Hang on,
If this was a crime - they could not settle out of court.
or,
If they settled out of court - this is not a crime...

Am I wrong?

i dont think whether it was a crime or not has anything to do with it, nintendo are suing for damages/lost income. different court?

Thanks Greazy. Sorry, it's just that I keep hearing this 'piracy is a crime' stuff all the time and i got carried away.

So - is piracy a crime or what?

I'm so confused =(

Hmm, I find this stuff kind of funny, like the guy has 1.5mil sitting in his bank account, All he would have to do is go bankrupt like the rest of the millionaires out there do when they go belly up, If this post is true I think it would just be a scare tactic for the would be pirates out there, I would be very surprised if Nintendo would ever get that much money from a single person, unless they were already millionaires ?

my dodgy research seems to indicate that bankruptcy doesn't discharge court fines. I'm not sure if that applies to this case though.

1.5M is way too much to consider paying unless you're a fat cat so maybe Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200?

Im concerned theres a bigger scheme behind this and never mind gov being above the law...

Freedom is not cheap

Sommescum - im positive piracy is a crime.

^ great another one.

I'm not a terrorist, I don't appreciate the discrimination.

f*****.

I think he meant SnotOne, who seems to be another conspiracy theory nutter.

Piracy is copyright infringement.

Was reading the info on copyright.org.au (thanks Trog) and it is legal to copy your own DVDs and music CDs to another format (e.g. ISO and MP3). It is not legal for someone else to copy this for you though.

Also this:

You may be entitled to demand any or all of the following:
1-3) blah

4) that either you be paid for the use of the work or you be given the profits the infringer has made from it

4a)When deciding on how much money you are going to require the infringer to pay for use of the material, you could take into account what you would have charged if your permission had been obtained (a licence fee).

The infringer in this case made ZERO profit AND Nintendo should have to prove that $1.5 million of sales would have been made from the uploading of this material. There is no precedent that downloads = sales.

In some circumstances, infringement of copyright is a criminal offence, and fines and jail terms are possible penalties. The criminal provisions generally apply to commercial piracy and have been used particularly in relation to people infringing copyright in music, videos and computer software.

So no, copyright infringement that most people are alleged to partake in is not criminal copyright infringement and therefore no gaol time associated. However, this is where this guys slipped up:

It is also an offence to advertise the supply of an infringing program...

He uploaded it to a torrent site and talked about it on a forum and therefore advertised it - potential gaol time if he didn't settle, especially if the judge was leaning towards believing that all the downloads = missed sales (a fallacy). Trog was right, copyright.org.au is a good resource.

TL;DR - this guy could have been charged criminally if he didn't settle. If he didn't upload and advertise the material, simple suing for damages/lost sales would occur. Law sucks, as we all know downloading =! lost sales.

he made a lot of emotional income by sticking it to the man

this needs to be accounted for

So basically this court case tells us that when you upload something like this, do it from an anonymous point of access, do it for the world and be very, very humble about it.

i saw this story on aca or whatever the f*** last night

the dude's sob story for aca was hilarious

some place sold it to him a week early which as we know sometimes happens, so he "went and told people on the internet about it, and they asked for proof. so he innocently uploaded the game"

haha, i feel so sorry for him now!

i think taking a photo of it would have been proof enough.

he's lucky he didn't get done for a whole stack of other games i'm sure he's ripped and uploaded

f*** ripping a game isn't something that takes 5 minutes is it? it takes some time and the right software etc yeah?

not really;
just need the right sort of drive (easy to buy) and a raw dumper, or with softmodded wii's you can just extract isos of the games off your hardrive

theres not much to it.

last edited by Spook at 09:31:01 11/Feb/10

i think taking a photo of it would have been proof enough.

He did that apparently and of himself, and also the reciept from the store.

I'd say viewing these images and then following it would have also been nintendo's advanced forensic technique.

i think taking a photo of it would have been proof enough.

He did that apparently and of himself, and also the reciept from the store.

I'd say viewing these images and then following it would have also been nintendo's advanced forensic technique.

haha
what a giant douche

From what i saw on the news, nintendo lost count of the downloads after 50 000.

Also, he'll be paying this for the rest of his life, he doesn't hafto be a millionaire, however much he can pay per week or whatever. Does the debt move to his children if he can't pay it all in his lifetime?

i dont know why they even bother suing for so much money when they are never going to receive it all.

Does the debt move to his children if he can't pay it all in his lifetime?

I was googling debt stuff the other day; don't think so. Any debt he has is paid off out of his estate first and foremost before heirs get anything. I think funeral costs are first, then debts are repaid, then anything left goes to people in the will.

i dont know why they even bother suing for so much money when they are never going to receive it all.

awesome PR and deterrent value of such a huge fine

Also, he'll be paying this for the rest of his life

Since he still lives with his parents and probably doesn't have any/many assets, he could just file for bankruptcy. It'll screw his chances for credit/loans etc but better than having to pay off a 1.5mil debt imo.

But that's worth it for a free game, right?

A little birdy has told me that the whole out of court settlement is a crock.
The media coverage of the alleged fine is meant to be a deterrent for Pirates.
The guy isnt paying one cent.

You really are crazy if you think birds can talk.

A little birdy has told me that the whole out of court settlement is a crock.
The media coverage of the alleged fine is meant to be a deterrent for Pirates.
The guy isnt paying one cent.

So the message here is, pirate all you want but if you tell Tracy Grimshaw you're sorry you'll get your fee waived?

A little birdy has told me that the whole out of court settlement is a crock.
The media coverage of the alleged fine is meant to be a deterrent for Pirates.
The guy isnt paying one cent.

Nintendo wouldn't give a s*** about his money, they just want people average joe noobs to think twice about uploading games to the intertube.

Since he still lives with his parents and probably doesn't have any/many assets, he could just file for bankruptcy. It'll screw his chances for credit/loans etc but better than having to pay off a 1.5mil debt imo.

Chances are his NDA says something about if he chooses to file for bankruptcy and defaults on his debts, he will be pursued in a criminal court rather than just for damages
like everyone else has already said, it's worth more to nintendo that this goes public and he goes on TV scared s***less saying he will never do it again
I wouldn't be at all surprised if they just said "pay our legal fees ($100k) and sign this NDA, you're free to go", then set him up with a 100k payment plan

Does the debt move to his children if he can't pay it all in his lifetime?

Hah that's a pretty retarded thought, if that were the case he would just leave all his s*** to nintendo when he died, or someone he doesn't like.