By John Walker on December 19th, 2011 at 5:50 pm.
You’ll likely remember that last week it was revealed that CD Projekt had hired a firm to send out letters to those they believed had pirated copies of The Witcher 2, demanding large sums of money. It’s a practice that is widely despised, due not only to its propensity for threatening the innocent, but more significantly, because it’s based on threats in the first place. A person receives a letter demanding an excessive amount of money (evidence for this story suggests in the region of €750, corrected from 900+ that was previously reported), or the recipient will be taken to court where they may end up paying a great deal more. These apparently necessary court cases will be dropped if the fee is paid. And that’s why I consider it such a serious issue. Never mind the severity of the act of piracy, this process subverts the legal process, avoids actually providing evidence and proving guilt, and depends upon scaring people into paying money they likely can’t afford. This is something I wanted to discuss with CDP themselves, who I thought had given unsatisfactory responses to other outlets who suddenly picked up on the story after RPS reported TorrentFreak’s week-old article. My discussion is below.
I want to stress that this is a personal article, between me and CDP, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of all at RPS. At RPS we regularly argue between ourselves about matters of piracy and the like. They may agree with every word – no one’s around just now to check.
I contacted CDP, and ultimately Member of the Board and VP of Business Development, Michal Nowakowski, through their PR, beginning by asking a few questions.
“We’re wondering why CDP have gone ahead with this action, when it’s well known that it’s extremely difficult to prove a crime via an IP address, and that so many false positives are inevitable. And whether they think such actions are merited when it is widely accepted that an unauthorised duplication does not equate to a lost sale? Are they concerned about how it makes their company appear, especially in light of the horror and condemnation with which Davenport Lyons’ actions were met with in 2008.“
Here I had focused on the position of false positives, but this was written before any other sites had published other statements, and their focus on this area had yet to happen. In response I at first received the same statement that had been sent out elsewhere, But in light of RPS’s article having clearly caught their attention, more was to follow. That statement read,
“As you know, we aren’t huge fans of any sort of DRM here at CD Projekt RED. DRM itself is a pain for legal gamers – the same group of honest people who decided that our game was worth its price, and went and bought it. We don’t want to make their lives more difficult by introducing annoying copy protection systems. Moreover, we always try to offer high value with our product – for example, enhancing the game with additional collectors’ items such as soundtracks, making-of DVDs, books, walkthroughs, etc. We could introduce advanced copy protection systems which, unfortunately, punish legal customers as well. Instead we decided to give gamers some additional content with each game release, to make their experience complete. However, that shouldn’t be confused with us giving a green light to piracy. We will never approve of it, since it doesn’t only affect us but has a negative impact on the whole game industry. 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% sure have downloaded our game illegally.”
Clearly this simply confirmed that the action was taking place. Nowakowski’s reply came soon after. It is lengthy:
“Before we took this step, we have investigated the subject, spoke to other developers and publishers using the same method and company we are using, and are convinced that the method used by them is targeting only 100% confirmed piracy act cases. When we investigated the subject, we were made aware and looked into the infamous Davenport case, and again, we are convinced the methods used in our case are not going to hurt innocent people. After all the months since release piracy of The Witcher 2 was tracked, not a single person denied act of piracy when addressed with that subject. At least not to our knowledge.
On whether such actions are merited – I feel that we are really trying to do a lot in terms of being pro-consumer ie. By removing the DRM experience for the users, delivering a lot of free extra content, etc. These people do repay us by being with us, and also by showing their support by means of paying for our games and allowing us to make new ones in the future. The purpose of this action is not to get rich on piracy – believe me, the numbers coming through as a result of this action are petty to say the most. We do hope, however, they may be a sort of deterrent for future pirates; maybe they cannot afford to buy the game here and now, but if they want it really bad, maybe they will consider buying it when the price drop happens as it always does for all titles eventually. It will not fix the world, as nothing ever will, but maybe it will stop some of the most notorious pirates from downloading our game and sharing it further. As for the more casual pirates I want to believe they will eventually become our legal customers because of how we try to work on our customer’s satisfaction.
As for the unauthorised duplication not counting as a lost sale – I guess this is not so simple really. I agree in some cases people just download “whatever” to have a look but would not buy otherwise, but there are also quite a few people who have financial means, have interest but feel that they should not pay becaue it is out there for free. It is this last group that is the most problematic, and I do not feel fine with this way of thinking, and we have never officialy supported this kind of behaviour. Being DRM-free is not a shout to all the folks out there – “hey, come and take our game – it’s free.” It is DRM-free, which means we really had to go through huge efforts with our publishers to make this happen so that people can enjoy the game without the hassle that pirated copies are already circumventing. Am I afraid this makes us look bad? I do not feel we are doing anything wrong, as long as people targeted are really 100% confirmed pirates. So far nothing has happened in the past couple of months that would indicate otherwise.
I cannot go into details on how can we be sure such information is correct, as this is trade secret of the company working on that on our behalf, but as much as we could see the reasoning behind the method, it is actually leading so far only to 100% piracy cases.”
These were odd claims. Claims at which PC Gamer’s Graham Smith had raised concerned eyebrows when they’d arrived to them via a separate email chat. And they sat equally awkwardly here. To identify someone as a pirate via downloads, one must use their IP address. This is no new technology, and certainly not the subject of something that cannot be revealed for the sake of trade secrets. In fact, you can scare your own balls off by visiting here. It’s also the means by which false positives occur, for many and obvious reasons. So what possible technique could exist that allows more detailed, more accurate information? Because surely it would have to be something astonishing or illegal?
Meanwhile, in their statement to PCG, published after I’d asked my questions but before I’d received the reply, Nowakowski had explained that,
“For some reason the spotlight came down on CDP RED, however you should be aware this is something that about 95% of the games industry is actually doing. Pretty much all the major publishers and most of the independent developers.”
None of us at RPS could think of any examples of other publishers’ doing this in recent months, and we’d certainly never heard of an independent developer ever taking such action, so this comment struck us as strange.
And something else was bothering me about the generously detailed and candid reply – it wasn’t addressing my larger issue in the original article – simply that surely the act of threatening people for money is wrong? I got back in touch, wanting to appeal to the company to change their course of action, rather than simply ask questions. I sent this:
“Hello there. Thanks very much for your candid response. I have a few questions and challenges regarding it, which I hope you don’t mind my putting to you.
Could you explain what this 100% accurate technique is, and how it works, and which company it is? You mention trade secrets, but obviously there must be a general methodology without explaining how it precisely works. Identifying someone by their downloading something from bittorrent can only be done by IP, and IP obviously cannot identify an individual. So I’m really interested to learn how this works. Especially with cases such as our commenters who’ve said they paid for the boxed copy and it didn’t work, so downloaded a pirated version. Could this system take this into account?
The other thing is, the issue for me doesn’t seem to be about inaccurate threats – those can be weeded out by the courts. It’s about that they’re *threats*. I realise you’re not getting rich from this, but I’m also aware that if I had to part with a few hundred Euros, that wouldn’t make your company rich, but it would cripple me on my low income. Do you accept that you’re sending people demands for significant amounts of money, with the threat that if they don’t pay up, they’ll have to go to court for a great deal more? When crimes are committed, the usual practice is to go to the police, and then the criminal is arrested and eventually goes to court. Circumventing the process of law, by threatening people to buy their way out of a court case, strikes me as something pretty awful to do. This is why we appealed for your company to stop this, and I guess I’m repeating that appeal here.
Also, you assert that most other publishers are doing this. I have heard of no examples in recent months. Could you name some for us? And finally, why are you only taking this action in Germany?
Many thanks – I really appreciate your time on this, and your patience with my stance.“
This fell into the weekend, and so Nowakowski’s reply, directed through PR in the US, reached me this afternoon. He says,
“When it comes to methodology, while I cannot share exact details, it does in its essence rely on IP identification, however, we do take into account individual cases. And once implication of innocence is reported and proven (ie. Someone actually bought a legal copy of the game but downloaded a torrent version for whatever reason), we may waive the claims. In fact, there was a single (one) case like that, and that person was not ultimately fined, and everything was fixed very quickly via email with no hassle for that person. So there is also case-by-case individual approach which does eliminate error as much as it is possible. Taking into account the fact that this action really does not target staggering amounts of people as some sources in the internet claim, such an individual approach is in fact possible. I can only restate – we have not been made aware so far of any case of the innocent person who would be targeted and made to pay the fee or taken to court.
About threats – let me put it like this – when you get a speeding ticket or a ticket for causing a car crash or for any other felony – do you consider that a threat? Because it works pretty much in the same way. Maybe I am confused, but I do feel that not doing things that are wrong is a good way of staying out of trouble – there seems to be an implication that we are bad guys because we are trying to deter people who illegaly downloaded our game from doing that by means of this action. I am a little bit at a loss with this way of thinking. Especially since at the same time, we do take great pains, and even went to court to win the no-DRM case for the people, so that our customers can enjoy the game without any hassle. Also, I want to state clearly that this action is not circumventing the process of law as you are suggesting – this is actually a possible, fully legal action, allowed by the courts and state and regulated in a similar way as the speeding tickets are, for example. It beats me that, honestly speaking, we are being spoken badly about because we are trying to deter people from illegal access to our title.
As for the question of other publishers – I am not at freedom to share the names of these publishers. I can only confirm I have spoken to some of them who are using the service and to developers who do the same, and I do not assume that they’re taking similar action — I know this is the case. Why has our story been blown out of proportions? I do not know, but I do recognise this is a great to story to cover, and the only thing we can really do is to answer as honestly as we always do in everything that concerns our company and the games we make.
Regarding Germany – it is about access to accurate data, which is allowed by the state. Regulations do not work in a similar way in all the EU countries. Germany does. The process would be possible in many other countries, but in some, the Davenport case would be likely to repeat itself. We cannot allow oursleves to target innocent people. This was never the intention and never will be. The moment we hear innocent people have been targeted, we will take immediate action.”
I want to applaud CDP for the amazingly open and frank way they have responded to this debate, even though I personally am extremely against their actions, and disappointed to see there is no sense of contrition or remorse about the devastating effects such actions can have on an individual. It is great that they are so passionate about ensuring errant accusations are quickly dealt with. And yes, of course piracy is a crime, and no, I am not defending piracy – that is not the point here whatsoever. But when the punishment is so disproportionate, and the efficacy is so ridiculous, I struggle to see any other way to interpret such actions beyond threats for money.
It is not blackmail. But it is often perceived to be. And that, to answer Nowakowski’s confusion, is why the company is receiving such a hostile reaction.
Regarding the speeding ticket example – and clearly I’m speaking from the perspective of the UK, and don’t know the details of the rules in Poland – they do not compare. If I am caught speeding, I receive a fine of £60, from the government. If I pay it within two weeks I pay only £30. I also receive three points on my driver’s license. If I dispute the fine, I am allowed to challenge, and perhaps take the process to court to prove my innocence. That is not what is happening here. Here, this practice traditionally works by people receiving letters designed to scare them into paying an enormous sum, massively more than the cost of the game/film/CD they downloaded (usually justified by their also having uploaded, and therefore distributed the product – much easier to classify as a crime – but the fine in no explained way reflecting this). If they don’t pay the sum, then they will be taken to court, and will have to pay a great deal more, they are told. Possibly tens or hundreds of thousands. We haven’t seen a copy of the letters being sent out in Germany, and it’s possible that they are worded very differently, but what they will be saying is, “Pay this large sum or you will have to pay a very much larger sum.” Which is where those whiffs of blackmail appear. Even though, I very strongly stress, it is not.
It is for this reason that it is not as simple as the company simply trying to defend its product and discourage piracy. And for another. This doesn’t do anything about piracy. CDP’s own (unproven) estimate for piracy figures is 4.5 million. According to TorrentFreak they sent out a couple of thousand letters in Germany, although Nowakowski says above it’s not as high as is reported. Let’s guess at, for the ease of maths, 1,000 letters going out. That means when pirating the game you’d have a 1 in 4,500 chance of receiving a fine. A 0.001% chance. It’s not exactly a figure that’s going to scare people. Sure, it adds that frisson of fear, because there is a chance, and it’s unlikely that people are going to have a spare grand kicking around to get out of trouble. But 0.001%? That’s not a deterrent. It’s a lottery.
And this is why it looks like a cash grab, despite CDP’s protestations that they aren’t making serious money from this. (Although, let’s be clear – if it is 1000 letters, and the fine is €750, that’s still three quarters of a million Euro. I’m not so sure that’s a figure to be so easily dismissed.) Because it only affects an insignificant minority of those who have pirated, it will only likely stop that 0.001% of pirates from doing it again, and then, only catch those who hear about the story, don’t figure out the statistics, and get scared (a tiny minority). So no matter how accurate it may be (and the admission that there was one false accusation so far does rather knock down that “100% accuracy” previously claimed), it’s still completely ineffective. Let alone the opportunistic appearance gained from only conducting this in Germany because individuals’ privacy are already concerningly compromised.
Oh, and one other thought. Regarding the statement that if someone had bought it, then torrented it after, they would let that go. Why, CDP, is that okay, but someone who torrents it, then buys it, is not? Which is to say, why not send these people letters demanding the €40 for the cost of the game? Since the person who torrents to replace his purchased copy will be uploading just as much as he who pirated before buying.
Obviously there are very many who believe pirates deserve what they get. That was made clear by many commenters, and disgusted developers who got in touch with me. I believe that punishments should match crimes, not be based on fallacious claims of piracy equaling lost sales (the only basis for justifying the huge sums that’s ever been given), and certainly not appear to be scaring people out of money to avoid a proper judicious process of law. (One that the music industry keeps learning, to its cost, isn’t automatically on their side.) I understand CDP’s frustration. They see their product being taken without people paying, and they see it happening on a large scale. This upsets them, and they want to do something about it. It seems the situation is very unfair, as there is nothing that can be done about it. And doing things like this, things that really help no one, are a desperate attempt to do something.
And that is why I personally continue to plead with CDP to stop this practice. I believe there is a good reason why people are reacting so negatively to your actions. I believe your actions are wrong.
19/12/2011 at 18:02 wccrawford says:
Assuming CDP really does manage to only fine/sue actual pirates, what is your issue here?
You claim that these fines impact the pirates’ lives negatively… But that’s the idea. Tit for tat, as it were. Would you rather they drop the fine aspect and simply take every single one of them to court, costing each of them much more time and money?
No, it sounds like you would rather they turned a blind eye to piracy, instead. You’re asking them to just ignore it. You aren’t giving them a viable solution for the problem.
They aren’t doing anything illegal, immoral, or unethical.
Again, this is all assuming that they really do only catch pirates in their trap.
If they do catch non-pirates, and don’t let them go, it’s another story altogether. But they’ve said they work with the person to let them provide proof, and have even had someone do so. You claimed they don’t show remorse, but they do… If they’ve hurt someone who didn’t deserve it. So far, they think they haven’t, and nobody has proved that wrong.
19/12/2011 at 18:04 John Walker says:
Well, what I’ve said in the article is, they should then charge them the £30/€40 for the game.
19/12/2011 at 18:08 bglamb says:
So you *are* saying turn a blind eye to the crime! Just charge them for the product which they now own.
Forcing them to pay for what they stole isn’t exactly punishment! Not to mention that they not only stole a copy for themselves, but enabled others to steal a copy too.
19/12/2011 at 18:10 StevoRS says:
@John Walker.
That is the most narrow minded thing iv seen from this site in a long time. That’s right lets encourage piracy because you know what the worst thing that could happen is that you may have to pay for the game at full price and not be disciplined.
The mind boggles at what your trying to suggest
19/12/2011 at 18:12 Keirley says:
If they want to charge people hundreds of euros then they need to justify that practice. If we take a copy of the game to cost €40, then in essence by fining someone €750 they’re saying that that person’s act of piracy led to nearly twenty lost sales. They need to give evidence for this, and so far they haven’t done so.
EDIT: and they also need to show, as John said, why there’s any difference between pirating after buying a legitimate copy and pirating before buying a legitimate copy.
19/12/2011 at 18:15 StevoRS says:
@Keirley
The justification is that you have illegal obtained a copy of a protected game. Why do people get fined big sums of money for failing to produce tickets on buses or on trains? To stop people from doing it. If the worst thing that happened was that you got fined the normal price then your always going to go and try chance because the the deterrent is piss poor.
19/12/2011 at 18:15 MattM says:
I feel like 5-8x the price of the game should be the limit. When large companies engage in dishonest billing practices or violate the copyright of individuals they are never fined more in punitive damages than a few times the size of the original crime. That large a punishment is only obtained after the small guy does the extensive work of going to court. If the issue is resolved though company customer service you are lucky to get back what they owe you.
19/12/2011 at 18:15 bglamb says:
” they’re saying that that person’s act of piracy led to nearly twenty lost sales. They need to give evidence for this”
They’re definitely not saying that. Read the article again. They’re saying it will act as a deterrent.
19/12/2011 at 18:17 pepper says:
No, John isnt doing that. He is saying that if they demand proportional amounts of money they should let it go through court in the first place. And doesnt germany have the ‘loser pays’ system anyway?
I dont think CD Projekt’s practice is any better then Righthaven or other copyright trolls.
And, if they would go to court their technique would be exposed(the ip tracking thingy). Which would be good, although their behaviour suggest that what they are using might not even be legal and thus the evidence they have might not even be allowed into court.
19/12/2011 at 18:22 eldwl says:
Chaps, aren’t you missing the point? Corporations can’t issue fines to Joe Public, that’s for governments to do, isn’t it? I’m not sticking up for either side here (two wrongs, and all that)…
19/12/2011 at 18:24 Sheng-ji says:
You guys need to understand 2 things :
1. A demand for compensation can be negotiated – yes this is set high, but you can come back with a counter offer. If I knew I was bang to rights, I’d offer them a speedy resolution for the cost of the game. They may come back then with a much more reasonable offer etc etc.
2. Damages do not have to be justified in the way you are suggesting – that’s why, if my legs get cut off, I may get £100k if someone else is to blame, yet the cost of changing my life to adapt to my new legless state may only be £10k
19/12/2011 at 18:25 Keirley says:
@ StevoRS
@ bglamb
I’m not convinced CD Projekt should have the right to charge people arbitrary amounts of money simply as a deterrent.
If I get fined for not buying a bus ticket then that’s a government body, or a corporation given power by the government, fining me as a deterrent. In this case it’s simply a company sending out threatening letters to people because they feel they are justified in doing so. There’s simply not the same level of legitimacy.
So, in other words I don’t think they’re entitled to decide what to charge people and call that a deterrent. If they can prove that your act of piracy led to x amount of further pirated copies then perhaps (perhaps) a fine equalling the price of x amount of copies would be justified. Even then I’m not convinced, but I think it would be a better case.
19/12/2011 at 18:26 strikerRD says:
What most of you are failing to understand is that the court system’s function is to try and make sure that people are tried fairly. Here in the US we have a saying ( I don’t know if people in the EU also say this):
“You are innocent until proven guilty”. Not the other way around.
The problem with the letters is exactly what John Walker describes; it circumvents the legal system you are all so fond of and also forces potentially innocent people into a situation where they have to prove their own innocence rather than have the Prosecution prove their guilt in court. Here’s the excerpt i’m referring to:
“And once implication of innocence is reported and proven (ie. Someone actually bought a legal copy of the game but downloaded a torrent version for whatever reason), we may waive the claims. In fact, there was a single (one) case like that, and that person was not ultimately fined, and everything was fixed very quickly via email with no hassle for that person. So there is also case-by-case individual approach which does eliminate error as much as it is possible”
The problem is their “100% elimination” method, as far as everyone knows, is completely false. Even after John Walker asked him to explain how it worked but he just side-stepped the issue. We all know IP’s are not reliable. Didn’t you all hear about that 62 year old Grandma whom some music company tried to charge like 2,000 smackers just because someone who previously used her dynamic IP downloaded some music. The method described doesn’t accurately finger pirates. Sorry, but anyone who goes around the court system to get what they want legally is full of shit. Likely they won’t be able to prove anything anyway because that 100% claim is probably total bullshit. I feel the same way about that “Witcher 2 has been downloaded 4.5 million times” Really? Can you prove that? I’d really like to see for myself.
19/12/2011 at 18:28 Sheng-ji says:
Also you should know there is a massive difference both legally and in what rights you have between a government issued fine and compensation for a civil infraction
A government fine is exactly that – you have to pay and unless you can prove you shouldn’t have been issued it, that is pretty much that.
Compensation is more like any other business transaction. They made an offer – if you don’t want the product (You are not a pirate) You walk away. If you do want it (You know you are bang to rights) you negotiate and find a level that both parties agree to.
@StrikerRD – as I tried to explain ceaselessly last time – innocence and guilt are applicable to criminal law – no-ones a criminal in this case, it’s a civil case – if it goes to court, the onus is on CDP to prove to the courts their case.
19/12/2011 at 18:30 Tyshalle says:
I think that if they’re going to do this, charging only the price of the game is a pretty stupid idea. If you want to talk about a lottery, this is one where you have a 1 in 4,500 chance (using JW’s math) of having to pay for the game. At least charging 20 times the retail price is serious enough that it will cause people to freak out. It’s significantly more of a deterrent than “Haha, we caught you, now pay for what you stole and then go on your way!” There’s literally no deterrent in that idea, John Walker, and I suspect the reason you would argue with such faulty logic is because you are so incredibly biased against this practice in general that it’s tainting all your rationality.
Not that I’m saying I’m all for this practice. I have to admit, the whole thing rings a little shady to me, too. I also seriously doubt some of their claims (such as most indie companies following this practice, or this being 100% effective and top secret, etc.), but I’m having a hard time doubting their sincerity. I honestly just feel like they’re in an awkward position, wanting to figure out a way to fight piracy that doesn’t infringe on their paying customers. Certainly they tried the carrot, what with their DRM-free game loaded with extras if you bought the game legitimately. And the end result was massive amounts of piracy. So now they’re trying the stick. Sure, it looks less wholesome, and deservedly so. But I dunno. I don’t blame them, not really.
And besides, 750 euros is probably nothing compared to how much your average pirate makes off with in a given year. I have a friend who I know for a fact pirates every major (and quite a few minor) game that comes out, not to mention music and movies. If he suddenly got hit up with a $1000 fine or something, I’d look at that as justice, personally. I certainly wouldn’t feel sorry for him.
19/12/2011 at 18:31 strikerRD says:
Sorry for double post but:
I feel like this is yet another situation where a corporation is infringing on people’s personal right to privacy. I understand alot of you feel that pirates should have to pay their fair shake too, whatever the reason they downloaded is; however, there’s no argument here. It’s just not CDP’s place to be handing out fines/letters like this. They aren’t the government.
Also, I find the speeding ticket argument kind of unsettling because he seems to believe that it’s perfectly justified to take matters of the law into their own hands.
here’s an idea, let’s just publicly execute copywrite pirates on the BBC every night at 7. I mean, who cares about the law, right? Those “pirates” have to pay.
19/12/2011 at 18:33 strikerRD says:
Sheng-Ji:
I understand what you tried to explain fully. Let me explain myself:
The threat letter is circumventing the court system by having the customer prove their innocence to CDP rather than CDP proving their guilt. So far we’ve seen no evidence of justification for their actions, just “we have trade secrets”.
That’s all I meant. Of course in court the burden would be on CDP to prove guilt. I’m merely refering to the threat letters and how they are… circumventing the legal system ( must’ve typed that like 5 times by now, heh)
19/12/2011 at 18:35 Espio says:
Wow this comment thread exploded so I’m just going to remove most of my comment :x
The fine is crazy, if I had pirated the witcher 2 I would be looking at just sending them my computer to pay off the fine, considering I’d have had to have even less money than I do now to consider pirating it in the first place
19/12/2011 at 18:37 akeso says:
Frankly if they actually believe they can 100% prove the crime they should be forwarding this information to the local D.A. so that larceny charges can be filed.
The only reason they used this current system is that no court in the world is going to find that there is property to return.
19/12/2011 at 18:37 Sheng-ji says:
@ StrikerRD and that’s literally my only issue with this practice – they are going the same way as clamping companies in that they try to pretend that the pirate has no choice in the matter. If they explained the situation fully they would however be literally to only law firm in the world to do so!
I blame the fact that no-one gets educated in the basics of law and our rights in most if any countries during their teen years.
19/12/2011 at 18:38 strikerRD says:
“And besides, 750 euros is probably nothing compared to how much your average pirate makes off with in a given year. I have a friend who I know for a fact pirates every major (and quite a few minor) game that comes out, not to mention music and movies. If he suddenly got hit up with a $1000 fine or something, I’d look at that as justice, personally. I certainly wouldn’t feel sorry for him.”
Your logic is flawed because nobody lost anything when he downloaded those games because obviously your friend is not interested in video games enough to pay for one.
Please, people, can we stop treating a pirated copy like a lost sale. It’s not just not realistic.
19/12/2011 at 18:43 jrodman says:
I’d like to suggest we avoid re-debating whether or not piracy is similar to a theft. I know where I stand on that, but it gets debated a hundred times a second on the internet. Let us instead look at this issue knowing that these letters are sent to people identified solely on IP addresses. Is that acceptable? Why or why not?
19/12/2011 at 18:45 strikerRD says:
Jrod:
The problem is we’ve been over that. The answer is no, it’s not okay. There are people who agree, but they are not arguing/thinking in terms of the law.
Also: we have a great need to re-discuss piracy as theft. As it stands, corporations claim “anything you download is a sale we lose” so we’re all supposed to just go along with that, no arguments? Why? because they have more money than I do?
19/12/2011 at 18:46 DigitalSignalX says:
If they actually catch a pirate and can somehow say with 100% certainty that they pirated the copy, I think it’s completely fair for them to demand the price of the game. It is just as if you had walked out the front door of a store with something – a clerk can, instead of calling the police, simply tell you to pay for it and avoid the complication of law enforcement. For that clerk to demand 20 times the cost of the item or face the law is extortion.
19/12/2011 at 18:50 Julio Biason says:
Problem here is “assuming they will fine/sue the actual pirates”. If the method of identifying pirates is so accurate as they claim, why not take it to the court, where the real damage to pirates is?
Thing is, the method is not accurate as they say. As put in the article, IP -> Person is flawed in different levels.
They know the method is flawed. So they send random letters with blackmail-like words expecting to scare actual pirates, even if that means burning some poor peasant life, instead of having the balls to go to court and taking the frack for their own mistakes (e.g., suing innocent people that can prove they never did such thing).
Yes, pirates should be taken down for stealing from companies. But companies should also have the balls to back up their own claims (in this case, “you are a pirate”).
19/12/2011 at 18:54 Julio Biason says:
@DigitalSignalX: The only problem is that walking out of the store with a box will result in having one box; if you put a piece of software on a torrent, it can be replicated endlessly.
I tend to think that the “supposed number of copies that the digital version stole” is too high but, at the same time, given enough time, can be proved right.
19/12/2011 at 19:06 jrodman says:
strikerd: pretty sure you and I already agree on the theft issue, but it seems to always bring out angry folks who insist on the opposite. And then nothing of interest is said. Make the points you want though, of course, good luck.
19/12/2011 at 19:09 UB says:
Just a quick thought on the level of money being demanded here.
The instinct is ‘well the game costs £40, so they should ask for £40′. Ignoring potential (hard to prove) arguments about number of copies ‘distributed’ by torrent sharing while downloading, you have to remember that in order to make contact they’ve had to send these letters in the first place. To send these letters they’ve had to contract (you’d presume) a firm of lawyers at some stage. Lawyers generally don’t come cheap.
Thus it seems logical to me that they’d demand amounts way above the normal asking price to cover the now higher cost base of the game.
Is the amount demanded still too high? I’ve fortunately not had to hire a law firm to hunt down those who’ve slighted me so I haven’t a clue.
