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Activision Goes After Individual Game Pirates
brunascle writes "Activision has begun suing individual pirates of console games. Edge Online is reporting that they are going after a New York resident for allegedly copying Call of Duty 3 for the Xbox 360 and other games, seeking $30,000 to $150,000 in damages for each infringement. GamePolitics has also uncovered six other lawsuits with settlements between $1,000 and $100,000, in five of which the defendant was unrepresented."
Activision's lawyers specifically told GamePolitics that the lawsuit wasn't targeting file-sharers, so they probably mean that the alleged pirate was reproducing and distributing physical copies of the game. The court complaint is available here (PDF).
A game costs roughly $60.00. For each act of infringement, Activision wants, at the very least, 50000% of the initial price, or at the most, 250000% of the initial price. How is it even legal to demand that much? I truly don't understand our legal system. If he had stolen the game 5 times, he'd probably be fined $500 - $1000, but for distributing 5 copies, he now has to pay (if activision gets their way) $150k?
I'm sorry, but that's just incredibly fucking stupid.
Yep.. Especially because if people would RTFA it says specifically that the person was making copies and distributing them.. which can put to rest the speculation from within the description of the story, and such. I love it when stories are put to the front page and "Speculate" the truth, when the truth is, yes, indeed this person IS DISTRIBUTING copies of Call of Duty 3 for the XBOX 360...
And it's awesome that they are not pulling an RIAA.. I assume this Strickland dude from New York has his own stand or possibly selling them on the internet or even maybe around his school. I'm a huge fan of Activision, and I'm glad to see them not pulling the stuff RIAA has been known to do.
Just me
There are plenty of these guys around here, and they're pretty arrogant too. I had a buddy looking for some XBox 360 games, and there was a pirate shop that was apparently selling (copies) for cheap. Curious about how they operated, I dropped in and found they have a huge binder listing game titles, and it's about $8 for a Wii/PS2 game or $20 for an Xbox 360 game. This is for a *BURNED DISC*
So I asked why the price differential for the 360 games (hell, it's all copied BS, no originals) and they said it's because XB360 discs are double-layer and cost more.
So let's see. About $0.50 or less for a single layer DVD, maybe add the cost of a label, is about $7 profit. At what, $1.50 for a dual-layer DVD is maybe $18 profit. For copied games.
Oh, and nevermind the problems he had returning one of the discs that didn't work.
Yeah, I think I'll stick with legit retailers and used but original discs (not that I game much these days anyhow).
If movie/music/game companies want to make a real killing nailing *real* "pirates", just go to one of the big Chinese malls and nail all of these guys. They're raking in cash selling copies of other people's work, and if anyone should be sued for "piracy" I think these are a good place to start.
If a company is publicly owned and answers to shareholders for maximum profit, then it is in its best interest for them to be their own pirates. If they can sell an individual copy of the game for $30, but they can get $1000 from every person that they sue that has a copy of the game that wasn't purchased, then they should distribute as many 'illegal' copies of the game as possible. Suing your 'customers' is far more profitable than selling them games could ever be. They have an obligation to their stockholders to put most of their corporate resources into lawsuits instead of game development.
Activision should work with their distributors to get the names of young people who are using the 'illegal' games. First they sell for pennies a mediocre game and get the names and addresses of the people whom they are going to sue. Then Activision gives a copy of the hot new game (HNG) to the distributors. The distributors give the HNG to the people who bought the previous game, and then give the names and addresses of those people to Activision. Then the lawyers are released from hell, and instead of collecting $30 from each person for a game, they get $1000+ from each person who received a 'free' HNG. The distributors get 20% as a bounty.
Of course, it goes without saying that the distributors will tell the 'customers' that the HNG is an open-source program and that the only charge is 'register' your name and address. Activision should also remove all copyright notices from the HNG code and claim that it is a 'product under development'.
This kind of thing is frowned upon in legal circles as being a form of entrapment, but that doesn't apply to civil or copyright cases. Even if it did, any applicable laws could quickly be changed to maximize the profit for Activision.
