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Pirate ordered to pay Nintendo $1.5 million.

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Originally posted by Kotaku
Nintendo sent out a press release today triumphantly boasting of victory in an Australian court over a man accused of pirating New Super Mario Bros. Wii. And how this single man now owes the mega-rich company $1.5 million.

Last November, Nintendo says it was able to "employ the use of sophisticated technological forensics" to catch the man, James Burt, who has been convicted of uploading the word's first pirated copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii onto the internet.

Burt - a single man, not a company or group - now must pay the Japanese publisher and platform holder AUD $1.5 million (USD $1.3 million), "to compensate Nintendo for the loss of sales revenue caused by the individual's actions."

Yes, he broke the law. And as a pirate, should be punished. But this is a game that's sold over 10 million copies in just three months.

Nothing like a little disproportionate punishment to maintain that lovable image, eh Nintendo?


Source

My thoughts:

Pretty much, I'm like....well, this is what you get for leaking games before their release date.
1 million? I understand why, but maybe that's
too much.
Yeah...I saw this, and was going to post it, but couldn't be bothered. $1.5 million seems a bit excessive, though.
Just to play devil's advocate, I'm going to defend Nintendo, and say that their actions were justified. According to this article, 1.15 million copies of NSMBWii have been pirated since its release (I'll use a flat 1 million for a nice, even number). Now, assuming that about half of those downloaded were from Burt's iso, and assuming only 10 percent of people who pirated the game would have bought it otherwise, at $50 dollars a game, that's $2,500,000 in lost revenue. See, even under these limited circumstances, He was fined less than the total loss revenue for his actions. And it doesn't matter if New Super Mario Bros Wii was a huge money maker for Nintendo, or if it was a dud, or if it was made by some tiny little start up, I would still support the actions of the company. It is their property. He illegally transferred copies of the game, and now it came back to bite him. To put it another way, if you made a cool game and published it and everything, would you want to lose 2.5 million dollars because of what 1 guy did? Even if you made tons of money in the real release, that's still a lot of money that you didn't get. You would want to sue the guy that did it, wouldn't you? He shouldn't be let off easy simply because it was a smash hit and Nintendo has money to spare, or because a big, evil corporation made the game, either. Nintendo has every right to sue, and I fully support those actions.


I can't wait to see the flak I get for this.

Your layout has been removed.
Haha, well deserved my friend. Maybe next time he won't upload a world's first pirated game copy, if he would ever get the chance to it again, that is. ;)
1.5 million dollars.
Oh god, I wonder how he got busted anyway.

Did people really download so many copies in a few months, that the guy has to pay that much?
My blog. I could post stuff now and then

My Assembly for the SNES tutorial (it's actually finished now!)
1.3 million? What a lucky dude. I've heard cases of music pirates owing as high as 80 million dollars. Either way, He should have known that leaking a game PRE-RELEASE would catch nintendo's attention. Idiot.
<-- this is the dope on dope
More like, "AARRGH Wii there yet?"
Your layout has been removed...NOT! :D
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=207955

Quote
The individual slapped with the fine was a GBAtemp regular. We would like to remind all members it is generally not a good idea to post images of yourself with an early release, a receipt with your details and store name on it, and then brag about uploading the game. If you want to play a game, then buy it and do not share it.


lol "sophisticated technological forensics". The guy pretty much dug his own grave with his overwhelming stupidity. Nintendo didn't have to do anything beyond browsing an internet forum. A forum which happens to be the most popular for info on pirating Nintendo stuff, go figure.

$1.5 million is excessive, no doubt about it. Unless he files bankruptcy and somehow gets out of paying some portion of the fine he is shafted for life.

Originally posted by Jorshamo
stuff


They're trying to squeeze blood from a stone though, they won't be seeing any significant sum of money for a long time, if ever. This is pretty much just a 'deterrent' punishment to try scaring off potential pirate distributors since they're usually extremely difficult to track down. That is, most of them aren't stupid to the point where they happily post all the evidence Nintendo needs to catch them on a public forum.
Well, I'm going to try to look at this from both sides of the coin:

On the one hand, that's a really steep fine; how can they expect him to pay it?!

On the other, I can understand Jorshamo's logic, that is basically how any competent business would do things. That is how businesses work. NO ONE wants a loss of revenue. PERIOD. Someone needs to be made an example out of to make sure it doesn't happen again, in the cases that it happens...generally.

Now, I pose a question of my own from the supposed-to-be-impossible-yet-temporarily-possible THIRD HAND! Was this Australian branch of Nintendo working on orders of the whole company, or were they merely serving their own interests? To put it another way, did the main Nintendo branch catch onto this and ask the Australian branch to deal with it, or did they not care and the Australian branch just decided to do their own thing and sue that guy just because they wanted to or for money for THEIR branch, not the good of the whole company? That right there may answer whether or not this whole thing was a good move. If it was the former, that the whole company all across the world wanted this for the good of the entire company, then I'm inclined to believe this was a bit of a good move, going off the fact that, honestly, people who work in businesses are trained to make as much money as they can and not lose too much making it...and that includes thefts.

But if it was the latter, that the branch worked on its own, making its own choices, and NOT for the good of the whole company, but only that one branch, I'll be inclined to say it was a bad idea, BUT NOT A MISTAKE FROM NINTENDO AS A WHOLE. (How can you say the entire company did a bad thing if only a branch company did the bad thing, without any involvement from the rest of the branches?)