Are they right to even be demanding it in the first place? Argue away, I’ve done my bit.
19/12/2011 at 19:16 zerosociety says:
I’ve been a huge supporter of CDProjekt, and applauded their decision to go DRM free – prompting me to grab the Collector’s edition of Witcher 2 — because you vote with your pocketbook. But after this? No more CDProjekt titles for me.
It’s not blackmail, but it’s pretty damn close to extortion.
19/12/2011 at 19:31 Archonsod says:
“and they also need to show, as John said, why there’s any difference between pirating after buying a legitimate copy and pirating before buying a legitimate copy.”
They don’t. Funnily enough downloading the game is perfectly legal; you only infringe copyright when you also upload it. Hence having a legitimate copy is somewhat moot – unless the license also permits you to distribute then you’re still breaking the law (conversely if you only download without uploading you aren’t, even if you don’t own the game). It’s surprising the publishers don’t actually shout about that one – if there’s one thing that would kill P2P networks like Bittorrent, it’d be having everyone leeching rather than sharing.
19/12/2011 at 19:32 ZillaRacing says:
The information is good, John Walker, but im not buying your logic. How would all this be worth CDP’s time if they just charged the pirates retail cost? And where would the punishment be? How many people is that going to deter? Lets steal this game… Why not? Worst case scenario would be that i’d have to buy it anyway… Does that make sense?
19/12/2011 at 19:54 derbefrier says:
Personally I think the letter should read more like pay the 60 bucks for the game you stole or we are going to take you to court and seek additional damages. You have 30 days to respond before any further actions take place. I don’t thinly what they are doing is bad its comparable to catching someone stealing something from a store than saying pay up or we will press charges. But you don’t have to pay anything unless a court orders you to do so. So if you think something fishy OS going on make them take you to court. I had a similar thong happen at my apartment complex I was accused of messing up some property they asked for money I said I guess I will see you in court and they dropped it. I thinly the big numbers are being used to scare people.and it will probally work to some degree.
I don’t agree with the stance you seem to take on piracy, that its okay in certain situations or that it doesn’t result in lost sales both of which are just bullshit exuses for stealing.
19/12/2011 at 20:10 Kadayi says:
@John Walker
“Well, what I’ve said in the article is, they should then charge them the £30/€40 for the game.”
In short no. It’s not about recouping the value of the product alone it’s about acting as a future deterrent. If the fine is simply the cost of the product then you might as well pirate Vs buy it because at worst you’ll end up paying the retail price in the end if you’re caught (‘my bad, here’s your money’). A lot of that money is likely to be the administrative fee of the action (legal costs aren’t cheap). There’s no logic to CDP eating those costs Vs the pirates paying them.
The fine for say not having a TV licence or Road tax is substantially more than those things cost legally. Same principal.
19/12/2011 at 20:16 Kent says:
I think that the idea of charging people massive amount of money and destroying their lives, with or without the law is unacceptable.
I think a persons small amount of money should be far more sacred than the big corporation that cries because they lost 5% of their sales to piracy that equals to about 30000 Euros or so.
Pirates are not thugs that go out on the streets, right outside your apartment and screams like pigs because they’re so intellectually challenged that they cannot spell subtlety right. Pirates are not adult men that goes home and beats their wives or thieves that steal stuff from the grocery store. These are just teens that probably have really cheapskate parents with no allowance, and even if it’s adults it is probably adults that cannot get a sodding job in this forsaken piece of shit world you shitheads created for us.
So fine fucking job mates. Keep on the repressive measures for you will not be satisfied until the common man is chained by his every guilt to your precious law system. “Oh, you stole a computer game as a kid, well you get the axe then boy.” That way we ensure that they will NEVER pirate again.
No seriously, fuck you.
19/12/2011 at 20:29 tetracycloide says:
No they emphatically do not show remorse. In he case where they falsely accused someone and worked it out via email they pretended as if a threat of 750 euros was “no hassle for that person.” I don’t care how fast that was resolved, the specter of a large settlement or a protracted legal battle is a huge hassle. Furthermore they continually point to the fact that no one is contesting the letters as evidence of 100% accuracy which has obvious issue to anyone looking for circumspection. How hard do you think they are looking into payments received to verify that person was actually guilty? Lastly the whole thing is bullshit on its face. If they could prove 100% then they should be filing with a court, not sending letters. If they want to offer a settlement then that would be different. As is the only explanation for not filing is because filing costs money and they can’t really be 100% sure. So they don’t file because they cannot guarantee a return on investment (which they could if the 100% figure were actually accurate since here would be no risk).
19/12/2011 at 20:30 Kadayi says:
@Kent
So because there’s no violence then it’s all acceptable? Is speeding ok if no one gets killed?
Also how does someone (hypothetically) having no money qualify them for a free pass to luxury entertainment goods?
@tetracycloide
You only need to go to court if you dispute a fine (not to have a fine instigated). If you’re caught speeding for instance and given a ticket by a police officer, it only goes to court if you dispute it (where you might then be fined more by the judge). Obviously the emphasis is on you to prove your innocence Vs the evidence the police have.
19/12/2011 at 20:33 Sheng-ji says:
@Kent – but the lives of the graphics artists, programmers, testers etc – the talent in our industry – it’s fine for their lives to be destroyed when studios go bankrupt. I’m not going to argue that every instance of a pirated game is a lost sale, but equally I hope you’re not going to argue that piracy has zero impact on sales.
Piracy costs jobs and destroys lives.
And for the record, the men who bought the economy to it’s knees and destroyed countless lives aren’t thugs shouting in the streets either – shall we just forgive and forget them too? After all, the ability to spell subtlety is the mark of whether someone should be subject to the laws of the land.. right?
19/12/2011 at 20:33 Craig Stern says:
Just wanted to pop in and say that although I loathe piracy*, I agree with John that CD Projekt really shouldn’t be doing this. Among other things, I am skeptical that they can really know with absolute certainty who did or did not pirate their game; the thought that even a single legitimate user would have to go through a song and dance to prove his innocence with the threat of a lawsuit hanging over his head is rather repulsive to me.
I’m also a little surprised that they would analogize their letters to government fines; the better analogy would be to an offer to settle a claim out of court, which the courts actually encourage (at least here in the U.S.)
*except in limited circumstances, such as when a player loses the ability to play a game he or she legally paid for and has to torrent it in order to maintain a working copy.
19/12/2011 at 20:48 Sheng-ji says:
@Craig Stern
I wouldn’t even count it as piracy if you own a licence to play the game – you’ve just downloaded it from a different source!
19/12/2011 at 20:55 Ryn Taylor says:
If someone broke into my house and stole something, and then later I figured out it was my neighbor, would I have the right to circumvent the police and directly demand of them that they pay me back what it was worth twenty-fold?
19/12/2011 at 21:04 Sheng-ji says:
Nope, and that’s because your neighbour would have comitted a CRIMINAL offence – burglary, theft, breaking and entering are criminal acts and subject to criminal law. That is what the police get involved in.
Piracy is a CIVIL offence. The police do not get involved in civil law, it’s not their job. If my neighbour built an extension without planning permission which overlooked a previously private bedroom window and my property lost value as a result, if I went to the police, they would tell me to bugger off, they couldn’t give two hoots – because it is a civil infraction. And yes, in that circumstance I would begin by sending them a letter pointing out my problem and requesting that they tear it down. I might even tell them my required level of compensation if they don’t in that letter.
Please stop equating civil and criminal law people, and this goes to RPS and CDP too – it only shows your ignorance of the issues at hand.
This is why every schoolchild should take a mandatory basic law class.
19/12/2011 at 21:08 Archonsod says:
“It’s not about recouping the value of the product alone it’s about acting as a future deterrent.”
And when did CDP get the right to determine suitable deterrents? Isn’t that what we have courts for? What CDP are doing is the equivalent of you or I taking a baseball bat to the neighbour’s car to deter them from parking in our space.
19/12/2011 at 21:13 Sheng-ji says:
Wow, and directly after my last post too – Taking a baseball bat to a car is a CRIMINAL OFFENCE
CRIMINAL OFFENCES DO NOT EQUATE TO CIVIL DISAGREEMENTS
repeat that 100 times to yourself before you post anything!
19/12/2011 at 21:16 Casimir Effect says:
Think I have to come down on CDPs side in this one. By the sound of it they are doing all they can without being malicious and yet that is how people are trying to paint them:
Not just checking IPs but going through cases individually means far fewer false positives.
Only doing it in Germany where there is more data available means they have set themselves a required level of confidence in their methods and aren’t going below it.
Dropping case against person who proved innocence.
Hopefully deterring piracy on the whole (at least in Germany. That is where your figure of a 0.001% falls down Mr Walker. That figure of 4.5m lost was worldwide. I imagine that taking the numbers in Germany alone will drastically reduce the number of pirated copies such that 1000 pirates receiving letters is actually a decent percentage).
And then as a company on the whole they are still on the side of anti-DRM and are a small developer compared to many. I’d rather see them do things like this than the company fold. Look at GSC.
I’ll happily keep on buying their games in the future because I know one thing – I’ll get to play their games and be safe from any legal action. It really is a very simple fucking concept.
19/12/2011 at 21:19 ThTa says:
@strikerRD
“Here in the US we have a saying ( I don’t know if people in the EU also say this):
“You are innocent until proven guilty”. Not the other way around.”
I’m sure you held no malice in these words, but since it’s the second time I’ve heard someone question whether we do within a short timespan, I feel the need to respond with a firm “Yes, we do.”
To imply we don’t have such a principle is highly offensive to me, as it would completely undermine any fair system of justice. (For reference, in Dutch it’s “Onschuldig tot het tegendeel bewezen is.”, which translates to “Innocent until the contrary has been proven.”)
As such, I also find their speed ticket comparison very flawed. Because here, while the fine may be issued without prosecution, the aforementioned principle still applies. As such, you are allowed to request any evidence on the transgression, the speeding, their failure to supply said evidence would abolish their case. (Which makes their “trade secret” method impossible to maintain) And should you contest it, it is their task to prove you are guilty in court, not yours to prove you are innocent.
I’m aware such matters are different in civil cases, but this was just to illustrate that their comparison holds no merit.
19/12/2011 at 21:26 Sheng-ji says:
@ThTa – exactly! Of course, if CDP do take anyone to court they will have to prove that the person did beyond any reasonable doubt pirate the game, it might not be called innocent until proven guilty, but the concept is the same.
Also they would have to release their evidence if you requested and if they took you to court and did not send their full evidence in a reasonable time, their case will be invalidated anyway.
19/12/2011 at 21:31 Kadayi says:
“And when did CDP get the right to determine suitable deterrents? Isn’t that what we have courts for? ”
Costs + damages. This is action being carried out by another company and it’s they who are setting the price. I doubt their legal time is cheap.
@ThTa
I’m fairly sure when they contact the people they inform them as and when they were alleged to have downloaded the game. It’s then up to the accused to disprove that information (‘it can’t of been me because I was in Barcalona at the time, here’s my hotel stub’)
It’s not necessary for the police to explain how a police camera works in order to secure a conviction. They have the footage, that is enough. From a legal perspective, no legal firm is going to play a shell game over something like this, because invariably people will dispute it and the financial consequences of false accusations would be horrendous. If they say they have a 100% method for tracking, my legal inclination is to accept that as a given. They aren’t gambling on this.
19/12/2011 at 21:37 Sheng-ji says:
You do understand that you have every right to (If you were bang to rights) negociate the level of compensation with them? You are well within your rights to sent them a cheque for 1p and tell them you consider that adequate compensation.
Of course that would be more of an insult that anything and thus the case probably would go to court, so you’d have to talk to them and agree on a compensation.
@Kadayi – Nope, the police absolutely have to show the courts that their camera was of an agreed design and that it was properly maintained. Also, believe me, no matter how cleverly the lawyer has worded that letter, the court will require CDP to provide enough evidence that the piracy took place. If you wanted to show evidence that it didn’t, that’s great but if you showed up to court with nothing in a t-shirt and shorts and do not attempt any defence of yourself, you can still walk away the winner.
19/12/2011 at 21:51 ThTa says:
@Kadayi
Actually, they would have to explain their system to some extent. Not in the sense of “This is exactly how our camera works”, but in the sense of which tools they used, as in “We used a high-speed camera, here’s the photo.” They would need to prove said camera is capable of recording suitable evidence through any available means. (In this case, the footage and various studies during and after R&D would suffice. So, well, actually, yeah: They would have to explain exactly how/if their camera works, if it is contested.)
Stating “We detected you comitted a crime on such and such” holds no merit, nor does “We used a camera”, because for all we know, said camera had no conclusive footage and they’re going by the colour of your car.
Right now, CDP’s method seems to be “Our secret special camera detected you on such and such”, without disclosing the footage of said camera and (potentially thereby) proving whether it is accurate. I’m not saying it isn’t accurate, but I’ve no reason to believe it is, either.
19/12/2011 at 21:52 Drinking with Skeletons says:
I’m not sure why anyone would view this as a threat or a ticket–bizarre way to view it–when what it sounds like is an offer for an out-of-court settlement. I don’t know all the intricacies to such a settlement in my own country, let alone Germany, but it boils down to one party giving money to the other to avoid a lengthy, costly, and/or embarrassing trial. You often hear of them when discussing sexual harassment; companies often don’t give a damn about whether anyone was actually harassed, but simply want to avoid the negative publicity associated with a trial.
CDP is almost certainly not going to be able to recoup court costs from a pirate–and as we’ve established they aren’t going to be able to prove very many cases–but this route offers a way to get the guilty to pay up. And why would the innocent do so? If Germany is a loser pays nation, and the person in question actually did not download the title, then what’s the danger? Couldn’t they then receive damages from CDP? As for a hardcore pirate, the last thing they would want is to have their PC used as evidence in a court trial.
Saying that CDP shouldn’t do this–especially when they are adamant that they are not rushing in and are not shaking people down, and no one has provided any evidence to the contrary, despite all the backlash–is basically saying that the innocently accused are too stupid to defend their rights. And if the people who pay or are brought to trial are guilty of theft–and that is what this is–then who gives a shit about the impact the settlement or fine has on their lives? They knowingly committed a crime.
19/12/2011 at 21:58 Sheng-ji says:
Drinking with Skeletons has just written beautifully what I’ve been trying to explain since the first story!
19/12/2011 at 21:59 Kadayi says:
@ThTa
They only need to outline the general principles, and they only need to do that in a court. They don’t need to make their methodology general knowledge to the public . As long as the methodology satisfies the Judge and any experts the courts may appoint to assess it, that’s as far as it needs to go. Again though I’ll reiterate, if they weren’t confident in their method, they wouldn’t be pursuing the actions.
19/12/2011 at 22:05 ThTa says:
Oh, and I absolutely agree with you, Drinking with Skeletons.
I just think CDP’s current interactions on their methodology and reasoning are a bit offputting.
And Kadayi, yes, I’m aware they would only need to prove themselves to the jury, judge and/or appointed expert(s). But your initial post appeared to imply it was not necessary at all, my apologies.
19/12/2011 at 22:08 Kandon Arc says:
@Kadayi
“From a legal perspective, no legal firm is going to play a shell game over something like this, because invariably people will dispute it and the financial consequences of false accusations would be horrendous. If they say they have a 100% method for tracking, my legal inclination is to accept that as a given. They aren’t gambling on this.”
Davenport Lyons is a pretty huge example that legal firms are well aware how faulty their methodology is. Their business model doesn’t require it to be, all they need to do is take money from those scared into paying and ignore those who challenge them. http://www.solicitorsjournal.com/story.asp?sectioncode=2&storycode=17301&c=3&eclipse_action=getsession&eclipse_action=getsession&eclipse_action=getsession
19/12/2011 at 22:13 Kadayi says:
@Kandon Arc
“Before we took this step, we have investigated the subject, spoke to other developers and publishers using the same method and company we are using, and are convinced that the method used by them is targeting only 100% confirmed piracy act cases. When we investigated the subject, we were made aware and looked into the infamous Davenport case, and again, we are convinced the methods used in our case are not going to hurt innocent people. After all the months since release piracy of The Witcher 2 was tracked, not a single person denied act of piracy when addressed with that subject. At least not to our knowledge.”
19/12/2011 at 22:17 Kandon Arc says:
@ Kadayi
Yes and? They have given us no evidence to suggest that their methodology is any more accurate than Davenport Lyons was. They probably can’t as I’d imagine that the legal firms write NDA’s into their contracts. Until they give a full explanation of how they prove guilt, I can only go on the established practices of the industry.
19/12/2011 at 22:21 Drinking with Skeletons says:
@Kandon Arc:
On the one hand, you’re right: the law firms don’t really need to care about how correct they are if they are confident they can just scare people into paying. But if the innocent actually contest false accusations–y’know, exert their rights–then the scheme fails.
Everything CDP have said suggests that they are using the company as a middleman and are actively involved in determining the veracity of these findings. That no one has come forth about being innocent victims is telling, especially since so many people on the internet are inclined to be supportive of them and the matter is one of proof.
19/12/2011 at 22:29 Kandon Arc says:
@Drinking with Skeletons
“On the one hand, you’re right: the law firms don’t really need to care about how correct they are if they are confident they can just scare people into paying. But if the innocent actually contest false accusations–y’know, exert their rights–then the scheme fails.”
No, they just drop the law suit and move on.
“Everything CDP have said suggests that they are using the company as a middleman and are actively involved in determining the veracity of these findings. That no one has come forth about being innocent victims is telling, especially since so many people on the internet are inclined to be supportive of them and the matter is one of proof.”
The phrase; “At least not to our knowledge.” suggests the exact opposite to me. After all there’s no way their legal team has the manpower to deal with a mass mailing campaign; which is why there are law firms that specialise in this.
Furthermore many will pay even if they are innocent because to many people 750 euros is better than months dealing with a court case.
19/12/2011 at 22:43 Wulf says:
What I’ve learned today:
People are stupid about technology.
Knowledge that’s been validated today:
People are incredibly stupid about technology.
/sigh
Gamers, what will I do with you?
Anyway, the problem here is that this ‘system’ that they have is rife with the potential for false positives. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say that every mail they send has a 90% likelihood of being a false positive, and a 10% likelihood of actually hitting a pirate.
Here’s why:
- Unsecured routers.
- Hacked routers that were only secured by WEP.
- So-called ‘friends/neighbours’ who’ve figured out a router’s security.
- Malware-based botnets that P2P all sorts of shit around the ‘net.
- And the biggest of all – IP spoofing.
All of these mean that the person whose IP they have could be completely innocent, and given the nature of these things, the likelihood is that they are. Pirates aren’t the brightest people around, of course not, and most of them don’t even know how to apply a crack, but technology has made it easy for them to remain hidden amidst a crowd of innocent people.
What they’re doing here is like placing a bomb in a café. Sure, one of those people might be a spy or a terrorist, and you have a feeling that one of them may just be, but there are lots of innocent people who’ll get caught up in your mad rampage too – and those people will be injured because of your actions. This is the nature of technology, it’s nebulous and unsure, and this is why the Internet remains the free thing it is. It’s nebulous, it’s untrackable, and to make the point: The Internet is ephemeral.
Everyone is assuming that every IP automagically leads to a pirate, but that’s idiocy. You should know better. The fact of the matter is that there’s a 90% chance that that IP address will lead to an innocent person.
Here’s one of the points John was making: I’m a poor person who doesn’t do piracy, and one day I get a threatening letter. I have to seek legal advice, and that legal advice actually costs money. The legal advice may cost almost as much as what they’re asking, so I’m at a loss. I stress over this which affects my health, and finally I decide to fight it for pride alone. So I’m a little more miserable for this, and I’m out some money because of the unethical, unconscionable actions of one particularly dirty little company.
That’s great.
Look, people. This is SOPA all over again. It’s attacking Youtube for the people who upload pirated videos. And if you’re smart enough to grasp why SOPA is a bad thing, then you should bloody well be smart enough to figure out why this is a bad thing. And you have some pretty damn poorly defined ethics if you base this contextually upon who’s committing the crime.
“Oh, it’s the American government doing this thing. That’s bad. We must stop them!”
“Oh, it’s a European developer doing this thing. That’s good. We must support them!”
This is mostly to do with how much people think this will impact them, because one thing I’ve learned about humans in general on my time on this planet is that most humans are really, really frickin’ self-interested. Self-interested navel gazers who spend most of their time not even realising that a world exists outside of their own little sphere. Does that hit close to home? Good! Geez, some of you need some sense knocked into you.
Whether it’s the American government pulling crap like this, or a European developer, it doesn’t matter. This stuff is decidedly NOT COOL. It’s not cool because of the false positives, it’s not cool because it relies on punishing innocent parties for the actions of guilty ones, it’s not cool because the people who’re doing it damn well know what’s going to happen and all they care about is that some people might pay them – pirates or not.
How anyone… anyone can stand by and think that this is okay is beyond me.
Well, why don’t you bloody well go and support SOPA whilst you’re at it?
Either that or wake up and set your contextual ethics aside! It doesn’t matter who’s doing something that may target people who’re innocent of what they’re being damned for, it doesn’t matter what the source is. But if people are going to suffer for the wealth of a company or companies, then that’s something that we should take a stand against. Whether it’s SOPA or CD Projekt RED.
And frankly, that contextual ethics like this exist in our little subculture disgust me.
Really, I want one of these days for this little group of gamers I’m a part of to actually make me able to say that I’m proud to be a gamer, rather than to say that I’m disgusted with most gamers.
19/12/2011 at 22:50 Kadayi says:
@Kandon Arc
“They have given us no evidence to suggest that their methodology is any more accurate than Davenport Lyons was.”
Why do they need to give ‘us’ evidence? They’ve clearly explained their approach & shown CDP their methodology and CDP are convinced as to the legitimacy of it (that’s why they’ve given them the work). If there is a question over that approach it’s something that needs to be brought up in court by someone who has received a demand, and then independent experts can then be called in by a judge to ascertain the veracity of their methodology if it’s under dispute.
19/12/2011 at 23:05 Sheng-ji says:
Oh wulf, once again we disagree!
Firstly, I’d like you to justify your 90% 10% split, because I imagine it also to be a 90% 10% split, but the other way around. Here’s why. 90% of gamers I know, from a video game club started in the mid 80′s and hosting a diverse range of backgrounds do not know what an IP address is. Nearly all of then cheerfully admit to piracy. Now given that 90% of 50 or so gamers don’t know what an IP address is, when they hit that bit torrent link, what do you suppose the chances are that they’ve adequately shielded it?
Now, lets look at your equation of this to SOPA. I disagree – the thing is, until a court has ordered a pirate to pay money, the pirate doesn’t have to do a damn thing. Even then, there are ways, if he is genuinely impoverished to have the compensation cancelled.
SOPA – the problem everyone has with it is that it happens without any kind of fair trial. The websites are shut down merely on the say so of a coorporation. Do you see the difference? It would be likr CDP being able to accuse you of piracy and take money from your bank account without any comeback from you, without that fair trial.
And please, if you live in a country where there is no legal support, no free legal advise, etc etc then I feel bad for you. Most countries in the world – even North god damned Korea have a legal aid system.
19/12/2011 at 23:08 Kandon Arc says:
@Kadayi
You’re right. They owe us no explanation at all. However as a spokesman for CDP has taken the time to engage with John (which I fully appreciate), it is clear that CDP wants to justify its actions to its customers. I’m just trying to explain that until CDP give us an answer better than “We’ve checked them out and they’re cool” than I have no way of knowing that their new company is any better than DL. And unless there’s some super secret way of 100% accurate testing that only these legal firms know about, rather than their traditional methods that have been repeatedly criticised, then I can’t with good faith continue to support CDP.
19/12/2011 at 23:11 Drinking with Skeletons says:
@Wulf:
I don’t think anyone has suggested that this process is 100% accurate (except for CDP and their mystery partners, who are delusional and lying, respectively). What some of us have been saying is that what they’re doing is neither illegal nor unethical.
Again, offering an out-of-court settlement is not illegal and not uncommon. CDP is not knocking down people’s doors, strapping them into chairs, and then interrogating them beneath naked light bulbs for hours on end. If a person does not pay, then CDP can either drop it or enact legal proceedings. And this is a very simple matter of proof! Did they download the file from someplace other than a legitimate online retailer? Then they pirated it! Did they not? Then there’s no way that there can be evidence to show that they did, and nothing will happen to them! In fact, their accusers will probably be forced to pay damages!
The people who get up in arms over this kind of stuff are the people who don’t believe that anyone ever does anything wrong but that no one should exercise their rights anyway because the system is inherently biased against them. Wrongly accused of a crime? Don’t defend yourself, just pay the fine, because defending yourself is a pain in the ass! And if you go to trial, these lawyers will magically generate incontrovertible proof against you! Besides that, who has the time or resources to go to trial, even though if you are innocent there is always a very real possibility of getting damages for your trouble and, if you are the defendant, you have the right to a court-appointed lawyer? Who has time to exercise the rights that their ancestors, friends, neighbors, etc. have protested, fought, and died for?
19/12/2011 at 23:29 Kandon Arc says:
“Who has time to exercise the rights that their ancestors, friends, neighbors, etc. have protested, fought, and died for?”
People desperately trying to work as another recession approaches? Being accused of a crime is not a nice experience, particularly when you have no idea what’s going on, and a well respected legal firm is informing you that they have evidence against you. People routinely fall for all kinds of scams, but that doesn’t suddenly mean the scammers are being ethical does it? At the end of the day I don’t believe it’s ethical for a company to knowingly threaten innocent people with a law suit and neither does the SRA, which is why Davenport Lyons and ACS Law have been called on it.
19/12/2011 at 23:32 FunkyBadger3 says:
To be fair, Kandon, ACS were done because they never had any intention of taking anyone to court and dropped every case whenever there was any resistance from the accused.
No evidence of that happening in this instance.
19/12/2011 at 23:33 Sheng-ji says:
The argument is surely for better education as to the law and your rights.
Even the fact you wrote “Being accused of a crime” is proof that there is not enough knowledge on the legal process in the public’s hands.
See the bit I wrote above in capitals if you are confused as to why I’m calling you ignorant Kandon
Anyway, I know it’s not nice, being accused of something you didn’t do…
Welcome to one of the drawbacks of being part of a society. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rDjRauwE2AQ#t=30s
19/12/2011 at 23:35 Kadayi says:
@Kandon Arc
I don’t think they are here to justify their actions, more clarify the situation. Personally I have zero issues with them pursuing pirates (piracy is a problem for the games industry). If they are confident that the approach used works, until such time as some false positives actually show up I really don’t see the problem tbh. Right now there’s a bunch of screamagers in this thread declaring that ‘it just can’t be done’ but until that’s been demonstrated in a court of law with reference to an actual case, it’s simply speculation on their part. Please feel free to continue get all ‘righteous’ over this though.
19/12/2011 at 23:45 Drinking with Skeletons says:
@Kandon Arc:
But at some point we have to say that citizens have some responsibility for their own well-being, even if it’s inconvenient, disruptive, or whatever. What if CDP’s only recourse was to officially press charges? Right now we wouldn’t have a bunch of people complaining about letters, we’d have a bunch of people going to court, no questions asked, and I imagine that the accused would ultimately be far, far worse off than they are now.
And think about it: CDP is being almost infinitely more reasonable about this than many (most?) companies would be. You think that EA would even respond to a personal inquiry, let alone provide the frank and open response that our good Mr. Walker received? For all the talk of them being shady extortionists, they are being far more open and upfront than they have to be, and, in my experience, that’s a strong indicator that they’ve thought this through more than their detractors would like to admit. Confidence and openness are signs of strength, of having done what you were supposed to do and being able to prove it. If they suddenly go quiet when asked about this, I’ll be more inclined to think poorly of them.
