocritical douchebags who are perfectly happy to record TV shows, CDs and movies, as well as buy and sell games second hand. Ever borrowed a book from someone? oops, you're a pirate.
Fuck the big companies, defending the likes of Nintendo is no better than defending MacDonalds or Burger King, and what kind of twat would boast about being loyal little consumer slaves for them?

Krooeenya

From what I heard already, these cases were not just illegal downloaders, they were people downloading and selling pirate copies of games.

PokeParadox

@zalbaag:

Dude, if 80 MS points equal 1 dollar then 1 MS point= .8 cents not the other way around. We're getting the same result but I think you're confused on the method with which to get there.

bkchurch

Take that, pirates! It makes me smile to see a bit of justice served. DRM or no, it's still stealing, and anyone who says otherwise needs to step back and try again.

UltimatePancakeSensation

lol and they say console piracy isn't that bad!

HitokiriX

Maybe I'm lacking in knowledge, but I still fail to see how proving file sharing in court works. An IP is so easily spoofed it's laughable. How can they prove you did anything? Apart from one idiot woman who comes to mind, how many 'alleged' file sharers have gone up in court and been proved guilty?

shufflemoomin

F*** Activision. They delivered an incomplete version of guitar hero 3 for wii to me, then didnt send me the envelope to get the real version, then DIDNT RETURN ANYTHING when I sent mine in even though they confirmed they received it and owed me a new copy. Now I am out $50 and have a useless guitar. But I don't have 500 lawyers so could I sue them? NO. What if they did it with 10 diff games? Still no!

F*** Activision.

Quine

...MS Points count is wrong.

trelantana

I don't get people on this issue. There shouldn't even be an issue. These dudes were selling for profit. It's not an issue of file sharing or drm, its about bootlegging other people's work for profit. That's just wrong.

HioMrSan

@Krooeenya: You think torrenting is comparable to lending a book to a friend?

*crackle*

Station control, this is recon. We have evidence of a Rage infection, and recommend we nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be safe.

Toasticus

$25,000? $100,000

That is no where near any losses one person makes for pirating. Although I can't sympathize with pirates, that amount of money is absolutely ridiculous.

I am assuming they just pirated the game but are not selling.

ninjikiran

I'm behind Activision.

PositivelyDan

They deliberately keep the line blurry, but actually, there's a big difference between some guy selling games on the street for moneys and a 13-year old teenager feeling lucky and downloading The Sims from his mother's laptop who is in return sued for 100,000$ of life-destroying debts.

A HUGE difference, ffs.

While the amounts of money are ridiculous (thanks, DMCA?), do not play their game and lump the two together so quickly. There are better ways to defend your rights and fight copyright-Nazis than protecting people who sell Xbox360 games on the street.

lumpi

Suing a few copiers won't stop piracy. Whomever thinks that is naive to the number of pirates in the world. The time and money it takes to sue isn't generally worth it to companies. Plus it makes you look like a douche because corporations have more resources than individuals and the reason for the pirating is directly related to the amount overcharged for the goods. For example, the amount of cigarette bootlegging goes down a lot when the taxes are lowered. In the US the cigs are $3 a pack but in Canada they are $10 a pack and there are tons of illegal importers and native smokes being sold. Look at Batman Begins which cost 130 million dollars to make. Way more than the 25-40 million it took to make Halo3. Yet 'games cost more to make now' so we pay $60-$70 bucks for them. Unsold movies can also be returned by retailers to the distributors unlike games. How is it that the movie industry can give us a 150 million dollar product on a disk for $30 and videogames cost double that, yet most games don't cost as much to make? Plain and simple, we are getting burned by the economic theory of price elasticity, where the makers of a product will charge as much as people 'will pay' for a product regardless that it's cost is far less. Example: energy drinks cost more than soda pop at the store but they all cost about the same for Pepsi to make at the factory. I agree that creators need to be paid for their work but the companies who own the distribution of products only give the creators peanuts and then they inflate the price of the product and rip off the customers, too. Eminem probably gets about 5 cents for every CD sold and the record companies charge 17 dollars for a product they paid about $4 max to make and distribute. As far as I can see these companies bring it on themselves with their excessively high prices. Steam has the right idea: unobtrusive protection of REASONABLY PRICED downloadable games with cheater protection, server logging and lots of value added like friends lists, demos and pre-loading.

GOLD5

@HioMrSan: I couldn't care less in this case, Activision and anyone under their banner could all go out of business for all I care.

