- Joined
- Jun 16, 2007
- Messages
- 415
Hi, recently in the news some guy in Australia got fined US$1,300,000 for uploading a pirated version of 'Super Smash Brothers: Brawl'. Now, he uploaded the game a week ahead of its Australian release date and got caught by Nintendo who sued him and won.
The sum is 1.3 mil because supposedly that's the amount of potential games they could have sold. In my eyes it seems extreme to fine someone such insane amounts of money for a crime that is not horrible.
It seems however that a lot of people seem to think this fine to be more than justified and actually want more and harsher fines like this.
I made up a few key arguments as to why this is unjustified, feel free to rebuttal them or make your own:
1. This man will never be able to amass that much money. Most people make about a million dollars in a lifetime so essentially this punishment is slavery, or murder if he chooses to take his life. Both of these punishments are outlawed in civilized countries.
2. I understand that Nintendo lost potential customers, but I'm gonna go ahead and guess that 90% of the people who downloaded this torrent won't buy the game. In order to play cracked games you need to chip your Wii for money and I'm assuming people who have already done that don't intend to buy in the first place.
Furthermore, a lot of people buy games after they pirate them in order to get online access or support the company. I personally know of 5 such occurrences in just the last two weeks.
3. A lot of people argue that Nintendo is just making an example and this is to deter pirates. However, I see more pirated titles more often with even earlier release dates. Also, by the same logic, would executing a person for smoking encourage the rest of the world to stop smoking? Fuck no! The only thing this is achieving is that companies are breeding smarter and better crackers who are harder to get caught and make more cracks faster and better.
4. Another argument is that these people are basically stealing from the employees and not just the company. That is true. But as I said, this guy definitely did not cost Nintendo 1.3 million dollars. Maybe 50,000 and you can fine him that, he'll learn a lesson and stop. More importantly though, the titles that are getting pirated and sued for are all major titles. I just can't feel sympathetic for Infinity Ward when they lose a bit of money after already making literally 1 billion dollars profit. SSBB was a major release too and probably made a LOT of profit, it's not like this guy was stealing from a game that's already struggling.
5. Much harsher crimes get off with a lot less than these fines. Rape, attempted murder, assault, grand theft get punished less than piracy. What kind of fucked up priorities are that?
6. "If someone stole 1.3 million dollars from you, you'd have them pay it back, right?" -I don't see it that way. First of all, these are 1.3 million THEORETICAL dollars we are talking about. Just like Nintendo assumes every person who downloaded the game was a customer lost I can assume that every one of those people wasn't going to buy the game.
Furthermore, I do believe that it matters from where you stole the money. Stealing 50,000 dollars from an orphanage and then having all the kids die of malnutrition is much worse in my eyes than stealing money from a corporation that already made several millions in profit (note: profit is earnings minus what you spent on paying employees etc).
Anyhow, those are just my opinions on why such hefty fines on piracy are not justified in any way. What do you think. Did the man deserve to be fined this sum or do you think he should be fined less or even more?
The sum is 1.3 mil because supposedly that's the amount of potential games they could have sold. In my eyes it seems extreme to fine someone such insane amounts of money for a crime that is not horrible.
It seems however that a lot of people seem to think this fine to be more than justified and actually want more and harsher fines like this.
I made up a few key arguments as to why this is unjustified, feel free to rebuttal them or make your own:
1. This man will never be able to amass that much money. Most people make about a million dollars in a lifetime so essentially this punishment is slavery, or murder if he chooses to take his life. Both of these punishments are outlawed in civilized countries.
2. I understand that Nintendo lost potential customers, but I'm gonna go ahead and guess that 90% of the people who downloaded this torrent won't buy the game. In order to play cracked games you need to chip your Wii for money and I'm assuming people who have already done that don't intend to buy in the first place.
Furthermore, a lot of people buy games after they pirate them in order to get online access or support the company. I personally know of 5 such occurrences in just the last two weeks.
3. A lot of people argue that Nintendo is just making an example and this is to deter pirates. However, I see more pirated titles more often with even earlier release dates. Also, by the same logic, would executing a person for smoking encourage the rest of the world to stop smoking? Fuck no! The only thing this is achieving is that companies are breeding smarter and better crackers who are harder to get caught and make more cracks faster and better.
4. Another argument is that these people are basically stealing from the employees and not just the company. That is true. But as I said, this guy definitely did not cost Nintendo 1.3 million dollars. Maybe 50,000 and you can fine him that, he'll learn a lesson and stop. More importantly though, the titles that are getting pirated and sued for are all major titles. I just can't feel sympathetic for Infinity Ward when they lose a bit of money after already making literally 1 billion dollars profit. SSBB was a major release too and probably made a LOT of profit, it's not like this guy was stealing from a game that's already struggling.
5. Much harsher crimes get off with a lot less than these fines. Rape, attempted murder, assault, grand theft get punished less than piracy. What kind of fucked up priorities are that?
6. "If someone stole 1.3 million dollars from you, you'd have them pay it back, right?" -I don't see it that way. First of all, these are 1.3 million THEORETICAL dollars we are talking about. Just like Nintendo assumes every person who downloaded the game was a customer lost I can assume that every one of those people wasn't going to buy the game.
Furthermore, I do believe that it matters from where you stole the money. Stealing 50,000 dollars from an orphanage and then having all the kids die of malnutrition is much worse in my eyes than stealing money from a corporation that already made several millions in profit (note: profit is earnings minus what you spent on paying employees etc).
Anyhow, those are just my opinions on why such hefty fines on piracy are not justified in any way. What do you think. Did the man deserve to be fined this sum or do you think he should be fined less or even more?
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