(EDIT: I realize that “Pressing Charges” isn’t the right term for a civil offense case, but I got caught up while writing the post. I’ll leave it there to show my ignorance, but a more correct phrasing, if perhaps not the most technically accurate, would be “Take them to Court.” Apologies.)
19/12/2011 at 23:54 Kandon Arc says:
@FunkyBadger
This is why I said in another comment that I would have liked to see John ask if they had taken anyone to court yet. I haven’t heard about it if they have and can only conclude thus far that they are using the same tactics. Of course when I see court cases crop up about this I will happily change my mind, though it won’t assure me that their methods are any more accurate than others.
@Sheng-Ji
I was speaking from the point of view of one receiving a letter. After looking at the ones DL sent out, I would sure feel like I had committed a crime if I had received it.
If this was simply a case of an honest mistake on the part of these companies than your comments about ‘life sucks’ might be applicable, but these companies are intentionally targeting innocent people. Fine, shit happens, and while it would be lovely if everyone knew better, it doesn’t mean that these guys are anything other than tools for taking advantage of people’s ignorance.
@Kadayi
Okay, you take CDP’s word for it; that’s fine. However;
1) I have never said I support, agree with or defend piracy, nor that I fail to recognise it as a problem.
2) It’s not scaremongering to point out that these practices have historically been very dodgy in practice.
3) Such a classy last sentence.
EDIT:@Dancing with Skeletons
I feel I should make something clear – my main problem is with the legal companies that make a business out of this practice. I am against CDP only because they employ them, not because I believe they carry out these actions personally. I’ve already said how I appreciate CDP’s candidness on this; however that doesn’t mean that I can accept answers like “We’re sure it’s 100% accurate” without an explanation of why.
I would prefer it if they took every case to court:
1) They would lose most of them, as judges have typically looked on IP addresses as insufficient evidence of guilt.
2) No one would pay up out of ignorance.
These reasons are why they don’t go to court though.
19/12/2011 at 23:56 Sheng-ji says:
@Drinking with Skeletons – well apart from joining the ranks of people whose comments are always to be read, as everything you say is important and put reasonably along with Lars W…. something and someone else – don’t worry about it – I’ve done that plenty too! I really get annoyed with the:
“it’s like” …. then something overly emotional and completely out of all sense of proportion type comment.
Usually equating a civil dispute to violent crime!
@ Kandon
intentionally targeting innocent people
Come on, you don’t think that’s a little over the top?
And if the extent of the collateral damage is some hurt feelings and a few minutes of your time penning an email pointing them in the direction of your receipt, who cares. Its worth it for the right to complain to a company when they’ve wronged you.
Or am I intentionally targeting poor innocent Schwepps when my 10 pack of coke has an empty can and I write them an angry letter (It was the fault of some freeloader in a shop)
Also the court process is long – it cold be 6 months before the first cases are heard
19/12/2011 at 23:57 FunkyBadger3 says:
I haven’t heard about it if they have and can only conclude thus far that they are using the same tactics.
Lets be perfectly straight here and say you choose to draw that inference. it’s far from the only one. Could be that everyone has paid up, for example. Given the pace of information exchange though, I’m sure it will become apparent one way or the other fairly soon.
Chuckles, just noticed this upthread, most people are: “Self-interested navel gazers who spend most of their time not even realising that a world exists outside of their own little sphere.”
Wowsers.
20/12/2011 at 01:08 rocketman71 says:
This is the mafia all over again, plain and simple. Wulf totally nailed it, except I think his 90% is too high. But as long as the innocent percentage is higher than 0%, this is completely unacceptable. Fact: person in a car connects to a wi-fi, cracks it (it may take two minutes for a standard router), and downloads some game from there. A month later, the letter arrives: pay or else. HOW CAN ANYONE DEFEND THAT?.
For those that can (Kadayi and sheng-ji, unsurprisingly), I’d love to see you in that situation. Do you guys know that Davenport-Lyons even sued a grandmother who didn’t even have an internet connection?. AND SHE PAID.
John may not want to say it, but I’ll do. This is blackmail for some / many / whatever percentage it is of the recipients of that letter. And I hope that anyone that is OK with that receives ten of them.
20/12/2011 at 01:52 Sheng-ji says:
I’d simply write them a very polite letter showing my GOG receipt.
Now let’s say I hadn’t bought the game (nor pirated it) – I’d request their evidence.
Now if they don’t send me any evidence, case closed, they now have nothing to present to court as I’m sure you understand, refusal to show me evidence invalidates it for submission.
If they did, and let’s not be fooled – everyone EXCEPT CDP have claimed that the evidence MUST be IP based, so it could be anything – a doped copy of the game reporting back to base etc etc, I’d prepare a robust and straightforward defence. I’d also fax them a filled out counterclaim form for the small claims court, along with a letter requesting £89 for my time – that sum was chosen based on my estimate of 2 hours work put into this so far (£32p/h) and the cost of my as yet unsent small claims court application (£25). I would explain that this is my home working rates, should they follow through with taking me to court, my counter claim could rise drastically as I would have to find childcare and as a heavily disabled individual, getting out and about is significantly harder for me, so every hour I have to spend out of home will add £250 to my claim. Added to the fact that they will now see that my defence, which I have to submit to them blows their “proof” wide open, they will have no choice but to drop their claim and pay me £64 in compensation for my time.
See, it’s not rocket science – Oh and by the way – do you have a reputable source for your claim that a grandma paid? I would suggest perhaps she should apply to whatever state she lives in for a carers allowance – she clearly need help and sadly it sounds like her mental faculties have faded to the point that she needs assistance with day to day life.
Oh and just for kicks and giggles, lets do the scenario where I had actually pirated the game and their evidence is conclusive.
I’d phone them with a counter offer – £xxx, the maximum I can afford without leaving me in debt or without food, heat etc. I’d be polite, courteous and demonstrate regret. I’d emphasise that it was a mistake and I would most certainly never do it again. I’d emphasise my personal situation, sending them photocopies of my bank statements to back up the fact I could not spare any more. They now know that if they press for more in court a judge will argue that I had adequately demonstrated I could not be reasonably expected to pay any more and thus it will be thrown out of court – so they wouldn’t have much choice but to accept my offer.
I could easily engineer that offer to be about the cost of the game ;) I mean I’m a pirate, I’m sure I’m up to a bit of light number fiddling and a few white lies right?
Note that one of the things the mafia do is commit criminal acts to get their own way/earn money – these lawyers are not committing criminal acts, no matter how much you squeeze your eyes together and wish upon a star that they are. Little rocketman, if you wish hard enough, just maybe the world will be just the way you want it to be.
You know, I saw the saddest banner above a house the other day – Happy 30th Grandma. Now apart from being a horrendous example of teen pregnancies, it neatly makes the point that using an undefined term like “Grandma” while very emotional, doesn’t necessarily mean Old Aged Pensioner.
So anyway, back to your final flung little tantrum. I too hope I get ten letters, that’s £640 of easy money for me, plus a few thousand for harassment – Just after christmas, what could be more perfect – I might take that winter trip to New York I’ve been dreaming about – maybe LA too – and I really should go to Yellowstone… Oooh Vegas too…. hmmm please wish harder little rocketman, I’d love ten letters please!
20/12/2011 at 02:30 Deano2099 says:
So far none of these claims have gone to court. I’d actually bet they won’t prove a single case in court actually. If that happens, then this whole process is truly despicable.
But I think what’s important is that in 6 months John follows this up and sees the result. Because people will have forgotten by then. And it’s only when we know if they genuinely intended to take people court, or to just threaten them, that we’ll know how bad this is.
Still, nice to see that 800k is pocket change to them isn’t it?
20/12/2011 at 02:34 Sheng-ji says:
Deano – I think it’s far more likely that they accept tiny amounts of compensation compared to what they’re asking – see my example above as to how these things play out.
Also, that really was some poor journalism by RPS – and you guys know I don’t normally criticize you – I’d expect that kind of statement:
“And this is why it looks like a cash grab, despite CDP’s protestations that they aren’t making serious money from this. (Although, let’s be clear – if it is 1000 letters, and the fine is €750, that’s still three quarters of a million Euro. I’m not so sure that’s a figure to be so easily dismissed.)”
from Kokatu or the daily mail, but not you guys, come on, integrity before riling emotion!
20/12/2011 at 03:07 Consumatopia says:
Wow, Sheng-ji really types a whole lot of words (in multiple edits!) completely missing the point. If you received one of these letters and you’re innocent, the fear that should run through your mind isn’t “oh no, I have to spend time responding to this” (or even money, because, hey, maybe you want to get legal advice from someone more credible than Sheng-ji’s barely coherent trolling) it’s “oh no, what if I can’t prove to CDP or a court’s satisfaction that I didn’t pirate this?” Sure, call up CDP and plead your case for a bit–but if they don’t buy it, there’s a chance you could pay much more than €750 if you still want to fight it. How much of a chance? Heck if I know, but I’d need someone more credible than comments in an RPS thread to give me advice on that matter.
The uncertainty this imposes on the potentially innocent is the problem here.
Mailing automated demands to thousands of people to pay you €750 or face the threat of paying much more, while apparently legal, is a scummy thing to do. It’s actually a bit scummier if the threat itself isn’t really a serious one.
I’d have to hear more about what CDP is doing here before I purchase anything else from GoG.
20/12/2011 at 03:41 Sheng-ji says:
Let’s make one thing clear – I’m not giving legal advice – I’m giving my opinion. I was asked what I’d do – in a roundabout way and I responded – I don’t need you to believe in my credibility, I’m happily confident enough in my knowledge not to care if you approve of it.
So the point was that I should be scared if I got one of these letters, yet you criticise me because I wouldn’t be scared. Or I’ve missed the point because I wouldn’t be scared. Whichever it is.
But in my opinion, the civil law system is pretty good through out the western world, so I wouldn’t be scared. Now I’m sorry that my confidence threatens you to the point that you have to call me names, but that is my opinion and I won’t change it because you hold a different opinion to me.
And here’s the dirty little secret about debates – you don’t have to change your mind either – we can put forward our differing points of view without forcing ours on our opponents!
So please don’t take my advice – as it was never meant to be advice. However if you can prove that the civil law system in my country doesn’t work this way, present your evidence. (The UK)
Or take the debate where you wish to go.
And for the record, I edit my posts up until the point where someone replies, otherwise it would just me me replying to me replying to me etc. I will always, and go ahead and search if you care enough and don’t believe me edit a post back if someone’s response ends up not making sense because of an edit I’ve made – I like to do things properly on these forums and post editing deliberately to spoil the point of someone below is a dirty trick
20/12/2011 at 04:20 Consumatopia says:
Still missing the point: the problem isn’t that you’re confident, the problem is that you don’t seem to understand why it might be reasonable for other people to lack this confidence–in other words, why these might be intimidating threats, even to innocent people. The problem is the intimidation factor, not the eventual legal outcome.
Well, that’s not the only problem. The other problem is that your last couple posts have been dripping with unwarranted contempt for other people in this thread. You’ll even stoop to “bad journalism” because the writer doesn’t agree with you. Perhaps you should learn your own dirty secret.
Re: multiple edits–didn’t intend to imply dishonesty, merely verbosity.
20/12/2011 at 04:29 Sheng-ji says:
I have been saying all along, one of the issues here is that we should all have compulsory basic law education -so that when we do, heaven forbid, find ourselves in a position of being accused of something – a crime or a civil infraction that we didn’t do, we understand the process, understand where help can be given to us for free if we need it etc.
But, I’m sorry, that statement by John shocked me, it is sensationalism journalism – maybe not at it’s worst, but it’s not good. I’ve come to expect better. It’s not that he doesn’t agree with me, it’s that he ignores the very likely option that many people who are paying, pay much less than the 750 Euros, and throws terms like three quarters of a million around.
Lastly (last edit too) when someone wishes that (what clearly to them is a horrible thing) to happen to me, I do treat them with a little contempt.
His whole post was basically – I hope nasty things happen to you. I feel like he treated me with contempt and anger – I only feel like I disrespected him to be honest.
20/12/2011 at 05:02 Consumatopia says:
General legal education might not be a bad idea, but it only does so much good. We have general mathematics education, but we still make pyramid schemes illegal. Most people would benefit legal advice when they receive a threatening letter from a major corporation. Not all of those people will qualify for help (and if every company with pirated materials was issuing these letters, society couldn’t afford to give out that much free legal advice.)
I don’t think it’s John’s job to speculate on how much more or less people end up paying on average.
Your position is that nasty things should happen to lots of other people. Except pensioners. Pick on grandma all you want, but leave genuinely old people alone, I guess. Except you don’t think these things are actually nasty. Except it still offends you when other people wish these non-nasty things upon you. Offense that lasts for many paragraphs. Well, whatever, but just as we shouldn’t take any of your words as legal advice, I don’t think I’ll look to you for discussion advice, either.
20/12/2011 at 05:23 Sheng-ji says:
Funny because I thought it was exactly Johns job to ensure he is fully aware of the facts before writing about it rather than reaching for the sound byte friendly extreme, even in an opinion piece.
I guess we disagree on many things, and you clearly don’t understand my position at all – that’s my failing – maybe I was so verbose my point was drowned in words.
My position is not, as you assert, that nasty things should happen to people. My position is that a letter like this is not actually a nasty thing to happen. Stop assuming people receiving them are incapable of standing up for themselves. That is both insulting and patronising.
Also I hold the position that although this may not have been dealt with in a perfect way, it is a refreshing change to the DRM attitude which punishes honest customers and does not work. It is my position that even if only a few people are scared off from piracy, it has already proved it works better than DRM and should be considered as a valid alternative.
Finally it is my position to applaud CDP for trying something different, no matter how it ends up.
And on the subject of your “barely coherent” last paragraph
If someone believes it is nasty and then wishes it on me – even though I am well aware it isn’t all that bad – their intent was to wish a horrible thing on me. Intent is everything.
If you slipped a liquid into my drink believing it to be cyanide, when it was almond essence – your intent was to murder me and even though all you did was make my water taste more pleasant. I would be very angry at you because you intended to murder me!
So it was when rocketman wished something on me he clearly believed to be a nasty thing to happen. Even when it was not. In my opinion.
Look mum, only two edits!
I also don’t think you grasp what the problem with pyramid schemes are – or I’ve misunderstood you because you seem to be saying despite widespread mathematics education, we are still foolish enough to outlaw a business practice which relies on conning a lot of people.
20/12/2011 at 06:00 Consumatopia says:
Any “facts” about money collected by CDP at this point is only speculation.
“My position is not, as you assert, that nasty things should happen to people. My position is that a letter like this is not actually a nasty thing to happen. ”
I understand you’re saying this. You don’t understand that not everyone has (or could ever have) the same bold confidence in their ability to deal with the legal system that you do. Having interacted with you at length, I’m not sure how warranted that confidence is, but that’s your call.
This is intimidating behavior, probably directed at least some innocents. Honestly, if this is the alternative, I would prefer DRM.
This thing being wished upon you, nasty or not, is exactly what you advocated happen to other people, so for you to take such great offense is kind of comical. It’s like rocketman saw you slipping the liquid into other people’s drinks and tried to slip it into yours.
Despite (purely hypothetical!) general legal education, I still think we should punish–in the marketplace if not the courts–intimidation of the innocent even if the innocent “should” know better.
I think I’ve repeated myself enough. I understood what you were saying. You’re good at typing! Have a good morning over there.
20/12/2011 at 06:21 Sheng-ji says:
We can certainly look at records of hundreds of thousands of similar compensation requests and look at the compensation actually paid. You know.. someone some where may have bundled that information into an easy to access resource designed especially for journalists… Say the government run publications on the subject…
Anyway..
It’s like rocketman caught me slipping liquid into peoples drinks and thought it was cyanide – yet I knew all along it was almond – He then tried to slip it into my drink – he tried to murder me, I wasn’t trying to murder them.
And that is as far as I will take that particular analogy, have no fears.
So before you leave the conversation – how would you regulate the sending of letters warning of civil action? Because clearly you don’t want each individual entity (company or individual) freedom to compose the letter in the way they see fit, just incase a few people have their feelings hurt, or feel intimidated etc
And let’s be clear – if you read some words on a piece of paper and it hurts, frightens or intimidates you – you have the power inside yourself not too feel that way, you just don’t feel hurt, intimidated or whatever – it really is that simple.
Feeling intimidated is not the same as being intimidated. I am a petite woman who spends 99% of my time in a wheelchair. I have a baby, who right now travels on my wheelchair. My face is generally at hip level. The other day, in the post office queue, a large man stood very, very close to me – intrusively so. I felt intimidated. Yet he was not trying to intimidate me. I did manage to not feel intimidated, I just imagined what it must be like to be him – he probably hadn’t noticed me!
So I’ll clarify my question to you: what controls should we put in place to ensure that some people do not potentially feel intimidated. I put forward my answer – better education so they realise they are not actually being intimidated. What’s yours?
20/12/2011 at 07:19 tenseiga says:
Ex pirate here. Go easy on pirates, some of us don’t (didn’t) have the money and sometimes the damn thing isnt even available in my region! (Fallout3)
Having said that the most appropriate thing I can think of is a person sneaking into a movie theater and watching a movie and is caught at the end of it. The manager of the movie theater demands 10x the price of the ticket or a lengthy court battle costing a lot of money. What WOULD you do? Charge for the movie? charge 2x the price of the movie? I mostly have a problem with private corporations setting arbitrary “fines” along with legal threats of more fines. Today this publisher is asking 10x, tomorrow publisher might ask for 100x the price of the game? If the government inmy country says ‘you can only charge a max of 5x the price of the product stolen” I would accept that as the price I have to pay for stealing something. Because for priacy and regular theft ONLY the government and NOT the property owner can set the fines.
20/12/2011 at 07:32 Sheng-ji says:
tenseiga, do you not see though that they can ask for what they want – you don’t have to pay it – if you knew you were absolutely bang to rights and wanted to avoid court, you would negotiate with them. That’s how it works! They will try to get as much out of you as possible, so of course they start high!
Remember they are not fines and if they use the word fine on a letter, they will get a large slap on the wrist – only the government can fine you!
It does seem that even CDP want to “go easy” on the ones they catch but have no money – it seems they are targeting the guys who are comfortably well off, who have plenty of disposable income yet still pirated their game.
20/12/2011 at 08:53 tenseiga says:
Sheng-ji,
Hey you know what that is? Extortion/blackmail! “I know you did something wrong, you could go to the cops and face the fines or you could pay me and we could keep this between us.” Although this brand of justice is useful for very minor petty cases it cant be done on the scale that it is being done on here. Scary looking lawyers and legal notices and court summons and threats from big companies IS getting out of line. He says they are regulated but i really dont see regulation anywhere. I am all for fining pirates and punishing them for their crime as prescribed by law and government (which is the only enforcement body I will accept).
Note: I really appreciate DRM free games and the efforts this company is going to to try and protect innocents (if its true. They are still much better than UBISoft etc) but I cant accept a big guy bullying a little guy.
20/12/2011 at 09:04 RobF says:
But *people* don’t work like that. You’re presenting how you’d deal with things as some sort of “this is how it works!” and it’s not.
People pay because people get scared easily because they’re people. They don’t think “ooh, you know, I’ll just argue this”, they shit bricks and pay. CAB’s are full of people who end up in situations like this, people who end up paying off debts that aren’t theirs, people who end up paying fines that aren’t theirs and it is never ok for people to be placed in that situation.
20/12/2011 at 09:09 Sheng-ji says:
Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal information true or false unless you pay them money. That’s not happening here.
Extortion is obtaining or attempting to obtain money through coercion.
Coercion usually refers to the threat of physical violence, duress etc but can involve threats of a non violent nature, in very rare cases.
I guess you’re claiming that the threat is of further financial losses if they win in court. I think if you attempted to report them to the police for extortion, you would be told in no uncertain terms that it wouldn’t count as a threat because they will not be the ones to penalise you financially and what they are telling you happens to be true.
So really they are not guilty of extortion either.
What they are guilty of is not informing you of your rights. They don’t tell you that they stand almost zero chance of beating you in court. They don’t tell you that if they don’t beat you, they will be liable for your legal costs.
But no law firm ever will do that – it’s your responsibility in this world to know your own rights!!!
20/12/2011 at 09:13 Sheng-ji says:
If you are so timid that you would pay a debt that wasn’t yours, then you need help to survive in this world. Fortunately, that help is there. Last July, when I used the CAB, I had to make an appointment, I got one the same day – they’re not exactly full. It does take a rather splendid level of dimness to not even try to challenge it.
Seriously, it is OK if you believe someone has infringed your civil rights to challenge them. (Notice how that statement now works both ways)
I agree it’s not a great thing to get a letter like this, but it happens. Of course we could all go back to local, personal service and drop 10 years from our life expectancies again – sure, and guess what – still get accused of things we didn’t do!
And let’s be really honest now – I mean really honest. If you use IP masking software and pretend your IP is different to that which really it is – you are basically committing identity fraud. That innocent person who got the letter, got it because of the pirates action, the pirate trying to conceal who they are. It is the pirates fault. Nuff said.
20/12/2011 at 09:25 RobF says:
No, they don’t need “help to survive in this world” because it’s a perfectly natural reaction to being threatened. I’m happy you’re above all that, I’m sad that you can’t appreciate that not everyone lives up to some completely arbitrary standard you’ve decided upon.
20/12/2011 at 09:38 Sheng-ji says:
Well, I guess you should all be thankful that there are people in the world like me – After the conman has ripped off 5 people, I’ll be the one who gets him convicted. I’ll be the one who stops him ripping of anyone else.
20/12/2011 at 09:44 RobF says:
What *are* you talking about now?
20/12/2011 at 09:58 Sheng-ji says:
Apparently it’s perfectly natural to pay a demand that comes through the door, even when you don’t actually owe it – according to you. I would suggest that makes fertile ground for conmen – they could just send a whole bunch of letters off and reap the rewards. Then they send one to me and I challenge it – stops them in their tracks. I uncover the evidence, report them to the police, and thats a few less people who will get conned!
Of course that’s not the way the world is, because normal people don’t pay bills they don’t owe, or fines they don’t owe or anything else. The special people who would do that need help. It’s not normal, by any stretch of the imagination.
20/12/2011 at 10:10 RobF says:
I hate to break it to you but people doing irrational or bizarre things is, actually, fairly normal. It’s one of those “people” things.
20/12/2011 at 10:16 Sheng-ji says:
Might I suggest that paying 750 Euros that you don’t owe is so bizzare and / or irrational that, in order to stop that person doing something as serious and damaging to their wellbeing again, they should be given care and support – perhaps long term care in the community.
20/12/2011 at 10:28 RobF says:
You can suggest whatever you choose, it won’t make a damn jot of difference to how people behave and it won’t make you in any way right.
20/12/2011 at 10:35 Sheng-ji says:
The law agree’s with me, I guess you can continue to rage against the machine whilst simultaneously patronising those who you seem to think are incapable of defending themselves, but one day you’ll have to grow up.
Oh, I’m sorry – was your mum or a close family member or friend conned and lost their life’s savings. I’m sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so blunt with you. There there, maybe if you had of phoned her a bit more, you may have prevented it, but it’s not worth blaming yourself now.
20/12/2011 at 10:53 RobF says:
Again, I’m forced to ask… what are you talking about now?
20/12/2011 at 11:23 Kadayi says:
2) It’s not scaremongering to point out that these practices have historically been very dodgy in practice.
It is when they’ve already addressed those issues in the article.
20/12/2011 at 11:42 Lightningproof says:
Sheng-ji, these stupid and irrelevant analogies you enjoy pulling out of the vast green fields of your imagination may make sense in whatever bizarre reality you appear to inhabit, in which people can apparently turn emotions as base and instinctual as fear and intimidation on and off like a faucet. Here, though, they just make you seem like a condescending, ivory tower prig. Debate with a bit more grace, thanks.
20/12/2011 at 13:54 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
Tell me one thing.
If you’d be hired by someone for a month and that person would refuse you to pay your wage that you should get according to agreement between you, would get 20x compensation for him not paying you?
Or actually, since work for that person is your sole source of income and that person modified your behaviour by promising to pay you and had you work for them personally, it’s much worse, so would you get a 50x compensation?
If not, why do you support such outrageous discriminating privileges that the copyright lobby bought for themselves?
20/12/2011 at 14:32 Sheng-ji says:
@Lightningproof – I will try my best to explain it in a graceful way. I can’t promise to not come across as ivory towered or condescending because such perceptions come from your own mind.
Firstly let’s establish the kind of emotions one cannot control. You mentioned yourself the base emotion. The base emotion is the sudden gutwrenching fear we get if suddenly confronted by a snarling bear, or any beast – if we notice an 8 legged arachnid near us in the shadows, if we are to suddenly and unexpectedly start to fall etc.
These base emotions are generated by signals reaching an area of the brain called the Amygdala. The Amygdala is an interesting part of the brain. It is close to the spinal cord, thus signals can reach it quickly from external stimuli – signals from our senses for example. It also attaches to the hypothalamus – the part of the brain which controls our sympathetic nervous system allowing it to quickly issue responses to external stimuli – for example: See spider on hand – shake hand to flick spider away.
Most interestingly of all it connects to and indeed controls our memories. Any new memories are formed through the Amygdala and thus all memories have emotion attached to them.
Now, moving away from these base instant reaction emotions, which to a large extent are genetic, we need to look at emotions which are generated through other means – namely our memories. Why am I so sure that there can be emotions like fear which don’t come directly from our senses – well in this case it’s easy! The fear is being generated from reading a piece of paper. No-one in the world has a genetic fear of black squiggles on a white sheet – so the fear must come from what is read. Reading is one of the more complex tasks our brains allow us to do, so the signals have already been extensively chewed over in the brain before the fear is generated.
The only other way then of generating emotion is for the Amygdala to access other area’s of our brain and ask them “What should I feel”. Obviously, your memories is one area asked, but also your logic and reasoning area’s are asked too. In fact, pretty much every area of your brain is referenced before the Amygdala chooses the emotion you feel.
Right, that’s a lot of quite dry stuff, so let’s just keep that in context while I get to the real meat of my point. That, except for those base emotions, you can pretty much at will select the emotion you will feel at any given moment.
I would not be surprised to learn that humans have been controlling their emotions since before we could be classified as humans. (Creationists may want to ignore that statement – it’s not important to the rest of my post) How else did early man face mammoths with little more than weighted sticks. But focusing on the here and now, I would like to examine the mind control techniques of buddhist monks and modern western medicine. They both work exactly the same way, though they use different language which may please different people.
The Buddhists, at least those who live in Shan Xian monastery – with whom I am most familiar would tell you that every emotion you feel is thanks to your addiction to that emotion. It’s easy to understand this when we think of the emotional states of happiness, joy, peace etc but surely no-one is addicted to feeling angry or frustrated?
Well the Buddhists argue that yes you are and that these emotional states release chemicals in your body which are desired by receptors in your body. By allowing the “anger” chemicals to interact with these receptors, you feed them and more appear, giving you a stronger hit next time you are angry. This becomes a vicious cycle.
They would train you in meditation techniques which interrupt your emotional state and by starving the receptors, they die away until you have no more left and are instead feeding the ones which thrive on positive emotions.
Eventually they will tell you that you will reach a state where you realise that all you have to do is not be sad or angry or fearful.
OK so maybe you think that sounds like New Age hokum – not a problem, lets look at the Western medicine version of the same thing. We are going to be looking at the science of Cognative Behavioural Therapy – which I shall refer to as CBT from now on.
CBT has great success in treating depression, anger issues etc. It is very much replacing psych led therapy for these issues, leaving them to focus on the more seriously mentally ill. CBT, without getting into the science behind it, is goal oriented – if you have anger issues, you will set yourself goals to achieve each week.