Ashkihyena

This is setting a pretty ugly precedent. I hope that the games industry as a whole does not go down the perilous path chosen by Activision. While I acknowledge that Activision wants and is entitled to protect their properties, suing pirates will not stymie their collective efforts. If anything, it could galvanize that community into taking "punitive" action against Activision and possbibly alienating their legitimate consumers.

Draconian DRM is bad enough. Now we're throwing lawyers into the mix. This can only end badly for all parties.

Altersparck

@Shockadin: You did not just implicitly compare a hero who stole from the rich so that the poor could feed themselves to someone who enables others to enjoy entertainment media, a luxury, without paying for it. Even the suggestion of the thought of that would be unpossible.

Toasticus

@NeoAkira: There are plenty of private servers with thousands of players. As long as their stable, and you only need one. You're still going to find a game and have the same experience either way, minus occasional lag that you'd find on the worse private servers or the ones with plenty of players but don't know how to handle a server.

Shockadin

Activision, you don't need that money. You're just abusing America's legal system for personal gain, just to make money you shouldn't have. That itself should be illegal. How mature is it to rob Robin Hood? Nobody even liked Call of Duty 3 anyways.

Shockadin

@bkchurch: Sorry my friend, wrong again...

1 dollar/80 MS points = 100 cents/80 MS points

1 cent/.8 MS points =1.25 cents/MS point.

We are getting a different result by a factor of 100 because you are using cents when it is much more convenient to go straight from dollars to points since we know the conversion is 80 points per dollar.

If you put in $6.25 you get 500 points. 500 is 80 times larger than 6.25, using that if you multiply the cash amount by 80 MS points per dollar, then the dollars cancel eachother out through dimensional analysis and you get 26,080,000 MS points

zalbaag

@bkchurch: Sorry, I guess I never really discredited your original argument for you, so here ya go:

80 MS points = 1 dollar = 100 cents

80 MS points = 100 cents; by dividing both sides by 100 you get (drumroll please)

.8 MS points = 1 cent

or if you would like to see it the way I originally did it and find the number of cents per MS point instead, then you could just divide 100 cents by 80 MS points which gives you 1.25 cents/MS point

zalbaag

@LastFace: They're suing people that most likely didn't even have the money to buy their games anyway.

Yes, Activision. Let's sue people a ridiculous amount of money, more than $100,000, enough to put a huge downpayment on a house, and make someone whose intentions for downloading the game might not have been sinister go to the poor house by paying off this debt with lawyers the rest of their life.

What, do they expect to sue all the millions of pirates in America? Charge them ridiculous amounts of money and make people who don't have the money to pay this stuff even poorer? Do they expect to bring "justice" to all these pirates and either throw them all in jail (to which the point we would run out of prisons and other people's tax dollars would have to support their incarcerations for downloading a damn $30-50 game) or sue the country out of their own wallets because of their butthurt?

Regardless of whether I do or don't agree with piracy in different instances, I completely disagree with this measure of action. It's obviously unfair charging $30,000-40,000 for each infringement suit to people who most likely can't afford it along with the other things going on in their lives, just for a few downloaded copies of games.

Unless they want to see the entire country go to jail or delve into even deeper debt, I don't think they're on the right track with this piracy thing.

Maybe they should try something new and fresh. A lot of people pirate simply because they:
- Want the game early
- Want the game now, and are willing to buy it later when they have the money
- Want to see the game completely before they invest $30-60 in it.
- Will support the company by later buying the game IF it's any good through the pirate test-run.

If you try to address those instances, you can knock out a huge amount of piracy. Try to focus your efforts on maybe addressing the pirates and why they do pirate, instead of just putting the whole country in the poor house.

Maybe offer free trials of their games that instead of just being 1 or 2 levels, it's the full game but on a 24-48 hour activation time limit or something. That way they can check out the whole game and still decide if they want it or not. It may cut overall sales, but it would at least help the piracy problem I think. I'm just an average teenager, so I KNOW that a room full of people with degrees and experience in this stuff can think up more options to better address this situation, don't you think?

Ryuk

@Zorba:
Hint: They were always designing games for profit. Having fun was just a perk.

Do you really think the Activision of yore was such a wonderful and benevolent beast? What about EA? What about Atari? What about Interplay? They all want profit. Without it they cease to exist. If they cease to exist, developers are going to have some serious problems because it costs a LOT of $$$ to press the discs, make the packaging, set the barcodes, do advertising, distribution, etc.

