Remember all of those lawsuits that the RIAA brought down on blue-eyed housewives and blue-haired elders a few years ago?  You know, the regular “joans” sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars over illegally-shared mp3’s?  Well apparently Activision have borrowed a couple of moves from the RIAA playbook, if the anonymous source over at Gamecyte is to be believed.

Our friend Sean Hollister did some digging and managed to get one of the defendants in the SLEW of lawsuits against game pirates, to both admit his guilt and spill the beans on what are allegedly some pretty brutal counter attacks on the part of Activision.  Details, post-jump.According to Gamecyte:

Audibly shaken, our contact explained how he was scared into a costly settlement by attorneys who determined how much to sue based not on the actual material infringed, but on his purchase history, the equity on his home, and the number of cars in his driveway.

The anonymous Captain Blue-Beard also went on to say that the $100,000 settlements Activision is reporting having won, are nothing even close to that. Apparently it’s kinda like a public hanging, which is good if you think about it.  They made an example of the guy but behind the scenes they just roughed him up a little.

However, the dude also said that he was told by Activision that if he retained an attorney to defend himself, Activision would really drop the hammer on him.

Call me old-fashioned, but I was fine with everything that happened to that guy until that last part.  It seems grossly unfair for a major corporation to use intimidation to dissuade someone from properly defending themselves in legal matters.  Why is it our government can’t force someone to represent themselves, but a video game publisher can?

I wrote yesterday about my ambivalence towards software pirates and I stick to that.  I think people that do that should be prepared to deal with the consequences of stealing things that do not belong to them, especially (but not exclusively) when they are also making their booty available to others.  That’s not any different than pawning someone else’s golf clubs (yes, I am still bitter about that).

But on an ethical note, I think Activision is way out of line, IF THE ADMITTED THIEF IS TO BE COMPLETELY BELIEVED, and frankly I have a hard time swallowing every ounce of his jailhouse confession.

I WAS a crook but now I’m being honest, I swear.

When companies are allowed to enforce their OWN justice and use high-paid attorneys to financially intimidate people they SUSPECT of guilt, they become both a law enforcement body, and a shitty judicial system.  Honestly, I can guarantee that a lot of regular people, even if innocent, would think twice about properly defending themselves against a penalty of several years of pay.

I want to reiterate that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for this anonymous source.  He stole, and something scary happened to him.

What I DO worry about is someone less guilty of wrongdoing being pushed around because Activision got an IP address wrong.

What do you think?  Should companies be able to use those sorts of strong armed tactics, free of any sort of oversight, against private individuals?  Do you believe that guy’s whole story?

SOURCE:  Gamecyte (Anonymous Activision Pirate Admits Guilt, Condemns ‘Scare Tactics’)

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