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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).
Going after filesharers INSTEAD of pirates is completely nuts, looks like Activision has the right idea. /.ers are software pirates (correctly used here, look up the word if you feel like complaining).
I really don't see how this is "your rights online" unless you assume all
> Doesn't Activision have the right to recover their development costs and profit from the risk they took to produce the game?
NO. They have a right to TRY. They do not however, have any right to deny people their fair use rights, nor any other right they have.
On the other hand, this doesn't seem the case here (assuming the information from Activision is correct).
The response to "talk like a pirate day" was strong and swift.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
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.
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.
Undoubtedly.
Nobody is contesting their legal rights in this case- at least, not me.
I am, however, contesting how *wise* this decision is. Game companies produce a lot of crap. The signal to noise ratio is extremely low, especially when considering just how many games are produced for the PC every year. So how do we know what's good?
Well, we could seek reviews- but many reviewers are paid for their submissions, have an agenda, or simply have different tastes. Or we hear about it from friends. Or... we pirate them and see for ourselves. If the game is crap- nothing wasted. If the game is good, we're going to want its expansion pack/online play/multiplayer/box art/full colour manual/bragging rights/etc.
In almost all cases, such "piracy" doesn't constitute a lost sale. Either the "pirate" couldn't afford it anyway, or wouldn't buy it if she couldn't "pirate" it. Think students, working mums, etc. Not all of them are- but most.
But these pirates give you something money can't buy- legitimate word of mouth advertising. You can't buy it, it's the BEST form of advertising short of beaming ads into people's dreams and it's generally free. And it's one of the three ways people decide if a game is good or not- and as stated earlier, it's generally the most telling.
So: you can excuse acts of individual not-for-profit piracy and write it off as free advertising. Or, you could hunt down anyone who pirates even a single game and charge them for a crime with punishments quite often worse than rape.
Are people going to buy more of your games, or fewer?
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If it's not related to file sharing and, presumably, is targeting people who make copies _for sale_, then good - they should be sued. As soon as you make a profit from someone else's copyrighted work, without their permission, you don't have a hint of a leg to stand on. You deserve to be sued and, hopefully, the copyright holder will win. You can make whatever argument you want about it being acceptable but, as soon as you turned a profit from the piracy, every argument you make is false. You're a crook and deserve to be punished. Period.
I demand the taxpayer pay me billions that I risked and lost with my career choice. I took the risk and I deserve the profits.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
The penalties for copyright violations were actually written for cases like this. The assumption is that someone selling a pirate game/movie/book/CD has sold many of them, and they're doing it to make a personal profit. The only way to stop the crime is to take the profit out of it - if he sold them for $20 each, and the fine was only 500 bucks, he'd only have to sell about 25 to make up for each time he was caught. He probably sold a hell of a lot more than that, if he's like many of the pirated goods dealers I've seen.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
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.
Although that said, it isn't just a file sharer. This may actually be a major large scale for-profit piracy organisation, in which case this could be quite reasonable.
The idea is that it's meant to put the plaintiff in the position they would have been in had the action not occurred.
What ever gave you that (incorrect) idea? Seriously? They're called punitive damages for a reason. Here - I'll make it easy for you and not even link to Wikipedia - I'll just post the definition for you.
Punitive damages (termed exemplary damages in the United Kingdom) are damages not awarded in order to compensate the plaintiff, but in order to reform or deter the defendant and similar persons from pursuing a course of action such as that which damaged the plaintiff.
The point is to _PUNISH_ the offender sufficiently that they are discouraged from the act. It has nothing to do with putting the plaintiff into the position they'd have been in had the act never happened. It's a PUNISHMENT to the offender intended to discourage them from committing the offense in the first place.
Personal-use pirates, who make a copy of the game for themselves, and perhaps a few friends, do it because they don't want to pay for the game. They might be able to afford it anyway, but (at least a fair number) will purchase at least some games legitimately.
Assuming Activision's info is correct, this guy is more likely a sidewalk vendor who made dozens of game copies to sell for his personal profit.
While both are committing the same violations of the law, the intent of profit in the second case makes it much more likely that the court will find in Activision's favor, and that they will get a big pile of money (or, at least, all the money this guy has.) Moreso, while you can find wishy-washy support for the first class of pirate all over the place, only a very tiny segment of people are going to tell you the second guy isn't doing anything wrong.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
He had to spell check it first.
greed@All_Evils:~#