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ESA Sent Takedown Notices For 45 Million Infringements In Fiscal 2009
eldavojohn writes "The Entertainment Software Association has released this year's fiscal report (PDF), putting out their numbers to level the finger at new targets. Following up on last year's published report, this one has a whole bunch of new numbers to ponder. The top five P2P game piracy countries this year are: Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and Poland. The ESA's anti-piracy program notes, 'Chief among this year's actions were five separate law enforcement raids against game pirates in California, resulting in the seizure of several thousand games and dozens of modded consoles, and the arrests of five individuals.' But don't worry, they've expanded to other countries. 'The ESA sent takedown notices to ISPs covering more than 45 million instances of infringement of member company games in more than 100 countries worldwide.' They also strive to show they are actually doing things, like endorsing 43 bills aimed at regulating content or controlling access to video games — with not a single one of them making it into law. They did put some into effect at the state level; mostly making it a crime to sell mature games to minors. You can also find their activities localized to you, as this report has sections arranged by state and country. Conspicuously absent this year are any global numbers of what piracy cost the entertainment industry, so unfortunately Ars Technica will have to find someone else to audit, although Venture Beat has a good breakdown."
' They also strive to show they are actually doing things, like endorsing 43 bills aimed at regulating content or controlling access to video games -- with not a single one of them making it into law. They did put some into effect at the state level; mostly making it a crime to sell mature games to minors.
Go go nanny state!
And here I was thinking that kind of thing is reserved for cyberpunk dystopias.
How all the bans of sales to minor keep getting thrown out by the courts over and over?
You have that backwards. The ESA is against these laws because it would limit their sales numbers. They're the ones suing to have these laws repealed.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
'Chief among this year's actions were five separate law enforcement raids against game pirates in California, resulting in the seizure of several thousand games and dozens of modded consoles, and the arrests of five individuals.'
I feel so much safer now knowing the streets are clean of those terrible video games.
1.427 notices per second assuming they work constantly...
Course they probably don't work weekends or holidays: more like 2.075 notices per second with taking time off. Oh... wait! They only work 9 to 5, right? Assume an hour for lunch... that takes it to 7.143 notices per second!
I don't really know how long an individual notice is in words, or how many are sent through email. We can probably assume that for any given delivery it gets printed out at least once... so that makes about 5400 trees worth of copy paper.
Once again, assuming it only takes one page, and assuming they are using a relatively efficient printer... this works out to what? $1,800,000 worth of ink just to print all this out once?
I guess it really didn't say 45 million notices, just infringements. So I guess I'm also assuming from all this that one infringement = one notice. I'm sure that I'm also being conservative that one notice also only takes one page.
Don't they realize by restricting access to games they lose new talent? In general most kids have an idea what they want to do when they are around 15, they might not know which exact field, but at least a general idea (law, medical, computers, etc.) and by restricting kids access to "mature" games that are very often considered some of the better games they play crappy games and might not be interested in learning do develop video games.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
They haven't figured out that the RIAA/MPAA model doesn't work yet.
Om, nomnomnom...
Well, you know, don't pirate games, it will not be an issue.
Look, this issue is fundamentally different than the RIAA/MPAA issue. Here we are not talking about making backups, or having reasonable control over something you bought and paid for. We're talking about pirated goods, like fake Gucci hand bags and what not. Selling fakes is wrong, unlike the RIAA/MPAA concept of "stealing", this hits closer to the real definition.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Chief among this year's actions were five separate law enforcement raids against game pirates in California, resulting in the seizure of several thousand games and dozens of modded consoles, and the arrests of five individuals.
It sounds like you could get the same thing from raiding any dorm hall on my university campus. This is a sound bite, good for news media to repeat, and to me it makes what could be a completely legal community sound like a gang of high profile game-pirate-for-profit lords.
I live in Spain and the 80% of my torrents peers are from EEUU. Uhmm! RIAA/MPAA and partners are pushing governement to convert in criminal actions the right to share contents. Now in Spain, for now, is legal to share, because we pay a tax for the 'private copy right': The right to made private copies and share-it.
If any other business is failing, they get introspective. They re-examine their business model, make necessary adjustments and move on.
