Topware Interactive Sues 100 for Dream Pinball3D Piracy

Law firm representing it may also have plans to sue thousands more.

Topware Interactive, a game software house located in Paradise, Nevada, has hired UK-based law firm Davenport Lyons to go after 100 people in the UK for alleged illegal file-sharing of Dream Pinball 3D with perhaps thousands more to be targeted by year’s end.


“There is no difference between stealing a DVD from a high street retailer and downloading it from a peer-to-peer network,” said David Gore, the lead barrister in the case.


“We hope that it will act as a deterrent. There is a hard core of file-sharers who are just interested in getting something for nothing.”


There’s no real mention of what P2P or file-sharing networks are being targeted, but the safe bet’s on Limewire or a similar direct connec t type program due to the ease in which proof of copyright infringement can be obtained. Trying to convict and determine damages by someone accused of sharing 2/10 of a copyrighted game, for example, would surely be a tough sell in any courtroom

 
It’s also being reported that Davenport Lyons is using the P2P tracking technology developed by Swiss company Logistep, which further cements my conviction.


For Logistep uses a software called File Sharing Monitor that targets E-Donkey and Gnutella users. 

Here is how it works:

• The software connects to a p2p server and requests a filename recording all IP addresses that offer that name
• They request to download the file and if the download is permitted record the following information into a database
• Filename, file size, IP of the distributor, P2P protocol, P2P application, the time and the username
• When this is inserted the application does a automatic whois and is able to send an infringement letter to the ISP

Thanks to a recent High Court victory, Davenport Lyons also hopes that ISPs will be forced to turn over the names of thousands of people it suspects of illegal file-sharing.


Gore continues:

This is a widespread practice. In one European territory, a new game sold 2,000 copies in its first week on release.

But 12,000 more were copied illegally from file sharing sites.

Games companies now spend millions of pounds developing new titles and they cannot continue to do that while their work is being
stolen.

However, I wonder if he or Topware Interactive have contemplated the notion that maybe, just maybe, 2,000, or a close approximation, was all the market would really bear. In the cutthroat battle for finite gamer dollars something tells me Dream Pinball 3D wouldn’t exactly be at the top of their list.


Many people I know oftentimes download games not because they necessarily want them per se, but rather simply because they can. If you have a modded box with a 500GB HDD why not add another game?


The same goes with movies, music, and TV shows. How many file-sharers do you know of, especially, in the BitTorrent community, have grabbed a flic, an album, or an episode of some random TV show that there is no way in heck they would’ve coughed up cold hard cash for otherwise?


Going after a hundred, and my goodness perhaps even thousands, of people who may or may not have liked your product is definitely no way to fight piracy. I guarantee you each of those people PLUS anybody they talk to or chat with will avoid the company and refrain from patronizing them in the future.


Topware Interactive may think that going after file-sharers will serve as a deterrent, but the only thing it will deter is people from ever buying their games again.



(jared@zeropaid.com)

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4. Game Developers Go Nuts, Suing Up to 25,000 File-Sharers
5. UK Consumer Group Reports Anti-File-Sharing ‘Bully’ to Authorities