For example, you may set yourself the goal to not scream and shout in your car if you are cut up. Achieving your goals week on week allow you to slowly change the way you deal with life until eventually you no longer have the issues for which you needed it.
Note that the basis of the therapy involves you choosing a different emotion to feel – when that car cut’s you up, you are not going to feel angry as that makes you scream and shout – you may feel frustrated instead – thats a good first step.
Now that I have shown two different ways in which people learn that they actually have full control of their emotions, I’d like to offer you the little tidbit that you already can completely control your emotions. You will do something in your life – maybe you have a dangerous or nervewracking job – Pilot, Stage actor, stock broker, ER Nurse etc – maybe you have a hobby which meets that description – martial arts, paragliding etc. Maybe you just like to walk close to the edge of a steep drop when you walk your dog – whatever it is – you already can control your emotions in a certain circumstance where most others would go to pieces! You already can proove to yourself this can be done and if it can be done in that aspect of your life, why not all aspects?
I hope I have made my point with more grace. Thankyou for reading all of this!
20/12/2011 at 14:39 Sheng-ji says:
@Zrzosaar Xun 12 – If you had lost your house as a direct result, you may be entitled to a “multiplier” of thousands. If your baby starved to death, 10′s or 100′s of thousands.
20/12/2011 at 14:51 Sooty says:
Sheng-Ji you’re very vocal, and I respect the amount of thought you have put into this issue, but I came here just to say that you could probably turn down the condescension down a few notches. That is, back down a few notches it just went up with your latest lengthy post which I will choose to describe as a diatribe against what you perceive as poor opponents and debates. Of course, if you really have no interest in persuading others and are just sharing your opinion because you enjoy feeling superior or any other reasons, then feel free to continue.
Edit: On a side note, since you’ve been particularly vocal in criticizing John for this piece, I’d just like to share that for myself I am extremely glad that John did this piece and provided a place for conversation to take place.
20/12/2011 at 15:03 Sheng-ji says:
@Sooty – I agree I have been very condescending to some people. I tend to choose my tone based on the tone chosen to address me. Of course that has started to turn into a vicious circle as people react to how I posted previously and I will attempt to stop it.
I would say though, no matter what you think of me an all of the rest of my posts here, that last lengthy post was intended to be nothing but informative. I couldn’t care less whether other peoples opinion agrees with mine on the CDP thing, I was trying to supply the facts so at the very least people could make a better informed opinion, but the last post I really would like you guys to understand that we are not a slave to our emotions and we really can control them! Maybe my post here will probably not ever get through to anyone because of the context it has been posted in, but I promise you, there was nothing bitter about it – It was lengthy because I hold a genuine enthusiasm to share something which can really help people.
EDIT: On the John thing – the rest of the piece was good – it was that one statement I felt was a problem. It has been the first and only time I have criticised him or any writer here – Most posts on the issue I get accused of fanboism as I defend them with some passion against similar criticism.
20/12/2011 at 15:16 Consumatopia says:
Only if you assume that this process will go as previous requests have, which depends very much on the legal strategy and intentions of CDP and whoever they’re working with.
Except nobody tried to murder anyone. He just wished upon you the situation you wished upon others.
I said this above, but I’ll repeat myself “Mailing automated demands to thousands of people to pay you €750 or face the threat of paying much more, while apparently legal, is a scummy thing to do. It’s actually a bit scummier if the threat itself isn’t really a serious one.” I’m not the civil law expert that you apparently think you are, but the way I intend to regulate this is to stop buying from any company doing this.
You spent an great deal of time going over this, but it’s completely irrelevant. If I point a gun at you, and you refuse to be intimidated, that’s great, but I’m still engaged in intimidation. It’s still intimidation even if it’s actually a toy gun. The solution is not general gun identification education so people know not to fear my fake gun, the solution isn’t for people to stop fearing guns, the solution is for me to stop pointing my fake gun at people. If because of some loophole I’m actually legally permitted to keep doing this, then others around me should try to verbally or economically convince me to stop doing that.
20/12/2011 at 15:24 Sheng-ji says:
@Consumatopia Well, I actually think we agree on one thing – One party feeling intimidated or not is entirely disassociated on whether the other party attempted to intimidate the first.
You give the example of a gun – you are attempting to intimidate me whether I feel intimidated or not
I say that whether a recipient of the letters feels intimidated or not, the letters are not intimidation
By the way – I am making a real effort to tone down the condecention, it would help me greatly if you could be less passive aggressive. Thanks :) – I am here refering to statements like “the civil law expert you think you are” etc etc
Also you do understand that pointing a gun at someone comes under criminal law and I have tried to explain endlessly, you can’t compare the two.
20/12/2011 at 15:50 Consumatopia says:
And I’d say that given the large number of people they send these to and the disproportionate potential of the threat, they are. Especially if, as in previous cases, there is no actual intention to go to trial–if you’re just bluffing, essentially.
Okay, I’m guessing you saw my failed reply. The second time around I thought better of a couple things I said. Apparently that was a mistake.
In any event, you are one of the last people I would ever take advice from. You have not demonstrated behavior worth emulating.
Also, whether something is engaged in intimidation is not a matter of legal definition–at no point did I assume that criminal and civil law are equivalent. I would just say that the legal system has many problems, as any formally defined legal system must in our moral world, and therefore we should rely on social norms outside the system to fill in the gaps.
To put it another way, there are lots of legal ways to be a jerk. Society is better if we avoid giving money to jerks, even the legal ones.
20/12/2011 at 16:01 Sooty says:
@Sheng-Ji: Fair enough, and thank you for making the effort!
@Consumatopia: And thank you for bringing back the issue of ethics, though it’s underestandably discussed in less depth since it is incredibly murky territory. Your latest posts seem to suggest that you believe that intimidation is wrong, but yet “intimidation” is not a fixed concept (as Sheng-Ji handily shows by denying that the letters are intimidation). Your earlier posts instead suggest that it is the fact that some innocents could be intimidated that is the problem with CDP’s actions, and to this I agree.
The mere possibility that CDP could harm (or perhaps just simply inconvenience) innocents is already problematic for their case. CDP clearly believes that their actions are justified, but they fail to demonstrate any acknowledgement that they are transferring burden off their customers onto people who may be completed unrelated to the whole situation. I completely agree with you when you said earlier that DRM may be preferable. Afterall, why can’t CDP just put DRM in their game, acknowledge that they are inconveniencing their customer base and reward them accordingly? Why not just completely remove DRM and leave piracy as it is as opposed to taking any action at all?
In the end I think we must recognize that game developers cannot have their cake and eat it too when it comes to piracy. I’m not sure why CDP was so keen to announce their actions so openly. This can be for any number of reasons – to intimidate potential pirates, to share their opinions about piracy, to build trust, to pre-empt controversy in the future when it is discovered they are doing this, for justice so on and so forth. The gaming community at large is now beginning to provide their reactions, and CDP should be prepared to deal with the ongoing scrutiny. I’m not so sure if we really should try to influence CDP to change their decision, but I know I _will_ try to do so at least in the safety of my armchair.
20/12/2011 at 16:11 Consumatopia says:
Also, Sheng-ji, I know you aren’t editing your posts to be dishonest, but when those edits occur between when I’m starting my post and when I click reply (which you have no way of knowing), it greatly adds to confusion. Yes, I’m somewhat guilty of this as well, we should both stop.
Here’s the thing, your level of confidence in your understanding of the legal system is pertinent to the discussion–not in an ad hominem way, but because I don’t think your view takes those lacking such confidence into sufficient consideration. So I have to make reference to that confidence, but I have no idea how well-placed that confidence is.
20/12/2011 at 16:14 Sheng-ji says:
@ Sooty – I have assumed that CDP had convinced their investors it would be a selling point to provide a DRM free product, but the investors made it a condition of investment to use this mystery company and aggressive pursuit of pirates. It seems a very likely scenario to me.
@ Consumatopia – Please know that I do respect your principles greatly and nothing I write is designed to try to change your mind. I thought you had made an incorrect assumption about equating civil and criminal law when you wrote
“The solution is not general gun identification education so people know not to fear my fake gun, the solution isn’t for people to stop fearing guns, the solution is for me to stop pointing my fake gun at people”
Which was you using a criminal law example to rubbish my solution for a civil law issue.
@ Everyone again
Now we are talking about the ethics again, you can read my proposed solution – how CDP could have achieved the same effect but maintaining a “positive ethical account” for want of a better term on page 4 of these comments (at the moment). I wrote
I guess – and you may remember me as one of the defenders of the practice – they could contact the user with no legal demands in the initial contact but make it clear that they are gathering evidence and any statement the user gives may be used in court.
Then, if they aren’t satisfied, they could issue an accusation, lay out their evidence and inform the individual they are considering the level of compensation they require.
Finally they could then issue a letter giving the 750 euro as the required amount and explaining that the individual has every right to allow a court to consider evidence and set the level of compensation instead, however if they choose to use legal help or they are found to be guilty of the piracy, they will have to pay legal fees.
This would as far as I could see achieve the exact same thing but in a more open manner.
20/12/2011 at 16:46 Consumatopia says:
When I said “If because of some loophole I’m actually legally permitted to keep doing this”, my intention was to avoid the issue of legality.
Your proposed solution is an improvement, though I’m not sure what you mean by “choose to use legal help”.
I suspect the civil law system is just too blunt an instrument to solve this problem. An innocent person receiving your letter is still stuck with a choice of paying the 750, paying for legal advice or trying to take care of it themselves as you would and hoping for the best. I think I’m with Sooty–DRM is a more ethical approach here. Better to inconvenience customers than to frighten strangers.
21/12/2011 at 02:25 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
The founder and one of the bosses of CD-Projekt – Marcin Iwiński – was cracking and selling pirated games as a member of warez group “Katharsis” under nickname of S.S. Capain. He was earning money by selling developer’s games without permission and he got away with it.
He even gave his home address and phone number in demos playing before the pirated game runs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_Q4L99ZrY
So that people could order pirated games from him.
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/mirrors/amigascne/Scrollers/K-Groupstext/Katharsis/Katharsis-LetsStrip.txt
Now he’s lying in interviews about how he was importing and selling original American games on market on Grzybowa, but in the good old 90s he’d brag in Gambler magazine about how they put DRM on their cracked games so that other pirate groups couldn’t sell them too.
Maybe he should now pay several hundred thousands of Euro for every game he cracked and was selling back then? And maybe the company which he founded using his money gained on pirating should be confiscated?
23/12/2011 at 10:06 RegisteredUser says:
People keep overlooking the structure of these fines.
It is not 750 EUR they want for the GAME.
Usually (going by a C&D a relative received for a single album download) the split is more like 500 EUR lawyer costs(this is why they are such mass-suing juggernauts, because it’s friggin’ easy money out the butt for them..post stamp and a word chain letter + whatever else in work for 500 EUR in return, something a lot of the people they sue haven’t got left over in 2+ months) and 250 EUR actual fine-fine.
So the 2/3 lawyer 1/3 fine alone shows that it’s all about the lawyer feeding frenzy, who I suspect egg on all the publishers etc strongly, just as much as lobby the government to keep giving them access to this kind of gravy train mechanism in the future.
The sad truth is that anyone who faces “the machine” that is the legal system is mostly, and rightfully so, deathly afraid of it. Mostly, even if you win anything, you pay more than you “save” by winning.
Which is sad, pathetic, and in no small part also caused by system clogging by the very people sending out these C&Ds.
All you “booo pirates must die” whiners keep forgetting that this is not something that only effects 1-2 100% pure evil individuals. Seriously.
As for deterrent: there is something I have no issue with. I am not against fining someone for something wrong. But the proportion of what 750 EUR mean to person X and to person Y can vary so wildly, it is not even funny. And this is where the actual problem sits.
Pirates tend to not pirate things because they are bored with spending their millions the normal way and need the thrill of the illegal download. At least not the vast majority of people I have ever known.
Once they got into solid work and pay and could afford Season boxes of series etc, they bought them. They often admitted that most the stuff they pirated wasn’t that crucial for them to have in the first place, etc.
All of the things we have argued before and the braindead dey-dook-eer-jeeebs piracy is evil shouters keep ignoring.
Anyway. Paying three times as much as a game is worth is one thing; paying 10+ times as much is insane. Especially because unlike all your 100% inapplicable real world problems, you cannot ride 100 buses at the same time without a ticket, but you can very well do all of that with downloading.
Also there aren’t any $1-2000+++ buses like some application suites people/teens might pirate because they are into 3D modeling early on and can’t get access to the software in any other way than by download. Then they enter the labor force with those skills already trained, the economy BENEFITS. Suing their family into the ground first, because under IP logic their having an illegal copy they could never afford creates some virtual butthurt or personal offense(or, yes, of course, is illegal) or w/e, is just plain shortsighted.
All of this has been going on for decades and there is no black and white way to argue this, ESPECIALLY from the side of all these disgusting white knighty “there is only 100% right or 100% wrong, and you pirate scum are the latter”.
So, in TL;DR: 2/3 of costs in the fee are from and for lawyers who thus have a major vested interest in keeping this scheme going. Do not overlook this.
19/12/2011 at 18:04 bglamb says:
So hypothetical question: Would it be better for all of the confirmed pirates to be just taken to court and fined tens of thousands of pounds?
How about if they were all arrested?
Suddenly being offered a £750 get-out-of-jail-free card seems less like a threat and more like a present.
19/12/2011 at 18:24 Synesthesia says:
well, that’s certainly what they want it to look like.
19/12/2011 at 18:29 lasikbear says:
Would they be fined ten of thousands of pounds? Thats the other issue here, the idea that they would be is strongly suggested by the letter sent out, but is anyone sure that would happen? Same with them going to jail, would that happen? What if the pirate won?
19/12/2011 at 18:32 Spad says:
It would be better if fines there were originally designed to deal with large-scale commercial piracy were not applied to individuals pirating single copies for themselves and not making any money from it.
This is why, in the US for example, if you upload a unauthorised copy of a copyrighted work to a single person, then you could potentially be hit with a fine of $150,000 which is *grossly* disproportionate to the crime.
The purpose of fines is to punish people, but right now, the fines (and in some cases prison sentences) for non-commercial copyright infringement are utterly destroying people’s lives; it’s akin to being caught speeding and having to pay £60,000 instead of £60.
19/12/2011 at 18:47 jrodman says:
Well seeing how piracy is not an arrestable offense in most jurisdictions, because it’s a civil matter…
I think we can skip that scenario.
A lawsuit over this matter is also pretty egregious, because the suit itself is a huge burden, and it can be mistargetted just as easily. In that circumstance as well there is a motivation to ‘settle’ even when innocent, because the process of proving that may be too expensive.
So i guess it’s a fair question: are threatening letters like this actually more problematic than actual lawsuits?
The main reason I see that they are is because the bar is so low to mail them. They cost a lawyer’s time to draft the text (sunk cost), some technicians to trawl the IP addresses (amortized across thousands) and a stamp. That’s it.
19/12/2011 at 18:51 UmmonTL says:
The thing is that if they were actually taken to court here in germany then CDP would most likely not be able to get anywhere near that amount. I’m not really well versed in our laws and if someone wants to correct me please do.
As far as I know, even if found guilty the fine you pay goes to the state. CDP would be reimbursed for their loss which is 50€ unless you are found guilty of distributing it. The latter is of course what they are going for but I doubt they could reasonably prove that you actually distributed the game to hundreds of people. The big money in these cases comes from you having to reimburse them for their lawyer and case related expenses and here I have no idea what exactly you can actually be held accountable for. One thing I am reasonably sure about though is that in a lot of cases there are mitigating circumstances and if for example the “thief” is a little kid and the parents live on welfare then the money CDP gets out of it is pretty much zero.
The reason they go after people in germany is because our ISP’s are allowed to store your connection data for a certain amount of time. Not all ISP’s do this because luckily it’s not mandatory (yet) and it costs them money to do so and selling the data is NOT legal (afaik). The data can be used for legal battles though and since you are held accountable if you don’t secure your network the excuse that someone else must have done it is not quite so easy to make.
Anyway my point is that I highly doubt CDP would get anywhere near 750€ in more than maybe 10% of the cases. And the people this hurts aren’t the big bad software pirates or even the assholes who download it despite having the money for the game. It’s the uneducated and poor who don’t realize how empty the threat is and don’t have a legal protection insurance they can ask.
19/12/2011 at 21:31 lurkalisk says:
This isn’t a bad deal, but the point of the law should not be petty retribution, it should for prevention and restitution. As such, fining these people twice the cost of the game (you know, prevention) sounds like the reasonable route, but when has a thing like this ever been reasonable?
Also, this is a common tactic in America to deal with petty theft. Say, if you steal a loaf of bread from market (and they catch you), they’ll likely demand a few hundred dollars not to call the police.
20/12/2011 at 03:19 Consumatopia says:
The stupid thing is that those ridiculous, sky-high fines (in the U.S., at least) probably means we end up punishing fewer pirates. If we punished internet piracy like highway speeding (almost everyone knows it’s wrong, almost everyone has done it in their life) then the legal process would be much cheaper and faster, and it would be reasonable to prosecute vastly more pirates. Most people have gotten or know someone who’s gotten a speeding ticket. I don’t know anyone who’s been prosecuted for IP theft. If instead of issuing speeding tickets, we just arbitarily picked a couple of speeders and gave them five or six digit fines, nobody would take speed limits seriously.
19/12/2011 at 18:07 Tei says:
To me, any money put to persecute gamers, is money not invested on the quality of the product.
Is a waste of time.
The defining trait of pirates is that “don’t care”. You can burn some pirate alive, and all the others will never know about it. So is a fucking waste of time.
So wen the devs are not using money to make games, but are using to pay lawyers, I get angry.
The Witchers 2 was a letdown. I am going to buy The Witcher 3? No. and I will tell other people to avoid The Witcher 2 and any future game from this company.
19/12/2011 at 18:14 bglamb says:
Ummm…..this process is making money, not spending it.
So The Witcher 3 should be all the better for it, non?
19/12/2011 at 18:15 Gundato says:
The thing people tend to forget is: Developers (and publishers) matter too. That’s right, there is a supplier to the games we all consume.
As a developer, you are putting a large chunk of your life into a game. As a publisher, you are putting a lot of money into a game. To see your hard work pirated so much hurts. I doubt anyone agrees that there is a 1:1 ratio between pirated copies and lost sales, but I also doubt there is anyone who feels that no pirate would ever have bought the game if they couldn’t steal it. The real ratio is in the middle. And, if you work your ass off, you don’t want to SEE those numbers.
I am sure we have all had our moments of helplessness. When we felt like there was nothing we could really do. So, we try to take any degree of control, if only to act as a security blanket.
Same deal with DRM and lawsuits. It won’t stop the dedicated pirate (just like all the locks in the world can’t stop a thief who REALLY wants to get in your house), but it can stop the idiots (the car thief who tries a door, sees it is locked, and goes to the next car, rather than smashes a window).
Now, do you leave all of your doors unlocked because “there is no point” and “it is a waste of money”? I mean, why should you buy a deadbolt if someone can just kick down your door? Same principle here.
But, by that same token, you don’t get a shotgun and a string and rig up a security system to kill anyone who breaks down your door. You need to find a middleground.
As far as CD Projekt goes: I fully approve of their approach (assuming they do what they are saying they are doing), but the cost is obscene. I could understand a bit of a penalty (maybe 2x the cost of the game new?) but when they are going for 3 or 4x the cost of the collectors edition, something is wrong.
19/12/2011 at 18:43 strikerRD says:
So you don’t condone pirates “breaking” the law… but you approve of multi-million dollar companies breaking the law?
Okay. Good to know i’m living in this world with a bunch of lunatics.
19/12/2011 at 19:06 V. Profane says:
@bglamb do you think this company with the super-secret fool-proof pirate finding technology and the lawyers are working for free? Or even commission only?
19/12/2011 at 22:30 chackosan says:
@striker: Your statement would carry a lot more weight if you mentioned how CDP are in fact, breaking the law. They’re most probably breaking some unwritten code of good conduct concerning producer/consumer relations, but the law is another matter entirely.
19/12/2011 at 18:08 Lobotomist says:
I live in the country where pretty much everyone pirates. And the ones that buy the game are viewed as suckers…
But I believe in developers , especially in CDP and have preordered the game 6 month before it was published, for full price mind you.
…
Next CDP game, i am going to pirate.
I really dont get what they tried to do. They worn shiny white armor and saved the princess than went home and started beating the poor ?
And in any way , court settlements should be made illegal.
Here a ritch man drove over a kid with a Jeep, than he settled with the family for lot of money and they dropped charges ?! Money is the new justice …
If someone stole your games , pirated them. Sue them trough justice system. Let them serve jail or whatever legal penalty for theft.
What you doing CDP is blackmail, corporate bullying.
But you are going to get Black Flagged
19/12/2011 at 18:51 wonderpookie says:
Out of curiosity – in which country do you live?
19/12/2011 at 19:00 Lobotomist says:
Croatia
19/12/2011 at 19:06 noilly says:
I don’t see how this follows: Company X does something I don’t like so therefore I can justify stealing from them? How about simply not purchasing or pirating the game?
19/12/2011 at 19:18 Squirrelfanatic says:
Two things:
1. Court settlements are not feasible for every crime / case.
2. Court settlements are pretty much necessary to keep the justice system from becoming totally clogged and ineffective. If every case (especially civil actions, like these here, not penal charges) that comes up has to be fought out infront of a judge, there won’t be any judge available for more important cases.
19/12/2011 at 19:19 Lobotomist says:
I am bit overreacting.
I love CPD and it greatly hurts me they (or should i say the “suits”) decided to act that way.
People at CDP greatly deserve the money for the masterpiece they made.
As for justifying stealing:
I see it this way.
From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. You have been stolen from.
In supermarket, at work, at bank , in pub … etc
Somewhere along the line men is stealing from me and you. And that is “legal”
Circumventing the law with blackmail settlement , is legal?
How is that not stealing ?
19/12/2011 at 20:46 Kadayi says:
“I am bit overreacting.”
No shit.
People pirated, people got caught and now they’ve been fined. Given they clearly don’t care about the welfare of developers where as claim you do, why do you feel sympathy for the pirates? They’re criminals. Games are entertainment products, not essential human rights.
19/12/2011 at 21:19 Lobotomist says:
I do care about welfare of developers.
But when you put 60$ for a game. Not even 0.0000001$ ends up in the pocket of people that worked on the game.
In fact , game industry have became known for its horrible treatment of its working force.
But on other hand people like Bobby Kotick are swimming in money.
When I put money for indie developer, at least I know that people like Notch are getting the money. Not some corporate investor firm.
I tell you, I feel no remorse pirating Modern Warfare 3
In fact , i did it even though i didnt want to play it at all.
Yet I also went and bought humble bundle. Although I dont want to play (and own (bought)) most of the games there.
So , you can be a rebel and a crook. Copying games that you want and paying for ones you feel deserve it.
Or be a good boy and put money in Bobby Kotick pockets
19/12/2011 at 21:42 chackosan says:
Sounds like a lot of rationalisation going on. So because only 0.0000001$ ends up in the actual developer’s pockets, the solution is to take that small amount away? So they can see the light and start their own indie company which will inevitably do well and make them lots of money, I assume.
noilly has it right. If you want to make a stand against a dev/publisher, just ignore their products. Pirating is just self-serving indulgence, it’s better if we’re at least honest about it.
19/12/2011 at 22:02 Kadayi says:
“But when you put 60$ for a game. Not even 0.0000001$ ends up in the pocket of people that worked on the game.”
You want to back that statement up with some evidence please?
19/12/2011 at 22:30 Agnol117 says:
@ nolly:
It’s simple. People want to “protest,” but they don’t want to give up their shiny toy.
19/12/2011 at 22:48 Lobotomist says:
First off I never said i am a saint. Nor did I say that what I am doing is right.
So save your preaching.
Morality is not crafted by laws of commerce.
It is what you feel is right.
And I feel that EA and Activision do not deserve my money. They are making enough as it is.
CDR(despite this crappy incident) deserve my money. So does any independent developer.
And I go long way to deliver that.
Nobody is getting hurt really.
Just rich are not getting even richer. Well pardon me for that :P
19/12/2011 at 23:03 Kadayi says:
Wow, just wow. There’s so much broken in that statement it’s not even worth the time to address tbh.
19/12/2011 at 23:05 FunkyBadger3 says:
You’re telling us about morality now, Lobotomist?
20/12/2011 at 00:13 wyrmsine says:
“People pirated, people got caught and now they’ve been fined.” – Kadayi
The problem is there’s no evidence of that statement being true. The absence of that proof renders the actions of CD Projekt tantamount to extortion.
20/12/2011 at 08:39 Lobotomist says:
I said, i am no teaching or preaching morality.
60$ is to much for some games.Especially If you are not from UK, or US.
Yet I surely have bought more games than you this year.
Honestly. All this pirating debate is wrong.
People that can will buy the game. People that cant will not.
Majority of people that play pirated games, would never buy these games even if they couldnt pirate them.
So whats lost or stolen?
Nothing.
Its just greedy publishers making excuses for the game that sold badly because it was bad and overpriced.
20/12/2011 at 13:01 Verity says:
If the game is “overpriced” as you say, act as noble people should and just don’t buy it. People who can’t afford fancy, overpriced cars don’t really steal them from some villas, do they?
CDP can do what they want, I don’t see a problem and as someone has said before, you cannot charge the value of the game if you catch a thief – fine one even 10x as much, fine by me.
All people here are crying hard over this, no more CDP games ever, and yet a month will pass and all of you will forget, especially if the next game will be widely regarded as great – you’ll be the first to get it. Gamers in the essence, the weakest activist force ever.
19/12/2011 at 18:11 applecado says:
Also, with speeding you are presented with photographic evidence that you sped. This isn’t the case here, they are saying we _think_ you stole
19/12/2011 at 18:23 ReV_VAdAUL says:
This is the crux of the issue. The government’s methods and fines are open to public scrutiny and can be changed by the democratic process if they become particularly unpopular (or indeed fines stay at reasonable levels because of the threat of voter backlash if they didn’t).
Even very serious cases can be thrown out if it is found that evidence was collected improperly. Yet CDP state they can’t justify their demands for significant amounts of money because it is a trade secret. If they are unwilling to provide evidence then by default we cannot trust their assertions. Otherwise it is to invert the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
19/12/2011 at 18:49 LionsPhil says:
+1 to this thread.
19/12/2011 at 21:32 Sheng-ji says:
Yes, but do remember you are under no obligation to respond to the letter in any way what so ever, unlike a speeding ticket of any other government imposed fine.
And if they levelled an accusation at you then failed to provide you with their full evidence, the case would be flung straight out of court.
20/12/2011 at 05:41 DodgyG33za says:
According to the law in England and Wales: “A person commits theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.”
So even if they did have proof, it would not be of the act of stealing, since it doesn’t meet the definition in any country whose law is based on English law. Which is a few.
20/12/2011 at 18:53 NathanH says:
Interestingly, at least in the UK, unless they have changed the system in the last few years, the “pay up or bad things will happen to you” letter for speeding does not contain the evidence, it just contains the claim that they have the evidence. So it’s actually quite similar to what’s going on here.
19/12/2011 at 18:11 Jumwa says:
To add to a point: speeding tickets exist to save lives. Piracy threats exist to defend theoretical profits. The difference in motives and goals is broader then the disproportionate gap between the sums demanded.
19/12/2011 at 18:12 akeso says:
The best part of this article is the pictures; each one made me chuckle more than the last.
Your comments about a speeding ticket being issued from the government is spot on. If CDP believes that someone pirated their game and can prove it then they should forward the information to the local D.A. so that a larceny charge can be issued and investigated.
