Time To Panick Illegal Game Downloaders!

[Firehorse]

I read this article in The Times a couple of days ago and am sure quite a few people on this forum would be negatively affected by this.

Source: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/gadgets_and_gaming/article4569180.ece


The computer games industry has launched an unprecedented assault on illegal downloads, demanding payment from thousands of families who obtained the latest releases over the internet without paying.

Five of the world’s top games developers will serve notice on 25,000 people across the UK, requiring each one to pay £300 immediately to settle out of court. Those who refuse risk being taken to court. The companies will target their initial legal actions on 500 people who ignore the letters.

The companies involved – Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters – make some of the popular games, including The Lord of the Rings,the Colin McRae Rally series and Operation Flashpoint. It is estimated that as many as six million people in Britain share games illegally over the internet. The aggressive action marks a dramatic change in the approach to copyright on the internet. The British music industry, hit hard by illegal file-sharing, has taken action against just 150 people in ten years.

The game makers have appointed the law firm Davenport Lyons. This week Isabela Barwinska, an unemployed mother of two, became the first person in the UK to be ordered to pay damages to a manufacturer. She must pay more than £16,000 to Topware after downloading Dream Pinball through a file-sharing site.

Roger Billens, a partner at Davenport Lyons, said: “Our clients were incensed by the level of illegal downloading. In the first 14 days since Topware Interactive released Dream Pinball 3D it sold 800 legitimate copies but was illegally downloaded 12,000 times. Hopefully people will think twice if they risk being taken to court.”

The law firm is applying to the High Court for an order requiring internet service providers to hand over the names and addresses of 25,000 individuals suspected of illegally downloading computer games. They have already obtained almost 5,000 addresses after providing evidence that illegal file-sharing had taken place. The move has provoked strong criticism within the games industry. A source close to the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association said that most publishers would be reluctant to bring legal actions against their “core market” and would be likely to look for other ways to minimise losses due to piracy.

Sales of computer games are predicted to reach £2 billion in the UK this year. Sales of consoles such as the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii are expected to hit 9.1 million, according to Screen Digest.

According to Peerland, which monitors games downloaded on three file-sharing websites, Operation Flashpoint was downloaded 691,324 times in one week. The most popular game was Battlefield 1942, which was accessed by almost 1.5 million people in seven days.

[Jamesy]

good thing I buy all mine legally over steam :)

[Leetzgirl]

ergh, i always read stuff like this, doesnt stop me though.

[Firehorse]

ergh, i always read stuff like this, doesnt stop me though.

This isn't like the illegal music downloading industry, this is a few companys who will fine 2500 people and sue 500 people. And did you hear of the woman who downloaded 2 songs off the internet and got sued thousands?

[Leetzgirl]

This isn't like the illegal music downloading industry, this is a few companys who will fine 2500 people and sue 500 people. And did you hear of the woman who downloaded 2 songs off the internet and got sued thousands?


I download everything. and yeh, i seen it before, it been posted on warez sites that i use.

[N!ck]

Use BitTorrent. It's harder to track what you're doing.

[Decode]

I use BitTorrent with ecryption on, so hopefully my ISP won't know what i'm downloading.

[N!ck]

I use BitTorrent with ecryption on, so hopefully my ISP won't know what i'm downloading.

Precisely. Your ISP will know you're transferring data using the BitTorrent protocol but they shouldn;t be able to find out exactly the nature of the files so you can just claim it's a Linux distro or something.

[Kevin]

For thoose of you who dont know how to encrypt , here is how you do it

http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-encrypt-bittorrent-traffic/

[Wootzeh]

Precisely. Your ISP will know you're transferring data using the BitTorrent protocol but they shouldn;t be able to find out exactly the nature of the files so you can just claim it's a Linux distro or something.
They're not allowed to look though are they?

[Leetzgirl]

They're not allowed to look thoguht are they?

I dunno, privacy laws are being broken but i dont know how and what is being done :S

[Mario]

i dont d/l games illegally - i download programs :P

[DrLacero]

Some company is always cracking down on the illegal download of something or other. Not gonna stop me. In fact I think I'll celebrate by downloading Colin McRae DiRT, I heard it's pretty good :P

[Hazza]

ergh, i always read stuff like this, doesnt stop me though.
One girl downloaded a game sent it to her friends and got fined £200,000. Some people have already been caught ;)

[Kevin]

Heres an other article from torrentfreak about this issue

http://torrentfreak.com/uk-game-piracy-the-propaganda-the-evidence-and-the-damages-080821/

Also the calculation for your fine if your sharing a game

A) Estimated number of days file was uploaded by the Defendant x (B) Estimated number of downloaders Defendant made game available to per day x (C) Profit lost per download = total damages

Edited by lAscend (Forum Super Moderator): Posts merged due to lag.

[Lycan]

They're not allowed to look though are they?


Well thats basicly what all the EU law is about (ISPs providing names about the customers they think (so no hard evidence required other then downloading over something like 50Gb a month) are downloading illegal materials) Except that law was turned down Twice. Instead its Optional... and the only two ISPs doing it just happen to be two of the largest aka BT Broadband and Virgin. BT and Virgin both sent customers they thought were using their services to download illegal material notices warning of them about what they thought they were doing... but that was only sent to a few hundred... most of whom had no idea what BT were on about...

