Nintendo have just announced that they've successfully concluded a settlement in the Australian federal court against an Australian individual accused of "illegally copying and uploading to the Internet" part of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

The legal proceeding resulted in a settlement in which the individual will pay to Nintendo the sum of $1.5 Million dollars by way of damages to compensate Nintendo for the loss of sales revenue caused by the individual’s actions.

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 23 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.

Nintendo viciously defend their intellectual property and have an entire website set up with more information about their anti-piracy activities.

BAM!

who was the guy's ISP? iiNET?

1.5Mil in damages? How much does Nintendo get from each sale of the game (after you take away retailers mark-up /delivery /etc) ?

Thats one hell of a lot of copies.

I found links to add credibility to what trog is saying
http://www.vooks.net/story-18881-Nintendo-Australia-wins-court-case-against-New-Super-Mario-Bros-Wii-pirate.html
http://www.channelnews.com.au/Gaming/Industry/E4H5D8R4

Nintendo searching the property? $1.5 millions dollars? There is something wrong about this :/


last edited by thermite at 13:13:23 09/Feb/10

I found links to add credibility to what trog is saying

a) what I'm posting is from an official Nintendo press release b) I'm like honest Abe

BAM!

who was the guy's ISP? iiNET?

I assume this is a joke, but in case it's not - this is exactly how copyright infringement should be dealt with. The company that thought their stuff was getting ripped off went to the courts, got a court order, and the user was investigated.

Nintendo searching the property? $1.5 millions dollars? There is something wrong about this :/

I'm sure Nintendo didn't execute the search, the police would have.

Besides, if Nintendo had gone in looking for it, the warez would have been in another castle.

last edited by Dazhel at 13:47:08 09/Feb/10

This is how you go after an internet pirate, the people who originally make the product available. Going after single mums and teenagers who simply downloaded a personal copy and then demand they pay you millions isn't the way to go.

Btw, this article is showing up in the forums as:
"Nintendo Sues Australian Pirate for $1... (Source: AusGamers News)"

I thought that was a bit narky of them until I clicked through. :D

BAM! who was the guy's ISP? iiNET?

I assume this is a joke, but in case it's not - this is exactly how copyright infringement should be dealt with. The company that thought their stuff was getting ripped off went to the courts, got a court order, and the user was investigated.

yes it was a joke. you're being awfully serious today troggy. :(

how can they sue for 1.5 million? purely because they might have lost other potential sales as a result of this guy uploading it?

if he only uploaded it to one guy, thats only one lost sale
fucking ridiculous that they can say every time its copied after that is also his fault, what someone does with it once its out of his hands is not his problem

they dont even do that to drug dealers for fuck sake, this is just a claim of ownership over something that only exists inside a PC

individual accused of "illegally copying and uploading to the Internet" part of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

only part of the game as well?

EDIT: This is not a joke or troll, i'm serious. did he get done for uploading only a PART of the game?

konstie - New Super Mario Bros. Wii actually had new copy protection, it reads the Burst Cutting Area. So they had to start ripping it.

individual accused of "illegally copying and uploading to the Internet" part of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

only part of the game as well?

EDIT: This is not a joke or troll, i'm serious. did he get done for uploading only a PART of the game?

Yeh the PR is not clear which is why I wrote "part" - it says:

illegally copying and uploading to the Internet the first game file

Teq:

how can they sue for 1.5 million? purely because they might have lost other potential sales as a result of this guy uploading it?

It's also not clear from the PR how "much" he infringed. I suspect/guess that they tracked him as the source of a big juarez distribution that was uploaded to a place like the PirateBay and from there they guestimated the # of downloads by tracking peers or something.

cheers fellas :)

well the press release said he uploaded the game, not part of the game.
I'm guessing he uploaded it to a major tracker, then took into account how many ppl grabbed it from that tracker?

ABC News has some more details

Under Australian law, copying and distributing games without the permission of the copyright holder is a breach of the Copyright Act.

does downloading the copies fall under the umbrella of "copying" ?

so what, the person declares bankrupt and nintendo get nothing...

Under Australian law, copying and distributing games without the permission of the copyright holder is a breach of the Copyright Act.

does downloading the copies fall under the umbrella of "copying" ?

Yes.

so what, the person declares bankrupt and nintendo get nothing...

They would not settle out of court if he couldn't pay. If it were a case of some poor person they would just let the court punish them with a criminal sentence.