If you’re sharing games on a P2P network, then I would advise extreme caution, unless you have over £16,000 to spare. London’s Patents County Court recently ordered an unnamed British woman to hand over £16,086.56 to game developer Topware Interactive. She was illegally sharing their game, Dream Pinball 3D, over a network but has been thoroughly hung out to dry by law firm Davenport Lyons.
Prosecutor David Gore of Davenport Lyons had this to say:
Illegal filesharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners… As downloading speeds and internet penetration increase, this continues to be a worldwide problem across the media industry which increasingly relies on digital revenues…The damages and costs ordered by the court are significant and should act as a deterrent. This shows that taking direct steps against infringers is an important and effective weapon in the battle against online piracy.
Sometimes I think that if some of the huge effort expended in this “battle aginst online piracy” was put into some other battles, we’d have a lot more pedophiles and psychopaths behind bars. Either way, this battle will rage on, as Davenport Lyons is reportedly going after another 100 people believed to be distributing the game. Topware and its lawyers must be laughing their heads off — this game would never have made so much money if it wasn’t for the “damage” done by pirates.