This system they currently have amounts to nothing more than litigation based digital vigilantism.
Frankly they should be more Batman and less Witcher; let the courts do their jobs instead of acting as judge, jury, and executioner :D
19/12/2011 at 18:13 Tei says:
Pirates pirate games and nobody can do anything about it.
But I will die happy if we hunt the people that as caused that all these videos have a “age check”.
Killing one person is stealing one person 30 years of his life.
Creating these stupid rules is stealing maybe 30 minutes of life from maybe 30 million persons. So is literally like killing 6 o 9 persons.
I propose DEATH PENALTY for the creators of these rules.
The tragedy of commons. Assholes live happy make the life of everyone a littel worse, maybe stealing 9 billions of dolars in wall street. These people live happy and the law do nothing. Then we put in jail one person for stealing a cow. Or like that UK kid, for linking to warez copys of games.
Most politicians today are morons useless that know nothing about technology, and make his ignorance as public as possible because are proud of it, and feel make then feel cool, like “a average joe”. Love his ignorance. So stupid laws about copyright pass every day, with big corporations predating our societies to increase profit every quarter. More and more and more, theres not end of this predatory beavior.
Someone, somewhere, sould put a end to this, we are driven by assholes to a horrible society.
19/12/2011 at 18:14 FCA says:
Thank you for following through on this. Interesting arguments from both sides. Small facts: back in the day, when I torrented software (shame on me, more on that later) I’ve been on the receiving end of legal threats from other game companies (I remember receiving a letter from the legal representative of Bethesda), however they were easily laughed away (different legal system). It is also quite easy to fully determine who was using a certain time: go through the ISP. If the ISP complies with a request for data (a dickish move by the ISP, and depending on the legal system system, could be required by law, or be illegal), but they keep databases who they assigned IP’s to (required by EU law). In Germany, you are responsible for what happens from your IP (so no open access points), so this fully determines who was torrenting.
Myself, I’m torn on this issue. I think the point of government fines vs. companies doing this is a good one, but the government (at the moment) isn’t doing anything at the moment, so I can see why companies resort to this.
For the effects on pirates: as a former (repented) pirate myself I see different reasons for pirating software (as CDProjekt is apparently aware of also):
1. The person who doesn’t have the money.
2. The person who doesn’t want to pay for “free” stuff.
3. The compulsive demoer.
Fear might keep them in line, but what’s needed is a mentality shift. I think CDProjekt with their DRM stance is certainly contributing on one hand, but on the other hand, their actions against individual pirates gives it a certain David vs Goliath view they cannot hope to win. A far better move would be to charge the amount the game cost at the time of launch. Then a pirate not wishing to pay would seem like the dick.
As for the amount of money they make on this: I think most of the money will go to lawyers, as sadly seems the case for most cases involving them.
19/12/2011 at 18:35 Snargelfargen says:
Speaking as another former pirate, the idea of fear acting as a preventative measure is just silly. Even if a publisher such as CDP had used their black arts to find my ip, it would probably have been ineffective, as I was a student and therefore subletting and moving houses one to two times a year. I always just gave some money each month to the landlord or sub-letter who actually had a contract with the ISP. So any legal threats would have most likely arrived after I had moved out.
In any case, the concept of “lost sales” is bizarre and unmeasurable. I stopped pirating games once I got a job and could afford them, and I started buying dozens a year once I discovered digital distribution sales. All of my gaming friends have also stopped pirating games for the same reason.
My experience is of course anecdotal, but I doubt it is very unusual. CDP is targeting a group that is primarily composed of people who can’t afford games and have no hope of paying fines without serious difficulties. Fining speeders isn’t the right analogy. It’s more like fining homeless people who are guilty of theft. Except those sentences are normally commuted into community service.
20/12/2011 at 05:44 DodgyG33za says:
Just because you know an IP doesn’t mean anything. Three people live in this house, with about ten devices that use the internet. The former is not unusual, even if the latter is.
Sending me (the owner of the account) is extortion because they have NO WAY of knowing which of the occupants of the house may have been streaming, EVEN IF their IP = account mapping is perfect.
19/12/2011 at 18:15 Dolar says:
I am pretty sure their method is the one used by that company that put out the fake Deus EX torrents. That is they are the ones that put out a torrent of the game, but it was modified to report statistics and usage. The Deus Ex one served as a demo like then opened a browser asking pirates to take a survey and offering the game at half price to them.
This is how they are saying they are 100% sure on piracy rates, It is likey one of the trusted people on one of the big torrent sites was either caught, and his id is being used by this company to release these “Trap” torrents, or people are impatient and these guys will have the torrents up before others would have.
But that is the big secret, that is what is going on, and why they feel they are so sure. It is also why they won;t give a stright answer
Here is the story about the Deus Ex thing http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-company-pirates-deus-ex-in-controversial-experiment-111010/
19/12/2011 at 18:52 jrodman says:
Interesting. In the long run, these types of “attacks” seem to only make the pirates smarter. Ie we’ll probably end up with verification methods for torrent crack validity.
It seems akin to what many small labels do, actually, although they just put up a really good quality torrent of their music, because they don’t want low quality rips to scare off customers. They typically think it’s good for sales without including any traps.
Then again, music fans may be a distinct behavioral set from game players.
19/12/2011 at 20:19 caliwyrm says:
“am pretty sure their method is the one used by that company that put out the fake Deus EX torrents. That is they are the ones that put out a torrent of the game, but it was modified to report statistics and usage. The Deus Ex one served as a demo like then opened a browser asking pirates to take a survey and offering the game at half price to them.”
What I don’t understand about ‘honey pot’ traps is how they’re accepted in the court system? If Company_X puts up their own torrent (or authorizes someone to do it for them,, say a tracking firm or law firm) then they are offering it up for download. If it ends up being some crippled version of the game then how can you be charged with copyright violations? It would be like the store owner charging people with theft if they used the “leave a penny/take a penny” jar by the cash register..
If there method is 100% accurate wouldn’t EA/THQ/Every publisher on the planet be beating a path to their door to use it themselves? But that’s the rub.. WE know they’re full of crap and so do they.. Say I live in an apartment with 3 other people.. Would they sue all 4 of us if one of us downloaded their game? Would they sue just the person who’s name is on the bill?
I too was once on the wrong side of these extortion letters. I bought a legel product for a legal reason out of Canada. It just so happens that this product could also be used to hack sattelite cards. A year after buying it I got served with a nice little letter demanding $3500 or they’d take me to court where they claimed they would ask for 5x that amount. My prospects were spend probably $4k to prove my innocence by paying a lawyer or pay their extortion. I contacted them personally to ask how they could PROVE I used the device in the way they suggest. In the end, I let my anger get the better of me and told one of their phone reps where he could stick his demands.. Never heard from them again
19/12/2011 at 20:24 HothMonster says:
@jrodman
there have been studies that show that the people who pirate the most music are also the people that buy the most music. I would not be surprised to learn that this carries over to gamers. I can think of 10 gift purchases I made in the last 2 weeks that would never have happened if I hadn’t pirated a game only to find out that I love it and its worth my money, so much so that I spent extra money on it just to share it with other people (and hey devs need christmas presents too).
19/12/2011 at 21:40 gwathdring says:
I would expect the correlation to be stronger with music than games though, because I feel like there is a stronger sense of brand loyalty in the music industry as well as a stronger sense of re-playability. I would be very interested to see the results of rigorous study on the matter, though.
19/12/2011 at 23:11 HothMonster says:
@gwat
I could just as easily argue it either way, but yes we need more honest studies. I guess we have to wait for the Swedish government to get around to doing this one too because tehy are the only people who seem to be willing to look at this without bias.
19/12/2011 at 18:16 Sheng-ji says:
I guess – and you may remember me as one of the defenders of the practice – they could contact the user with no legal demands in the initial contact but make it clear that they are gathering evidence and any statement the user gives may be used in court.
Then, if they aren’t satisfied, they could issue an accusation, lay out their evidence and inform the individual they are considering the level of compensation they require.
Finally they could then issue a letter giving the 750 euro as the required amount and explaining that the individual has every right to allow a court to consider evidence and set the level of compensation instead, however if they choose to use legal help or they are found to be guilty of the piracy, they will have to pay legal fees.
This would as far as I could see achieve the exact same thing but in a more open manner.
19/12/2011 at 21:41 gwathdring says:
I like that idea. It gives customers more opportunity for personal appeal (and for that matter, legal appeal) in the event of wrongful accusations.
19/12/2011 at 18:20 diamondmx says:
In their defence – their claim of 100% accuracy is not blemished by the single case of ‘bought then pirated’, as the person did pirate the game – which is technically the same crime.
I think these companies should take the pirates to court, and that monetary damages for piracy should be much lower than they currently are. They should be relative to damage caused, not designed as a punative statement to others.
If the companies who were pursuing these cases fined a pirate £100-5000, it would probably be fair in the mind of the public – unpleasant to the person fined, and not life-ruining. It’s the fact that the cases suggest a damage value of six figures or more that makes the prosecution seem ridiculous and unjust – a value which is so far out of the realm of possibility that it cannot be true. How can your average adult have possibly given that money to all the companies he pirated from *combined*, let alone a single company, when that person will likely not make that kind of money in decades or a lifetime.
Simply put, due process and fair punishment is what people expect, even to copyright violators.
19/12/2011 at 18:29 akeso says:
Most courts have found that the barrier to entry is the sale and not downloading the product. The minority opinion that the barrier to the to entry is in fact DRM and therefore the crime only occurs when an individual uses a circumvention program or system (a.k.a. a “crack”).
Considering there was no DRM then the only barrier was purchase. By downloading the product after having purchased it he never technically committed a crime since he had already paid for the product.
I am not sure about Germany, but in the United States I know that distributing this content wouldn’t technically make him guilty of any crime either unless he was distributing a circumvention tool.
In this case, the only individuals who can be held liable for a crime is those who install and play the game without having provided the required purchase for entry.
19/12/2011 at 18:32 diamondmx says:
Interesting point, Akeso. I concede that I don’t know the details.
19/12/2011 at 21:44 gwathdring says:
But since there was no DRM, by distributing the product to others he was assisting them in circumventing the payment barrier. He was also violating his distribution rights granted by the licensing of the sale.
19/12/2011 at 22:42 HisMastersVoice says:
It’s easy to block seeding if you want to. I did so when I downloaded a copy Red Faction: Guerrilla, since the one I bought refused to work under any circumstances.
19/12/2011 at 18:21 Ninja Foodstuff says:
2011: the year that consumers became suspects.
The year that people felt it was ok to let a corporation scan through your personal files and transmit stuff back to the mothership.
The year that Americans felt it was ok to start censoring the internet.
The year that games developers felt it was ok to police and fine their audience.
19/12/2011 at 18:22 Unaco says:
If what is here is correct then it’s perhaps unfair to single out CDP for this, when other companies appear to be doing it.
19/12/2011 at 18:23 Lobotomist says:
BTW , one more things on Pirates and DRM
DRM never stopped any game from being pirated. Even the laughable Assasin Creed “Always On” DRM was cracked in manner of weeks.
People that pirate will pirate the games.
There is only one trick that really works:
Namely you should disrupt the 0Day release.
After zero day, warez groups lose interest and no good crack is ever made.
And best way to do that is to make protection similar to Serious Sam3.
Where crackers think they cracked the game, but in fact they didnt. Making their 0Day release invalid.
…
Alas the only way to really stop pirating is in the way Valve is doing it.
Offer games that are comfortably and easy delivered with great service + cheap prices.
You maybe dont stop pirating, but you kill at least 50% of it.
19/12/2011 at 18:26 SiHy_ says:
Good luck RPS. I’m not touching this one with a 10 foot clown pole.
19/12/2011 at 18:28 alms says:
It’s hard for me to believe that in a time of economic distress, with young people struggling to find a job and the average buying power ever dwindling, that someone would go around asking people 750 € like it’s pocket change, and also claim they’re not making any money on it. It would only be moronic to risk the image of your firm and alienate today’s buyers, for no reason other than to send a message to “future” pirates.
I believe them to be smart people and that can only mean they’re blatantly lying.
The choice of going after pirates in this way is disgusting in itself, and that alone is sufficient to make me decide to never buy a game from these people. But to try and talk themselves out of it while at the same time insulting the intelligence of everyone involved, well I can only hope this thing turns into a massive backlash on CDP.
19/12/2011 at 22:01 chackosan says:
It’s hard for me to believe that in a time of economic distress, with young people struggling to find a job and the average buying power ever dwindling, that these people own powerhouse PCs capable of running The Witcher 2, but not enough money to afford the game itself.
Of course, it’s entirely possible they have extremely cheap computers and pirated the game merely out of uninformed optimism, but somewhat unlikely.
20/12/2011 at 09:33 thebigJ_A says:
My PC is four years old. Wasn’t even a “powerhouse” then. It runs TW2 just fine.
I’ve since lost my job and got another (much lower paying) job.
Having a pc, in this day and age, is hardly a sign of affluence. Hell, in this day and age, for many people, a pc isn’t even a luxury item. It’s the kind of thing, like say a car, that someone of limited means would scrimp and save for. A poor person can have a pc and still be a poor person.
Thus, your counterargument is invalid.
21/12/2011 at 12:16 chackosan says:
Sorry to hear about your job problems, dude (and I mean that sincerely, not as some form of sarcasm). And that computer’s pretty impressive! Mine was decent when I bought it a year ago. and I wouldn’t call my frame-rate on TW2 ‘just fine’, even without all the bells and whistles.
19/12/2011 at 18:29 zeroskill says:
Instead of scaring people into giving them money (and seriously, who are the people that use TPB and other sites to get games anyway? Kids that don’t have any money? Students?) CD Project should start using their brain and come up with innovative ways to reward and encourage people to buy the game. Coming up with creative solutions and offering better services to your customers is how you build customer confidence and not by bullying money out of innocent people.
People that have so little creativity and intelligence when it comes to offering services like CD Project don’t deserve any of my future money. Look at what Bethesda does with their upcoming Skyrim Workshop project and moding tools. This will encourage people to buy Skyrim for future years to come. Do I really have to mention Gabe again, who sais the way to battle piracy is by offering a better service to your customers…
19/12/2011 at 20:20 Wut The Melon says:
“innovative ways to reward and encourage people to buy the game”
DRM-free and loads of free bonus content that’s normally only found in CE’s clearly isn’t enough for some…
“Look at what Bethesda does with their upcoming Skyrim Workshop project and moding[sic] tools”
Witcher 2′s Red Engine SDK due for free release in 2012.
Of course you needn’t have quoted Gabe Newell, whose Steam indeed offers good service and prices, because it seems to me CDProjekt already does that. Though it, like any form of DRM, also has it’s bad times at which it’s making just playing a game harder than it should be…(Steam offline mode not working, having to look up on the internet how to install Skyrim from disc instead of by downloading…I still prefer GOG.com’s approach, personally)
19/12/2011 at 21:09 Wut The Melon says:
Sorry, comment originally posted here unintentionally.
19/12/2011 at 21:53 chackosan says:
What WUT said. A DRM-free marquee title, which is something few other AAA games can boast, was enough incentive for me to buy the game. Very unlikely that CDP will even bother sniffing around in my country, so I doubt there’ll be a false positive in my near future.
19/12/2011 at 18:30 Xander51 says:
This was a great read. I agree with the notion that pirates should be asked for the purchase price of the game first. If that’s ignored, then I think it would be more reasonable to move forward with an escalated threat.
19/12/2011 at 18:31 matnym says:
You only have to pay £60 for speeding?! In Sweden we have to pay at least £200.
19/12/2011 at 18:56 wonderpookie says:
I got *TWO* speeding tickets in the space of 20mins once upon a time (I desperately needed a poo!) – that £120 out of pocket hurt like hell. I’d kill myself if I had had to pay £400!
19/12/2011 at 19:17 Morlock says:
60 quid is the retail price for that extra speed.
19/12/2011 at 18:31 bagga says:
I think both you and Nowakowski handled this unusually well.
I am concerned that CDP will cause more harm with the punishment than the crime. I think it’s safe to assume that people who torrent at least tend towards being poor, even if many of them can technically afford the game. I’m pretty poor myself. If I was coerced into paying €750 it wouldn’t just spoil Christmas, but I would be ruined by bank charges and negative interest that I couldn’t meet. I would not be able to afford rent or food without taking high-interest loans and credit cards. Quite likely this would ruin my life. At a guess, out of those 1000 people, at least a few hundred must be like me.
This seems to be completely legal behaviour, but ethically? Why not track them down and charge them for a copy of the game? What gives you the right to demand any punishment you like for an injustice to you?
Obviously there are complications to this issue. The damage done to CDP’s employees. The nonessential nature of the thing being stolen. But putting that aside and looking at this action in itself, this is a textbook example of a company leveraging its financial and legal advantages against people in a ruinous way. If this were any other industry than this we’d call foul in a heartbeat.
And tactically, putting ethics aside too, previous attempts to dissuade pirates by making examples of some did not work at all. They’re on the wrong side of evidence on this one. If anything this will only make some previously loyal customers more likely to pirate. Me, for one. I loved Witchers 1 and 2. But if I had to choose between a few hundred people getting beggared and me never playing another Witcher game, I don’t think there’s much of a choice. If CDP are intent on following this path then I won’t be buying anything from them again.
19/12/2011 at 21:35 Llewyn says:
Less than a week after GSC’s closure, with the corresponding severe impacts on the people who were working there, I have absolutely no sympathy for those suffering the consequences of taking things they’re not entitled to.
19/12/2011 at 18:32 Jimbo says:
The first half of your article is solid. The back half is very shaky indeed. The difference between zero chance of consequences and a small chance of quite bad consequences is all the difference in the world. The phrase ‘make an example of’ exists for exactly that reason – you don’t need to punish everybody to get people to behave themselves, or even a lot of people, as long as the consequences are strong enough.
“Oh, and one other thought. Regarding the statement that if someone had bought it, then torrented it after, they would let that go. Why, CDP, is that okay, but someone who torrents it, then buys it, is not? Which is to say, why not send these people letters demanding the €40 for the cost of the game? Since the person who torrents to replace his purchased copy will be uploading just as much as he who pirated before buying.”
Why do you think? One of those scenarios proves you always had the intention of paying for their game and not just illegally taking a copy, while the other scenario does not. You can’t get out of a theft charge by offering to pay for what you stole after the fact. The company offering to let people off of a piracy charge for the shelf price would just greenlight everybody else to help themselves and only ever pay for anything if they get caught. It would in fact encourage piracy rather than deter it.
“Hi. We have no records on you.”
I guess I’m ok! *phew*
19/12/2011 at 18:34 tentaclesex says:
Maybe in Germany, any old jerk can give someone a speeding ticket!
19/12/2011 at 19:01 codename_bloodfist says:
The whole thing about Germany is weird. Roughly a year ago they passed a piece of legislation that was designed to protect privacy and prevent tracking through IP addresses. In particular, the idea was that the ISP should not store IP address owner’s name for longer than a day (or something along those lines) and that this information could only be accessed on a person-by-person basis after receiving a green light from a public prosecutor. This would allow the persecution of more serious criminals (e.g. child pornographers, terrorists, etc.), while leaving your average Fritz anonymous. I don’t know if the laws changed, but unless they haven’t this reeks of cheap scaremongering by people who didn’t even bother to do their homework.
19/12/2011 at 18:35 Keirley says:
I have a real problem with them saying that they can be sure that someone has pirated their game. Even if you can track a download to a specific IP address there’s the very real possibility that someone else other than the person accused was responsible for the act of piracy.
You can say ‘you are responsible for your internet connection, including who uses it and for what’ but that’s just not feasible in a lot of cases. I rent a room in a house shared by three other tenants, two of whom have live-in partners that aren’t on the tenancy contract at all. There is no way for me to monitor or control what they do with our shared internet connection, even though the connection is in MY name out of necessity.
19/12/2011 at 18:38 The V Man says:
This is really just insane. Let’s start with that nonsensical speeding ticket example:
“…when you get a speeding ticket or a ticket for causing a car crash or for any other felony – do you consider that a threat?”
No, it’s not a threat – in that case you have been caught, in person, committing a crime. You must be present to be charged. It doesn’t work like that with IPs – you cannot definitively prove the person you are charging committed the crime.
If someone spoofs your IP and *you* get the letter it’s tantamount to having your car stolen and getting charged for whatever crime the person who has your car committed (technically you could sell your car and the example still works, worryingly). Holding someone responsible for something you can’t conclusively prove they did or did not do, is wrong. Plain and simple.
Unfortunately a court may not see it that way for any number of reasons – least of all ignorance and/or misinformation as to how technology works. There are also cases where people are held accountable for things they had no control over – one such incident was before a critical problem was discovered with a specific model of car that could result in the gas becoming stuck and the vehicle accelerating uncontrollably. In this case people died tragically and the poor gentleman driving the defective vehicle was charged for manslaughter, lost everything, and imprisoned for years before the defect was confirmed, and he was freed.
Such justice.
On a personal note: I will not be purchasing anything from CDP again. I will also avoid their affiliates and any company even remotely associated with them. I will not condone or support this type of bullying, scaremongering and absolutely abhorrent behaviour.
I really hope it was worth the lost customers CDP. Better hope you make out well enough in this scam to recoup the lost sales you’ll be seeing.
19/12/2011 at 18:39 CedaVelja says:
No reasonable person would ever be 100% sure of anything.
For a company that made its name on being fair and reasonable this just doesn’t sound like them, this sounds like something they were forced to do by their publisher or someone else who had stake in their game. Or other game developer who forgot to mention that when they sue pirates they dont make a point of explaining to pirates that they are the ones personally suing them.
I agree completely with John Walker, it is not their place to “fine” anyone, what they are doing is appalling, completely legal but still appalling.
19/12/2011 at 18:41 GrandmaFunk says:
For the speeding ticket analogy, I think “citizen group X emails driver Y telling him that they saw him speeding and demanding to be paid off or else they’ll take their complaint/info to the cops ” is more the equivalent of what CDP are doing.
19/12/2011 at 19:34 Jimbo says:
Only if you were speeding on Citizen X’s lawn.
19/12/2011 at 18:41 gwathdring says:
I agree with you about the letters, but I very much appreciated this part of CDP’s response:
“As for the unauthorised duplication not counting as a lost sale – I guess this is not so simple really. I agree in some cases people just download “whatever” to have a look but would not buy otherwise, but there are also quite a few people who have financial means, have interest but feel that they should not pay becaue it is out there for free. It is this last group that is the most problematic, and I do not feel fine with this way of thinking, and we have never officialy supported this kind of behavior.”
And since it is impossible to definitively prove intent in such cases, I would lean towards assuming all people who intentionally download a file illegally and can be positively identified can be reasonably punished for piracy. Then it becomes a matter of punishing said pirates in a likewise reasonable way … this mass-mailing thing is not that way.
19/12/2011 at 18:42 Keymonk says:
Can you really call the guy who owned the game he pirated a false positive? Sure, he had a reason to do it (and was left alone as a result), but he -was- a positive because he did pirate it. He just had an excuse to get out of it. So no, this does not count as a case wherein he was wrongly accused. He was rightfully accused, but had an excuse/reason.
Not that I’m saying it’s okay to mass-mail and all that – but this is not a false positive.
19/12/2011 at 18:42 Blackcompany says:
Well done, John. Well done indeed sir. Kudos for sticking with this. And for sticking up for your own beliefs despite backlash.
.
I support John 100% on this. I also agree with him.
.
John is not turning a blind eye to piracy. He is not supporting piracy. Piracy is a crime. For criminal activity we have court systems, legal procedures and systems of punishment. If CDP Red feel someone is guilty of piracy, they must file charges and dispute the matter in court. This is the legal means by which you accuse another of a crime against your person or entity, corporate or otherwise.
.
CDP steps around the law. They try to live outside of the law. This might not be blackmail. Might not. It is definitely extortion.
.
Please understand John’s position – and my own. The guilt or innocence of the alleged pirate is immaterial. It is a matter for the courts, for the legal process. By no means and under no law of which I am aware is permissible for CDP to circumvent the law, dream up some arbitrary sum of money and then threaten people in order to convince them to pay that sum. This practice might – might – not qualify as blackmail, but it borders on extortion.
.
It is not the guilt or innocence of the alleged pirate John is discussing here. It is the practice by which CDP is trying to prosecute people outside of the law. That is the matter up for debate, not the alleged guilt or innocence of a hypothetical pirate.
19/12/2011 at 19:00 Rusty says:
Not exactly. CDR has a civil case against pirates; the local government – in these cases, apparently the local German government – has a criminal case. It’s the same act, but different causes of action. For example, if I were to punch you in the nose, the government could throw me in jail for it – that’s the criminal case. However, you could also sue me for the damage I did to your nose, and conceivably get punitive damages for my being a nose-punching twat – that’s the civil case. Same punch, two different cases (causes of action, more specifically).
You could also offer to settle your civil case against me for less than your full damages, to save time and avoid the uncertainty of a trial – and if you had me dead to rights, I’d probably agree. That appears to be what CDR is doing.
19/12/2011 at 18:44 DiamondDog says:
Interesting. There are many more people here with a better grasp of this so my thoughts are redundant. All I will offer is, the candid nature of Michal Nowakowski’s replies make me hope that there isn’t a knee-jerk hostile reaction to CDP. The internet doesn’t take much to work itself up into a frenzy. I don’t like it, but I don’t think CDP have suddenly turned into a consumer hating evil corporation.
If they really are working on individual cases then I really hope they make sure innocent people aren’t getting stung by this.
19/12/2011 at 18:44 Galefury says:
750€ is way too much, something like 200€ would be reasonable IMO. But other than that I don’t see anything wrong with what CDP does, assuming everything Nowakowski said is true.
- They warned people they would do this.
- They tried to eliminate all reasons to pirate their game, releasing it without DRM at a reasonable price.
- They seem to care about not threatening innocent people.
19/12/2011 at 18:46 der jester says:
They probably have to charge a 750 fine to pay for their piracy investigation company, which still makes no sense. I think they’d actually make money if they uploaded their own torrent of the game that included a note that say “Hey, if you pirated this, can you consider paying for it? Here’s a link to buy the game from us.” No paying a third party to make your company look bad. I can’t imagine this has resulted in more sales for them. They’re basically charging pirate so they can pay someone to “investigate piracy” and give them bad PR.
I don’t pirate because it’s easier for me to go to steam and buy something. I know the majority of the my payment is going to content creators instead of middle men that don’t enhance my experience at all, plus I don’t have to figure out if something is a game and not a virus, or if it’s actually going to work or not.
As an aside, I think it’s funny that speeding, which is a crime because you might kill people, carries a fine of 60, and pirating a video game (arguably a victimless crime [I said arguably!]) is more than 12 times the fine.
19/12/2011 at 18:49 codename_bloodfist says:
Very nice interview. To make it perfectly clear though, if an angry revolutionary mob was chasing after this kind gentleman, I would be the last person to speak in his defence. A man who sees this course of action as justified is not a man worth any respect. –copyright holder of several works
19/12/2011 at 18:50 Tim Smith says:
CDP is completely justified to do what they’re doing. You’re obviously mentally deficient if you don’t get the idea of a deterrent. Deterrent. Deterrent. DETERRENT. And you’re there going “This doesn’t do anything about piracy.” How is what they’re doing hard to understand? If you pirate something, you deserve what you get, fuck ya.
19/12/2011 at 18:54 RobF says:
Or maybe people just grasp things like, I dunno, taking things through the courts and innocent until proven guilty as the basis of a pretty reasonable society to exist in and not allowing corporations to ride roughshod over people for the sake of their continued existence.
19/12/2011 at 19:16 codename_bloodfist says:
Yes, Tim, and the people in Texas are executing criminals as a DETERRENT. DETERRENT! Guess what, genius? It doesn’t fucking work.
