A German appeals court threw out a judgment Atari had won against RapidShare, the popular file-hosting site where Atari says copies of games from its Alone in the Dark series were being illegally shared.
It’d be rather embarrassing to be publicly outed as an erotic novel aficionado, especially one that supports a USB attachment that gets you off while playing it. This happened to some Japanese file-sharers who thought they were pirating a game.
Research focusing on 200 specific titles showed 9.78 million illegal copies of video games were downloaded worldwide in the month of December, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
I remember when my copy of Legacy of the Ancients arrived with its codewheel. I fired up my 1200 baud acoustically-coupled modem, hit the BBS and ranted my indignation that I can do as I please with my purchase.
In the United Kingdom, Atari, Codemasters and three other game companies are going to court to demand GBP300 from 25,000 file-sharers, reports The Times of London. Apparently, file-sharing got really obnoxious recently — 691,000 downloads of Operation Flashpoint by Codemasters in one week alone. So the five have asked the court to demand internet service providers turn over information on all 25,000 accused of breaking the law. Those users will get notices inviting them to pay up or face prosecution, and the first 500 to ignore it get sued.