Publishers threaten 25,000 game pirates

News - Cough up £300, or go to court

A consortium of 6 games publishers are serving notice on 25,000 alleged game pirates, offering to settle their indiscretions out of court for 300GBP or face a judge.

Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters have employed law firm Davenport Lyons to carry out the epic letter writing effort, and will focus their legal efforts on the first 500 punters who ignore the letters.

Court orders are being filed to require ISPs to hand over the details of file sharers from the IP addresses collected by the companies.

"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." Roger Billens, a partner at Davenport Lyons, said "Hopefully people will think twice if they risk being taken to court."

The Times spoke to a source close to the UK gaming trade body ELSPA who criticised the action and suggested other ways of minimising piracy.

Suing your core audience is famously a tactic of US music industry association RIAA, who serve lawsuits on hundreds of alleged downloaders at time - including those apparently don't have internet connections or computers. RIAA have previously backed down on served suits after producing no evidence of the file sharing activities when the case goes to court. Let's hope such mix ups don't occur here then.