In the digital content industry, they just go LOLPIRACY MOAR POLICE RAIDS PLZ
Don't tell me there is another thing called ESA that is spoiling our Space Agency's good name...
Well, better that the Entertainment Software Association does this than the European Space Agency. :P
-Rich
Chief among this year's actions were five separate law enforcement raids against game pirates in California, resulting in the seizure of several thousand games and dozens of modded consoles, and the arrests of five individuals.
Did the PR flack reading the press release sound like John Cleese at all?
You're right, it's completely backwards. The ESA fights these laws, it doesn't support them.
I piss off bigots.
Currently, the majority of the commercial software industry is getting protection of both copyright and trade secret on their software. If they want to gain the protection of copyright, they should be required to escrow the corresponding source, so that the public eventually gains access to it.
There's one thing NASA has over the ESA. ;)
page 16 (or 14) there are the top 10 isp supporting p2p piracy: Telecom italia is named twice at 11.6% and 1.6%... how come they are twice ? Iunet is named but the provider is named wind/infostrada . later in the page they named what they DID in December 2009 ... clearly a typo but.. does anyone re read it before publishing it ?
We got one of those once. We host a mirror of the IF Archive (text adventures), including three games named Days of Doom 1, Days of Doom 2, and Days of Doom 3.
Here's the local copy:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 seebs users 116471 Oct 17 1999 Doom3.zip
They sent us a threatening letter because they believed this was the retail version of Doom 3.
I assume the rest are comparable.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
researchers today discovered that while 95% of the global email traffic is considered spam, a whopping 99% of that is caused by the mafiaa and only the remaining 1% is the friendly neighbourhood viagra and indian heritage spam.
I've received several of these from my university. Each one has been forwarded back to the ESA, suggesting that they try sending them to people with the relevant nationality. I wonder if these are included in the report?
the European Space Agency did what!?!?
SIGLOST && SIGUNUSED && SIGQUIT
They bought it, it's theirs. Sure they were pirating games and that's illegal, but there is nothing wrong with modding the hardware. I'll bet they learned a bit about electronics in the process. I'm sure they were aware that they voided their warranty.
There is nothing wrong with modifying hardware you own!
How are cartoon depictions of death ethically superior to ludicrous gibs?
Less-detailed depictions leave open the possibility that the "death" isn't really death. Pokemon, for instance, only faint, and death in most console RPGs comes to resemble fainting with fairly easy access to resurrection artifacts like Phoenix Down from the Final Fantasy series. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has hardening instead of death.
Well, you know, don't pirate games, it will not be an issue.
Define "pirate". Is KFoulEggs a "pirated" copy of Puyo Pop? Is Gnometris a "pirated" copy of Tetris?
I'm not sure its the case since EU membership, but Italy used to have extremely high import duties on software CDs. I'm sure this helped create a culture more tolerant of piracy.
steve jobs hardens when he catches a glimpse of your micropenis, you jewish nigger faggot
I hate the fact that someone is trying to usurp ESA - ESA is and should always be used as a reference to the European Space Agency...
They consider it a DMCA violation because they figure you're using it for piracy.
No, it doesn't matter what you actually use the modchip for, either.
The RIAA and other such bodies like to quote statistics indicating what piracy cost their industry in whatever given period of time they are touting at the time, but in reality it's 100% BS. People who pirate wouldn't have bought it in the first place, nor would they if they were reliably prevented from pirating, so this mythical dollar figure is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
We host a mirror of the IF Archive (text adventures), including three games named Days of Doom 1, Days of Doom 2, and Days of Doom 3. [...] 116471 Oct 17 1999 Doom3.zip
October 1999? Both Doom and Doom II were out by then; wouldn't Id Software have had a legit trademark claim by then?
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This may seem like trolling but I mean it as a legitimate question. If I repeatedly call the police to report that stuff has been stolen from the seat of my car, and they keep finding that I park my car on busy streets with the windows open, eventually they are going to stop responding to my calls. If the digital content industry insists on trafficking in materials that are extremely simple to copy and redistribute, why should the public pay good money to have the justice system process their endless complaints of losses? It seems more rational to tell them that if they can't protect their assets better they should get into a different line of business.