c0rd on 11 February 2010
Some people have offered a very strange defense for this supposed $1.6mil AU fine (which, like ameratsu said, I don't even buy into). I'm going to have to call you people out on this.
So far, it seems as if the reasoning is that 50,000 people downloaded this game that this man uploaded, so his punishment should be proportional to this. There are a few reasons why this is unfair:
- There's no proof that each of these 50,000 downloads were a lost sale. If I made a Facebook group with its sole purpose to download the game 100,000 more times and did so (and delete it subsequently after), the guy's fine would end up tripling? That makes absolutely no sense.
- I don't believe this man uploaded the game directly to all these 50,000 downloads. It was off a torrent, correct? If so, that makes everyone who uploaded data using the torrent responsible, which is likely to be a very large number. Just because we could only catch one guy, does not mean he should hold the responsibility of all the (supposed) 50,000.
- Finally, he's credited as being the first who uploaded the game. This is because the game would have been uploaded/downloaded 50,000 times, regardless of whether he uploaded it or not. Give me an example of a game that doesn't have a torrent if you argue against this. This is relevant because it makes it pretty damn clear that he's not solely responsible for 50,000 * (game price) of revenue, as that revenue is always "lost", whether this man is in the picture or not.
The man's real crime is that he uploaded the game first, not that he uploaded it 50,000 times (the torrent supporters carried it on for the vast majority, track them down as well if justice must be served). The fine should be proportional to the former, and $1.6mil obviously does not sound reasonable.
