Nintendo destroys Australian man with ‘Super Mario Bros. Wii’ piracy win
There’s one very big reason why you shouldn’t pirate games – if you get caught it could literally destroy your life. Just ask James Burt, who is facing a bill from Nintendo for $1.4 million Australian dollars ($1.2 million U.S.) after he copied and leaked Super Mario Bros. Wii on to the Internet last year.
Twenty-four-year-old Burt is a games shop employee who got hold of Super Mario Bros. Wii a few days prior to release, copied it, and leaked it on to the Web. He was caught using “sophisticated technological forensics” and taken to court.
The Australian Federal Court ruled in Nintendo’s favor and awarded Nintendo $1.3 million Australian dollars in damages for loss of sales revenue. Burt will also have to pay Nintendo’s legal fees of $100,000.
Nintendo released a statement saying:
The legal proceeding resulted in a settlement in which the individual will pay to Nintendo the sum of 1.5 million (Australian) dollars by way of damages to compensate Nintendo for the loss of sales revenue caused by the individual’s actions.
The fine does seem a little harsh as it’s way beyond what any ordinary individual will be able to pay back in his or her lifetime. So unless games shops pay a lot more than what I think they do Burt will likely have to go bankrupt. Then again, his actions were stupid and highly illegal so I guess he deserves everything he gets. But it pains me to side with a company which earns billions of dollars every year.
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21 Responses to “Nintendo destroys Australian man with ‘Super Mario Bros. Wii’ piracy win”
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February 10th, 2010
Nintendo has no soul now, why the hell they dont do the same to the millions of japanese who pirate Wii/DS/GBA/N64/SNES/NES games?? most of those pirate games are even playable on PSP’s.
and then there Game shops who be breaking street date and selling the games early. Fuck Nintendo
February 10th, 2010
Brrrrr. That cooooold.
February 10th, 2010
If a company really believes the piracy myth (each DLed copy = 1 lost sale) then this sort of action is appropriate. At least, they are going after the real criminals, the uploaders, instead of trying to make an example through going after 1 in a billion pirates.
That said, I think it is a myth, and other companies approaches to piracy have changed in recent times to embracing its value as a promotional tool. EA even said recently that they don’t really care about piracy anymore, due to their advanced use of value through online servers (play or DLC) that pirates can’t access directly with keygen loaded/cracked copies. They even embraced the positive feedback that pirated copies of the Sims3 evoked.
Eventually everyone will stop wasting money chasing pirates, and instead take new innovative approaches (that don’t inconvenience the actual customer) to keep a profitable amount of people obtaining their titles legally.
February 10th, 2010
Ivan practically has his phone number posted on his PSP ISO page. I wonder if he’ll make the news one day.
February 10th, 2010
If you own Super Mario for SNES or DS, you should pretty much entitled to the port known as “New” Super Mario Brothers Wii. There wasn’t enough new content added to justify a new purchase.
February 10th, 2010
I saw this on the news last night. He was claiming that he was peer pressured by the online gaming community to prove he has a copy of it. Why he didn’t just take a photo with the day’s newspaper proving the date is beyond me. I don’t think he deserved what he got, maybe a slap on the wrist might have done, seeing that he was a first time offender.
@ BJ, I agree about Ivan. Also, if you google Ivan_PSP you get plenty of links to torrent sites with his name plastered all over them.
February 11th, 2010
Oh my god. I actually flipped through 7 pages. Every single link, from all the different sites are him.
I randomly clicked on one of the links on the last page, and found everyone from this site there. What site is this? I’m guessing it’s related to blorge?
http://mediachannel.org/leinwandbilderblog/tag/iphone-nokia/
February 11th, 2010
heh i’ve never visited that site, but there I am. Spooky.
February 11th, 2010
oh wait, it’s got something to do with WordPress, which I think has something to do with Blorge.
February 11th, 2010
WTF?
February 11th, 2010
The Dude deserves a Darwin award.
February 11th, 2010
Or i deserve a reward for notifying the authorities oh wait i am elligible hmmmmmm what to do
February 11th, 2010
Yeah I thought I was in the twilight zone.
First I saw Iavn and Carl B, but then I noticed ncaissie, Phranc, Harry, Rocca, and the list goes on.
I wonder if it was written here by Dave, and the article and comments were copy and pasted there? It’s pretty weird.
February 11th, 2010
the funny thing is, it has “www.sega.com” as its source. lol
but yeah it look like it was copied and pasted
February 11th, 2010
Which is just freaky if you ask me, oh and pointless.
February 11th, 2010
Maybe it shows how entertaining we are that we have to be copied and pasted to other sites? ….. probably not.
February 11th, 2010
I laughed when reading through it. I asked Ivan why he doesn’t come around anymore, and he told me that he quit blorge.
February 11th, 2010
On topic:
Nintendo couldn’t just charge the guy the $45 for the game? $45 is over priced as it is. It’s not exactly like they are hurting for money.
Why does a mega-corporation feel the need to destroy a 24 year old’s life?
Just another strike against Nintendo in my book.
February 12th, 2010
What I found strange was that he didn’t seem awfully upset about it, and his parents weren’t either. Makes me think that it’s a little fishy.
February 12th, 2010
Serves that fucker right. Throw his ass under the jail! bitch.
April 28th, 2010
I can understand going after a dude who uploaded a BRAND NEW GAME, or people who upload DS games, or even Gamecube games. But why the hell do they give so much of a crap about people who upload/download/fan-translate/level-edit games for the older systems like NES and SNES? And if they’re so upset about “Intellectual Property” why aren’t they going after Joe Blow selling his original NES or SNES and game carts on Ebay? “Oh, sorry sir but we’re gunna hafta arrest ya, you sold that system and you didn’t give us a dime, plus that’s another person who won’t spend 9000 Wii Points for it on our Virtual Console!”
Speaking of the VC, which was supposed to be like their I-Tunes for games, where’s all the good stuff? Sure you got a few major Nintendo-owned titles and even Sonic games, but what if I wanted to play Capcom’s Chip n Dale, or Duck Tales, or Acclaim’s Knight Rider? Or Square’s un-released sequel to Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3) or Enix’s Terranigma (which got a UK release but not a U.S. release) on the SNES? If Nintendo wants to draw people away from emulation, they need to give better incentives, not jail time. Don’t punish the gamer for liking the old stuff better.