Privacy laws are being broken through clever backdoors and legal jingo jango. I was shocked the otherday to read in the news paper that they had won the right to name a 16 year old who killed someone.

Your isp can see what your downloading unless its encrypted... and at the end of the day who is your ISP to say your download illegally when you could simply be downloading several copies of Linux


You also have to remember that the person who had to pay £16,000 (and a few hundred) had to because they uploaded... along with the others thatwere charged...

[Andys]

It's just a scare..
Is there anyway they could catch me downloading from rapidshare? :P

[Lycan]

It's just a scare..
Is there anyway they could catch me downloading from rapidshare? :P
Well rapidshare you don't upload (unless your an uploader as well as a downloader) So Yes you could get caught but it would take alot more effort on there side and you couldn't be charged with causing the company to loose profit other then the copy you downloaded which in theory would be the cost of the game

Its all very confusing how they attempt to catch people but now that Privacy laws seem to be disapearing .... anythings possible but not likely.

[Andys]

Oh, is it only if you're uploading that you get a fine?

[Lycan]

Oh, is it only if you're uploading that you get a fine?


well all the hype has been about people who use torrents and things like limewire where you both download and upload the file at the same time

something you don't do on rapidshare

[SHOPLIFTER]

i've never downloaded a game, ever :eusa_danc

[Recursion]

Im too lazy to download games, they are getting too big nowadays, anyway, I got DiRT and Test Drive for £10 together, bargain eh?

[Leetzgirl]

I make DVDs and sell them at school for 2 quid.

Still have been doing it. :)

[Recursion]

I can't login to Warez-BB I just get a blank critical message ¬_¬

[Agnostic Bear]

All you people saying you're downloading encrypted stuff from torrents, doesn't matter, all the guys have to do is simply connect to the tracker and it will tell it everyone who's downloading & everyone who's uploading, doesn't matter if you're encrypted or not, that = useless.

Best thing to do is get an encrypted usenet account if you're that worried, it's encrypted from the start to the end so nobody knows what you're downloading, also you never upload anything to usenet unless you want to.

[Kevin]

I make DVDs and sell them at school for 2 quid.

Still have been doing it. :)

Is it ******* worth it, man if you get caught youll be looking at a big fine if they find out what your doing
-Kevin

[Leetzgirl]

Is it ******* worth it, man if you get caught youll be looking at a big fine if they find out what your doing
-Kevin

I do it by advance order.

My mates tell me what they want, and how many they want, and i bring it before school starts/school ends therefore, i dont carry it around saying oh you want this blah blah?

[DrLacero]

All you people saying you're downloading encrypted stuff from torrents, doesn't matter, all the guys have to do is simply connect to the tracker and it will tell it everyone who's downloading & everyone who's uploading, doesn't matter if you're encrypted or not, that = useless.

When you tell your Bittorrent software to encrypt connections it displays a false IP and country on the peers list when someone looks at the list ;)

[Agnostic Bear]

When you tell your Bittorrent software to encrypt connections it displays a false IP and country on the peers list when someone looks at the list ;)

I don't know what your mind is doing in that head of yours but no it doesn't, it shows your real ip, shows exactly what you're sharing and what you're downloading, just the data being transferred is encrypted.

[Oleh]

This is pretty scary, glad orange arn't doing this

[Leetzgirl]

This is pretty scary, glad orange arn't doing this

Will do soon.

[Lycan]

Will do soon.


Well as the report said that it had obtained information from the ISPs of thoose concerned ... Orange could of well been one of them...

[:job2]

So basicly...

Only download what you need (so your download limit isnt stupidly high)
Dont EVER upload illigal material
Dont sell illigal material on to others

And you should be safe?... Well safer

[Recursion]

I don't NEED 100s of Anime episodes but I still download them :P

[N!ck]

All you people saying you're downloading encrypted stuff from torrents, doesn't matter, all the guys have to do is simply connect to the tracker and it will tell it everyone who's downloading & everyone who's uploading, doesn't matter if you're encrypted or not, that = useless.

But your IP being listed in the tracker for that torrent isn't enough. Hell why couldn't you claim you just had the torrent open in your client to have a look at it and weren't transferring any data on it. What they do is attempt to connect to you and see if your client makes download requests to theirs and transfer rubbish data to your client. If you are using an IP filter/block list you can minimise this effect as they are constantly updated with the IPs of those doing this sort of thing to try and catch you. I think they reckon they have something like 80% of the IPs doing this in their blacklists, which is a start.

[today]

i download games all the time lol and movies, software and i still will. You hear about this all the time.

[Fehm]

Called going to a shop lol .

[Lycan]

Called going to a shop lol .

To be honest game prices drop down quite quickly theese days so.. why not buy it

[Decode]

Im ok becuase im downloading a film at the moment :eusa_danc

[DrLacero]

Im ok becuase im downloading a film at the moment :eusa_danc

I don't get it :S
Are you assuming that you will be instantly noticed and reprimanded and that because you haven't been you won't be? That's not how it works.

[Flisker]

Well I heard something about IP privacy coming out soon where there will be privacy on IP's. Don't hold me to it it could just be a faux rumour.

[Decode]

I don't get it :S
Are you assuming that you will be instantly noticed and reprimanded and that because you haven't been you won't be? That's not how it works.
I'm not going to get caught, i'm using ecryption on BitTorrent so my ISP won't know what im downloading so they can't do anything.