19/12/2011 at 19:19 Tim Smith says:
@codename_bloodfist I agree with your analogy anyway.
19/12/2011 at 20:40 jrodman says:
codename bloodfist:
Well… deterrence is more complex than that. It works in some cases, when the result is quite scary, and the action is not emotionally charged, and the action is not very necessary, and the committer is well informed and capable of estimating risk reasonably.
In the death penalty case, multiple parts of this break. We give the death penalty for violent crimes that are nearly always emotionally charged, which means reason is typically not engaged. Additionally, in such circumstances people can typically not make good risk estimates.
In this piracy case, the result is fairly scary — it’s unclear if it is scary enough to work. They’re trying to get the committers well informed, but we’ll see how that plays out. I doubt most people will be. Additionally, I very seriously doubt they will be willing to see it as a significant risk until someone they personally know is sued — and talks about it.
20/12/2011 at 09:57 RakeShark says:
Actually, we execute people in Texas because we don’t feel like feeding them 3 squares for 40-60 years.
It’s a practical problem. Death is no deterrent to the stupid/crazy/drunk.
19/12/2011 at 18:53 Rusty says:
I understand and to some extent share the outrage. However, it might be worth distinguishing between a crime and a tort. The act of piracy is both. What CDR is doing addresses the tort. I don’t know much about civil law torts, but in common law (UK/Canada/most of the US), the standard of proof is pretty different and a lot of the stuff you see on TV about the rights of the accused doesn’t apply.
19/12/2011 at 18:53 MrPo0py says:
Thank you for bringing this to light. Game Journalism needs more coverage of these kind of things.
19/12/2011 at 18:54 SalsaShark says:
I feel bad as i was quite vocal in my support for the things CDP were doing. I’m sure those baby killing pirates cost them billions but their unethical behavior has cost them a loyal customer in me.
19/12/2011 at 18:56 mr.ioes says:
“It is DRM-free, which means we really had to go through huge efforts with our publishers to make this happen so that people can enjoy the game without the hassle that pirated copies are already circumventing.”
Oh yeah, thanks. Thanks for badly implementing a copy protection (6-45 fps drop!) and being so generous as to remove it after a week.
Thanks CD Projekt.
Also, I don’t believe that the people who payed 700+ € will be your future customers.
Oh, and another lie. The money CDP earns through those letters isn’t a “petty sum”.
And before I forget: “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% sure have downloaded our game illegally.”
I downloaded it illegaly to get more fps. But I also bought it full price. I bet people like me are counted in this statistic too. I am a pirate? Don’t feel like it.
“It beats me that, honestly speaking, we are being spoken badly about because we are trying to deter people from illegal access to our title.”
Simple. Charge 150€ instead of 700€ like it was done with Gothic 3 (and Two Worlds?) and EVERYTHING is fine.
You are potentionally ruining people’s lifes (given that e.g. a child downloaded it and parents who barely live by their income have to pay). This doesn’t sound like a superfictional scenario to me.
CDP sure lost me as a customer after having bought both Witcher games if they continue this dubious practice.
19/12/2011 at 23:12 FunkyBadger3 says:
You are potentionally ruining people’s lifes
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
21/12/2011 at 04:00 RakeShark says:
Don’t go in there, you’d best beware, don’t feed the bears.
19/12/2011 at 18:56 Galefury says:
Regarding the claim that others are doing it too: searching for software on the linked German website gives 10+ results, among them DXHR, Dungeon Siege 3, DIRT 3, Gothic 4 and Tropico 4. So the list doesn’t seem to be huge, but they’re definitely not the only ones.
19/12/2011 at 18:58 jrodman says:
I’d like to understand the method of identifying people better. If the system is “trust us” combined with threatening legal letters which could border on extortion, I will not trust. In fact, I’d like to better understand the legal relationship between cd project and gog.com. Maybe I should not give gog.com any more money.
19/12/2011 at 18:58 vecordae says:
I understand, as an alleged human being, how frustrating it is to see a bunch of teenagers and twenty-something smirking to themselves about anything, let alone how they stole a copy of the video game I cobbled together out of fortran and hate. CDP is made out of people and sometimes people want to get back at those they feel have wronged them.
This isn’t the way to do it. Contact that legal firm, cancel your contract, and hire some proper investigators or work with the constabulary to get this done properly.
19/12/2011 at 19:04 Lambchops says:
I’m honestly not sure where to stand on this. I don’t really know the legal ins and outs of it at all. For example would piracy court cases in the UK (I appreciate Scotland and England may actually differ in regars to this sort of thing) be civil or criminal? I guess it depends on whether piracy is considered as “theft,” which would be criminal and the presumably subject to some sort of limited fine/custodial sentence.community service depending on what was deemed appropriate or whether it’s seen as adebt owed and therefor a civil case which would go through small claims and be pretty much entirely pointless to pursue for such a small amount of money.
Like I say i don’t know where the law stands on this sort of thing beyond a vague recollection that facilitating piracy can be met with jail times and fines (seem to remember someone getting charged for creating pirate copies of films on his mobile).
From an ignorant standpoint I’d certainly sending letters demanding large sums of cash seems disproportionate and doesn’t appear to be going through proper legal channels (at least it wouldn’t be in the UK and that is presumably why it isn’t happening). Seems to me that if you could indeed verify that someone was pirating (lets leave the issue of whether this is possible or not to the side for now) then charging for the cost of the game + any legal fees incurred by the company to start court proceedings seems the fairest way to do things. That way the person accused has a chance to defend themselves if innocent (and the company filing the claim will be left with the court fees, which should deter them from starting procceeding unless they are genuinely 100% sure about the piracy) and will presumably have to pay back enough money for it to be a detterent (I’ve no idea how much court fees would be).
i’m just making that up as I go along but it seems to fit with my sense of what is fair.
19/12/2011 at 19:04 HothMonster says:
End Piracy! but not like this :(
19/12/2011 at 19:07 Paul says:
I love CDP and The Witcher franchise. I despise people that pirate those games. But I do not condone this. I hope CDP will stop doing it, and so will other publishers and devs.
19/12/2011 at 19:12 Drake Sigar says:
I was going to point out what a crock of shit the speeding ticket example was, but you seem to have everything covered. Good show old chap (though the last quarter of the article looked iffy). I haven’t seen such bogus reasoning since CCP Games heavily implied a virtual pair of jeans should cost the same as a real world pair of jeans.
CD Projekt ask why they’re the ones being targeted. It’s because they had an abundance of goodwill built up from a sterling reputation, and they’re throwing it away for a crazy experiment that is deeply and morally wrong, on a whole other level compared to the despicable business practises of modern corporations.
19/12/2011 at 19:15 Dariune says:
Im kinda behind CDP on this one.
Im not sure their scare tactics are ok. Much better would be to send a letter / email / whatever saying we believe you might be pirating our software, please prove you arent or we may have ot take legal action etc.
But i understand why they are doing it and feel it is justified. I dont think its ok for someone to pirate a game, see if they like it and if they do then buy it. There is enough material on games to be able ot get a good idea of its quality and if you dont like the game, do not buy from that developer again.
Same as everything else. The company did not intend for the consumer to try before they buy so i dont feel its up to the consumer to steal the game, try it and then decide. Not to mention that there are plenty of people out there just pirating it, playing it without any intentions of buying it.
I know quite a few and im vocal with my disapproval. If you want something … buy it! Support the company and hope that products you want keep getting made.
19/12/2011 at 20:00 HothMonster says:
On the flip side what about all those games that I would have put in the “meh looks interesting but I don’t want to get burned” category but I instead pirated and loved and therefore bought a copy for me and my lady as well as several additional copies for friends on steam sales? I know quite a few indie devs that would be out of quite a few copies of there game if I didn’t help myself to a free demo because I didn’t think it was worth 15$s to find out if I like it.
19/12/2011 at 21:55 Dariune says:
@HothMonster I would say the following.
That first off all, whether you like the way the developers sell their game or not, its not up to you to pirate it first and maybe buy it later. As i said, there is enough material about the game for you to get a fairly good opinion of what its like and whether you will buy it or not.
And secondly I think people who pirate a game and then buy it are fewer than those who pirate a game and then dont go on to buy it. I have nothing ot back that up, its just opinion.
Its stealing. I understand the arguents to say that its ok. I just dont agree with them. And just because you can steal a game doesnt mean its ok regardless of how you justify it to yourself. (Not you particularly, you the general you)
19/12/2011 at 22:18 HothMonster says:
I understand what you are saying and fully understand that piracy is a problem. I just don’t think all the effects of piracy are bad and think it would be rather stupid to throw the baby out with the bathwater because no one wants to have an honest discussion about the matter. And by “no one” I mean the RIAA, MPAA, and the foreign(to me) equivalents who continue to cloud the debate and only help to polarize people.
As far as it being the devs choice as to how I preview the game….yeah I get it but I got a pile full of broken dreams from being a child of the 80s spending his minimum wage salary on steaming piles of horseshit that were advertised well. Let alone the broken games that no one ever got around to fixing. I look at it like this, if I am curious about a console game I will borrow it from a friend (as I did on PC back in the day when DRM was a piece of paper you could loan someone) and try it, torrenting is the modern pc equivalent. Even still I sometimes get suckered into buying horseshit, I’m looking at you Homefront, piracy is my consumer protection. I spend a massive amount of money on games a year, if I can filter out a few bullshit titles (or good games I just don’t like) I am gonna do it. But am fully aware this makes me an outlaw and a badguy in the eyes of many.
Cue “whatever you want to say to justify your filthy habits you dirty whore” comments in 3.2.1:
19/12/2011 at 19:19 V. Profane says:
I’d rather have had DRM on the Witcher 2 than them pulling this shit.
19/12/2011 at 19:20 doggod says:
Thankfully i no longer live in Germany,
on a side note are you also responsible for what happens if a thief steals your car and proceeds to mow down people ?
Anyway currently in Ireland
“The Data Protection Commission has given Eircom 21 days to respond to its decision to instruct the operator to halt its ‘three strikes’ policy against music piracy”
In 2008 Eircom basically decided to allow as part of a court case settlement
( I believe it was out of court )
that it would impliment a ‘three strikes’ policy against music piracy” where the music industry basically said this ip address downloaded such and such
Another company UPC a cable operator fought the same claims made by the music industry and won because the court did not believe it was possible to equate an ip to a person with 100% reliability.
Full article here
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/25072-eircom-has-21-days-to/
Im a customer of CDP but to me this action makes them as bad if not worse than the pirates they believe they are defending themselves against. If their methods are 100% effective give the matter straight to the courts of the land to sort out.
These days I’m beginning to feel less and less for any company that hides behind a EULA. I cant understand why they even continue to use the language of lawyers in them when everyone of them boils down to “F*ck you we have your money you don’t have a leg to stand on”.
19/12/2011 at 19:23 Dariune says:
Double post
19/12/2011 at 19:25 endtime says:
I wonder if any of these cases ever end up in court, or are CDP just using scare tactics to prevent further piracy of their games. Stuff like this spreads like wildfire, and many people will probably stop downloading their games just for fear of being sued.
I mean, it’s all well and good saying “we are 100% sure that the people we have targeted pirated the game” in a PR letter, but proving it in court is a different thing altogether.
19/12/2011 at 19:26 alundra says:
I want to call your attention this part, what the flying fuck is a private company doing fining common people???
What we are witnessing here is private interests, corporations, taking the law on their own hands, using terrorism as a mean to achieve an end:
pay us or we take you to court!!
Mr Walker is right on the money again, with their actions they are circumventing the law, and what a sad world we live in if somebody thinks this is common sense.
19/12/2011 at 19:43 codename_bloodfist says:
It’s not uncommon. If I learnt one thing on the internet, particularly on sites that allow voting, is that a very large number of people would gladly forsake due process for the purpose of hunting down someone who -might- have hurt their interests in the most remote ways possible. Good news is that these people are too naive to ever reach a position of any importance.
19/12/2011 at 20:04 HothMonster says:
technically if they didn’t offer you a way out and just said we are taking you to court you would probably spend more on legal fees before you even got to court then if you just pay the fine. So a lot of the companies that do this try and claim they are doing the pirate a favor by offering them an out before going to court.
I know it costs more that the settlement just to get my lawyer out of bed.
I still don’t like the practice but that is how the lawyers explain it to people like Michal to make it sound less despicable.
19/12/2011 at 20:40 Enikuo says:
He shouldn’t have called it a fine, but rather a settlement. They agree not to take them to court for X amount of money. Companies settle with people all the time to avoid court.
That said, I don’t trust that their super secret piracy id method is 100% accurate and that there haven’t been innocent people frightened into paying that “fine.” In fact, it reminds me a lot of the scams that collection agencies run to scare people into paying bills that don’t actually belong to them. Seems stupid to trade the good will they’ve gotten with great DRM policies for this. I guess they just can’t help themselves.
19/12/2011 at 20:59 Dervish says:
Calling it extortion and blackmail wasn’t enough–now it’s terrorism!
That hefty fine might get someone kicked out on the street. They might even starve. So really, CD Projekt aren’t just vigilantes, they’re murderous vigilantes.
20/12/2011 at 09:39 RakeShark says:
Why is a private company issuing the fines for CDP?
I’ll give you an example. I once rented a DVD from Hollywood Video. I never returned it and completely forgot about it. A year later I got a letter from a collection agency demanding I pay what was about 4 times the cost of the rental.
Same kinda thing.
19/12/2011 at 19:27 Brun says:
The problem that I (and John, apparently) have with this practice is that the publisher is handling the dispensing and collecting of these “fees,” and that they really do sound like Blackmail. A lot of you have claimed that it is not extortion because the fees are supposed to act as a deterrent – however, the problem is that in many cases the strength of the legal case on which these fees are based is questionable at best. CD Projekt is relying on the fact that many of the people who receive these notices will pay simply to avoid the hassle and expense of going to court – even if CD Projekt’s case against them were not strong enough to convict before a judge.
Fees like this – that are supposed to act as a deterrent – should be issued by the police or the legal system as a result of breaking the law. The money should not go to CD Projekt. If CD Projekt wants to recoup the cost of their “lost sale” they should take it up in a civil case with the alleged offender – and in a civil case they’re unlikely to get more than the cost of the product as damages.
19/12/2011 at 19:27 greenbananas says:
So, let me get this straight: Someone who claims to be done wrong and suddenly turns into policeman, judge, jury and executioner and starts issuing threats and attempting to blackmail random members of the population and not only does he thinks that’s justifiable (even after witnessing the fallout of this being made public) on the basis that he’s “pretty sure he’s targetting the right people”, but somehow a significant slice of the people here agree with that? On what basis? Just because it’s the law in Germany, it’s suddenly morally acceptable?
Wow. That’s… depressing.
Another thing I find intriguing is why would any random gamer have this utmost hatred of any and all pirates. It’s as if they’re the bane of our existence. Are you really so in love with the idea of making these “murderers, rapists and thieves” suffer that you’re willing to just waive your rights and support this mafioso’s persecution of random people in the hope he’ll catch one of them?
20/12/2011 at 09:42 Jimbo says:
They aren’t random members of the population and they aren’t denying anybody access to the legal process at any point, so it’s really nothing like you just described at all.
19/12/2011 at 19:31 Dobleclick says:
Just for the record, here’s one commenter who’s 100% behind John’s opinion (with a margin of 0,0001%). CDP’s actions are WRONG!! I shouldn’t even need to say this, but just in case: No, I don’t pirate myself.
19/12/2011 at 19:47 FunkyBadger3 says:
You might not like them, but they’re acting within due process, so are pretty much the definition of “not wrong”.
19/12/2011 at 20:49 jrodman says:
@funkybadger
Doubleclick is pretty clearly expressing his views (a bit overexuberately perhaps).
Redefining the word ‘wrong’ from his speech to suit your response is more than a bit unfortunate. Doing so in a way that does not admit the margin for personal views is poorly-mannered.
19/12/2011 at 22:41 FunkyBadger3 says:
jrodman: reiterating the definition, rather than redefining. People shouting WRONG, WRONG, WRONG at each other with escalating shrillness does no-one any favours.
21/12/2011 at 22:34 jrodman says:
Not following legal due process is definitely not the definition of
wrong.
Illegal and wrong are two different concepts, that we would like to
often align, but often do not.
So Doubleclick was clearly speaking from behavior that is socially
and/or morally acceptable perspective (it is a bit vague) and now you
are speaking from a legal perspective. That’s how you attempted to
twist the words, and that’s what is unfortunate about it.
That you don’t seem to recognize that there *could* be another
definition for wrong is rather surprising, and I hope not accurate.
19/12/2011 at 19:34 wintermute says:
So CDP and Mr. Nowakowski take some time and write a coherent letter explaining their strategy and reasoning behind it, something that certain big publishers would never even dream of doing, and all they get is a storm of negativity and threats.
When I was a poor student, I used to pirate games regularly. I used to tell myself, if it is a good game then surely I will buy it soon, but it never happened. I think it is utterly naive, or purposely avoiding the issue, to think most pirates are not like this. Mostly, I think, the latter, since the arguments seem to boil down to two pretty weak and stupid ones:
1) Pirating is not stealing – usually accompanied by the famous picture where a copy means the original still remains, so everything is just peachy. Really, if you believe in this argument then there is no hope for you. You just got yourself a free copy of a product, making you a pirate. But wait, you are a noble pirate, so you will soon buy the game and it is not even one lost sale!
I cannot prove to you that this will not happen, but if you are, or have ever downloaded a torrent, even if you scream otherwise you know this as well as I do. Additionally, as you are torrenting, you are sending bits to other “noble pirates” just like you, and if you do not bother to change the default settings of your client, or turn the torrent off, you will continue to do so for a long time. Also, honestly, how do you “mistakenly” start downloading a game torrent. Give me a break.
2) Piracy does not cost companies much money, but DRM hurts the noble gamer – Let’s make some VERY conservative assumptions. Go on any big torrent site. Check out the number of seeders for Modern Warfare 3. Even if the ~10,000 people now seeding are the ONLY people to have pirated the full game, even assuming 50% of these people actually then bought the game, even disregarding the ~10,000 leechers, that’s 5,000 * 60 euros (steam price) = 300,000 euros. If you know anything about bittorrent, you know this is almost piss-your-pants-funny conservative estimate, as for example most people will stop seeding right after finishing a download.
DISCLAIMER: But wait! There is no scientific study to back me up!! (I would be glad for you to try and prove me wrong on the above though, as it makes me quite sad)
And this is ignoring the ridiculous ~90% piracy rates for some indie titles (e.g. Machinarium), very highly reviewed and at 1/3 or less a price of AAA titles.
3) Game X did not have DRM and sold really well! – Let’s ignore the fact this is neatly side-stepping the issue and go on any big torrent site. Type in “Skyrim”. Oops, even more seeders then MW3! What a surprise! No, just that a great game will sell more and get pirated proportionally more, losing proportionally more money.
4) Online-required DRM is evil because I cannot play my game on an airplane, or on dodgy wi-fi -RPS writers, among others, are the champions of these dodgy wi-fi people. Someone will always have a story of how they could not play Ass Creed for a few hours, even days! However, we live in the age of broadband. Publishers could not do this trick with the online DRM if most people could not play their game. If little Timmy from next door (MW3 nickname ‘t3h r4pist0r’) can play his Ass Creed on dad’s mobile internet, but you are having problems with your wi-fi, well there’s probably better things you can do with your time then complain about the DRM. Like getting a new internet. I concede though, this stance is totally subjective. Once again I leave the judgment up to you.
—
Ultimately, it is sad to me that most gamers try very, very hard to justify piracy, leaving their common sense behind, while not even trying to empathise a little with the game creators and (gulp) publishers. I guarantee that if you were ever to put a few months, or years, of your time into any creative project and then see it brazenly stolen while the thieves also called you names, you would see the other side of the story. Which I sincerely wish you will one day :D
- Former-pirate/Not-a-game-designer
19/12/2011 at 19:44 Brun says:
You can’t prove that every pirated copy would translate into $60 for the publisher. Many of those pirates would simply not buy the game, with the same end result – no $60 for the publisher.
19/12/2011 at 20:13 HothMonster says:
@Brun let alone the people that would not have bought the game, pirated it and then bought a copy because they liked it.
Piracy is an issue but unfortunately it is such a polarizing topic that its hard to see the truth of what is going on. We need to look honestly at the question to see what damages are done vs what is gained. And then take steps to mitigate the damages and encourage the gains. However any discussion on the topics turns into Piracy is bad quit trying to justify your theft so you can sleep at night VS. Fuck yo corporation I’ll take what I want.
19/12/2011 at 20:30 wintermute says:
@Brun
I could argue you cannot prove the opposite.
But let’s speculate. Pirate has a good enough machine to run AAA game. Game costs fraction of his computer, so he is most likely rich enough to EASILY buy it. There are thousands of videos online he can watch to get a feel for the game instead of pirating “to try”, including reviews, let’s plays etc.
If you have the means to buy a game and no real excuse to pirate it, but you still do it, what are you doing if not stealing?
19/12/2011 at 20:36 Brun says:
@wintermute:
I was responding mostly to the OP’s long paragraphs of statistical nonsense. There’s no guarantee that the 10,000 people torrenting MW3 would have paid $60 for it if pirating were not an option. As you said there’s also no guarantee that the opposite is true.
Of course, companies will assume that 10,000 torrenters is the same as $600,000 in lost sales, because it makes it easy for them to justify tactics like these to their shareholders and the public in general. My point was that the validity of that assumption is questionable.
19/12/2011 at 20:50 wintermute says:
@Brun
I am the OP bro >_>
I took a very conservative look at how much piracy could be costing the publisher of MW3 based on current bittorrent numbers. It is speculation, but I think my assumptions are valid.
Your response just says ‘that’s nonsense’ without even an attempt at justification. This is sadly the norm in any argument concerning piracy.
19/12/2011 at 21:03 Brun says:
@wintermute:
“The OP” can have several meanings on the internet – the two main ones are “original post” and “original poster.” I was referring to the former (the post itself), although I admit that in context the meaning was ambiguous and I apologize for the confusion.
“I took a very conservative look at how much piracy could be costing the publisher”
I was doing nothing more than attempting to highlight the difference between “could be costing” and “is costing.” Often publishers (and their supporters in threads like this) take them to be one and the same. The extent to which they are the same has not been (and perhaps cannot be) proven conclusively. As such, figures like that can be misleading to people who don’t take the time to stop and think about them (read: the vast majority of people). The result is that the “piracy problem” may appear to be bigger than it actually is, or vice versa. The point is that we don’t know – so we can’t pass things like that off as fact.
19/12/2011 at 22:03 gwathdring says:
I don’t think it should matter if the pirate would have bought the game otherwise. Intent is a bastard to prove in court, and an elegant copyright system would do it’s best to avoid issues of intent wherever possible. By circumventing the allowed distribution channels but still taking advantage of the product, I feel you should logically now owe the company the money you would have had to pay if you had followed legal channels. It’s simple and logical.
I will endeavor to use an analogy that illustrates my opinion on the matter (note, not that illustrates How Stuff Works). Imagine for a moment sneaking into a concert. You don’t steal a seat or a ticket, so you deprive no one of the experience. You take up standing-room space, but the place isn’t so full that it’s a problem in and of itself. Unfortunately, you get caught not having a bracelet by security and they escort you out, informing you that, as per the signs at the entrance, you now owe them the cost of a ticket. Sure, maybe you wouldn’t have gone if you couldn’t sneak in or maybe you would have bought discount tickets or cheap-seat tickets and not had to pay as much as the fine. But you were reaping the benefits of privately owned content in a privately owned space with clear rules and now have to accept the consequence.
So, let’s bring it back. What do we have in the case of gaming piracy? Privately owned content is covered. There’s no private space, but it’s not a necessary component. We have firm precedent for the customer’s “would have paid x” argument not holding up in or out of court. Here’s where it gets really, really, messy. There’s no clear policy. There’s no private property, so there’s no expectation of private and allowably arbitrary rules. Trespass is a well understood violation, so are house rules. But with a product out in the marketplace, none of that is quite clear. The implications of certain types of violations and what exactly constitutes a violation is not laid out well.
But. And this is a conjunction the size of an Asymetic Giant Branch star. That doens’t really matter in most other legal jurisdictions. It is your responsibility to learn the laws and investigate when things seem unclear. You can’t get away with crimes by pleading ignorance except in the weirdest of circumstances.
19/12/2011 at 19:42 Trashcanman says:
In Dutch privacy law the actions CDP are taking are even considered to be more illegal than downloading copyrighted material. IP adresses are considered to be personal data which may not be used by companies in any means without either a court order or express consent. Privacy is a strong part of our constitution and any legislation trying to erode it has been firmly slapped down so far. If they would try this stunt here they would be buried in lawsuits faster than they can yell settlement.
What they are doing is questionable. So questionable that we have laws expressly forbidding it.
19/12/2011 at 19:45 Kaira- says:
Personally, I am supporting CD Projekt with this. Treat customers better than potential customers. Obviously there are some places of danger in this practice, and I am not too happy with them, but it’s ultimately the court’s decision on if the accused should pay or not.
19/12/2011 at 19:45 FunkyBadger3 says:
Good on CDP.
19/12/2011 at 19:45 Red3eard says:
“In fact, you can scare your own balls off by visiting here.”
On a lighter note I thought this was good, apparently the only torrent I’ve downloaded was “Desperate Housewives S08E07 HDTV ”
HAH. Not only have I never touched that, but there are slews of other torrents that I’ve been downloading. Of note there was the recent humble bundle #4 that I bought and to help out I seeded on the official torrents.
19/12/2011 at 19:47 Sami H says:
Apologies if this has been brought up:
The £30-£40 figure would be the cost of the game, and IMO should be the absolute minimum that needs to be paid. However, it also costs time and money to track the people pirating the game, get the information required (either from the ISP or whomever), send out the letters and manage the whole operation will cost far more than £30-£40 per head.
Without attempting to recoup those costs, it would actually cost CDP more money to go after pirates than to just let them get away with it. And by cost them more money, I mean actual real money spent, not potential income lost. The actual cost of tracking down the pirates needs to be factored in to this, which is why the “just pay the cost of the game” argument strikes me as being a little naive.
19/12/2011 at 19:48 mr.ioes says:
The more dangerous it becomes to download stuff via torrent, the more people will join/pay for services (hidden IP, ftp and others) in order to continue enjoying a comfortable service (DRM-free content being a service for example).
CDP you are only shifting the crime to other places and not doing anyone a favour with it except yourself.
No surprise TPB is only the fourth most-used site for illegal downloads, according to torrentfreak.
Those three sites on top of the list require payment IIRC. The top one sure does.
Just shift people into those services and you’ll lose even more potential customers.
And you know what this will lead to …
19/12/2011 at 19:51 FunkyBadger3 says:
Most internet rings – of whatever stripe – that get taken down are taken down from the money side of things. Paid-for means, basically, lost tax revenue – governments have a suprisingly humourless attitude towards this.
Interesting to see if things do develop in that direction.
19/12/2011 at 19:58 mr.ioes says:
@FunkyBadger3: I don’t understand your post no matter how hard I try so I can’t comment on it.
Actually, TPB only is on rank 6 and this is the article I was talking about:
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-largest-file-sharing-sites-110828/
19/12/2011 at 22:44 FunkyBadger3 says:
mr.joes – once illicit net rings (cardmarkets, porno etc.) are cracked the follow-up is via electronic banking records. If pirates take their illicit activities to paid-for sites then they pretty much are hoisting themselves by their own petard(s).
19/12/2011 at 19:55 Belua says:
As for other companies doing that, I’d suggest Eidos. I don’t know if they still do that, but I received such a letter from one of their lawyers in my *less honourable* days a number of years back. I’m sure others did the same and/or are still doing it. The music industry sends similar letters, at least here in Germany.
