Peter Moore warns against suing filesharers

Piracy is a big problem and everyone has a different idea of how it should be handled and battled, from Cliff Harris and his attempt to understand and negotiate with pirates right through the aggressive lawsuits of Nintendo and others.

One idea which stands out as a little bit remarkable right now though is that of EA's Peter Moore, former Microsoft Xbox 360 boss, who is adamant that prosecuting filesharers and game pirates could prove a critical mis-step for the games industry.

"I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer," Moore said in an interview with Eurogamer. "Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers.

"We absolutely should crack down on piracy. People put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into their content and deserve to get paid for it. It's absolutely wrong, it is stealing.

"But at the same time I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money. I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."

Moore went on to draw comparisons to the music industry, which alienated many listeners and potential customers over the last decade by pursuing extreme litigation against individuals.

"If we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers," he observed. "Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."

Moore then clarified that, as far as he is aware, EA has no plans to join publishers such as Atari and Codemasters in launching legal action against users and will instead pursue other routes to strengthen itself against the threat of piracy.

How many games have you pirated in the last year? Is there anything that developers or publishers could realistically do to make you stop? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

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