UK Man Sentenced to a Year in Jail for Video Game Piracy

Piracy is a very important issue nowadays due to the relative easiness with which illegal copies of games or software can be distributed over the Internet and various other Peer2Peer networks like Bittorrent.

But even though such actions do only harm for games or software developers and publishers, there are some who also want to benefit from them and resort to selling the pirated copies to other people. Such is the case with 36-year-old Paul Richard Thornill, a resident of the UK town of Hull, who sold pirated copies of games for the PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii.

Police found at his residence, when they arrested him almost a year ago, copies that were worth around 44,000 pounds sterling. Now, after almost a year since the trial began, the court has finally given its verdict, sentencing Thornill to a year in jail for counterfeiting and selling pirated copies of video games. This was welcomed as a big victory by the ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Association), which has been conducting anti-piracy measures in the UK for quite some time.

Michael Rawlinson, director general of ELSPA, said, “ELSPA would like to thank all involved for bringing this case to a successful conclusion. Our investigations will continue to monitor the markets and work closely with our Trading Standards partners in stamping out counterfeiting here. The simple facts about IP theft and piracy are that they are illegal acts. No matter which way you look at counterfeiting it is nothing more than theft. The public may think they are getting a bargain buying pirated games but it is invariably a false economy as they have no recourse under law for faulty goods.”

Hopefully, this sentence will make other video game pirates think twice before selling counterfeit copies of video games and people who buy them reconsider as they are in fact hurting the company or companies behind the products, which have invested a lot of time and money into them.