In this situation, the customer base of Activision has four choices:
> they can give up using game programs from any source, free, paid, legal, illegal, bit-torrent, whatever.
> they can pay the $1000+ to Activision.
> they can pay the $1000+ to Activision, then find out where the children of the Activision lawyers go to school, kidnap them, and hold them until they get their $1000+ back.
> pay a finder's fee/bounty to a death-squad-for-hire to kill the lawyers and not pay Activision the $1000+.
This is how various mafia crime organizations get started. When it starts to make more financial sense to all chip in to hire a killer than it does to risk being sued/entrapped by corrupt organizations that discovered that it was much easier to sue people than provide them with a product/service at going market prices.
Sure beats selling software for a living.
As a soon-to-graduate-and-become-a-developer, I have to disagree in the strongest possible terms to your statement.
Commercial piracy- sure. That's just plain theft. Taking someone else's art and selling it without permission is theft.
Individual piracy? The key question you have to answer here is: "Did this act of piracy cost me a sale?"
Sometimes it did. Frequently it didn't. Was this person willing and able to pay for your software, but chose to pirate it instead? Perhaps you're not adding enough value to the product. Perhaps you're charging too much. Perhaps your product is inconvenient (read; DRM-ridden). Perhaps your product is crap and not worth paying for.
Generally, people will do the right thing and buy games if the pirated version is not significantly easier to install/maintain (read; DRM-ridden), easily available, decently priced and contains benefits beyond the software itself. Things like a nice manual, a fold out map of the galaxy you're fighting over, official forums where (if you register using your CD key) you can get offical insider tips on what's coming out in the next patch or vote on requested features... stuff like that. If you're developing more serious software, telephone/email/forum support, free replacement CDs for verified customers, option to opt-in to beta version of the next version, vote on features, etc... creativity, people!
Once you start seeing your own customers as potential criminals... your business suffers.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Yet insane fees are exactly what is required to stop the bigtime crimes. When the companies are fucking up fair use, then no support for their actions. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. And if you want MS, or Apple, or whatever megacorp doing illegal shit to stop then you have to support the monumental fee to remove all profit and raise the risk of that action to extremely high levels. These are business decisions. It also serves to set an example to others.
I don't download music because other people have gotten torn up for it. Of course, it can cut both ways if they are a little too zealous like the RIAA has been. I haven't purchased any music since the lawsuits kicked off.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
The penalties for copyright violations were actually written for cases like this.[...]He probably sold a hell of a lot more than that, if he's like many of the pirated goods dealers I've seen.
See, the penalties only work properly if you include that one caveat. I may be wrong here (please, correct me if I am), but wouldn't a party be able to apply the same penalties to a small scale pirate, for instance? If you copy a game 5 times and hand them out to friends (say you sell them for 5 or 10 bucks), does it make sense for the same penalties to be applied?
I understand that the idea behind the huge penalties is to deter others, but it seems to me that there should (at the very least) be different levels of copyright infringement, piracy, etc. Again, IAANAL, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, there aren't really any variations on these laws. Couldn't Activision sue the hypothetical you for $150k (minimum), seeing as you copied it five times?
It's not taking down the large scale operations I have a problem with, it's applying the same law in an area where it really shouldn't be applied that causes me to let out a "wtf".
yes there is a moral difference between piracy for "fun" and selling someone else's work for personal profit.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
This is a good point, which is also the reason that judges have a lot of latitude in assigning penalties in cases like this. It's unlikely that a guy making games for his friends is going to have a stall at the local flea market - the assumption is going to be that someone who has a setup like that is doing it for profit.
That being said, we don't really have evidence in this particular case yet - just what Activision has said about it. But I know that a number of flea markets I've gone to throughout the years have featured the same guy, month after month & year after year, selling somewhat suspect looking product. If it's a game that I know comes in a specific jewel case, but it's in a more generic looking case, with different graphics (or graphics that just look off), I'd have to assume that it's not legit. Which always make me wonder - why doesn't this happen more often?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?