News: Shy Mario Bros Wii Pirate Fined $1.5m Page 2

Shy Mario Bros Wii Pirate Fined $1.5m

10.02.2010

Shy Mario Bros Wii Pirate Fined $1.5m on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

Pirates may have their illegally downloaded copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, however their captain has been fined $1.5 Million in damages.

Back in November last year an Australian chap Burt, 24, leaked a copy of the game he'd accidentally been able to purchase a week ahead of its launch, illegally online. It didn't work initially, however hackers were able to adjust files to work with homebrew systems.

Upon the game being uploaded to the Internet, Nintendo was able to employ the use of sophisticated technological forensics to identify the individual responsible for illegally copying the file and making it available for further distribution.

On 23rd November, 2009, Nintendo obtained a Federal Court search order in respect of the individual's residential premises. This led to the seizure of property from those premises in order to gain further evidence against the individual.

After raiding the poor chap's home and gathering evidence, courts have ordered him to pay $1.5 million ($1.3 million USD) to Nintendo for loss of revenue.

According to Digital Life, his father states that he is a "shy gamer trying to proove a point to friends". Nintendo however are adamant that Burt was trying to be accepted by a dangerous hacking group.

It was peer pressure on the internet forums and the blog sites that led him to do a very very silly thing to prove that he'd actually managed to purchase a game before its release date.

What do you think of the move - should piraters really be fined that much, even if he purchased the game legally?

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Raff 11.02.2010#26

http://wosblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/more-piracy-bullshit-whodathunkit/#more-882

An actual Australian news site offers a bit more detail on the story. The alleged criminal is in fact a 24-year-old Electronics Boutique employee (or part-time freight worker, depending which reports you believe) who still lives with his parents. Unless EB pays its staff an awful lot better than the average High Street retail chain, it’s pretty unlikely that he’s earned $1.5m while working for them since the age of 18. So why would a judge fine him such an obviously ludicrous sum, and one based on a plucked-from-the-air figure backed up by no kind of evidence of any sort?
Well, clearly they wouldn’t. And they haven’t, because this outlandish and spurious sum is in fact an out-of-court settlement between Nintendo and the accused. The only sense in which the payment is “court-ordered” is that obviously, when a defendant and plaintiff reach an out-of-court settlement, the court tells them to abide by it as the formal means of closing the case.
But hang on. Why would a 24-year-old shop assistant accept an out-of-court settlement for such an absurd sum, that he has no chance whatsoever of paying even if he works until he’s 100? What would he have to lose by taking the case all the way? Well, it’s pretty obvious. By avoiding a legal judgement on the case, the accused avoids any prospect of a jail sentence, and also doesn’t risk jail for defaulting on the “fine”, since it’s not actually a fine.
Nintendo, meanwhile, gets a terrifying headline with which it can attempt to intimidate other would-be pirates, because it’ll be repeated without question by useless pretend journalists everywhere (or even embellished with added idiot wrongness, as in the Nintendolife link above) and everyone will assume you can really be fined life-destroying amounts of money, based on completely made-up evidence, for what in the greater scheme of things is an absurdly trivial crime.

Edit this post:

http://wosblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/more-piracy-bullshit-whodathunkit/#more-882

[quote]An actual Australian news site offers a bit more detail on the story. The alleged criminal is in fact a 24-year-old Electronics Boutique employee (or part-time freight worker, depending which reports you believe) who still lives with his parents. Unless EB pays its staff an awful lot better than the average High Street retail chain, it’s pretty unlikely that he’s earned $1.5m while working for them since the age of 18. So why would a judge fine him such an obviously ludicrous sum, and one based on a plucked-from-the-air figure backed up by no kind of evidence of any sort?

Well, clearly they wouldn’t. And they haven’t, because this outlandish and spurious sum is in fact an out-of-court settlement between Nintendo and the accused. The only sense in which the payment is “court-ordered” is that obviously, when a defendant and plaintiff reach an out-of-court settlement, the court tells them to abide by it as the formal means of closing the case.

