An investigation by has found developers have been accusing innocent people of copyright infringement.
Gill and Ken Murdoch, from Scotland, have never played a computer game.
They don’t know how to use BitTorrent, don’t know what peer to peer technology is and they don’t know how to download movies for free off the Internet.
So you can imagine their surprise when Atari presented them with a letter demanding 500 pounds compensation or legal action.
Atari later dropped the case, but it’s one in a series of mishaps where developers and publishers are targeting innocent users for illegal downloads.
Intellectual property lawer Michael Coyle told the BBC he was pursuing 70 cases of people wrongly accused of piracy.
“Some of them are senior citizens who don’t know what a game is, let alone the software that allows them to be shared,” he said.
The Murdoch’s are one case in particular; they don’t even have wireless Internet, so it’s difficult to envision how they could have been linked to file-sharing.
One common method comes from people who have unsecured wireless networks, and their Internet is used without their knowledge.
A recent study found that nearly 10 per cent of all games in Australian homes were pirated, with 17 per cent of adults in game households admitting to owning pirated games.
Source:
BBC News
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