Over the last year Activision have been taking peer to peer torrent game thieves to court. Here are the results:
- Shawn Guse of Federal Way, Washington agreed to pay Activision $100,000.
- Chris Hyman of Abbeville, South Carolina agreed to pay Activision $25,000.
- George Laflin of New Jersey agreed to pay Activision $100,000.
- Maryanne Leach of Northome, Minnesota agreed to pay Activision $1,000.
- Kenneth Madden of York, South Carolina agreed to pay Activision $100,000.
- James R. Strickland of New York State; case is still active.
This is brilliant news. It is nice to see a game publisher with the gumption to act against people stealing from them. Let’s hope they nail a lot more of these thieves.
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I think it is easy to try and attack what you don’t understand. I say understand the reasons why and market appropriately.
My recent research into film piracy has shown that these people are not just “thieves” as you call them and can be marketed to.
No doubt some people are going to pirate no matter what, but as far as distribution methods go the pirates beat you to it, they made it easier and more convenient to access your content from their homes. Now you are faced with changing the habits of these “thieves”. If movie and game distributers had formalised these distribution platforms as technology developed we’d see a lot less of this casual piracy.