£5 million given to Trading standards to tackle videogame piracy

[Steven W]

£5 million worth of funding has been given to Trading Standards and other UK enforcement agencies to enforce the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

I'm sure £5 million could be spent on something better.

Check out the Press release

[Spud1]

I welcome this with open arms - they are talking about fighting the SALE of pirated software products - and this is the real problem.

I don't condone piracy of any sort, whether its stealing TV shows that are not shown in the UK, downloading a game or application..its no different in my eyes. That said, that kind of piracy is not a real threat to the industry - the majority of it goes on these days via P2P networks and protocols like DC++ and BitTorrent, and despite that fact that anyone can download via one of those methods these days without any knowledge, I don't believe its sustainable and I think that over the next few years it will fizzle out as people like the RIAA and MPAA find new ways of stopping it (and good luck to them tbh!)

However, the majoirty of problems caused by piracy are caused by the sale of pirated items in my eyes. This is where the industry is losing money - people who would probably have bought something at full retail price but instead pay half the price for it from a market stall etc..so anyway, point of this post was that stopping the people making money off piracy is the way forward, so good luck to trading standards

[kalniel]

5mil sounds like a lot (ok, it is a lot) but in terms of money thrown at things to improve them there's not a lot that would actually benefit from it - it is a drop in the ocean for education/health/transport etc.

However it can make a difference in something like trading standards, and the potential benefit is long lasting.

[GeorgeTuk]

If they put lots of money into it surely it will solve the problem, look at the NHS, all that money and its perfect now, everyone around the world is so jealous.

Or maybe, just maybe they could just come up with a good idea and follow it through on the existing budget.