CD Projekt launches Witcher 2 extortion-for-piracy campaign

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fattypants

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Well then

...away from the spotlight the company followed in the footsteps of so-called copyright trolls, by signing up for a so-called “pay-up-or-else” scheme. CD Projekt hired a law firm and torrent monitoring company to track those who illegally downloaded and shared the game, and has been sending them hefty cash settlement proposals.
The price CD Projekt is asking through their lawyers is slightly higher than what gamers have to pay in stores, to say the least. Over the past several months thousands of alleged BitTorrent users in Germany were asked to cough up 911,80 euros ($1230) to pay off their apparent debt to the company.


As is often the case, these mass settlement schemes do not exist without collateral damage. Aside from targeting many people who indeed downloaded and shared the game without paying, CD Projekt’s lawyers are also wrongfully accusing people who have never even heard of the game.
After all, an IP-address doesn’t identify a person, and Wi-Fi piggybacking is not unusual. But CD Projekt, who don’t want to bug legitimate consumers with DRM, apparently take this collateral damage for granted.
The company, however, is no stranger to the business model which a US federal judge recently described as a shakedown. In 2008, large numbers of Internet users started receiving letters from notorious file-sharing lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK demanding cash settlements. Among those letters were demands for payment on an Atari-published game with a familiar title – The Witcher.
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so they say one thing to the public, but of course go the route of most companies and sue people

1 more publisher who's games will never buy.
 
better than having crappy drm or making it online only.
 
They've only said they do not support DRM and have followed through so far with that in both their distribution business and their games. I do not see how this is "two-faced."
 
limitedaccess said:
They've only said they do not support DRM and have followed through so far with that in both their distribution business and their games. I do not see how this is "two-faced."
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Exactly. They have always made it perfectly clear that they care about their customers. Pirates are in no way customers.
 
They are just getting revenge for the invasion of their country in 1939. Now, to sue Russian pirates.
 
They haven't done an about face at all. They had a well-publicized warning that they would do this.

However, even though extortion is legal and they warned the world that they would extort people, it still doesn't make it right.
 
fattypants said:
They haven't done an about face at all. They had a well-publicized warning that they would do this.

However, even though extortion is legal and they warned the world that they would extort people, it still doesn't make it right.
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It wouldn't be bad if they could eliminate people that are innocent or if they quickly throw out the incorrect cases.
 
Honestly, who really takes issue with this? Pirates only. I could have some sympathy if you were a legitimate purchaser and the game was filled with DRM to the point where you could not have a pleasant experience like a pirate might/takes a chance for.
 
Derangel said:
They said a long time ago that they would do that.
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Yea they did , in fact it was along of the lines of "You should just pay for the game now and save yourself thousands of dollars , its only 50 dollars now so why not just do that?"

Most companies that do this shit piss me off but CD Projekt gave pirates a fair warning that this would happen. You really can't hold it against them. Of course this over all practice is bullshit at its core as the product is not worth thousands of dollars ..
 
If people have a problem with a companies product/service, for instance DRM, they should take this issue up with the company.

If they have an issue with copyright laws and enforcement, this is something they should take up with their legislators.
 
I don't really get why they're doing this. I mean, least they're trying to go after pirates instead of ruining things for everyone, but didn't they pay attention to the RIAAs legal battles?

I think their original press release was also a bit different. I seem to remember hearing them say they'd sue pirates, not extort them.
 
No DRM for paying customers. Pirates get screwed. Seems fine to me.
 
Glad they're doing it. I'd much rather buy DRM free games from a publisher that legally goes after pirates than something filled with insane DRM. The amount that they're looking for is ridiculous but my uneducated guess is that this will still end up costing them money. Really, it's just a scare tactic that affects pirates and not legit users. Maybe the only form of DRM that can make that claim?
 
Andrew_Carr said:
I don't really get why they're doing this. I mean, least they're trying to go after pirates instead of ruining things for everyone, but didn't they pay attention to the RIAAs legal battles?

I think their original press release was also a bit different. I seem to remember hearing them say they'd sue pirates, not extort them.
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Since when was there a difference? It's all the same... lawyers and money. It's only a matter of, the longer you hold out the more you pay.
 
cd projekt red / cd projekt

dev team =/ publishing arm

Not really two faced in my opinion, they removed DRM and have done good towards their paying customers since launch. Now they're just going after people that stole their company's work. Don't necessarily agree with it, but I do see their point of view.
 