19/12/2011 at 19:57 Calabi says:
That trade secret nonsense is the scary stuff, so they have some secret means of aquiring evidence. I think the news of the world got into trouble for gathering evidence by secret means.
I agree piracy is wrong and a crime but this is not the correct way to go about dealing with it.
19/12/2011 at 22:46 FunkyBadger3 says:
Secret is not the same as illegal. What the News of the World did was illegal, hence being kept secret.
19/12/2011 at 20:06 Cross says:
Kudos to the good folk at CDP for being honest. No kudos for playing police when they’re not.
19/12/2011 at 20:27 steverocksan says:
I’m gonna try and be as civil as possible when saying this: Just because CDP sends you an email does not mean you must pay that fine unless you prove your innocence to CDP. You can still take them to court if you want to prove that you’re innocent in civil court.
Just. Like. Everything. Else. In. Life.
19/12/2011 at 20:31 Brun says:
The cost of going to civil court (accounting for legal fees, time off from work, etc.) will be much greater than the fine. So CDP are basically saying “pay us this much money now, or risk paying a LOT more later on by taking us to court to prove your innocence.” Even if the accused is found innocent, they still have to pay in time and legal fees.
For the vast majority of people, going to court will cost them many times more than the $750 or whatever CDP has been charging. CDP is exploiting that fact to force these “settlements” out of people.
19/12/2011 at 20:51 datom says:
No, it won’t.
£900 disputes don’t exactly get you to the High Court. In the UK, the small claims court fee is £80. Heck, you’re probably exempt unless you’ve got the money floating around. This kind of thing happens, err, kind of a lot in real life, and there are safeguards in place.
19/12/2011 at 22:13 gwathdring says:
In the US, the filing fee varies depending on details of the case, but the fee is usually under $100. Which is a lot of money, but it’s a lot less that $750. Most of the people I know who’ve been in small claims court over various issues paid for legal advice, but not representation in court. Of course, I’ve never known anyone brought to court over small claims by a large corporation.
I’m torn about this issue. On one hand, practically speaking people don’t know their rights or obligations and thus this sort of thing can be confusing and terrifying. On the other hand, legally speaking, citizens have an obligation to keep themselves informed about our legal system. Furthermore, these are not federal prosecutions; the company is fully responsible for dolling out the court summons. How are they supposed to inform people about legal actions they propose to take? Are they simply supposed to sit down and never challenge a single piracy case?
I don’t think there’s a correct answer. I think there are, however, a lot of obviously wrong answers. And I don’t think this long, detailed response from CDP is one of them.
20/12/2011 at 19:25 harmlos says:
@brun:
This is taking place in Germany, not the U.S. In Germany, the looser usually pays all costs (court costs and laywers’ fees), so the logic behind the legal blackmail we see with filesharing cases in the U.S. does not apply. You may have to take some time off to appear in court, but that is the price you pay for living in a society where civil disputes are settled in court.
19/12/2011 at 20:09 jack4cc says:
Company/Software used ?
Most likely Logistep Deutschland UG, “File Sharing Monitor”
So, who are the other publushers ?
Topware – Two Worlds 2, 750€ as well
Koch Media – Kane & Lynch 2, 800€
Koch Media – Armada 2526, 650€
Koch Media – F1 2010, 800€
[...]
just google for reichelt klute aßmann
HOWEVER :
It should be noted that paying the ransom err… paying without going to court always means an admisison of guilt and you have to sign something called a “Strafbewehrte Unterlassungserklärung” too, which at least for armada and k&l 2 means that you’d have to pay the outrageous sum of 6000€ if you’d ever again download another title from this publisher.
19/12/2011 at 20:14 datom says:
The conflation of the DEVASTATING EFFECTS OF PIRATERY and the HIDEOUS TWISTING OF JUSTICERY BY TYRANNICUL GERARD OF RIVIA got a little boring the last time. Much more interesting is the mindless speculation and observation, of which some follows:
1) CD Projekt have not written to every torrenter in Germany. It is likely they have some craftiness (my initial thought was a dodgy upload then logging support tickets) up their sleeve. It is very unlikely they have been targeting ‘random’ individuals, as someone said, or individuals solely on the basis of IP addresses, unless you believe them to be flagrantly lying to the media, or for some reason, not mass-mailing people. If it’s extortion, they should extort everyone.
2) With all this coverage, CD Projekt have at least achieved one of their aims. It ain’t a deterrent if no-one knows about. They can’t stop actual computer-literate pirates – they are trying to convince amateur (teenage?) filesharers that this could get them in trouble with their mum and dad. If mum and dad get a £900 demand through the door, the kid will get a hiding. “NO INTERNET FOR A MONTH, LADDIE”.
3) Also, more nonsense about speeding tickets has been written here than nonsense about anything else. We are aware that the UK government have been hauled to court several times for applying penalties in cases were they were completely unsure who drove the car, just that the car was driven at speed? Oddly, that’s the only bit of the analogy that is actually analogous with IP = pirate.
Don’t get me started on parking tickets, either. No evidence is required beyond that of the issuing of the ticket by the warden. RPS, cover this in depth, NOW!
19/12/2011 at 22:19 gwathdring says:
I agree on most points. The car:owner as IP:owner analogy doesn’t quite work though. It is reasonable to expect someone to be personally responsible for their car and even their computer usage. It is not reasonable to expect someone to be personally responsible for their IP address usage. Are quite at a point with consumer technology where average computer users can fully secure their IP address? I mean … if you have a decent Wi-Fi password and you have an average firewall and such, you’re still not immune to someone tricking a network into thinking they have your IP address or similar tomfoolery–or for that matter dominating your wireless connection.
Maybe I’m wrong, and IP addresses our more sacred and well protected than my limited experience with servers suggests. I’m not much of a programmer, and my server expert friend mostly likes to chat about the high end stuff I don’t quite understand; I only manage to weasel so much useful information out of him. Lot’s of really awesome trivia, though.
19/12/2011 at 20:20 steverocksan says:
I really see nothing wrong at all with what CDP is doing.
Concerning magnitudes: The whole point of a large fine is so that, even though they only catch 0.001% of pirates, the fine is large enough to deter others from doing it. It makes perfect sense to me.
And how are they circumventing the legal system? If you don’t want to pay that large sum, take em to court and argue your case! If you haven’t learned that as a citizen of free countries, now’s a great time to learn.
Really, I see no issue with CDP’s actions, and I applaud them for being against DRM.
19/12/2011 at 20:48 Kandon Arc says:
Deterrence isn’t about the size of the punishment, it’s about the likelihood of getting caught. If I pirated music, I wouldn’t bother me that 2 people had been caught and fined £100,000. It would bother me if 50% of pirates had been caught and forced to pay £100. If a pirate sees that he has a greater chance of winning the lottery than getting caught, then he will not be deterred in the slightest.
Secondly the reason Davenport Lyons and ACS Law are in trouble is because they have no intention of going to court, because they know full well that an IP address is not sufficient evidence. I would have liked to see John ask if any cases had gone to court because I would be prepared to contest that anyone who does stand up to these letters will be ignored and the company will move on to the next poor sap who pays up out of fear.
19/12/2011 at 20:55 Walter Heisenberg says:
“take em to court and argue your case! If you haven’t learned that as a citizen of free countries, now’s a great time to learn.”
Oh you’re adorable!
19/12/2011 at 22:33 gwathdring says:
Being taken to court isn’t easy or fun. But I think it’s counter-productive to act like anything that results in a court date for an innocent person is unequivocally wrong and out of sorts. Small claims court isn’t mind-bendingly expensive, though it can be a bit nerve-wrecking depending on what you’re up against. Something like a misappropriated ticket or a stop-light camera catching you crossing the road behind a super tall delivery truck that blocked out the stop light until you were *just* less than halfway through? Pretty simple to take care of, if well on the scary and difficult side. With a little before hand preparation, and in extreme circumstances $100 (or less if you’re luck) to spend an hour with an attorney well recommended in the area for your sort of issue, it is an uncomfortable but not by any means unreasonable experience.
I don’t know enough about their methods of finding pirates to say whether this mailing is justified. But really, how do you propose they inform defendants of impending civil proceedings? Or do propose they never excercise their rights because it is inconvenient when we then have to exorcise ours?
P.S. In many cases, you can also counter-sue to get your legal fees covered. The company resulted in your paying up to $500 or so dollars if the filing fee was high and you got a fair bit of legal advice first. In fact, I think in many circumstances you can include this type of thing when you file your defensive claim.
19/12/2011 at 20:21 Maldomel says:
I’m not quite satisfied with the answers here, much like John Walker. They are still threatening people, scaring them. How can they be sure anyway? Is the company working on their case sending people on the field to stalk pirates or what? How can they know the IPs are the pirates IP? Sounds like Germany is a country with shitty laws when you regard privacy of the people (considering they do it in Germany because they can and it’s easy to do).
Also, who are those mysterious publishers practicing racket like that? Funny, we don’t hear about similar cases and suddenly one gets into the spot, just like that.
I’m ashamed for CDP here. It’s a studio I love and respect, but those practice, even if they aim to defend their interest, are nothing more than racket and blackmail to me. I’m not really defending piracy, just a white knight at heart who can’t support such practice, and such injustice. Everybody got a point on piracy, but nobody should agree with what they are currently pulling off, hoping to rack shittons of money and sometimes ruining the lives of people. And don’t tell me they are only targeting guilty people with financial means, you know it’s not true.
Now I’m waiting for more coverage on this case (I love that RPS does cover it with such insight by the way, that is what I am expecting of my favorite videogame related website), Waiting for reports of innocent guys being threatened. We’ll see what CDP says when it happens.
19/12/2011 at 22:50 FunkyBadger3 says:
As has been stated elsewhere, it really isnt “but those practice, even if they aim to defend their interest, are nothing more than racket and blackmail to me.” – its the function of due process under the law. If CDP do go to court and lose they have to pay the fees of their opponent…
19/12/2011 at 23:24 RobF says:
FunkyBadger3, I’m not sure why I’m expected to care about what they have to pay out in fees. That seems, well, strange to me.
If they incorrectly accuse someone of a crime or they have no sustainable evidence of a crime then damn right they should pay out for what they’ve done.
19/12/2011 at 20:25 Skyhigh says:
A company which is often used by the different media firms that own part of the rights to movies, songs etc., to track IP addresses is http://www.ipoque.com.
In Germany there is almost an entire admonish industry (translated from german “Abmahn-Industrie”).
These mass letters have been sent out to many people in Germany from the music, film and game industry. This is not something that only CDP is doing in Germany.
I think the way it is going now, the legal system in Germany is being abused by these companies.
19/12/2011 at 20:52 Walter Heisenberg says:
Yeah he pretty confirms it here:
“Regarding Germany – it is about access to accurate data, which is allowed by the state.”
The Big Brother stuff is why they think they have 100% accurately.
20/12/2011 at 19:39 harmlos says:
@Walter Heisenberg
actually no, the reason they are doing this in Germany is because German law allows “Abmahnungen” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abmahnung for a short description in English) and, as Skyhigh has mentioned, sending such Abmahnungen in large numbers has become trendy for certain German law firms looking for easy money.
19/12/2011 at 20:57 Kandon Arc says:
I feel this bears repeating: BT trackers will intentionally put in spoof IP addresses, so you are guaranteed to have false positives. And while CDProjekt may accept valid receipts as proof of innocence, somehow I doubt they will accept ‘I’ve never heard of that game before’.
I appreciate John’s chasing up of this issue. While others engage in it, and they should be named and shamed, it’s nice to see someone besides TorrentFreak or EEF talking about it. One thing I would like an answer on though, is how many people have yet been taken to court over this; because the main point to arise from the SDT’s review of Davenport Lyons was that they only threatened to take people to court and never actually followed through, which is why many compared it to blackmail.
EDIT: As if further proof was needed, these are the people who go around sending these letters: http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-investigator-bemoans-lack-of-training-meddling-by-lawyers-111217/
19/12/2011 at 22:52 FunkyBadger3 says:
Has anyone falsely accused gone to court and proved it? i.e. have there been any false positives?
19/12/2011 at 20:57 ukpanik says:
I thought Witcher 2 was shit. I wish I hadn’t bought it.
“The purpose of this action is not to get rich on piracy – believe me, the numbers coming through as a result of this action are petty to say the most”
I guess they are playing at Judge & Jury for the fun then. Can’t believe anyone is siding with CD Projekt.
Peoples morals sway…depending on their likes and dislikes.
19/12/2011 at 20:59 mr_merriweather says:
Having pirates just pay for a copy of the game is a joke of a solution for two reasons:
1) It does not reflect the actual damage done to the developer. Pirates are not only making a copy of the game for themselves when they torrent, but they are also enabling others to do the same.
2) It gives pirates no reason to stop pirating and buying legit copies. A pirating consumer is faced with two options: buy the game from Steam for $40, or pirate it and have a small chance of paying $40. They’re going to pirate every time. If you increase the cost of pirating, they will eventually be deterred and go buy a legit copy.
Pirating is always going to exist and no company can effectively enforce their rights to the extent required to eliminate it. But a solution that neither compensates the developer for the damage done nor deters future pirating is absolutely pointless.
EDIT: I also think you are downplaying the deterrent effect. Most people are risk avoiders and will err on the side of caution rather than act according to the actual probability that they will be caught. Furthermore, it’s the perceived probability of being caught that matters, not the actual probability.
19/12/2011 at 21:59 Guvornator says:
Also it doesn’t cover the cost of finding said pirate and sending them the letter.
19/12/2011 at 21:03 SquareWheel says:
This is a great discussion to have. I purchased the Witcher 2, though I now regret that decision. They’re free to continue with their legal shenanigans, but they’re not a company I want to support because of it.
Sad to say I can’t buy from GoG any more, but that’s how it goes.
19/12/2011 at 21:07 Guvornator says:
@ John Walker “We haven’t seen a copy of the letters being sent out in Germany, and it’s possible that they are worded very differently, but what they will be saying is, “Pay this large sum or you will have to pay a very much larger sum.”
Um..you haven’t seen the letters? So you’ve not seen the very thing that the article is about? Seriously? For all you know the content of those letters could range from “Unless you stop the torrent NOW you will be fined” (which seems perfectly reasonable) to “Pay us the money fucko, or we kill a member of your family.” (which is less so). I can’t help thinking that if you are dealing with a company that, rightly or wrongly, goes to the lawyers to solve their problems some hard evidence would be useful.
“And this is why it looks like a cash grab, despite CDP’s protestations that they aren’t making serious money from this. (Although, let’s be clear – if it is 1000 letters, and the fine is €750, that’s still three quarters of a million Euro. I’m not so sure that’s a figure to be so easily dismissed.) ”
How much of that is going to the lawyers? Generally, they ain’t cheap. I don’t really have a massive issue with it being self financing (even though it’s a little distasteful), it’s just if they’re making wads that it becomes an issue.
Look. You don’t like DRM. You don’t like people being fined when they download illegally. What, exactly, would you like companies to do to protect their livelyhoods in an industry where 4% of the games make a profit? And how can you say that €750 is disproportionate when The Witcher is pirated 4.5 times as much as it’s sold?
19/12/2011 at 23:23 diamondmx says:
“4% of the games make a profit”
Caused by piracy? I doubt it. I doubt you could even make a strong case that piracy is among the top 3 contributing factors.
Realisticly it’s most likely caused by one or all of the following:
* Way too high budgets
* Extreme visibility disparity between high-profile titles and everything else
* Lack of consumer trust in unknown titles
* Your statistics being made up
Piracy is a bad thing, but let’s not kid ourselves that it’s ‘the problem’ and if we solve it, then all those poor games companies who go under will now survive – because by misidentifying the problem, we will never solve it. Eg. The PS3 had zero piracy for several years – still had quite a number of poorly performing games.
20/12/2011 at 08:42 Guvornator says:
My statistics are based on ones from the game industry, most notably this (read the whole thing, not just the headline) http://www.computerandvideogames.com/202401/4-report-is-false-says-forbes-interviewee/ . So if it is made up, it wasn’t by me :) .
I’m not going to reiterate what I’ve said in the previous CDP story comments about how piracy here feeds criminal gangs in the far east, nor am I going to get into a slanging match about the merits of piracy. All I’m going to say is CDP are operating in a market where much, much, more people take their game than buy it, and that doesn’t seem right to me.
19/12/2011 at 21:10 Wut The Melon says:
(Though on page 3 because of RPS way of sorting comments, and therefore unlikely to ever be read) My opinion:
It seems there are 3 issues people have with this approach (please correct me if this list is incomplete or incorrect), in no particular order:
1) The accuracy of the method (no 100% certainty to the pirate’s identity)
2)The ‘ethicity’ (no native speaker) of fining pirates in general (pirated copy =/= lost sale)
3)The ethicity of the method (it’s blackmail)
4)The proportions of the fine (too high, suggested regular price)
5)The issuing party of the fine (a company, not the government)
1)Starting with the first complaint, it seems that somehow, we can be certain which method is used to identify the pirates. Though I do agree that not revealing that method is shady at best, it does mean we can not possibly be certain that innocent people will have to pay this fine. Clearly, they’re not just using IP=person.
2)Secondly, the second complaint, that a pirated copy does not equal a lost sale, is in some (or most) cases correct. But does that mean pirating is OK all of a sudden? If you use public transport without paying, but you WOULD use a bike if you had no choice but to pay (e.g. if there had been more regular ticket checks), does that make the lack of payment, or, in this case, piracy, any more ethical? I don’t think so, because you’re enjoying something for free that other people have to pay for (so, in a way, the legal customers are paying for the pirates).
3)Thirdly, the method would be blackmail. There have even been suggestions for changing the content of the sent letter to “We think you may be pirating, please prove your innocence or we’ll take you to court” or similar wordings. May I once again remind you that we don’t know the contents of the letters, and therefore can’t say whether they’re worded as threats or not? Besides, I fail to see in which way this is different from other forms of financial settlements. Someone, whether that be a company, the government, or just anyone, is asking you for a sum of money as compensation for something they think you did. You always have the options to comply because you are guilty, respond to prove your innocence (as has, judging from this article, already happened once), or, if the latter fails, go to court.
4)Apologising for the length of this, but if you’re still reading: this is one point I can, in part, agree with. €750 does seem disproportionate to the crime, and I’m wondering how the legal company came up with that amount (whether this amount is allowed according to the legal system). However, simply charging the regular price of the game takes away not only the financial viability for CDP, but more importantly it would take away the principle of punishment (as a pirate you should pay more than a legal customer).
5)I think I can be quick here (for once): because the government clearly doesn’t prosecute pirates, and the companies feel either that they’re losing sales or just that pirating is ‘unjust’, they choose to prosecute the pirates THROUGH LEGAL MEANS. That means that what they’re doing is at the very least legal, meaning that if you think it’s unjust (wondering how to italic for that word) your complaint should be aimed at the government or perhaps the legal company, because they deal with the legality of the method. I think it makes sense to go after pirates in some way or another, because I feel that what they’re doing is wrong.
So, if, after three pages and one longass comment you’re still reading, I hope you’ll reply to tell me why I’m wrong in supporting CDPR in this.
19/12/2011 at 21:33 jalf says:
Because CDP said so? I’d like a bit more evidence than that. The music industry thought it could be certain of who downloaded music illegally. Turns out that in nearly every case, they couldn’t.
No. No one suggested so, and it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. It’s a strawman argument. Piracy is not ok, but that does not mean that each and every method of punishing pirates is ok either. The question is not whether piracy is justified, but whether this particular method of going after pirates is ok.
I don’t see the relevance. Does a threat become less of a threat if it is worded differently? Is “There are some nasty types around this ‘hood, you don’t know what the might do” less of a threat than “give me some money or I’ll send my thugs to smash up your shop overnight”?
We don’t know the wording of the letter, but we know the meaning: give us money or we’ll take you to court. That is blackmail.
I don’t know of many companies who have done the same. The ones who do (the music industry, notably) were guilty of the exact same thing, so no, it is no different. They caught a ton of bad press, spent a lot of money and achieved nothing on it. And since they’re doing the same, why shouldn’t CDP also get a ton of bad press for it? The government? I’d say that’s very different. They have some kind of authority and responsibility. The government is basically doing what we told them to (that’s kind of the point in a democracy). Moreover, they are tasked with enforcing the law. If the police gives me a speeding ticket, that’s very different from arbitrary company X giving me a “piracy ticket”.
The legal system doesn’t enter into it. That’s the entire point. The issue is settled *outside* of the legal system. They could charge you a million dollars if they wanted to. They are not, and cannot be, held responsible, which is where it, once again, differs from, say, the police giving you a speeding ticket.
True on both counts, and neither of them are relevant. If the purpose is to deter piracy, then it doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, “financially viable”. Do you want the police to earn their budget by giving out speeding tickets? Suddenly, I suspect *a lot* of people will be fined. Do you think the fire department’s budget should be “earned” on a per-fire basis? I wonder who those guys sneaking around at night setting fire to buildings are, then. If this is about making money off their game, then they should ask pirates to pay the same amount as everyone else paid for it. And if it is not? If it is about punishment/deterrence? Then they shouldn’t profit from it, because that’d be a dangerous conflict of interests, and because…
Punishment? What authority do they have to “punish”? If they want to punish pirates, drag them to court, ask the legal system to deal out punishment. That’s what it’s for. This kind of vigilantism has nothing to do with punishment, and it has no place in a civilized country.
There are also legal means for multi-billion corporations to avoid paying a single cent in taxes. There is a huge difference between “technically legal”, and “following the spirit of the law”. It is technically legal to blackmail people with the threat that “we’ll take you to court if you don’t pay up”, but it’s not in the spirit of the law (the spirit of the law is that the courts are there to ensure a fair trial, and so they should be *used* to ensure a fair trial, and threatening a layperson who has zero knowledge of the legal system with “otherwise we’ll take you to court” is hardly in the spirit of the law).
As for “the government doesn’t prosecute pirates”, well, the whole “otherwise we’ll take you to court” is a pretty empty threat, then, isn’t it? Of course the government will prosecute pirates, if a pirate is taken to court. Isn’t that the same as shoplifting? The prime minister doesn’t give chase if you steal an apple from a shop. But if the shopkeeper, the security guards or the police officer who just so happened to be nearby, can catch you and take you to court, then the court will deal out a fair punishment for you.
The other part, that companies “feel it is unfair”? That can fuck right off. It’s not about what they feel is fair. It is about what the law *says* is fair.
Or, the shorter version:
In the US, the media industry has tried the same thing. A lot of people just settled, and paid an disproportionate sum of money just to avoid being taken to court, which sounds scary.
A few people challenged this, took the issue to court, and it resulted in year-long trials with *lots* of legal expenses for everyone. The media industry knew all along that actually taking people to court would cost them more money than they’d earn. So they sent out these threats based on the assumption that “people will just pay”. It was a bluff, because they didn’t *want* to take anyone to court. They just wanted a lot of money for nothing, and a loophole in the legal system made it possible for them.
But it’s still a method more suitable for a mafia boss than an entertainment company in a first-world country.
19/12/2011 at 21:36 Brun says:
“Secondly, the second complaint, that a pirated copy does not equal a lost sale, is in some (or most) cases correct. But does that mean pirating is OK all of a sudden?”
No. But assuming that a pirated copy is equal to a lost sale means it’s just that much easier for companies to justify practices like this.
19/12/2011 at 22:53 Huzsar says:
OK, CDP has apparently proof that some person has pirated their games. So how is asking for a settlement amount account to blackmail exactly? This is no different then you asking for a certain amount from a insurance after an accident. Generally this amount is arbitrary because in addition to hospital costs you would also ask for other damages.
Now the pirates like the the insurance company has the option to negotiate for a lower amount. Up to this point no courts were involved, and if might be settled without the court hearing anything about it.
If both parties cannot settle then one sues the other.
If you want to complain about the accuracy of them finding the suspects, or the amount they are asking for in the settlement (which the accused probably can negotiate if he wants to), thats one thing, but calling it blackmail is pure BS. This is exactly how civil legal preceding are done.
20/12/2011 at 12:26 Wut The Melon says:
As I tried to make clear in my post, and Huzsar has restated in his post, and as Sheng-ji tries to explain in the first comments, I still don’t see why this is blackmail (unless it’s specifically worded as a threat, say “Pay up or you’ll be taken to court which will cost you even more”).
In this case, one party is simply the victim (namely, CDP) and the other is the offender (the pirate). Now in which way is it illogical or even uncommon that CDP will sue the pirate? It certainly seems fair enough to me. I don’t think this is blackmail.
Again, as for the amount of money asked, I do agree that this is too high, but the price of a regular copy of the game is too low. However, as Huzsar and Sheng-ji have pointed out, the price is negotiable and I doubt companies would get away with asking a million dollars as you suggest. I’m wondering whether there isn’t a law that decides on how much you’re allowed to ask for in this case.
Lastly, you don’t believe the method is 100% secure just because CDP says so. I’m simply stating that while it’s impossible to prove that it IS (because CDP is shady about this), neither can we simply say it isn’t. Why? Because it’s fairly easy to prove that the method is NOT 100% secure: we need only one case in which an innocent person was sued. However, we have not heard of such a case yet, despite the fact that apparently this way of prosecuting pirates is more common. Most likely this can be explained by the fact that very little pirates are prosecuted and every case is handled on an individual basis.
19/12/2011 at 21:10 jalf says:
Fuck them.
That is all.
Really, if this is about deterring piracy, then drag people to court. This whole “give us an arbitrary and excessive amount of money or we’ll take you to court” is just blackmail. It’s not up to private companies to punish people for breaking the law, is it?
What we know from the cases where alleged pirates have challenged these threats in court is that:
- the cases take years to settle, and end up costing both parties a lot of money,
- in a majority of cases, there is insufficient evidence to actually find the alleged pirate guilty of anything, and
- these suits are filed solely on the assumption that it’s free money: that they won’t have to go to the court, and that the person being threatened with a lawsuit does not have the legal expertise required to see through their bluff and know what to do, and that people will just pay up the completely arbitrary amounts of money.
Which sucks.
They can fuck right off. I’m suddenly really glad I hadn’t bought The Witcher 2 yet. And until they grow up and get a clue, I’m not going to.
19/12/2011 at 22:59 FunkyBadger3 says:
They are dragging people to court – unless they pay the “fine”. Would you be happier – or less angry – if they took everyone to court and it was all settled there?
20/12/2011 at 00:34 RobF says:
Yes because that’s precisely why we have courts, man.
19/12/2011 at 21:32 TODD says:
Holy hell, could the first interview question have been any more biased? I would expect this sort of crap from a below-average politics blog. The pithy, passive-aggressive undermining of their lengthy answers is annoying to read and awfully juvenile:
“These were odd claims.”
“None of us at RPS could think of any examples of other publishers’ doing this in recent months, and we’d certainly never heard of an independent developer ever taking such action, so this comment struck us as strange.”
“I want to applaud CDP for the amazingly open and frank way they have responded to this debate, even though I personally am extremely against their actions, and disappointed to see there is no sense of contrition or remorse about the devastating effects such actions can have on an individual.”
19/12/2011 at 21:53 Guvornator says:
“I personally am extremely against their actions, and disappointed to see there is no sense of contrition or remorse about the devastating effects such actions can have on an individual.”
Those effects being a) computer being taken away and b) learning not to steal shit. Oh, the humanity…
19/12/2011 at 21:32 mr_merriweather says:
In the US, copyright violations are a federal crime and go to federal courts. There is a minimum for disputes to get into federal courts, but all the developer would have to do is claim willful infringement and the statutory damages would be well above that. I imagine the UK is similar, as countries tend to harmonize their copyright regimes, but I could be wrong.
