In a few days Microsoft will be pushing out a new update for “Windows Activation Technologies (WAT)”. The update to WAT will be able to detect more than 70 known activation cracks for Windows 7 and, if detected on your computer, will flag your copy of Windows 7 as an illegal copy. Your desktop will return to a plain desktop and Windows will issue periodic notifications informing you of your illegal copy.

However what comes as a shock to many is that this update is not only voluntary (you can choose not to in stall it) it also does not reduce any functionality within Windows, meaning you won’t be locked out of your account and no services will be disabled.

Windows Activation Technologies Update [Windows Blog]

New Super Mario Bros. was a major accomplishment made by Nintendo and sold over ten million copies worldwide. Unlike most games, this was released in Australia before any other county.  Like most popular games, it gets pirated in large quantities and gets uploaded before the release date, which in this case was over a week before the worldwide launch.

Nintendo was able to track down this pirate using "sophisticated technological forensics" and made the offender pay a sum of $1.3 million. According to Nintendo, this large sum of money is to compensate the company for the loss of sales revenue. In my opinion, that's a high price to pay just for getting "internet props." This incident could also affect the release dates of games in Australia and since this exception didn't go over well, publishers might be reluctant in the future to make the Aussie's games first to be released.

Nintendo Sues Pirate [Gamespot AU]

There’s been reports of retailers breaking the street date on Halo 3: ODST and if you happened to obtain a copy, there is no risk of being hit by the Xbox Live banhammer for playing it early. This is according to Microsoft’s Director of Policy and Enforcement for Live, Stephen Toulouse. In a recent Twitter tweet, he assures that only folks who illegimately obtained the title are at risk of being banned:

Clarity on the ODST thing. We will not be banning legitimate customers from Xbox LIVE who play early.

Good to know. This also means Microsoft does have a seemingly foolproof way of identifying pirates from legit users. Take that as a warning if you plan on playing any downloaded 360 titles on your modded box. The banhammer could strike sooner or later, probably when you least expect it.

Halo 3 ODST Pirates Getting Struck By Banhammer, Early Players Are Safe - [eXophase.com]

Retailers often get flak from publishers for capitalizing on used game sales, an argument that does have its merits, depending on what side of the fence you’re looking from. Valve believes there is a way to combat the secondhand market and piracy in one fell swoop, and that’s by developing good, supported games. Speaking to website Destructoid, company marketing VP Doug Lombardi explains:

We always see these overall numbers, like how much money GameStop’s making per year off of used game sales, but we really don’t have a breakdown of details for those. I don’t personally know, after being at Valve since Half-Life 1, how many copies of our games per year are sold used, and on the PC versus the 360, so I think there’s a certain amount of information that’s missing, sort of like piracy. I think a lot of folks cry piracy when a game fails to hit their forecast and it may or may not be part of the problem, and it may or may not be all of the problem, but I think to throw any one reason at any problem is probably a mistake, considering the lack of information on both fronts.

Having said all that, though, I think that it’s probably true to say that gamers tend to have affinity for the games that they like, so if you’re doing your job and making a good game, and providing a high level of service for that game at the time of release and post-release, I’m guessing you’re probably less of a victim of piracy and trade, because people want to have the full copy, the legal copy, and have all the updates.

Not exactly a solution that’s easy to pull off, but we full agree with Lombardi, it does work. Valve always makes a point to cater to its fans, whether by releasing daily updates or including requested community features. Take a look at TF2 for instance, it has radically changed in terms of gameplay and scope since its inception. You don’t see that level of support with most titles out there today.

Valve: Fight used sales by making good, supported games [Destructoid]

Valve: Fight Piracy And Secondhand Market With Good, Supported Games - [eXophase.com]

It’s no secret that software sales on PSP have been bleak as of late. You’d be ignorant to believe that piracy levels on the handheld are not incurring a hefty dent in overall sales. Piracy isn’t the only negating factor at play here, of course, but it is certainly a major one in the PSP’s case.

Sony agrees - and they are publicly admitting that rampant PSP piracy is a growing concern, one that may impale the lifespan of the handheld. SCEA marketing VP Peter Dille admits outright that “most third-parties were just about ready to jump off the cliff and pull support for the platform” prior to the introduction of PSP-2000.

Seeing download statistics for popular PSP efforts such as Resistance Retribution on high-trafficked BitTorrent sites made Dille to label the present situation as “sickening.”

Further to this, he made a call out to those responsible for escalating piracy numbers. “I think gamers, if they understood if this meant that a platform would go away, can we convince gamers to pay for their content? ”

For their part, Sony has of course been proactive in attempting to remedy this ongoing threat to the PSP’s future. Last year, they introduced the PSP-3000, which included hardware modifications that prevented the widely used Pandora Battery hack from functioning.

It’s hard to say where Sony will take anti-piracy efforts from here exactly, but it seems that a greater emphasis on digital distribution is in store for the future, as rumors have suggested. Such a direction is also evident by the forthcoming UMD-less release of Patapon 2.

Catching Up With PlayStation: Peter Dille On Sony In 2009 [Gamasutra]

The US publisher’s trade association, or ESA, has made public a recent study that was filed by the International Intellectual Property Alliance, detailing piracy issues in over 48 countries in Western Europe. The report highlights that during December 2008, thirteen selected titles were illegally downloaded 6.4 million times. The countries with the highest activity of the piracy, along with the top internet service providers were named and listed below:

Countries

• Italy - 17%
• Spain - 15.1%
• France - 7.9%
• Germany - 6.9%
• Poland - 6.1%

ISPs

• Telecom Italia
• Telefonica de Espana
• France Telecom

Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the ESA was quoted as saying, "Piracy is the single greatest threat to the innovation, artistic commitment and technological advancements enjoyed by millions of consumers worldwide. Piracy is a job killer that the world economy cannot afford in these difficult economic times. Countries that skirt obligations to combat piracy need to understand the unacceptable damage they are facilitating —and those countries that invest in protecting intellectual property rights and ensure that piracy is not tolerated at any level should be lauded."

It's clear that piracy has moved even further into the forefront of all developers within the industry.  The worldwide economic crisis provides ample time for new, focused studies to take place that deal directly with companies bottom line.

ESA Report Highlights European Piracy [Gamesindustry.biz]