CD Projekt Red suing Witcher 2 pirates
CD Projekt Red is taking legal action against pirates of The Witcher 2, and says it is only pursuing in cases that they are "100 percent sure" of piracy.
Developer CD Projekt Red is taking legal action against alleged pirates of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. A report states that lawyers representing the company are claiming 911.80 euros (roughly $1,187) from users who have downloaded the game using torrents.
In a statement, the company rejects DRM as "a pain for legal gamers," but says that "shouldn't be confused with us giving a green light to piracy."
TorrentFreak reported on the legal action last week, and claimed that CD Projekt could be wrongfully accusing some users since the action is based on IP addresses. The company has since confirmed the suit to Gamasutra and issued a statement. While CD Projekt Red didn't confirm the monetary figure, it did talk about its reasoning behind the action.
"We will never approve of it, since it doesn't only affect us but has a negative impact on the whole game industry," the statement continues. "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 percent sure have downloaded our game illegally."
-
Shacknews
replySteve Watts posted a new article, CD Projekt Red suing Witcher 2 pirates.
CD Projekt Red is taking legal action against pirates of The Witcher 2, and says it is only pursuing in cases that they are "100 percent sure" of piracy.-
-
-
I think they have the right to do this, but where do they come up with these damage figures? It comes out to about ~20 copies worth. Surely most people are leechers and aren't hitting a share ratio of 19.0, and those who actively seed will be distributing far more.
-
-
I'm pretty sure if each case had to be handled individually that their lawyers would cost more than $1000.
-
-
-
In my eyesm CD Projekt has as much license as the Bioware of yore.
-
*eyes
-
-
Didn't they say they were going to do this before they even released The Witcher 2?
-
I remember reading that somewhere as well.
-
-
The Witcher 2 is probably my favorite RPG ever and I have and will gladly buy everything these guys put out.
But as a legal matter, I can't see how this will end well. They'll face myriad problems, starting with the procedural issues of joinder, venue and jurisdiction and that's before the courts even start to consider the merits of the case itself. -
I love the witcher, and I respect CD Projekt's groundbreaking attempts to do away with heavy DRM that hassles legitimate customers, but shotgun litigation is no better. If they truly had some means of only targeting pirates, without any chance of failure, then sure! Have at it!
But that doesn't seem very likely. Particularly when they refuse to divulge what method they're using to do so, or even the name of the company they hired to do it. If even one innocent person is hurt by this, if there's a single legitimate report of some poor sap receiving a threatening letter and settling out of fear, I will never buy another game from CD Projekt. And no, that doesn't mean I'll pirate it either. I'll just buy one of those *other* games coming out, because good lord there are so many right now.-
Why would a gamer settle out of fear? Just show CD Projekt your steam account or cd disc or whatever.
-
sorry you feel that way but I think more companies should do this. time for these thieves to wake the fuck up.
-
-
-
So, by your logic, should retail stores not bother with shoplifters?
-
Dude, since replicating media costs pennies and a shoplifter has no intentions of buying the product, they should just ignore it.
IT IS NOT A LOST SALE, THEY NEVER INTENDED TO BUY IT
-
-
-
Video game pirates are killing the platform they love. The Witcher 2 was such an amazing game, I don't know how anyone could pirate it and not feel like they deserve to give the developers money.
-
[deleted]
-
Normally I'm against a heavy handed litigation approach to piracy, but CD Projekt Red has built up a lot of good will and the money their seeking in damages seems reasonable to be (unlike the copyright maximums abused by the RIAA to shake-down unwitting defendants). My only concern would be how they would identify users being "100% sure" that they pirated the game.
-
[deleted]
-
honestly, i don't really agree with this move: first, it violates our privacy. second, when i download a game, i may want to test it before buying it. the witcher 2 has no demo, so that's exactly what i did, i downloaded it, gave it a try and then bought it because i liked it. same thing i did with other games like mass effect, skyrim, portal 2, ut, and many other games.
also, current laws allows (in most countries) to download copyrighted material and the only limitation is that you must delete it from your hard drive within 24 hours. that's because you may want to try a game (or whatever you downloaded) before buying it-
This.
Anti-piracy crap makes me chuckle. If someone finishes a game and gives it to me, no problem, even though I haven't paid the developer for their work. Someone uploads the game they've bought to the internet for others to play, oh no! Serious moral line CROSSED (somehow)! I guess devs would be fine with one single copy being passed around multiple times, with none of those players buying the game, but they're not fine with said copy being split into multiple places at once. It seems silly what's considered wrong and right when it comes to digital things.
I suppose I should be glad I like to have the real thing when it comes to entertainment because I like to collect things, otherwise I might be a ravenous pirate! :D
-
-
