In the United Kingdom, Atari, Codemasters and three other game companies are going to court to demand GBP300 from 25,000 file-sharers, reports The Times of London. Apparently, file-sharing got really obnoxious recently - 691,000 downloads of Operation Flashpoint by Codemasters in one week alone. So the five have asked the court to demand internet service providers turn over information on all 25,000 accused of breaking the law. Those users will get notices inviting them to pay up or face prosecution, and the first 500 to ignore it get sued. Asked about it in an interview with Eurogamer, EA Sports boss Peter Moore called that practice a bad idea. "I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer," he said. "Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers."Moore went on:
"Yes, we've got to find solutions," Moore continued. "We absolutely should crack down on piracy. People put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into their content and deserve to get paid for it. It's absolutely wrong, it is stealing. "But at the same time I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money. I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games. "If we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers. Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."
I'm sure it's a lot easier for Moore to say that when his bottom line is waaaaaaay better than Atari's, or these other five. Still, it stands to reason EA titles are swapped around too, although to what extent - and what EA's threshold of pain is - I don't know. Yet Moore says he's not aware of any EA plans to join these five and "chase down consumers." Moore Warns Against Suing File-Sharers [Eurogamer] Computer Games Industry Threat to Downloaders: "Pay Up or We'll Sue" [The Times of London via Eurogamer]