In law, you have to prove ACTUAL loss in order to claim compensation. How are these companies intending to prove that the defendants would DEFINITELY have bought the game if they haven't downloaded it?

It's an important question, because if the judge decides that they haven't proved it, the entire legal basis for prosecuting pirates will be blown apart, and the industry could have pulled off the mother of all foot-shootings.

(Unless, of course, by "downloading" you mean "uploading".)

it's also legal to DL a game or movie as i understand it as a backup source if you own the original which means the publisher would have to prove the downloader didn't own the original at the time they downloaded it.

You have not been allowed to backup material you own since the DMCA came into force.

I've just had a peek at the Eurogamer/Kotaku forums(a), and was surpirsed that a significant number of posts came in 2 catagories:

1. those whinging about their "rights" being fettered by the actions of these companies (i.e. games should be free "I ain't done nofink wrong guv' innit"); and

2. the pseudo lawyers providing "insights" into these cases, and how they are unfounded, blah, blah, blah (maybe a letter to be sent to the judges involved, pointing out their incorrect analyses of the English legal system - they obviously got their training with a happy meal, and could do with a hand...)

Let's try and avoid that shall we :-)

The bottom line is simple: the games aren't free, if you want to play them you're going to have to pay (one wau or the other); whinging after getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar is not going to cut it.

P.s. Special marks for the individuals who say "honest, I've an original copy, but I also just wanted to download one..." - pull the other one!

@5 - I often get 'noCD' patches for games I've bought, so that I don't need to keep finding CDs again. Using that or a disc-image should be allowed, for this legitimate purpose.

Bad enough that the dirty rotten pirates got caught, but to be caught downloading stuff from those publishers must be the equivalent of being caught shoplifting at lidl :)

I don't profess to be a technical expert, but unless the nocd patch is an official/free one provided by the publisher, then creating one is equivalent to a crack, isn't it? (but this is a bit off topic...).

In any case, downloading an authorised patch (via P2P or otherwise), shouldn't incur the wrath of said publishers...that would be like mozilla suing for the distribution of Firefox via emule :-\

In all honesty I think you find its the Uploaders that are being pursued at the moment not the downloaders. Obviously with the uploaders out of the way there would be nothing to download anyway.

As far as I was aware though legitimate backup copies if you can evidence you own the original are still perfectly legal and until replacement disks etc are offered if the original media becomes damaged I think they would have little joy in pursuing you for this.

#4 You're wrong, in fact. The right to a backup, which is enshrined in the 1988 CDPA, has not been revoked. When it comes to backups, the UK currently has two directly contradictory laws on the statute book at the same time.

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/world/pczone/backed.htm

I don't think the "backup" excuse will wash when the game isn't even on general release...