Of course, this is just speculation and something to think about. That said, I will end with this: Remember kids, it's not nice to gloat! :D

EDIT: I would seriously like to stress the fact that apparently, a lot of people think that because one branch does something, the whole company backs it up and is involved. Why? What makes people think this is correct even though "Nintendo" is technically a general term for the company, which has different branches, such as NoJ, NoA, NoE, NoC, just to name the big ones I KNOW of?
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money
Here you guys go. More information, from Gamespot.

Gamespot Article
I remember seeing this on the news, and all I thought was "Well done, you idiot.". I mean, just uploading it anonymously might have saved him all of this, but bragging about it was basically one step off of asking to be caught.

Quote
"Nintendo Australia is always pushing for games to be released here at the same time as the rest of the world, so we were pleased to get New Super Mario Bros. Wii before anyone else," the spokesperson said. "Unfortunately, due to the actions of this individual, future release dates may be affected for Australia, which is disappointing for us."

This is probably what pisses me off though. We already had to wait six months for Brawl. They give us one of their best games, someone does this, Nintendo ditches us again. Now if some American could please do something like this to help our case...
Heheh, I was a little suspicious about what "sophisticated" methods they used... But what worries me is that Nintendo (of Australia), maybe not officially, is aware of that forum...

World Community Grid: Thread | Team
 
Originally posted by Riolu180
Was this Australian branch of Nintendo working on orders of the whole company, or were they merely serving their own interests? To put it another way, did the main Nintendo branch catch onto this and ask the Australian branch to deal with it, or did they not care and the Australian branch just decided to do their own thing and sue that guy just because they wanted to or for money for THEIR branch, not the good of the whole company?


Since the Australian wing is still under the umbrella of the company as a whole, then they would not be awarded the damages directly - the corporation would receive the damages. They can then apportion them out as they see fit (NSMBWii designer raises, corporate bonuses, more money for the fat cats, etc.).

Originally posted by Riolu180
EDIT: I would seriously like to stress the fact that apparently, a lot of people think that because one branch does something, the whole company backs it up and is involved. Why? What makes people think this is correct even though "Nintendo" is technically a general term for the company, which has different branches, such as NoJ, NoA, NoE, NoC, just to name the big ones I KNOW of?


Because all of the various localized divisions of the company are just that - divisions. They only handle the marketing, distribution, and localization of Nintendo Co. Ltd., which is a multinational corporation based out of Japan. None of the divisions can do anything of significance without the main corporation's say-so, since they are all part of the same corporation. So, if the corporation is involved in a lawsuit, their local division might be handling it directly for the sake of things, but that doesn't mean they aren't reporting to/acting under the direction of the board of directors in Japan.

It's just like McDonalds - all of the international McDonalds might cater to different markets and offer different food, but McDonalds of Australia can't just say "We're switching to kangaroo-burgers, whether McDonalds in America likes it or not."

[?] Miscellaneous Helpful Hints
If I moderated your hack, there was apparently a 90 percent chance it was rejected.
Well then, I just don't know what to say right now. What Nintendo did was justified, but only to some extent. They cant seriously expect 1 man to pay off 1.3 million, can they? Oh well, at least this could be a good way to help people realize that pirating or uploading game company roms can get you into some serious shiz.
andy: Oh, I see. I was mistaken, then. Of course, it was only another look at it with minimal knowledge. At least now I know otherwise.


That said, I still do not agree that this court order was "too harsh". Those who think it was MIGHT be forgetting a simple fact: Nintendo is a business. It takes MONEY to make these games. It always does for ANYTHING one makes; food, games, music, it makes no difference. It always costs money to make them, and they have to mark up their items appropriately for how much it costs to make so they make a profit. If one person buys the game, then uploads the ISO for millions to download, that's millions of dollars potentially gone down the drain for Nintendo. So Nintendo has a lot of money.

So what?! Having a lot of money does NOT mean a business isn't allowed to make a profit, or go after people for potentially harming it with illegal business! Yes, some of the end piraters probably DID buy the game afterwards, but that makes no difference! The guy still potentially cost Nintendo millions of dollars in profits, and yet you want him let off easy? Let me give you an analogy (I may have a bad one, but I tried to make sure it was a good one):

Most of the complaints about the fine amount are that it's so high and the guy will never be able to pay it, correct? Well, think about this: Bails in the US legal system are never set according to how much one is able to pay, right? Bails are generally set according to the crime itself, and if the person can't pay for it, oh well, too bad, that's THEIR problem. Why should the penalty for a crime EVER be lowered to meet how much a person is able to pay? That's basically saying the person gets off scot-free. Would you want the person to pay the price for their crime, or get off just because they are poor? No one likes it when someone gets off the hook just because they are rich or have "connections"- why can't it work the other way around? Why is this guy the victim just because it's believed that he doesn't have the money to pay this fine?

I think I'm done.
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money
Picture of the perp:

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<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jbq_1Wy70rE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jbq_1Wy70rE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Your layout has been removed.
I think this thread is going nowhere. Way to go. Can you guys stop making pointless posts already?
My blog. I could post stuff now and then

My Assembly for the SNES tutorial (it's actually finished now!)
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