Aussie pirate stung for AU$190,000

PALGN News | Copyright infringement can be an expensive activity.

The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) has reached a record settlement with Mr. Wen Bin Gu, owner and operator of now defunct web sites etpress.com and gamemobo.com. Led by Sony and Microsoft, the action alleged that Mr. Gu was guilty of selling and distributing hundreds of pirated games across Australia.

Heard in the the Federal Court, Mr. Gu was ordered to refrain from reproducing or dealing with infringing games in the future. To prevent Mr. Gu from channeling his illegally obtained gains out of the reach of the IEAA, Sony and Microsoft also sought to have his assets frozen until the suit was completed. The final settlement was for a non-trivial AU$190,000.

Speaking of the settlement, Chris Hanlon, CEO of the IEAA, said, "This case should serve as a warning to those organisations involved in the importing, distributing and selling of illegal pirated games as the IEAA will take a stand against those involved in piracy."

Talking of their focus, Hanlon added that, "[The] IEAA is focused on combating piracy for its members through the information it receives on its Anti Piracy Hotline as well as through proactive investigations in the markets and online environment, [and we are] committed to taking whatever steps are needed to protect its members copyright. For the games industry to continue to innovate and be vibrant it needs to protect its IP."

The IEAA claims that piracy costs the industry over AU$100 million per annum, not including the losses incurred through associated job losses. The settlement comes in the wake of various plans proposed by The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft to enforce ISP-level content filtering. AFACT executive Adrianne Pecotic previously said, "We have all the systems available now to track ISP networks and we will commence sending notices to ISPs within the next month or so. Following that it is up to the ISP to contact the individual users and inform them they are aware of illegal downloading activity."

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40 Comments

Infested Jibbs

4 years ago

Ok, seriously obs, i can't tell, especially with the weird nz reference......

But are you going me?

I'm dead serious, put a smiley up quick, or face the music.

Notice the lack of smiley in my post.

EDIT-

Mitchacho wrote

Are you a kiwi Jibbs?

. How you took offense from Ob's post will remain a mystery...

ObsoletE wrote

tbh, i think it was borderline racism too

I don't take being called a racist, 'borderline' or otherwise, lying down.

Nev

4 years ago

The only racist comments I've seen were the hypothetical policies of a hypothetical insurance company. I think they should be hypothetically brought before the ACCC and have done with it.

And as a non-hypothetical New Zealander, I'd just like to say everyone should lay off the sheep jokes. Not because they're offensive, but because we do it soooo much better.

Spanca

4 years ago

After conversing with Jibbs via PM, I now see that he wasn't insinuating racism, merely sliding in a John Laws reference. Sadly no one picked up on it.

Nev

4 years ago

Spanca wrote

After conversing with Jibbs via PM, I now see that he wasn't insinuating racism, merely sliding in a John Laws reference. Sadly no one picked up on it.

Doesn't that unawareness fill you with hope for humanity though?

Bitchacho

4 years ago

Jibbs wrote

Are you a kiwi Jibbs?

. How you took offense from Ob's post will remain a mystery...

littlemo

4 years ago

Jibbs's hypothetical set-up is actually correct, I saw a presentation earlier this year that shows that international drivers have higher accident rates. I'll try getting hold of a copy of the stats for this one.

As for the original story what a joke, has anyone tried buying a legit GameBoy/GameBoy Advance game on eBay.com.au for the last 5 years?

Obviously not the industry body that took this guy to the cleaners cause 90% of the stuff on there is cheap asian knock-offs which eBay boldly claims it knows nothing of.

Skiller

4 years ago

Nev wrote

Skiller wrote

And then you have to define what is a "good" and "bad" site which is impossible since good and bad are concepts based on each persons own conscience, experiences, opinions and beliefs.

We're not talking about "good" and "bad," we're talking legal and illegal. They're pretty clearly defined, and if you're selling pirated copies of Halo 3, for example, I think it's pretty obvious which side of the fence you fall.

I meant in the future it would come down to good and bad, it'll obviously start with legal and illegal but since computer law is so pathetic half (probably more) of the internet could be shut down on just legalallity especially when considering different countries have different laws. Once that is implemented then it'll only be a few seconds before large religous groups start hammering the government to make a simple change to also ban obviously unethical websites and after a while and a lot of pressure they'll probably succeed. Then it's only a matter of time till every one is voicing their own opinion on the matter of what's good and what's bad.

One of the xmas episodes of south park demonstrated this when they removed every thing offensive about christmas from the school play, needless to say nothing was left and it sucked.

It was only meant in reference to cencorship of the internet, and if you read my last post before that one you'll see I totally agree that selling pirated wares is very wrong.

Spanca wrote

To whoever it was that said piracy doesn't cost the industry: that's wrong. Granted the way that the media companies calculate is ridiculous, but there is always going to be an element of lost revenue there. Sure there's those people who claim they never would have purchased it in the first place, but there's always going to be those who pirate it in place of buying it.

Twas me, but I was just pointing out it isn't a cost, sure it's a loss of profit, but a loss of income not an expendature so it shouldn't be called a cost. Calling it a cost is a positive spin for the greedy publishers as it implies that they have to pay for it when in reality it's just that they feel their pockets aren't as deep as they might be without piracy.

