You should all be aware by now that Codemasters, Atari and a bunch of no-name developers have clubbed together to pursue as many as 25,000 software pirates in the UK. Now, the tactic of trying to squeeze £300 out-of-court settlements from each of these pirates may seem a little shady and somewhat suspicious, but if GI.Biz's editorial anything to go by, "a little bit shady" doesn't begin to cover it.
Among the things that .biz points out is the fact that law firm Davenport Lyons is employing highly questionable methods of tracking down these pirates which test the limits of legality. According to the editorial, this whole scenario is going to result in a huge PR nightmare, especially when the innocent people accused of piracy start to hit back.
I disagree with some of the mass piracy that happens, but this recent "war" in Britain has unsettled me greatly. The original demands read more like extortion than a serious attempt to seek retribution for copyright theft. From what .biz suggests, extortion is exactly what it is. Hit the jump for some of the most pertinent parts of the editorial.
[Via GamePolitics]
None of the big publishers or platform holders have touched the action with a barge pole... A group of tier 2 and tier 3 companies... have hired a firm called Davenport Lyons to take action against private individuals for using file-sharing networks to distribute games. This, it appears, is a Davenport Lyons "speciality"...this is a company whose reputation is coloured by a history of threats against private individuals...
Davenport Lyons... appear to be using data from a company called Logistep... there have been serious concerns over the legality of Logistep's methods in several European states. In... Switzerland, it stood accused of violating the law in its pursuit of pirates... In France, a lawyer who was working with Logistep was recently banned from practising law for six months for almost exactly the same behaviour which Davenport Lyons has just demonstrated in the UK...
That seems to be why the shock-and-awe tactics of this mass mailing are being employed. £300 or thereabouts is a nice figure - enough to sting badly... but not enough for most people (innocent or guilty!) to be willing to go and hire a lawyer and fight the case...
In that case, "grubby" doesn't begin to describe it - just as, when innocent people start receiving those letters and clamouring in large numbers to the media, as they inevitably will, "PR disaster" doesn't begin to describe what will happen next.
Fight piracy. Fight it with every weapon in the arsenal - but play fair. This kind of dirty, nasty and legally questionable action will do nothing other than bring the industry into disrepute...
Contest:
7:33 AM on 08.22.2008
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The law these days is a disgusting perversion of what it should be, with absolutely no relevance to 'justice' whatsoever.
Expect more of this bullshit in the future, especially with the ESA hiring RIAA suits.
And then the Sticky Bun
"I HAD TO. I WAS DRUNK"
Also I just got an R4 card the other day. Piracy is great. It's already saved me a good £120
Think about it for a second though. Why would they offer YOU an out of court settlement if they thought they had a strong enough case to win in court?
They're simply bullying people into giving up settlements and at the same time trying to scare the accused enough to not try piracy again.
If you really want to stick it to them, fight any charges in court. You may still lose, but at least you didn't simply roll over and take it in the ass from them.
With the poor showing of E3, the boom of the industry, unmanageable DRM and the inflated price of (and bullying of pricing) of the games themselves companies that perform this tactic are putting nails into the the coffin of the industry which I as a gamer am not happy about.
The truth is that Piracy as it stands now may be an irritant, but not a huge cut into actual game sales, but an anti-consumer stance by the industry will in fact cut into sales, as those that would have bought the game will either bypass it or pirate it out of spite if nothing else.
The thing that the industry (and music industry- I am an indie musician myself so that cry is loud as well) needs to realize is that the selling of entertainment is not a vital industry and you need to make your fans feel like they want to buy your product and that it is accessible because in the end they don't have to buy it. We as consumers are doing the industry a favor by buying your product and not vice versa, so whether people are pirating or just not buying you lose either way and if people are pirating, it works to do something for the industry and that is community building around a brand with a possibility of future sales. Treating consumers like criminals on the other hand builds contempt and future losses.
Some remnants will remain, though - especially in music - new system will arise and take it's place.
It's no longer viable.
Now cost of copy is approaching 0, while charging for copies is approaching ridiculus.
Producers will ofcourse find other ways, publishers may in fact be pushed off market and they're only ones in real danger here.