But hang on. Why would a 24-year-old shop assistant accept an out-of-court settlement for such an absurd sum, that he has no chance whatsoever of paying even if he works until he’s 100? What would he have to lose by taking the case all the way? Well, it’s pretty obvious. By avoiding a legal judgement on the case, the accused avoids any prospect of a jail sentence, and also doesn’t risk jail for defaulting on the “fine”, since it’s not actually a fine.

Nintendo, meanwhile, gets a terrifying headline with which it can attempt to intimidate other would-be pirates, because it’ll be repeated without question by useless pretend journalists everywhere (or even embellished with added idiot wrongness, as in the Nintendolife link above) and everyone will assume you can really be fined life-destroying amounts of money, based on completely made-up evidence, for what in the greater scheme of things is an absurdly trivial crime.[/quote]

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It's going to be shit and you jolly well know it.

Teetrab 11.02.2010#27

Cruel and unusual punishment. Then again, he's not in the states. Although the U.S. is far from perfect in that we do have some odd sentences from time to time this one is unreasonable.

Diablo II
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Raff 11.02.2010#28

Cruel One (guest) said:
I think he should have cruel and unusual punishment. How about sex with mario or bowser?

/thread

It's going to be shit and you jolly well know it.

jax (guest) 11.02.2010#29

i kind of feal bad for the guy 1.5m is alot

SuperShyGuy62 11.02.2010#30

How can you feel bad for him? He did a bad thing. Can't pay the fine, then dont do the crime.

Mario, Mega Man and Rayman FTW!!!

crackedthesky 12.02.2010#31

I think Miyamoto should jump on the guy's head three times.

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knighty 12.02.2010#32

SuperShyGuy62 said:
How can you feel bad for him? He did a bad thing. Can't pay the fine, then dont do the crime.

Because it's not like he fucking murdered someone. The idea of 50,000 downloads equating to 50,000 lost sales is hilarious.

random guy (guest) 12.02.2010#33

Martin_ said:
Q: What do you think of the move - should piraters really be fined that much, even if he purchased the game legally?
A: Nope, since unless he's super-rich there's really no way that he'll be able to pay off 1.5million. The sum itself is not the point, and Nintendo know this, the point is to scare everyone else with a massive fine that very few people on Earth could ever dream of repaying.

Conclusion: Just don't upload anything illegal yourself. It's a bit like drugs - so many people do it that punishing everyone is impossible. So they go after the dealers, whom without nobody else could commit the crime, and also because 'dealing' in contraband (as opposed to just possessing it) is viewed in a very dim light (much more so than possession), they are more able to prosecute these people.
If you're one of those who downloads this sort of thing - I wouldn't worry. Just never upload anything.

Exactly this. Obviously Nintendo dont expect a basement dwelling hermit to pay for it, they just want this to make news and scare people off. The kid will declare bankruptcy and that is it.

Darkflame 12.02.2010#34

Toon SuperLink said:
SuperShyGuy62 said:
For a Nintendo site, there seems to be a whole lot of Nintendo attackers who throw punches at them......maybe its a SEGA forum under disguse... o_O

Why would it be a SEGA forum? SEGA don't make consoles anymore.
But even so, don't worry as I frequent a SEGA forum and constantly throw punches at them on that site.

Ah, the god old days of Sega VS Nintendo.

The console wars seemed a lot cleaner fight back then.

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satsubatsu347 12.02.2010#35

Judging by the commentary this subject really is not very black and white. As consumers and work a day stiffs we see the court ordered fine as excessive and as morally confined human beings we see the "right and wrong" of the situation and see a dumbass getting what he deserves... It is all so, crypto fascist. Smilie

Sonic_13 12.02.2010#36

satsubatsu347 said:
Judging by the commentary this subject really is not very black and white. As consumers and work a day stiffs we see the court ordered fine as excessive

It wasn't court ordered. It was settled out of court.