Fetidchimp

4 years ago

I find it odd that it is mostly websites that wear the piracy tag, I live in Richmond in Melbs. I count at least 8 shop fronts that are selling pirated everything, from the range of "blue tinged biscuit monster" toys through to Die Hard 4.0 and every kind of anime ever produced. But I have to tip my hat to the most blatant of all these shops, the one in Bourke street in the city, who are so blatant that everytime i walk past it for lunch, i just have to think "how the hell do these people get away with this ****", but it would seem that is because they don't have websites. Considering the amount of money they must have poured into piracy campaigns over the last couple of years, I can't help but wonder if there is some other agenda that we'll never know about.

TheAnswer

4 years ago

littlemo wrote

As for the original story what a joke, has anyone tried buying a legit GameBoy/GameBoy Advance game on eBay.com.au for the last 5 years?

Yes I have and its easy to find legit gameboy/gameboy advance gams on ebay.com.au. You just have to do your research on the seller, but at the same time I can see your point as there are heaps of pirated GBA games listed on every ebay site.

4 years ago

DrTim wrote

This whole thing is just completly ridiculous. If someone can show me proof that there is anyone on the planet (that has access to the net that is) that hasn't at one point or another downloaded something from some kind of P2P using the net then I will give you a friggn hand-job (with a smile at that!

)

But more then that I can't believe people actually bother to buy pirated software from anyone. I mean if you're gonna go to the trouble of buying a pirated version either dload it yourself or get the legit copy.

Umm before I answer this quest, will you agree to dress as a nurse and speak with a slight Kiwi accent DrTim?

STANKY J

4 years ago

Jesus when did a video game forum become so pc. I defiantly agree that selling pirated anything is wrong. But just like the music industry they over charged us and now their getting ****.

Fetidchimp

4 years ago

ahhh, slightly different, when did you last see an album that had 200 people working on it.

I don't understand why these people should be **** for trying to entertain you and make some money while doing it. Hardly a crime against humanity.
But everyone seems to be taking it as such, therefore giving them the right to copy games, lame, lame excuse.

STANKY J

4 years ago

I didn’t say the games industry getting **** is a good thing. It’s a shame that games are so pricey and it’s probably because of piracy that they are so over priced. Personally I don’t pirate games. On a side note knowing that an Australian involved game like Bioshock on torrent sites pisses me off.

Fetidchimp

4 years ago

Games are overpriced, but on the 360 at least, isn't that more to do with microsoft's licensing procedures. Having said that, i think it also has a lot to do with people having to own games the day they come out rather than being patient and getting it on sale, if you have a limited budget. It is a catch 22.
Indeed that sucks about bioshock, because it's games like this (ones that have obviously had a lot of love poured into them) that really should give some love back to the programmers and all involved, rather than 'this game is pricey but good, therefore i have every right to own it for free'

I think the music industry does need to pull their head in however because they have been flogging artists for years for maximum profit to them and minimal outlay to the people that provide the product in the first place.

ObsoletE

4 years ago

historically, games are cheaper than they've ever been, if you take into consideration inflation and so on. i mean, if we paid $100 for a game in 1997, we should be paying around $130 today (for a standard edition game - not for the Bioshock CEs).
now, this isn't to say we aren't getting ripped off compared to other regions, but we're still ahead of the inflation curve at this point.

i don't doubt that having to pay anti-piracy companies fees for their code affects the final price, but i don't think that piracy, on a whole, is keeping the prices where they are.

i think it's more a case of that's the historical benchmark. we've always paid around $100 for a console game, and chances are we'll always continue to pay around that much for quite a while more.

additionally, i think $100 is a psychological benchmark. breaking into triple figures for a price is a risky thing from a retail perspective, better off staying just under it - you might get less profit per sale, but you'll probably sell a lot more units total.

and finally - i think we're basically subsidising other regions sales. like i said, historically we're paying less, but so are US consumers. the difference is that the exchange rate is better than it was in 1997, so while we're paying less from our POV, in USD, we're paying more. so there's probably some exploitation of both the historical and psychological reasons for keeping games at $100AUD and we're recouping the losses incurred by the US prices not shifting.

---
i have no idea if what i've written makes much sense to anyone else, or if it's only in my head that it works - i've not had my morning coffee yet...

Fetidchimp

4 years ago

Quote

additionally, i think $100 is a psychological benchmark. breaking into triple figures for a price is a risky thing from a retail perspective, better off staying just under it - you might get less profit per sale, but you'll probably sell a lot more units total.

The old 99.95 trick, which is why i think it should be banned selling something for say $29.98, when it obviously is going to be $30.

And that post made complete sense, and i agree.

I used to love K-Marts, we are mentally deranged, approach to selling computer games. I remember racing out to get The Last Ninja, which they were selling for $40 at the time, only to find it in a compilation with Wizball, Great Escape, Mutants and possibly World Games for $30 at the same time, mental.

And I still say Two Worlds is the crappest game i've ever played

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