British woman fined £16k for P2P game sharing

Game sharing on P2P networks - woman fined £16k in landmark UK case

A British woman has been fined over £16,000 for putting a game file on an online sharing network.

Topware Interactive won damages of £6,086.56 plus costs of £10,000 in this landmark case against the woman who shared a copy of its game, Dream Pinball 3D.

[Silogon]

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

It's not even a good game, atleast put up a game worth the cash flow. Dream Pinball, might as well just tossed up too Human. Both suck monkey F*ck and neither are worth their retail price tag, let alone 10 + grand.

[sak500]

Its the 2nd time something similar happened with the same game. Someone in USA was also fined for hosting the same $hitty game. Why are people sharing these kinds of lame games?

[gamesR4fun]

but i dont doubt the uk is in the cooperate pocket just like the rest of us.

[Ice2ms]

16k oO thats load for such a lame game. I wonder what'd happen if rockstar found the people who leaked GTA 4 on to the internet pre-release

[ali312]

And so it begins, this is becoming a joke, what the hell is this bullsh** pinball game anyway. Its not even worth that amount anyway. This is a crime against normal people

[Infernus]

So people who buy games aren't normal?

[m-s-8-2]

Good.

[user9422077]

Some sad ass ladys, can't even afford a pinball game.

How are they gonna afford 16k??!

[Honolulu]

Nice, she has to pay more cash than what the whole game had as budget during development.

This sucks

[Lex Luthor]

That's the funny thing about it.

[titntin]

If you read, she was actualy fined £6000 - it was the court costs that raised it by another 10K.
£6000 was probably carefully derived by estimating the number of copies she helped to distribute and multiplying that by the game price. So 200 copies at £30 would put us in that area.

It confirms what most switched on people already know - if you are going to pirate games and music don't sit on a P2P network broadcasting it, you are just asking for trouble. There are steps you take to protect your IP if you are on a P2P, but the best method is to simply not use torrents or bearshare and its ilk!

[riksweeney]

Most people don't even know that they're breaking the law. I've heard stupid people talking live on the radio about the fact that they love Lost and download it as soon as it's available, only to then be told that they're breaking the law.

[ravinash]

It was calcualte as £16 per copy that was downloaded....thats what the game cost in to buy.
So in the in she had to pay for each copy of the program she gave away plus the court cost of £10,000.

I think the big point here is if you think you can give away just any game that belongs to someone else...you'd better think again.

[snp]

£16 in the UK, $14.99 in the US.. speaking of the high seas. Gotta love the irony.

I'm not condoning her, but effectively losing your house over what amounts to sitting on a P2P game - in a world where 'justice' gives infinitely smaller fines/punishments to hardened 'physical' crimes - is absurd. And calculating 'lost sales' for 'every' downloaded copy (i wonder how many were kids/teens, or had no idea what 'Dream Pinball' even was when they clicked on it, let alone intended to buy it) is something only a lawyer could come up with.

[Yi-Long]

... = 8 MILLION pounds, for creating a lame game with crappy copy-protection.

Wow... (!)

[zoydwheeler]

"... = 8 MILLION pounds, for creating a lame game with crappy copy-protection."

crikey, these Topware jokers really have hit onto something here!!

[Sharpshell]

I wish the powers that be spent more time trying to create insentives for people to not pirate then this stupid witch hunt.

[LastDance]

as if she got fined for breaking the law....

[Bad_Karma]

Topware interactive has had this whole thing setup from the off. Ive read alot of things about then (topware) and about people who have been fined for dloading this pinball game . Its a damn shame when your not good enough to make a good game and earn your money off of it instead of making a pile of shyte and then sitting on P2P networks jotting down the ip adresses of the people your about to fu*k over.

[Ben1054]

you cant have that as your pic can ya.
it actually shows everything

[radecswe]

lololol hahahaha monkey.

[uckitsayitchbay]

This sort of thing really chaps my ass... Funny story Universal Studios sent me a letter saying they had my ip and to stop pirating movies LMAO i almost never dl movies but i do have a few that are hard to get... Try and guess what movie was in question..... guess...... Harry and the freakin Hendersons roflmfaopmp seriously Universal harry and the hendersons... Really!?... REALLY?!

[CAPT IRISH]

dont break the law and you will have nothing to worry about

[snp]

The law of course is morally and ethically perfected and equally applied to all sides at all times.. Everyone having equal resources and time available for both defence and their own witch hunts... (bit of sarcasm there)

Atm the anarchists and the sharks vaguely balance each other out (I'm neither). But if one side of that see saw is gone after, and the other is by extension left to bloat.. eick. Trust me it's a situation you don't want, even if you think you do or that it's nothing to worry about.

[Cicinho]

What game is copy proof?

[lwsbrck]

uploading is decidedly illegal, i can remember reading about legal loopholes in downloading though. something about exploiting the terms of a copyright. of course you could just join a private torrent site that the gestapo-like law authorities cant get on to without hassle

[M4RK1988]

Why do they assume that everyone who downloaded it would have bought the game if it wasn't available to download?
I would be suprised if 10% of people would have paid for it.