This whole, "blame the corporations" BS is totally over the top, and this is coming from someone that subscribes to CorpWatch's mailing list. Is Activision the paragon of virtue? No, they're a business and always have been. Whether they are a good business that pays attention to and tries to rectify problems with their customer-base is another thing. They don't do that because they love people, they do it because it's good PR which gets them good money. In other words: they didn't make fun games just to make fun games. They made them to turn a profit. I'm pretty sure that's still their goal: make fun games to try and turn a profit.

@NeVeRMoRe666:
Yeah, I can sort of see that. The only thing is, I don't understand why that one person got a $1,000 fine and the others got much higher. As you said in another post, the missing info is how these were distributed. Maybe the others were selling or hosting on "pay-to-download" torrent sites while the others with lesser fines posted to "free-to-download" torrent sites?

stupid_mcgee

@zalbaag:

O shit, lol time for me to crash apparently. You're right, I probably would have realized that if I'd taken 2 seconds to think it through.

bkchurch

You do the crime, you do the time. Rather than attacking to go happy downloaders, why don't they attack and sue the source of the torrents on the net, that is a much more effective solution. Or unlock a fake copy of the game on the net and let all the pirates download it and screw up all their computers or something, super ultra undetectable virus. Problem solved.

antisniper

@Ryuk:
These guys that Activision are sueing aren't torrenters: they were people that were PHYSICALLY copying and selling games for profit. That's why these numbskulls were settling for 100 grand, because they easily made that much (or more) from their illegal operation.
@Krooeenya:
Into anarchy much? Stop justifying your illegal actions, considering you don't PHYSICALLY copy and sell games, which is what this newspost is about.
I wonder if anyone can read anymore..../sigh

Benjammn

I think the reason the suits are for so much money is because these people were also selling them.

Which makes it a far more serious offense.

MrToblerone

I'm actually looking forward to gaming dying this time.

Crowbot

@antisniper: I believe that's what they did.

Incidentally, this story reminds me of a Mark Twain quote: "The man who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer."

Petezah

those pirates are the reason why publishers are putting DRMs on our games..

so BUY YOUR GAMES!

Tychonius

@Llost wrote: "Illegal downlaoders are not customers"

How about the people who buy games and then crack them so they can actually play them? To me, this seems like yet another incentive not to buy their games, because fixing the games after buying them risks getting you in trouble.

For the record, before the asshats among you start telling me what a filthy pirate I am, I do not pirate games, I simply don't buy and don't play DRM'd games.

L_K_M

@juc: I don't see why this would piss off customers... customers pay for it and therefore shouldn't have to worry.

mr_deadpool

this case isn't about file sharing which a few other sites had already reported on and game politics followed up on with its own story

[www.gamepolitics.com]

Jellocakes

Come on guys, theres a link after less than 30 comments to the corrected article! Update, update!
@Kajetan: On the ball. Pity they give no info on what they actually sued them for.

NunianVonFuch

I love how many posts (original article included) it took you mathematicians to figure out how to multiply any given dollar amount by 80. That is good times.

Sandvich

@Bananabox-Ninja: If this is like the music thing I got sued for, these are titles DLed from them, not by them, so it's everyone else who has the bad taste.

Themindtaker

@Llost: Because of course, all those industries you are talking about are "destroyed".

Anyways, there's too few info on what really happened to judge.

I think Activision has the right to sue if those people where profiting from the whole thing.

But piracy is too big a discussion to judge from only that.

I like to see how lots of people oversimplifies the whole thing. Like saying the x and y industry is coming to an end because of piracy, when it's obvious that the complete opposite is true.

Corporations will never admit this, but piracy has made a major contribution to spread the media to all social classes. Gaming has never been so lucrative, and piracy played a big part in this.

The only labels and companies going down are the ones who couldn't adapt their services to the new reality... something that is commonsense in any business model.

And it's all fine and dandy if consumers are willing to swallow all the hogwash about piracy being oh so evil, because that will also turn into profit.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

@stupid_mcgee:
Hmm, it's true that the companies were always trying to get a profit but the fun factor was much more important for them, that's who made genre-defining games, people who weren't afraid to experiment. It was a company that made games, people behind it, their ideas and their dreams. As for corporation-produced games, it's just number sheet with words "casual games sell" all over it. They look at the numbers and decide "Hmm, lets shut down this old company that made adventure games, it wont bring us cash now...". The company gets shut down, their IPs remain in the dusty closed of corp. You can't say a game company and a corporation are in for the same business, it's like trying to compare eating something hand baked versus factory stamped and packaged.

