Coin Slot Location

Location-Thirty-f our
INCRUSED
AWPPAYOUTS
NO CONVERSION COSTS-
BUYWITH CONFIDENCE
These latestAWP's are designed
forthenew1984 payouts
aaa
PIRATES:
Bell-Fruit
1fH('IJTflr,I
•
mar1an
ELECTRONICS
LONDON
127 Wandsworth High Street, London SW18 4UB
Tel: 01-870 5238/5224
Cables: SLOTS LONDON. Telex: 929222
NORTHERN
82 Reed Street, Hartlepool. Tel: 0429-76031. Telex: 587522
SCOTLAND
Unit E, Shawfield lnd. Estate, Rutherglen Rd., Rutherglen, Glasgow.
Tel: Glasgow (041) 6475442. Telex: 766542 Tokens G.
IF not actually routed the video game pirates, who in
their heyday were casting legitimate manufacturers
countless thousands of pounds in lost machine and PCB
sales, are now very much on the run .
The days when the pirates would blatantly advertise their
illicit wares in the tracte press are now a thing of the past and
ail the signs are that, while piracy may not have been totally
stamped out it's a far smaller problem today than it was.
Sorne of the credit for this, of course, goes to the companies
who have waged war on the pirates in the courts of this and
other countries . However, this is not the sole reason for the
waning activity of the video game copiers.
Market forces such as falling machine sales and rising
production costs, coupled with increased design sophistication
which has made copying harder and more expensive have also
combined to discourage the pirates from their activities . The
plain fact of the matter is that piracy now has nothing like the
incentives it used to .
• There has, of course always been a season for the pirates . It
has coincided with the 'buying season'-the first months of the
year when the machine users traditionally go shopping for new
equipment. Recent months have seen next to nothing in the
way of court activity over game piracy but this was only to be
expected anyway, say the experts .
They believe the telling time will really corne in the new
year. This is when any pirates still in the business will be
making and attempting to sell their wares .
However, in the words of UK solicitor Gordon Day who has
been responsible for handling High Court legal actions in a
good few video game piracy cases: "The climate has certainly
changed , not just here, but worldwide".
He says that court action , here and in the rest of Europe
while obviously playing a part in the battle against the pirates ,
has only been one factor in forcing them to scale down their
activity.
" Effective action in the American and Japanese courts has,
and will in the future , have much more effect worldwide on
the problem generally than the action taken in the High Court
here" , he says. "Japan , as the principle source of the pirated
goods which have found their way into this country is clearly at
the root of the problem".
In the eyes of Gordon Day and others involved in the legal
side of the battle, the series of decisions taken in the Japanese
courts recognising that video game software was protected
under Japanese copyright law and that its infringement
constituted a criminal offence were of major significance. This
led to the imprisonment of a number of copiers and the
deterrent of a possible jail term has done a great deal to scare
off the remaining Japanese copiers . That has had a valuable
knock-on effect in reducing the problem both in the UK and
elsewhere .
But, the fall off in piracy has been contributed to by other
important factors as well as legal action . At one stage in the
early days of videos, manufacturers could sell virtually as