I'm not sure about Australia, but here in the US, $200,000 would be enough to ruin even a moderately successful person. The fine is gratuitous and will probably never be paid back, landing this guy in jail until he can cough up the 1.5 million dollars, which he will of course never be able to do from his jail cell. That's how it works here, at least. Seems a little disproportionate to the crime.

@hornetjockey

One guy could leak a game and get the ball rolling for thousands of others to pirate the game as well. I think the punishment fits the crime.

But here's a solution. Don't pirate it in the first place you damn thieves!

Now if they caught everyone pirating it, they can solve world hunger in one fell swoop.

I hate piracy and refuse to walk that evil path.

I heard pirates don't bathe much. Gross.

@Wavebird64

If they sold 10million copies of this game at $1AUD a pop they would have made $10000000.00AUD.

I bet the dev/prod/marketing costs are not even 25% of that figure. The fine is GROSSLY disproportionate given the success of both their own copy-portection in putting people off of pirating this game and the sales figures they have enjoyed.

$300000000 is more than enough remuneration for big N. Putting this guy through the ringer is not a detterent to anyone, except maybe those that wouldn't do it anyway, so it's not going to stop just because some bloke is rotting in prisneyland.

Taking away money from development? Isn't this the company that brought us so much shovleware?
true this guy was getting what was coming to him but still it seems way to harsh.

The difference between this and rape is that you can't pay your way out of a rape sentence.

I think Nintendo wouldn't give 2 shits about him if he didn't broke the release date by 1 week, and that affects sales world wide.

Wow nintendo wanted to lunch free, thats why the demand...

For those of you who are writing that this is so much harsher than a rape sentence, you guys have your law mixed up. First, this was a civil suit, so there was never the possibility of incarceration. While the Queen's Counsel could have proable filed a criminal action as well (assuming Australia also criminalizes copyright infringment), these seems to be no indication that the state took action. So what we have here is not a "sentence" but a "judgment." Or do we even have that? It seems from the Nintendo press release that this case settled: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/02/nintendo-wins-1-5m-aussie-piracy-settlement/
My guess then is that this guy <i>can</i> afford it, otherwise what would be the point in settling. I am sure that the amount hurt him (which is why Nintendo brought suit--it is not about the money lost from NSMBWii, per se, but rather about sending a message to potential pirates), but if $1.5m was so ruinious that he could never afford to pay it, then why would he not just take it to trial and dare Nintendo to prove actual damages?

Seriously--harsher than <i>rape</i>?! Rape carries mandatory incarceration with indeterminate sentencing, i.e. X years <i>to life</i> depending on whether or not sombody thinks the sex offender is sufficiently re-habilitated to be let out, thereafter lifetime parole supervision with sex offender registration. It never goes away. With a civil judgment, the debtor pays, then he his finished, or he declares bankruptcy. Other than the credit hit (which can be repaired over time) if he declares bankruptcy, a civil judgment can go away--a serious criminal conviction cannot.

@ANevskyUSA - Two points, first you can settle for more then the person can possibly pay, why would Nintendo choose to settle for more then he can pay? Because if they win the case it will be for more then he can pay, and they end up going to court costing them more then settling. So settle, get them same ruling/cost, and save some money.

As for why some are saying its more severe, simply because its technically suppose to put you in finiancial ruin, meaning you will never own a house, car, and most likely a credit card. Is that the truth? No. If you know anyone that has filed bankruptcy you will see they are off and running in 2 years at the most with a car and a credit card easily. As for a house, that I have not personally seen, but would not be surprised.

So odds are he can't afford it, no one expects him to pay it, and a year in jail is probably better then financial ruin in some peoples eyes.

Correct me if I am wrong but a bankruptcy only stays on your record for 10 years I thought.

@Retrofraction

Thanks to piracy we can have Monster Hunter 3 and Fatal Frame 4 translated to english...

So what do Aussies learn from this?: if games in Australia are more or less released one year after international release date, that means there are already shitons of places to buy them cheap (or pirate if you choose) instead of getting into trouble by pirating local copies. Buy a US Wii/X360/PS3 and buy your games online and tell the local industry to fuck off!, maybe the reallost sales (not the make believe ones attributed to piracy) will hurt them enough to stop this bullshit censoring.

to put it frankly,

to hell with nintendo, keep seeding.

nintendo made way too much money off a gimicky system and rehashed mario lazy attempt at a mario game. 1.5 million is crackers to them

It boggles my mind that people are proud of themselves for stealing. Boggles. Who the fuck cares if you're stealing from a "rich company"? Most of the people who work for the company are NOT rich, and they're the ones who often feel the burn of your theft by having their pay cut or being left off, the actual "rich" guys at the top get paid the same regardless.

If you pirate or support piracy you are nothing more than a thief and what the hell is there in that to be proud of?

All this does is let gamers know that there is a way to pirate Wii games...

Unless we're talking about high seas, swashbuckling adventures piracy hurts a lot of people. Doesn't help the digital media we surround ourselves with. Sure it's cheap and seems harmless but you multiply that by even a small number say 20,000 whether it be CDs or video games that equates a lot of fucking cash. Let's not forget the CEOs ain't paying that back the mid level people are.

err i meant the same burn that sony and *microsoft* have been dealing with

PS3 only got pirated recently because for the first 3 year of its life IT HAD NO GAMES.

Unless this dude actually profited from this that fine is absolutely ridiculous. And seriously, shame on anyone who says this guy deserved it. What he did was stupid and getting caught was worse, but no one deserves to have their financial life ruined and/or being stuck in jail from something silly like this. It's not like he raped or beat up someone D:

I like the part where the company that sues for damaging sales is the one that makes the most money on their system on a game that sold over 10 million copies. If your gonna sue someone, sue the people that put the games no one buys because of piracy, not one of the best selling games made by your own money printing company. Remember how EA fired a shit ton of people? How many did Nintendo have to fire after they only made a profit of $700 million last year? Oh wait. And even still, 1.5 million? Not even the RIAA is that outrageous.

@airbagtelex also concerning the ps3, everything about it makes buying the games better, the games are gigantic and would take forever to grab (most games are 10gb+ some as high as 30gb) and you would have to somehow be using it w/ an external drive to play it unless you wanted to burn it to a blu ray disc which is still not cheap to do. On top of all of that the cel processor is a bitch to deal with when it comes to hacking- so it is an all around bad idea, hence sony did the one smart thing with the ps3- they made a product that to this point is not better hacked- the same can't be said for the psp nor anything nintendo- the 360 is on the fence

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