James Burt settles out of court with Nintendo for having uploaded a pre-release copy of it’s game New Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii.
Nintendo has recently confirmed the $1.5 million ($1.3 million USD) settlement in an Australian Federal Court of its lawsuit against 24yo James Burt for having illegally uploaded a pre-release copy of its New Super Mario Bros for the Wii to the Internet.
Burt made the game available for illegal download worldwide on November 6th, 2009, nearly a week prior to its official Australian release date.
“This legal proceeding was commenced to protect the creative rights and innovation of game developers, and to combat the growing international problem of Internet piracy,” says Nintendo in a press release. “Under Australian law, copying and distributing games without the permission of the copyright holder is a breach of the Copyright Act.”
It says the $1.5 million dollars is a way of compensating it for the loss of sales revenue he caused, but surely most of those whom did download it illegally were probably not likely to have otherwise purchased the game.
On November 23, a little over 2 weeks after Burt had uploaded the game, Nintendo had developed enough evidence to obtain a Federal Court search order for Burt’s residence in the Brisbane suburb of Sinnamon Park. There they found additional evidence to use against him in the case.
“Nintendo guards its intellectual property rights in order to protect the interests of its valued consumers, its own interests, as well as the interests of game development companies,” it adds. “Nintendo will pursue those who attempt to jeopardize our industry by using all means available to it under the law.”
For Burt I’m sure $1.5 million might as well have been $1.5 billion or trillion, and for Nintendo piracy will continue just as it always, so it makes the whole affair seem just as pointless as ever. But, I guess the reality of the situation is of little consequence.
The game of whac-a-mole continues.
Stay tuned.
