ELSPA: Not all of us are pirates after all
by JC Fletcher 
{ Feb 1st 2008 at 2:15PM }
Apparently the outrageous claim from the ELSPA's Intellectual Property Crime Unit manager, John Hillier, that 90% of North American DS owners are pirates, was outrageous to him as well. A spokesperson for the organization told GamesIndustry.biz that the quote attributed to him in the incendiary Sunday Post article was inaccurate or even fabricated. According to the spokesperson, "[John] didn't quote The Sunday Post on any figures whatsoever." The spokesperson asserted that the Sunday Post conflated quotes from Hillier about R4 sales in the UK with an article from Singapore about DS piracy in that country (hence the 90% quote, which is still likely to be ridiculous). The specific article isn't named, but we believe it's this one. It's amazing that a quote about the UK plus an article about Singapore somehow generated a statistic about North America. But who cares about facts when you're busy alarming the public?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
codballs @ Feb 1st 2008 2:35PM
What complete guff. Allow me to clear this up for everyone. In the UK, when you want to say that the majority of a group does something, you say "90% of that group does this". It's something that is said so often that the 90% figure is meaningless.
This is not to say that no-one should be pulling this idiot up on his statement. It doesn't matter where you are, when you start quoting statistics during a discussion on a subject like this, you'd better get your stats bang on.
I'm pretty sure he was not misquoted. He said exactly what he said and because he was taken quite literally by a lot of people, he's trying to deflect the blame onto the media. It's pathetic. It really is.
AnOffday @ Feb 1st 2008 2:58PM
Totally agreed. You'd think this idiot would be a little more educated, than to just pull out fake statistics out of his butt.
Alisha Karabinus @ Feb 1st 2008 4:54PM
Oh, believe me, that's not just a UK thing. But your point is right on the money... he was probably spouting off and is now trying to shift the blame. The whole thing is just ridiculous.
Wilson @ Feb 1st 2008 5:06PM
"But who cares about facts when you're busy alarming the public?"
That's pretty much the Faux news policy right there.
Matthew Hilario @ Feb 1st 2008 7:31PM
i have an r4. HAHA
Raru @ Feb 1st 2008 8:11PM
http://gamepolitics.com/2008/02/01/elspa-denies-90-ds-piracy-quote/
"ELSPA officials have completely disavowed a newspaper report in which the organizations head of IP security is quoted as saying that 90% of American DS owners use a particular copyright circumvention device. gi.biz has ELSPAs denial, quoting an unnamed spokesperson:"
--
IP security head John Hillier] didnt quote The Sunday Post on any figures whatsoever. ELSPA (which represents U.K. game publishers) would certainly never presume to comment about America or anywhere else outside of the UK.
The quotes from The Sunday Post were ascribed to his name from another article which originates from a website in Singapore. This, it appears, is where The Sunday Post first found out about the supposed R4 situation and for some reason unknown to John have quoted him on what this article said.
As far as Nintendo are concerned, the facts are completely spurious.
caramelzappa @ Feb 2nd 2008 3:53AM
r4's and the like aren't just for pirated games. The games I play the most on my m3 I have legal, physical copies of. For me the real draw to the m3 is homebrew and emulation, not having to carry around a bunch of $30-$40 carts with me, and soft reset.