CD Projekt pirate shakedown

[Zed]

Polish national heroes CDP are sending letters to people demanding a thousand bucks. Some people aren't very happy about this.

Their response:
"We've seen some of the concern online about our efforts to thwart piracy, and we can assure you that we only take legal actions against users who we are 100 per cent sure have downloaded our game illegally.

We could introduce advanced copy protection systems which, unfortunately, punish legal customers as well."


So instead of "punishing legal customers" by adding DRM, they are punishing random people by demanding money from them through a german law firm:
"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."


Articles
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011- ... ed-pirates
http://torrentfreak.com/drm-free-witche ... es-111207/

 

[Haba]

In before butthurt.

(Btw CDP... I bought Witcher and I were considering buying II for christmas, this may actually influence my sales decision. Negatively. GG!)

 

[hiver]

yeah, ive seen it on gamebanshee.

They are fucking assholes and this is just fucking greed.
They charge 911 euros or some more.

Fucking liers. I hope they get sued back and go out of business eventually.

 

[janjetina]

Good thing that shit isn't even worth pirating.

 

[FatCat]

Implying CDPR devs , have anything to do with it...... It won't work and those polish jew's will forget about it , whats the big deal ?

 

[Gerrard]

In after butthurt.

 

[Infinitron]

You have to admit that this is way cooler than DRM.

Stole a game? Some pissed off Polack will threaten you over the Internet and try to mug you.

 

[Fens]

it's a big business model in germany for lawfirms now and i suspect CDP got an offer from such a firm with rough estimates of what could be cashed in, if they the lawyers got green light from CDP

to get the IP in germany the lawyers have to request permission from a court to ask the ISP for the IP ... unfortunately this procedure is already more / less automated in germany and courts hand out those permissions without questions

the ISP gets the court permission, hands the lawfirm the IP(s) and the lawfirm sends out a long convoluted letter that cites precedents (which don't mean shit in german law anyway... but it sounds important) that may or may not sound like they apply to your case

also in the letter: threats and a demand for a large sum, that exceeds the actual costs by a rather large amount, but is still lower than what it would cost to hire your own lawyer and fight the good fight through the german courts (also: some german courts always rule for the companies in these cases... so if you get dragged to hamburg district court, you'll most probably have to pay unless you prove, that someone was piggybackin... in which case you'll still have to pay, but less)

it's a highly questionable process, but mafiaa has been successfully lobbying for this extortion bullshit for years

oh btw.: just downloading won't get you such a letter... it's the uploading, that's the 'problem'

 

[deus101]

I should sue the strawberry pickers for tricking me into buying this shit( fucking discounts).

 

[made]

it's a big business model in germany for lawfirms now

This. It's funny seeing people act all surprised all of a sudden while this has been going on for years.

Where were the whistleblowers when Koch Media tried to jew money from me for pirating Drakensang?

 

[Zed]

oh btw.: just downloading won't get you such a letter... it's the uploading, that's the 'problem'

well you upload while you download using torrents.

 

[Morkar Left]

The price is relatively low, on par with copyright infringement of pictures. I suspect the costs for the lawyer writing a letter aren't already included (aprox additional 300 €).

I suspect these are the same lawyer scum who accuses people with copyright infringement of pictures even if the pictures were free to use before. But that's another story...

In Germany you are reliable for your internet connection, especially if your wlan isn't saved with a password. If your password was hacked you have to prove it. Easy money...

 

[Fens]

oh btw.: just downloading won't get you such a letter... it's the uploading, that's the 'problem'

well you upload while you download using torrents.

exactly... if you did your non inventory shopping with one click hosters, you'd be safe(r) from this... which is pretty damned retarded

 

[hiver]

Germany is fucking retarded.

 

[made]

Germany is fucking retarded.

Revenge of the Jews for the Holocaust.

 

[Shannow]

CDP, I am disappoint.
Where's your national pride?
If you want to hire some lowly leeches that just want to effortlessly rake in cash, why not hire Polish leeches?

Disclaimer: I do think companies have the right to sue pirates. I think they should start with warnings first, but still... What disgusts me are the outrageous sums they sue for* and the industry of leeches that developed because of that. And the shitty judges, whose job is not to sign every application but to check them

*AFAIK, that was capped at 500€ or so, but the leeches try to go for more anyway. Only if the threatened pirate is informed enough will he know to tell them to fuck themselves and "only" pay to the cap. The actual "work" involved for the leeches is filling in some dates and adresses in 2-3 premade letters/documents and sending them away, done in 2 minutes. Well, perhaps 10, one should not overestimate the capabilities of the common leech. So around 500€ for a 50€ game and 10 minutes of work. Hell, I wonder why publishers still try to sell games. Just sue the pirates. The profit is far higher...

Disclaimer2: Good for CDP that the Twitchers games weren't my cup of tea anyway. Otherwise they would have lost future sales...

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Again we are taking shit because of what the Germans are doing, just like the concentration-camps. This must be tradition of some sort.

 

[villain of the story]

This is something I wouldn't expect from CDP. Fucking potatoes.

Also, with the directions EU is headed now under the führership of Krauts and frogs, expect more rape in future.

 

[Morkar Left]

Again we are taking shit because of what the Germans are doing, just like the concentration-camps. This must be tradition of some sort.

In other countries you probably would get sued for 250.000 bucks, spending the next two years in prison and aren't allowed to use an internet connection again in your life.
Really, only 1500 € and keeping a clean record is a black eye and I consider it a fair treatment. The method how someone gets accused is another story...

 

[hiver]

And could we sue CDproject for blatantly lying about their game prior release? For releasing a shitty games two times in a row?
Can we sue Todd Howard for lying about what features his game is going to have?

Fuck them all.

 

[Azrael the cat]

So someone tell me - did that bitch actually spread the curse to new victims at the end of The Ring, or did she just 'make a copy'? No big whoop, right?

 

[Jaesun]

Good job CD Project.

 

[waywardOne]

Does this mean it's safe to pirate it now?

On the other hand, it was foretold:

In theory a DRM-free game should give consumers less incentive to download it illegally, but it’s also easier to share. We can’t look inside the minds of CD Projekt’s bosses but it’s not totally inconceivable that they secretly hope that many people will pirate their games. After all, the pay-up-or-else schemes are more profitable than actually selling games. -- Torrentfreak, November 22, 2010

 

[Menckenstein]

They should offer them amnesty in exchange for buying the Twitcher games and offering up a goat and ten chickens.

 

[Zed]

Does this mean it's safe to pirate it now?