I'm glad they are doing this too. I remember this company saying 'please don't pirate this game' shortly before release date, and look how many people still did.
 
I was surprised they didn't start the lawyer path sooner. They promised it pretty much as early as they announced no DRM saying we'll sue instead.
 
MrGuvernment said:
so they say one thing to the public, but of course go the route of most companies and sue people

1 more publisher who's games will never buy.
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Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

As others have said, at least it's better than some DRM. Besides, I doubt they are going to actually pursue this. They're a small company - it's probably mostly a scare tactic/symbolic move to get some publicity.
 
Oh well, Witcher 2 was still a damn fine product, and I'm glad they support DRM free games.
 
Parmenides said:
Since when was there a difference? It's all the same... lawyers and money. It's only a matter of, the longer you hold out the more you pay.
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I guess I'd rather have them sue than send out collection letters. Seems more forthright to me.

Anyway, if this is a scare tactic then it makes sense, but if they're going to spend a lot of resources pursuing it then I think they're just being foolish.
 
dara said:
No DRM for paying customers. Pirates get screwed. Seems fine to me.
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Seconded. They had a DRM free version available at launch. They set a reasonable price. They asked people not to pirate it nicely. They gave fair warning they would do EXACTLY what they are doing now.

Sounds just fine to me.
 
As someone who paid full retail price for the The Witcher 2, I have no issues with this. As mentioned, they said they would do this very act when the game was released.
 
dara said:
No DRM for paying customers. Pirates get screwed. Seems fine to me.
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This.

And of course this story would be put out there by a torrent site like it's some great injustice we should be outraged by :rolleyes:. Five years ago, I might have been of a different mind, but being out in the working world gives you a different perspective.
 
Did you guys just skip over he part where the article talks about how a lot of INNOCENT people get screwed by these tactics?? Yeah, it is "two-faces" when you try to pass yourselves off as the good guys, then hire the fucking Gestapo to do your dirty work.
 
I'd rather have them go down this path and continue releasing great PC games then go the route that just about every other developer that was once PC-centric has. Not my loss, why should I care? I'm not the one pirating games.
 
Every publisher employing these boogeyman tactics will probably have a better effect on piracy than ridiculous DRM.
 
Sorry, the only parties gaining here are the lawyers. They're laughing all the way to the bank while everyone else argues about pirates.
 
I personally think they should execute pirates. With such a severe punishment, nobody would steal protected intellectual property.

There's nothing difficult about the concept that, "If it isn't worth buying, then it's not worth pirating, if you buy it, then it removes your need to pirate."

Shar'ia law has some good parts in it, and cutting limbs off thieves and executing them is one of those.
 
Fail said:
I personally think they should execute pirates. With such a severe punishment, nobody would steal protected intellectual property.

There's nothing difficult about the concept that, "If it isn't worth buying, then it's not worth pirating, if you buy it, then it removes your need to pirate."

Shar'ia law has some good parts in it, and cutting limbs off thieves and executing them is one of those.
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Death is a little too kind. Maybe some group punishment beforehand. Like if people pirate, the rights holders get to personally beat the pirates' grandmother and call her a whore. Force their kids to work in chain gangs, that sort of thing. And bring back debtor's prison and torture devices. People will think twice about playing an unlicensed game if they knew they were risking the cruelest forms of suffering ever devised at the hands of the most sadistic of men who ever lived.

When pirates live in fear for the very lives and well-being of their family members in addition to themselves, then we will see some progress on people respecting intellectual property rights.

Obviously, suing people until they lose their life savings (which they need to put back because their insurance might not completely cover a serious illness in the family), house, and other valuables just isn't working. Pirates are still pirating even though they can have those things happen to them, so we need to step up the punishments. People need to feel real anguish, real pain for their sins. If we unleash horrors worse than death, we'll certainly be able to get the people who play unlicensed games to fall in line.
 
MrGuvernment said:
so they say one thing to the public, but of course go the route of most companies and sue people

1 more publisher who's games will never buy.
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They said before the game launched they would go after those your pirate the game through legal channels...

so its not two faced they said they would do it.
 
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