Video game developers have launched an unprecedented campaign threatening legal action against thousands of people in an attempt to better enforce their IP rights.
Video game developers have launched an unprecedented campaign threatening legal action against thousands of people in an attempt to better enforce their IP rights.
Times Online reports that game developers Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters, responsible for popular games such as The Lord of the Rings and the Colin McRae Rally series, plan to send legal letters to an astounding 25,000 people in Britain.
The developer’s action stems from what they see as flagrant and widespread contravention of their IP rights by people who illegally download copies of games from file sharing sites.
They have commenced legal steps to obtain information on the identity of the 25,000 people they say have downloaded the games from their ISPs and have already obtained almost 5000 names.
And the first person has already been ordered to pay a big sum by courts after being caught in the IP dragnet. Isabela Barwinska, a British mother of two, has been ordered to pay more than £16,000 after illegally downloading the game Dream Pinball through a file-sharing site. That’s one expensive game.
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