Shy Mario Bros Wii Pirate Fined $1.5m

I think the 1.3 million dollar fine is too high.
I think a 2 month prison sentence is a better punishment.
If he chooses not to go directly to jail, then the fine is $1,300,000 dollars.
If you cannot do the time, do not do the crime.

His excuse just doesn't work, he could have just filmed himself playing for the same proof.

I hate folks like these. It makes real homebrewers look bad.

Nintendo read the forum where he posted pictures of his illegal game. How sophisticated is that?

$1.5 million is a lot, I don't think it works like that.

Hopefully they'll let him pay bit by bit. Especially in this economy.

Well, he's a stupid kid that wasn't raised properly. Basically, it's the parents fault for not teaching him that stealing is wrong, which he did by posting a ROM of the game for anyone to download.

There is a reason for laws, and this is it.

I think he should have cruel and unusual punishment. How about sex with mario or bowser?

Definitely don't think he should be forced to pay that ridiculous sum of money - he didn't steal the game as a tester/inside-job, but got it early from a retailer.

Something like $1/2,000 would be far more appropriate

He didn't flog the game for profit or make fake copies etc - sure he shared the rom with others, but demanding a huge sum of money from a person is just ridiculous.

At 24, Id say its his own fault.
There's only so much you can blame your parents for.

At 24, I'd say Nintendo and the "kid"'s father are being hilariously patronising about everything


You hear that Burt? Say sorry.

Also, what a ridiculous sum of money. It really is all about cash with Nintendo isn't it? Haven't they gotten enough money out of this under-one-year-development-cycle-fest as it is?

How do they expect him to pay that much?

buying the game wasn't the issue, it was the fact he leaked it. pirates do this all the time and get away with it. it's just getting harder to not leave a trail these days. back when modern warfare 2 came out (around the same time this all happened with mario bros...) they tracked down one guy in miami and busted him for leaking it early.

these kids were stupid, talking about it on forums (and facebook for the latter). you'd think discretion would be the name of the felony game...

anyways, 1.5m is rediculous. ludicrous i say. lol

But that ROM could be downloaded thousands of times costing millions of pounds/dollars/whatever in the whole industry, hence, the hefty sum.

But really, he should be made to work for Nintendo to work it off, maybe working in the anti-piricy department as some sort of ironic punishment.

So... is it "prove" or "proove"? The article uses both.

Just Legal Fees are $100,000. When you add all the copies downloaded (about 50,000 in 5 days), multiply by $50 (plus tax) and then add how the downloaded copies could theoretically have been re-distributed after that... well, $1.5m doesn't even come near it. NSMBWii sold 200,000 copies in Australia in almost 2 months. Add 50,000 copies to that and it sure is a bigger number for Nintendo.

( Edited 11.02.2010 21:38 by EdEN )

I posted earlier. I think many members here do not understand that in Australia, just like the United States, the actual amount is not what is really paid. It is just a number that always drops probably 90% with appeals and after bankruptcy is declared. I am not a lawyer, but I will not be surprised if he only pays $15,000 or less of that $1,300,000. I do not have any empathy because he knew he was committing a crime and did not care and was dumb enough to brag about it.
Survival of the fittest?

The sum is due to lost sales that could have been made if the game had been bought not downloaded. Nonetheless how can they expect one indivdual to pay this sum.

How about imposing a court order where he could never play ANY video game of any kind, ever AGAIN!

Now that would be mean.

Like Nintendo needs anymore money!

That maybe alot of money but I got one complaint that isn't about the money issue:

For a Nintendo site, there seems to be a whole lot of Nintendo attackers who throw punches at them......maybe its a SEGA forum under disguse... o_O

Yeah obviously he won't end up paying the full 1.3 million, so it's not as harsh as it seems. You really can't call this guy a kid. I'm 19, and I know that if I do something stupid, I'm gonna pay for it just like any other adult. He's a grown man that committed a really silly crime.

It's tough love. Underneath it all, we're hardcore fans, but we voice our opinions quite openly.

sorry .. i have never downloaded anything like that because i have the lack of knowledge of doing so . But i feel that this is crazy to charge someone that much. Nintindo wii has enough money to give this gut a mil and not even know it's gone and the poor guy that did this will prob be paying the rest of his life over Mario. i think it's dumb.

How about those people who downloaded the game.

Send $40 to James Burt, and anyone who has downloaded similar games because we are all guilty of it so why should he alone suffer. on top of that we can tell nintendo "stuff you, if you want profit out of this, we can make profit out of piracy"

nintendo started this game, lets finish it.
pass the message on.

They're a business and businesses profit by selling their product, not by people stealing it and uploading copies to the Internet.



Absolutely not.
Nintendo didn't start this game. The guy who copied and uploaded the game did.

I encourage everyone to down-vote this confused individual who we'll probably see on the news soon, after Nintendo sues him for trying to profit from piracy.

( Edited 11.02.2010 07:30 by Sonic_13 )

Q: What do you think of the move - should piraters really be fined that much, even if he purchased the game legally?

A: Nope, since unless he's super-rich there's really no way that he'll be able to pay off 1.5million. The sum itself is not the point, and Nintendo know this, the point is to scare everyone else with a massive fine that very few people on Earth could ever dream of repaying.


Conclusion: Just don't upload anything illegal yourself. It's a bit like drugs - so many people do it that punishing everyone is impossible. So they go after the dealers, whom without nobody else could commit the crime, and also because 'dealing' in contraband (as opposed to just possessing it) is viewed in a very dim light (much more so than possession), they are more able to prosecute these people.

If you're one of those who downloads this sort of thing - I wouldn't worry. Just never upload anything.

( Edited 11.02.2010 08:26 by Martin_ )

Why would it be a SEGA forum? SEGA don't make consoles anymore.
But even so, don't worry as I frequent a SEGA forum and constantly throw punches at them on that site.