I'm well aware of that, and he certainly deserves a punishment. I just come with this thing called "mercy".

I believe the punishment fit the crime. First of all, 50000 people downloaded the game illegally due to this man's crime. If say, we price each game as 50 U.S. dollars, that is $2.5 million dollars that Nintendo lost. It did not matter if most of the people who downloaded the game illegally would most likely not have bought the game in the first place, but the mere possibility of losing those purchasers for good with that one product is damaging.

Is this punishment going to ruin this man forever? Most likely. But this is what happens when you don't think before committing a crime.

I agree with this for the same reason I don't agree with mutilating thieves or capital punishment - the punishment doesn't fit the crime and is retardedly excessive. I mean - Nintendo will never get their money back, so why bother?

Then again, that's what penalties of software piracy have always been - since most software companies can't really fight piracy at all, they just tend to destroy everyone they catch with completely disproportionate punishments. Hell, the guy would've probably got a much lesser sentence had he actually stolen 50 thousand physical copies of the game.

It's an outright terror tactic, and a completely ineffective one - the chances of getting caught are still ridiculously small. You'll have a better chance of winning a lottery, meeting the pope and getting struck by lightning on the same day.

o well, time to move to china and disappear

Thank you, someone else who agrees.

"the decision to upload the game by Burt led to “billions of gamers around the globe” receiving the game free of charge"

LOL but that will lead to billions of new Wii console purchases making more money for Nintendo since there's only 67million Wii sold. Punishment he deserves for breaking the law but they couldve been merciful for he just led “billions of gamers around the globe” to consider buying a Wii ^__^

Yeah. I guess I'll never understand people who are willing to essentally rob someone of his right of ownership for the rest of his life solely on guesswork, possibility and intent, and not actual, verifiable damage.

I'm surprised nobody has yet denounced him as subhuman trash that should just kill himself, for he's a criminal and criminals are apparently not human anymore.

I, too, think that the punishment is too severe. But what're you gonna do...

I'm quite curious to know where these billions of gamers are located.

Something about billions of gamers getting the game early and Nintendo's reported 50,000 just doesn't add up.

:P

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Someone please tell me why this man should get off with a slap on the wrist.