Pirates threatened with financial penalties
Wednesday, 20 Aug 2008 09:23
The developer of Dream Pinball is getting tough on the pirates who have downloaded the game
The games industry is worried about illegal downloads of its products, with many companies saying the 'problem' is growing too difficult to deal with by conventional means.
Today then, a handful of companies will be targeting 25,000 people who they believe have been illegally downloading games.
According to
The Times, Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters will be heading the initiative, whereby 25,000 people will receive letters demanding £300 as an 'out of court' settlement.
The Times says that around six million people are using file sharing software to illegally download games.
An unemployed mother of two was recently ordered to pay more than £16,000 to Topware for downloading its Dream Pinball game via a file sharing website, so the threat is real.
"Hopefully people will think twice if they risk being taken to court," said Roger Billens, a partner at the law firm retained by the games developers.