"Activision takes 3 FIle Share Priates to the courts Gamers get caught sharing COD3 way too often "

Activision takes gamers to court over file sharing.

[Rick Astley]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[DRUDOG]

Piracy sucks. Sure games are overpriced (in general), but stealing is stealing.

[nanometric]

To be honest I'm more inclined that the prices for games are a highway robbery. So is stealing the stealer a bad thing?

[Proxy]

From my understanding it's the people that actually upload things on the P2P's that are in trouble. The downloaders are safe, usually. (I don't pirate, and I don't support it.)

As a downloader, if you download from a pirate, then the legal owners have no idea you've downloaded it. What the owners can do is set up their own P2P upload, and then track the IP's that come and download the software. The problem is if they try to sue these people, then they claim, "well, didn't we download it from your server?" It's entrapment. So I understand things. But I'm no lawyer.

Furthermore, uploaders are the root of the problem. Thousands download, few upload. Take away the uploads, and there is nothing to download.

[XboxOZ360]

When you DL something, you in effect are pirating the item from the servers of those who originally stole the goods.

In law, "receiving is considered a HIGHER crime than stealing. The fact being, that is there was no call for the items/goods, (the receiver) then the crime would not happen, or be less than what it is.

SO either way you look at it mate, those that download are as equally at fault as those who initially steal the goods. There is no "get-out-of-gaol" free clause in piracy I'm afraid.

[Immortal Kaim]

They got their just deserts in my opinion, can't stand videogame piracy.

[Acj2323]

about time we sore more action involving video game piracy, we will defiantly see more game publishers fight back.

[jerethdagryphon]

is in a game about pirates yarghhh bounty bay :)

but no in this im glad they got stopped

[XboxOZ360]

Personally I despise piracy, especially within the game industry. So many think that it's Ok to just copy a game and use it, share it around, and be proud of doing so by bragging to everyone and anyone that they do it.

Sooner or later, those that do it constantly, and on a large volume, will get caught. Theft is theft, no matter how you coat or colour it. While is disapprove of the huge fines for the mums of the world that might have been unwittingly pushed into it by demanding children, there is still the need to get this under some form of control.

Saying that it will never be stopped is no excuse, crime will never be stopped, it's within mans nature to break laws, but there must always be rules and those that govern them must uphold them.

[Weed]

Those fines are ridiculous lol

[XboxOZ360]

No there aren't, in fact, they are somewhat leient in many cases.

Just go and check out fines for piracy on a movie for one case or the cost on a company or person who copies movies and "distributes" them. They are in excess of $US300,000 and more in many cases.

Fines or better still, penalties, as fines sounds too soft, are what is within the limit of the law. The law is there to discourage people from doing it again, and again. If it was a few thousand $, then most will continue, make it steep enough, and they will think twice about doing it again.

If YOU owned a company that you invested not only YOUR money in, but that of thousands of others in (stock holders), you'd want to make sure that what you were loosing, you were hopefully going to recoup or at least slow down the losses.

But then again, how many gamers own businesses and run companies and know what such things involve . . . not many

[Baka-akaB]

Couldnt they at least sue someone for sharing a far better game , like hell cod4 :p ?

"Mums/dads, say NO to your kids when they ask if they can “just download a game off the net . . . . PLEASE“, it could cost you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of owning a FREE game "

Well they dont ask , they simply do it , with progs they probably knows far better than their parents .
It's quite naive that any parent could survery constantly their child on the internet ... and it would be even more irresponsible to simply give the chore to a faulty "cybernanny"

[XboxOZ360]

Quite true, but for every negative comment, there's an alternative.

Parents DO need to take more active involement with their kids "these" days, as it's not like it was even 5-7 years ago. So we have 2 generations of kids growing up with technology that is far in advance of what used to be available several years ago.

SO that doesn't take the responsibility away from parents, I know, I'm one. On the other side, laws need to be in place to make those that do break them think twice about it. For piracy, there are two types of penalties, and some times both can be imposed depending on the judge dealing the case. They are both heavy monetary fines and jail terms.

Many kids do ask parents if it's okay to DL something, thinking they are perhaps doing the right thing, and that their parents would/should know. There are those kids who simply do as they please, irrespective of what they are told, and they should be held accountable for their actions, so as to learn that everything they do has a consequence, irrespective of what it is.

It's one of the driving forces behind many game's these days, where every action you take has a consequence. But the media focuses only on the actions, not the aim of the games in question.

There is no EASY fix or solution to both piracy or how kids are parented, nor how parents govern their kids. But rules and laws do need to be there, otherwise we would live in a world of complete chaos, much more than we do now.

[nanometric]

Good thing I live where I live, cuz no one cares about here.

[kibbels]

If you check the update: http://www.gamepolitics.com...

"UPDATE: Activision's attorney contacted GP to say that the cased were not based on file-sharing."

More likely these were physical copies being sold on the street like the dvd vendors all over new york city :)

[Weed]

That makes a lot more sense. I thought the game industry was about to go RIAA/MPAA.

[XboxOZ360]

Thanks for the update mate, we'll add that to the article.

Cheers . . give you the creds for doing so as well thumbs up.

Just update the site, gave you credit for it.