Zorba

Hmmm...can't help noticing that none of the games on that list are PC games, despite everyone's protestations of "we can't make PC games because of piracy!"

edosan

"settled for a total of $326,000, or 407,500 Xbox Live Points"

Hahah, nice conversion.

yashichi8bit

And who the fuck are these people? Random bittorrent downloaders?

as if they havent learned from the RIAA

OH WAIT!

KaliKOtt

@edosan:
Probably because Activision only derives 5% of their net revenues from PC publishing vs 73% from console publishing.

jgw

Activision is well justified if they were selling the copies. They were probably dumb enough to post them on Craigslist or eBay. Can't see them getting caught any other way.

nastygamer

Selling the games for personal profit while the developer/publisher gets nothing thus hurting the industry.

Sounds like the used game / trade-in business to me.

Who do you think does this in greater numbers?

GameStop or some no-name pirate?

nastygamer

Steal a physical game at a brick and mortar and you get a slap on the hand (misdemeanor, not felony), a small fine $200-$300 plus restitution to the store $60, and maybe some community service if the judge is in a bad mood.

This is stupid, excessive and abusive.

Oh, and if your not using SSL Usenet or Rapidshare to get your "demos" you are a hopeless noob that deserves to get caught.

nastygamer

what a bunch of assholes. they have enough money, they shouldnt bleed the few that dont pay for their crap.

thedarkmarc

@Llost: a little off topic, but Naruto had such a big audience even before it got aired in the US.. People who see the Japanese version, watch the dubbed one. Fansubbed Anime is promoting Japanese culture and hence contributes in Japanese merchandise exports. Of all kind.
I'll even go out on a limb and say that the PS1 sold so much because it made it so easy and cheap to pirate games and have so many! Pirating won Sony 2 console wars!
Information and ideas and art should be free, or at least easily accessible for everyone! Thats what games are..

lapiz

@juc: @Llost: hey... Relax on the Lawful Good/Justice Prevails character dude.. There is no opposition in what you are saying.. Yet!
Pirates of Cod3 are Consumers of other products, like Guitar hero maybe. Pirating is a way of getting to know and play games that you otherwise wouldn't care about.. So if you played a pirated version of cod3, you might actually like it and turn out to buy cod4.

Companies, of the game and music and movie business, should adopt to a community that has pirates. And I don't mean optimizing their legal actions against them, no! They ought to find a way to make money otherwise, say ingame advertising, product placement, sponsors, and have pirates essentially promote their products.

The internet is(hopefully still) free, how does this business maintain itself without (hopefully)content control and access costs?

lapiz

@shatteredhalo: So you bought something and you still think its OK for the guys that sold it to you to control how many times you actually use it?

::Dialing..::
-Hey, i need to install my game... Yeah.. Just formated my PC.. It had Viruses.. No.. Okay, yes I sometimes go to Porn sites.. Off course i believe in God!! Who i voted!???

What are you going to think its OK next?

lapiz

@Shockadin: Dude, paying for TF2 and WC3 and SC and Diablo, is paying for the community. Pirate Servers are communities of duchebags. So paying for TF2 gives me the privilege of having less duchebags to deal with. Thats something i want to give money for.

lapiz

One of the thieves, Shawn Guse has been going round the internet trying to suppress coverage of his stealing. He sent me this email: "My name is Shawn Guse and you have my name posted on your web site without my permission and I want it removed or changed to “A Washington man”, and I also want the link to the settlement removed if you have one. Please don’t contribute to the crucifixion of my name. If you are so kind as to remove the whole article that would be great. I have contacted many other web sites that are posting this and they are gladly removing it due to my request." I notice that Games Politics have done what he asked and censored themselves. My reaction was to write another article about him: http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/09/25/shawn-guse-software-thief/

LorenzoSturgeon

$326,000 or 407,500 Xbox Live points?

1600 points for $20 = 80 points per dollar

$326,000 x 80 = 26,080,000 points

407,500 points would be (determining 80 points as a dollar) $5,093.75.

JamesAwesome

as markusdragon said, gamepolitics debunked this, saying that the listed six people involved were sued for something more complex then mere file-sharing.

interesting that it has to do with CoD3... never played it though.

Dark_Child

@Toasticus: It's actually 26,080,000 points.

ScorpyTheCommenter