[Source Game Politics]

Super Mario Pirate Appears on AU News Show

Australian TV news show A Current Affair recently covered the story of the man slapped with a $1.5 million dollar AU fine for pirating Super Mario Bros.Wii.

A reticent James Burt (pictured) himself appears in the piece, saying that the fine will have a “devastating affect” on his life. The 24-year old added, “It’s so easy to get carried away and take part in things you may not agree with.”

Burt admitted that what he did was “very stupid,” and something he would have to “work through for the rest of his life.” Interestingly, a broken street date may have helped contribute to Burt’s eventually piracy, as he stated that he found the game in a retail store over a week before it was to be officially released. Recounting to online friends that he already possessed the game led them to demand proof, which in turn led Burt to make the fateful decision to upload the game to the Internet.

The reporter engages a bit of hyperbole in the report, saying that the decision to upload the game by Burt led to “billions of gamers around the globe” receiving the game free of charge. Immediately following the reporter’s use of “billions,” a Nintendo spokesperson appears and pegs the number of downloads at around 50,000, which still equals a significant loss of revenue for the publisher.

The report uses a $1.6 million dollar figure as what Burt owes, which combines the $1.5 million dollar fine and $100,000 in court costs he must reimburse to Nintendo.

Burt had a few words of wisdom for others in the gaming community, saying “Don’t do what I did.”

It's nice that he added the words of wisdom in there but damn, why to try to shift the blame on everything else.

Oh, your friends want proof? It's called a camera dip-shit. If that isn't good enough for your internet friends, screw them, they're only random people over the internet anyways.

Shouldn't have been fined that much. I don't agree with pirating, but fining that much is just a disgrace, hopefully he appeals and wins.

I hope he loses.  He did the crime and he got caught.  Why should he get out of it?

Because the punishment would hurt him?

Boohoo?

Because the punishment doesn't fit the crime?

"Wow, I must show this to my friends! Hm, what's the best way of doing that..."

I agree with Seece. It's one thing to be punished, but being punished excessively is different. I know it sets quite the example, but much less would have taught him the lesson fine and not ruined his life on top of that.

How would you say that?  Nintendo can flat out prove it was him that uploaded it and it was downloaded at least 50,000 times.  We can go on and on all day how those could have been sales or not, but in the end, we still know 50,000 people got to enjoy the game for free so that's a lot of money Nintendo missed out on.

There's really no justification at all for what he did and he deserves every bit of his punishment.  As I said elsewhere, I hope Nintendo makes a habit of this and other publishers start doing the same thing.

It won't stop piracy by any means, but it sure will make people think twice before they upload something to any public file sharing site.

Eh, it's a reasonable amount. 50K copies amounts to a fine of AU$30 per copy; with a retail price of AU $100, it's probably a fair percentage of lost sales to be assumed.

Nintendo didn't ruin his life, he ruined his own life.  The difference between him and some other guy that didn't get caught is he simply got caught.  Again, he knew what he was doing.