19/12/2011 at 22:02 datom says:
That’s if they are prosecuted by the federal goverment, surely? Now, the dispute can escalate, but anyway, this is why the dispute is happening in Germany. And I honestly can’t believe that this kind of action isn’t as equally regularly occuring in the US as it is in the UK. If it isn’t, I’m popping over with a typewriter and a LIST OF DEMAND
I think we’re conflating two issues: the company claiming a ‘nuisance’ (or ‘justifiable’) charge for illegal distibution of goods and willful violation of copyright. I’m pretty sure the letter will be carefully worded.
19/12/2011 at 21:55 Guvornator says:
CDProjekt vs IP addresses. IT’S THE WAR NO ONE’S TALKING ABOUT!
19/12/2011 at 22:02 mercurya says:
Nice article!
19/12/2011 at 22:22 gwathdring says:
That’s fantastic!
19/12/2011 at 22:28 automata says:
Although I can appreciate the arguments people are making, I’m just kind of worried about the question: if not this, then what?
How do we, as a society, allow developers and publishers to tackle piracy? There’s no perfect way that will allow them to do anything that won’t potentially harm innocent people that either won’t disadvantage people in some other way (requiring an online connection, for example) or is the equivalent of doing nothing. What you’re essentially arguing is to do nothing about piracy.
That’s fine. Just be aware that piracy is not only a problem for the developers: it’s a problem for gamers as well. Less revenue for them means less games for the rest of us.
(Also as an observation, just remember that CDP are from Poland, and the person you speak to might not be completely fluent in English or familiar with common English idioms or their proper use. Hell, a lot of native English-speakers can’t manage this.)
20/12/2011 at 02:28 kud13 says:
you shouldn’t
what is the point in targetting individual pirates? target the distribution network, find the people who host and upload, and charge them with the crime. When they have been proven guilty, let publishers and devs take them to court.
I really don’t see why we are so uppity about protecting publishers, to the extent of letting them violate individuals’ rights, (such as privacy and presumption of innocence, in the case of SOPA) to maintain an outdated copyright model that serves to protect only the publishers in the first place.
20/12/2011 at 08:23 automata says:
What’s the point of targeting the pirate distributors, who generally operate in countries where the laws allow them to get away with it, and even if they don’t they can always come back again later? It’s hardly going to slow down the piracy for very long; there’s always an alternative.
Let’s not forget in our rush to defend the innocent that innocent people have *already* been targeted: the developers aren’t the ones who started this, the pirates are. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but it seems we’re all too willing to ignore the first wrong that happens.
I think gamers tend to turn too blind an eye to piracy, and let it be accepted in our community way too easily. There are things that we want game companies to do: provide decent demos so we can see if the game runs on our system and see whether the game is for us, lower the price of games, especially with this 1:1 currency exchange nonsense etc., but instead of trying to get them to do these things that people claim pirates are doing, we just let piracy happen. Then companies are going to react in their own financial best interest, and that is generally a waste of their resources AND ours and it means less games with features we want and less games in general.
19/12/2011 at 22:29 Megadyptes says:
I don’t think you should cover any piracy related news anymore, it always comes off sounding retarded for all sides concerned.
19/12/2011 at 22:32 Cpt.Average says:
Perhaps double/triple the price of the game would be more a punishment than your suggestion. Because although it’s already a lottery, in your example there is no real dissuasion involved – if anything it encourages a ‘don’t get caught’ attitude with the only consequenses being no more expensive than the purchase. Alternately, a standard (much) lower fine would also be more acceptable, with only repeat offenders being taken to court. Although what I’ve just tabled sounds like something a government office should be set up to regulate and I do agree with that part of your arguement.
19/12/2011 at 22:36 Valvarexart says:
Sometimes, just sometimes, Mr. Walker, I think you are taking things way too seriously. For example this article and the one about the leader of Cannibal Corpse saying that alliance are faggots during Blizzcon. I do agree, the fine is a tad bit high. But then again, when you pirated the game it’s a risk you were taking. CDPR DID say before release that they would do precisely what they are doing now. It’s nothing that is coming out of the blue. The angry letters demanding money is something I have no problem at all with; in fact I think it’s a great move. However, something I do have a problem with, is the breech of privacy. It’s funny how you barely mentioned that. The only thing I take issue with is that companies with monetary interests are monitoring your online activities. It’s not a big issue in this case, really, but if we keep saying that it WILL become an issue sooner or later when companies push the limits.
19/12/2011 at 22:38 Valvarexart says:
Oh, and I’m starting to think that you write “spectacle” articles just to garner hits and comments, which in turn are transformed into wonderful dosh (with which you can pay for your angry piracy letter, heh)…
19/12/2011 at 22:57 HothMonster says:
Yeah don’t express your opinion on the state of the industry and major issues for the industry just shut and scores these shits 1-10
19/12/2011 at 22:50 JonathanStrange says:
Do nothing and they’re praised, do something and they’re reviled.
Oh I understand the majority of complaints seem to be more about the means than the intent, but still, I can’t help but feel CD Projekts frustration right now. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they gave a big ‘fuck it, can’t win either way’ and just decided to go with DRM in their next few projects, for what little good that might do.
At least then they wont have giant articles by popular gaming websites accusing them of blackmail.
19/12/2011 at 22:53 Valvarexart says:
The thing is, though, that I don’t think DRM really has an impact on piracy.
19/12/2011 at 22:58 HothMonster says:
@Valva
It can keep pirates from playing before street date, thats really the best DRM can do. The worst it can do of course is fuck up the game for paying customers.
19/12/2011 at 22:54 MikoSquiz says:
Have you guys tried that “you have downloaded” link? It’s telling me I’ve downloaded a bunch of TV shows I have never watched in my life and also a Tom Clancy’s Persimmon Eleven game or something, and I’ve never played a Tom Clancy’s Anything in my life.
19/12/2011 at 23:00 HothMonster says:
Your ISP may have dynamic IPs. Meaning your IP changes from time to time so you may be seeing the torrents from other people who have had that IP in the past. Your ISP keeps logs of when an IP was assigned to you so if someone wants to blame you for torrenting they have to provide an IP and the time it was being used.
19/12/2011 at 23:02 FunkyBadger3 says:
Dynamic IP addresses.
21/12/2011 at 22:38 jrodman says:
Even those with static IP addresses are typically using an IP address that was used by another person in the past.
19/12/2011 at 22:57 AMonkey says:
This whole act just seems like a massive waste of time to me at the very least. The scum bag pirates (which is not all pirates, not by a long shot) who pirate just because they can get something for free won’t be deterred. They will keep pirating.
19/12/2011 at 23:05 Kleppy says:
This is page 5 so probably nobody cares, but I still think CDP is in the wrong here. Seeing as how they are a privately held corporation, they have absolutely no right to demand even a single dollar from alleged thieves. That’s what the police, and subsequently judges are for. Just because you can’t protect your property properly (try saying that three times in a row) doesn’t give you the right to set random fines.
It’s like if I had a lemonade stand, then walked away, and after seeing people run off with my stuff, chase them down and demand 500$.
19/12/2011 at 23:26 Huzsar says:
Except this is a civil matter so they have absolute right to do so. Just like you have a right to sue someone else for some dispute which is completely separate from criminal charges if any, which generally involves asking for a settlement to ending the dispute so it does not have to get to court stage at all. Or do you think that they should immediately go before a judge before any negotiation even starts? Well it does not work like that, because courts would be so stalked with work you would have to wait years to see a judge for anything.
20/12/2011 at 02:15 alundra says:
@Huzsar
Oh yeah, right, who do you think will buy your shilling speech??? How can you even compare a multi-million corporation to an average person??
Ah, that’s right, in the eyes of the law a private corporation and an average person are the same. I mean, for all practical purposes, the sole comparison is downwards stupid, who’s going to take them to court?? Sure, good luck going to a corp and telling them, pay me X amount or I will take you to court.
And since we all seem to like silly comparisons, this not unlike the bully in the school and his gang of friends, sure, I can make my stand any time and (try to) stop taking their abuse, does this mean they will sit down and “negotiate”?
No! they will stomp my ass all over the place and spit in my face.
This is precisely why these corporations dare to circumvent the law, they have pockets deep enough to do it, pockets deep enough to bully anyone into submission.
And abuse, regardless of who is committing it, the school bully or a muti-million dollar company, is not excusable under any circumstances.
19/12/2011 at 23:31 Novack says:
Oh my, THANKS John Walker, thanks RPS.
I love you guys.
19/12/2011 at 23:40 ScorpionWasp says:
The entire over-arching problem here is that the games industry thinks it’s special and more entitled than any other industry on the planet. Instead of adapting to the behavior of the market and devising a business model that will allow them to make money on it, they try to coerce and scare the customer into adapting to THEIR business model.
They think they can continue to sell their $60 games; that people won’t try to circunvent this absurd, exhorbitant fee for a product they don’t EVEN KNOW will be to their liking. When this business model fails – and I would be surprised if it didn’t – they blame piracy. No, that particular sequence of zeroes and ones belongs to them; no one can have their machines follow that sequence of ifs and whiles and fors without paying them first!
It’s a necessary evil, this copyright thing, right? I mean, no one would invent or create anything new if people could use the newly generated knowledge freely. There’s simply no way to craft a healthy, profitable business model as far as digital goods go, without threatening the customer at gunpoint. I mean, really, if you had to choose between parting with $60 or zero, which one would it be? You can’t compete with free! You can’t charge less than that either because your product has a multi-million budget thanks to the cheesy, throw-away plot and cutscenes, and only a select few will be willing to buy it at $60, therefore we have to charge a lot to be able to stay in business! It’s a proven fact! I mean, what else would you have us do? Provide a compelling service alongside our game, and charge a fraction of that value, thereby attracting hordes of eager to pay customers who now think that all that convenience, and the very value that our game added to their lives is worth the meager fee being charged? That’s never gonna work, dude! No one is going to pay a fee that they consider fair, just and of little consequence to their wallet just out of some hippy desire to support the authors! Hello, this is the real world! If you let the customer choose how much they pay, you’ll end up with zero in your pockets, never with millions even though your games cost relatively little to make. That’s just life. Now excuse us, we have some lowly, scummy pirates who obviously eat children and stab grannies to take off the streets.
20/12/2011 at 17:09 Ragnar says:
@ ScorpionWasp
“They think they can continue to sell their $60 games; that people won’t try to circunvent this absurd, exhorbitant fee for a product they don’t EVEN KNOW will be to their liking.”
Games are CHEAP! A movie on BluRay currently costs $30-40 on release for 90-120 minutes of entertainment ($15+ per hour), which you won’t know if you’ll like before you watch it. By comparison, $60 for an 8 hour game is a deal ($7.50 an hour), $60 for a 20 hour game amazing ($3 an hour), and $60 for a 40+ hour game is just ludicrous ($<1.5 an hour).
But you know what the best part is? You don't have to pay full price! I bought Witcher for $10, and Witcher 2 for $18. Amazing, isn't it?
"No, that particular sequence of zeroes and ones belongs to them; no one can have their machines follow that sequence of ifs and whiles and fors without paying them first!"
Yes, it does belong to them. They made it. You can buy a copy from them, or you can try to make your own sequence of 0s and 1s, but if you just copy theirs you are stealing from them.
"There’s simply no way to craft a healthy, profitable business model as far as digital goods go, without threatening the customer at gunpoint. I mean, really, if you had to choose between parting with $60 or zero, which one would it be?"
Yes there is, by giving the customer a choice. Not the choice of paying $60 or $0, but the choice of supporting the game developer or not supporting the game developer. You tell the customer, "Hey, I understand your money is hard earned, and we'd love to give you our game for free, but we have bills to pay too. If you buy our games, we will make more games! But we can't afford to make more games without your support. If games are important to you, please support game developers by buying their games."
I would chose to pay $0 over $60, but I also chose to support game developers by buying my games. If $50-60 is too much for you to pay, wait until it's on sale for a price you can afford. If you don't support developers by buying games, they'll stop making games, and then we won't have any more games to play.
20/12/2011 at 00:02 Earl-Grey says:
Well, I must say that I can’t really choose sides here.
Pirates are arses, DRM is arse, vindictive pirate hunters are arses, let’s all be arses together.
But this does, for me, not change my perception of CDP. I still admire and love their work.
20/12/2011 at 00:08 Earl-Grey says:
And mr. Walker, if you don’t stop this informative, thorough, brilliant and passionate journalism, I’ll have you nominated for president of the Universe. You have been warned.
20/12/2011 at 00:15 Captain Hijinx says:
Why don’t more companies adopt the Croteam/Bohemia Interactive version of DRM?
I don’t understand this, it’s amazingly successful. You build the DRM into the game itself, so those without a proper version of the game experience degraded gameplay, it works really well. As with the case of ARMA 2 i know of no one that plays that game pirated for long because the experience just becomes unplayable, the same with SS3.. You get a pirate copy, and super creatures just keep ganking you over and over.
It’s a hilarious and safe way to protect your product, so why are so few companies following this model?
20/12/2011 at 00:44 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
They probably can’t program such a system. Anyway, I find it fascinating. I don’t recall anyone ever complaining about the Bohemian Studios system, while I met a lot of people complaining about other DRMs including several people who’s optical drive was destroyed by Starforce. How is it possible that their DRM system is effective and doesn’t create collateral damage while other systems are quickly bypassed and create problems for paying customers?
20/12/2011 at 17:36 Ragnar says:
It has been used in other games (Batman AA for example). I don’t know that the system is actually effective. I’ve heard that such copy protection schemes get cracked along with everything else, it probably just takes longer to discover. Also, they use it (or have used it) in addition to traditional DRM.
I’m not aware of a technological way of stopping piracy short of requiring you to play on hosted servers. The only hope, IMO, is to convince gamers that supporting game developers by buying their games is worthwhile and necessary to make sure that they keep making games. To put it another way, if people keep pirating PC games, developers will stop making PC games.
20/12/2011 at 19:51 harmlos says:
Let’s not forget that Bohemia Interactive also quietly patch the DRM out of their games some time after release (they did so for ARMA, ARMA II and ARMA II Operation Arrowhead, at least).
20/12/2011 at 00:24 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
We need to take a stand against the idea of exceptional-ism of the copyright promoted by the copyright lobby. The powerful copyright lobby is bribing politicians to create laws that are treat them differently that other cases of not paying the money that should be paid to someone according to law.
If you don’t pay for commissioned work, you pay interest, if you don’t pay alimony you pay interest. If for example someone doesn’t pay you for your work that he commissioned to you, you can’t demand him to pay you 20x the price of that work despite that such a thing may even make you go under.
If someone has a child and abandons it and dodges paying alimony that is given by court, that person doesn’t have to pay 20x the amount of the alimony not paid despite how damaging lack of these money is to the children’s well-being.
And these are much worse things than someone copying a program which he probably wouldn’t even buy if the option to copy it wouldn’t be available (it’s even if they would buy some, it’s impossible for most of downloaders to buy majority of stuff that they download).
And rightly they don’t get such outrageous compensations. Because applying a 20x multiplier to the amount of money that wasn’t paid is insane. But when multi-million dollar corporations are involved sanity can be easily bypassed by bribes (in U.S.A. bribing politicians is legal and widely and U.S.A. can bully politicians in other countries into copying some of their laws – even if the politicians in Europe don’t secretly take bribes from the copyright lobby, these laws are still a result of bribery).
It doesn’t really matter if they have a 100% sure I.P. identification method. They are still demanding a disproportionally high amount of money and are still using a corrupt law that was bought by the copyright lobby that is discriminating and demeaning to other people who don’t get paid for stuff they should get paid, especially to little children.
There should be justice and equality for all. If it’s rightful to give 20x compensation for copying a program or using someone’s photo or image on a website, then there should be 100x compensation for not paying child support, a 100x compensation for not paying for commissioned work, etc.
And while we’re at it, game publishers should have to pay 50x compensation when they sell a game claiming that it has features that it doesn’t have or when they forget to clearly write on the box that the game they sell is unfinished and will be probably finished with patches after long testing by public
after the release.
If these ideas sound insane, then the same idea proposed by the copyright lobby should be declared insane and discarded too.
That’s why I’ll never buy anything from CD-Projekt or similar companies again. I don’t want to promote this kind of injustice, sick sense of entitlement, and contempt towards the rest of the society and its rights.
20/12/2011 at 00:47 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Pfft.. so, where can I buy the excerpt of the blog post comment discussion?
20/12/2011 at 00:58 pingu666 says:
really makes me want to never buy a cdp game again :(
the fine is way to high, the cheapest ive seen witcher2 is about 10quid on g2play, so the fine is equivient of 65ish? copies of the game.
the game is 15?gig, 22gig with the extras (i remmber it being huge to dl on steam). so at bargin basement price ratio thats nearly 1tb of uploading. thats gonna take *forever* for someone normal todo :x
if the fine/settlement was 120euro, that would be more fair
I think we need demo’s back too, specialy as games seem more inclineded to produce motion sickness in people (me included). arma 2 does for me, but crysis 2 didnt (or not to much). some games leave me cold too, dungeon defenders seems bleh to me, but i *love* orcs must die
20/12/2011 at 01:04 matrices says:
That the author considers payment equivalent to the value of the stolen product an “appropriate” punishment shows that he has pretty much no understanding of the term “punishment”, or “deterrence”, for that matter.
It’s absurd on its face: let me steal something and face a marginal chance of – wait for it – paying the price of…the thing I stole. The only people who would be disincentivized from theft of any sort would be dudes who abscond with helicopters, yachts, and Ferraris.
20/12/2011 at 01:27 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
Except that nothing was stolen. They copied a game, not stole it. If someone would steal a car from you, you would lose a car. That’s why stealing is bad.
If you consider copying a game stealing on the ground that the developer should be paid, how about calling your comment pedophilia on the following grounds:
“Speaking of the copyrighthinkery, since the copyright lobby loves manipulating emotions by calling people who download unauthorised copies with highly emotional names like thieves (people who take away something) and pirates (people who board ships and take crew hostage or slaughter it and take away stuff from the ship), let’s invent a special name for them. Since they hurt little innocent children by their fiddling with law, how about kiddie fiddlers[? It would be quite fun to see “piracy” discussions where first side is names the other thieves or pirates and the other calls the first child-abusers or paedophiles.”
Harming children refers to this:
“We need to take a stand against the idea of exceptional-ism of the copyright promoted by the copyright lobby. The powerful copyright lobby is bribing politicians to create laws that are treat them differently that other cases of not paying the money that should be paid to someone according to law.
If you don’t pay for commissioned work, you pay interest, if you don’t pay alimony you pay interest. If for example someone doesn’t pay you for your work that he commissioned to you, you can’t demand him to pay you 20x the price of that work despite that such a thing may even make you go under.
If someone has a child and abandons it and dodges paying alimony that is given by court, that person doesn’t have to pay 20x the amount of the alimony not paid despite how damaging lack of these money is to the children’s well-being.
And these are much worse things than someone copying a program which he probably wouldn’t even buy if the option to copy it wouldn’t be available (it’s even if they would buy some, it’s impossible for most of downloaders to buy majority of stuff that they download).
And rightly they don’t get such outrageous compensations. Because applying a 20x multiplier to the amount of money that wasn’t paid is insane. But when multi-million dollar corporations are involved sanity can be easily bypassed by bribes (in U.S.A. bribing politicians is legal and widely and U.S.A. can bully politicians in other countries into copying some of their laws – even if the politicians in Europe don’t secretly take bribes from the copyright lobby, these laws are still a result of bribery).
It doesn’t really matter if they have a 100% sure I.P. identification method. They are still demanding a disproportionally high amount of money and are still using a corrupt law that was bought by the copyright lobby that is discriminating and demeaning to other people who don’t get paid for stuff they should get paid, especially to little children.”
Are you interested in continuing discussion in this tone or are you going to present your arguments without referring to strawman arguments and demonizing?
20/12/2011 at 01:54 kud13 says:
oh, joy, this topic again.
I’ve only read one page so far, and i’d like to re-iterate: Sheng-Ji–in Canada, at least, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS BOTH A CRIME AND A CIVIL CAUSE OF ACTION.
sorry, had to get that out of my system for all the time’s I’ve read “piracy is not a crime” on page 1.
more to the point in hand: it’s nice that CDP actually cares about how they are perceived, unlike certain other publishers I could name. Sad to see them being so obtuse about it.
I’m not gonna try to re-iterate previous points (innocents will pay, and probably not say anything. that’s kinda how society works. if someone you perceive to know about “the law” tells you did something wrong, you’ll believe that–there are studies on this, people), I’ll just toss in my 2 cents.
CDP could make this look a lot better, if they expalined WHY they arrived at the magical 750 number. Putting aside the ethics of them taking it upon themselves to be “the deterrent”, if the letter read, “we will charge you X+Y+Z+W. X is the cost of the game, Y is the postage and paper cost, Z is the cost of tracking your IP down, and W is estimated damage to our sales you’ve done via uploading”. which would prolly come out totalling 300-400 Euros, tops. still a sizeable sum, still acting as a deterrent, but this way they’d explain their position. throwing our a random huge number, completely disproportional with the cost of the game will not impress anyone, though it will terrify some into paying.
I’ve already posted an example where chain retailers try to run this type of an extortion scheme in the 90s wrt to shoplifters. Courts here threw it out.
I genuinely hope they hit someone with a legal background by mistake, who’ll take them to court and bring the attention of the justice system to this practice.
20/12/2011 at 03:07 JackShandy says:
“In fact, you can scare your own balls off by visiting here.”
Wh- Amateur Midget Fuck.mpeg?! That’s not right at all.
20/12/2011 at 03:10 TheBeefiest says:
Who the hell are all these people thinking you should only pay the price of the game??? Imagine if you could just steal anything and everything and all you pay for is what someone CATCHES you with?
20/12/2011 at 03:15 evilhippo says:
John Walker: “Well, what I’ve said in the article is, they should then charge them the £30/€40 for the game.”
If you stole £30/€40 worth of goods from a store and got caught, would you seriously expect to just hand over £30/€40 and walk away without actually being penalised somehow?
20/12/2011 at 03:18 johnpeat says:
No-one has “stolen” anything so your analogy is – to use the lingo – fucking stupid.
20/12/2011 at 03:17 johnpeat says:
Much has been said but I’d like to add my 10p…
I completely agree with the concept of chasing pirates rather than punishing customers – but the pirates should be taken through proper legal process and not ‘tricked’ into paying money when, in reality, they’re unlikely to end-up in court if they refuse.
It is not for private organisations to make-up punitive fines and use the threat of legal process to collect whatever they like. They’re only doing this because, in reality, CDP couldn’t take all the pirates to court even if they wanted to – the costs would be astronomical and I doubt they have enough evidence to make a case against even 1 of these people with any certainty (and they obviously know this).
This ‘shakedown letter’ approach is indefensible in my opinion, it’s open to massive abuse and is something no respectable company should even consider…
20/12/2011 at 03:34 jaheira says:
I’d still be very interested to know what the rest of RPS think of this.
20/12/2011 at 03:49 quicktooth says:
They are extorting people for money as they are threatening to engage in the *normal legal process* if their victims don’t pay them their astronomical fee. You can’t use the legal system as a threat to extract money- it’s there to PROTECT THE INNOCENT. If CD Projekt want to sue people, fine. If they have a legal grievance, GO TO THE POLICE. That’s what they’re for. Vigilante threats aren’t what people are supposed to do; it’s antisocial; it’s possibly criminal. They are allowed to be desperate- but not to attack people. If they really want to recover lost revenue, they must contact the police, who are society’s actual protectors. And if they really are right in what they do at the moment, anyone else may simple use their reasoning to propose an even more dire threat to get them to stop their attacks! Consider someone (like me) who is a trained fighter. I can say- “I can’t afford your bribe to avoid the normal legal system, so I’ll kill you if you don’t stop this attack”. And I’d *have* to kill them as I don’t have jails, rehabilitation programs, judges, etc. But wait!! I do- as I live in a country. CD Projekt- the ball is in your court.
20/12/2011 at 04:29 nope says:
It seems like they’re openly admitting that the German legal processes allow them more abusive toward potential defendants.
“About threats – let me put it like this – when you get a speeding ticket or a ticket for causing a car crash or for any other felony – do you consider that a threat? Because it works pretty much in the same way. “
I’m pretty sure I have to admit guilt or claim innocence for a ticket, but I can’t just pay money and not admit anything. Also, speeding tickets are written to me by a government authority subject to citizens approval rather a random corporation in a faraway land.
20/12/2011 at 05:19 Just Endless says:
So my comment will surely be lost to me in the sea of 300 others, but I’m curious what other companies have done this.
I probably won’t be buying a game from CD Project again, and I don’t pirate games.
20/12/2011 at 06:00 Consumatopia says:
Bad reply, sorry.
20/12/2011 at 06:09 FutileResistor says:
I’ve registered just to post this because I’m amazed that nobody on here seems to be aware that in 2010 CD Projekt employed the lawyers, ACS, to do this exact same thing in the UK for the original Witcher.
The following is a based on a comment I posted on Eurogamer when this story initially broke. I hope it gives those who are defending CDP’s stance some food for thought.
In my opinion this is an extortion racket pure and simple. Obtaining money with menaces and threats. If this was being done by anyone other than a law firm, they would be facing criminal prosecution and a prison sentence.
In 2010 to 2011 ACS sent out 27,000 letters demanding £500 to £700. I should point out that CDP was not ACS’s only client, so not all those letters were written on behalf of CDP. The basic gist of the letters was ‘pay up or face further legal action.’
So 27,000 letters were sent demanding £500 to £700 but ACS did not bring a single case to court.
From this little racket ACS estimated that they would make £10.2 million in gross profit for the year, with Andrew Crossley himself pocketing £3.2m. This information came to light after ACS’s email system was hacked by members of 4chan.
It should be obvious by now that taking a case to court and losing would bring the entire money-making scheme crashing down around their ears.
In fact when people tried to bring their cases to court to prove their innocence, ACS and MediaCat (the firm providing torrent tracking ‘evidence’) tried to have their cases dropped. I’m not sure how much clearer it can be that this has nothing to do with the law and is transparently an extortion racket.
This is Judge Birrs questioning MediaCat’s barrister about his client’s decision to drop the case. “I want to tell you that I am not happy. I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny,” he told its barrister.
In Feb 2011 rather than actually going to court and having to present their so-called evidence both MediaCat and ACS closed down. No doubt the people behind MediaCat have set up another company and have partnered up with some other dubious law firm to do the same thing again. Andrew Crossley? Well he’s OK, he’s personally made at least £3.2 million from running a protection racket for a year.
Knowing all this I’m not sure how CD Projekt can claim that they are ‘only taking legal actions against users who we are 100 per cent sure have downloaded our game illegally.’
CDP, after the ACS debacle, you must be aware of this. Innocent people have spent thousands trying to clear their names, but they can’t because your law firm and companies like MediaCat are doing everything they can to avoid going to court and risking a definitive judgement which would destroy their money-making scheme. No doubt, CDP, you went into this originally in good faith but it must be abundantly clear that by continuing to engage firms such as ACS and MediaCat, you are in effect enabling an extortion racket.
I find it astonishing that the ruling that you are responsible for securing your own internet connection and thus any actions carried out by other parties on your connection, means that in Germany, the law actually supports firms obtaining money by menaces and threats.
20/12/2011 at 09:14 Reiver says:
Excellent post and a pretty important one too. I hope more people read this to get an idea of the realities of this sort of procedure and it doesn’t get lost in the mire.
20/12/2011 at 10:30 max pain says:
Thank you for the insightful post.
20/12/2011 at 20:13 harmlos says:
The situation in Germany is not quite as you perceive. Yes, according to a 2010 decission by the Bundesgerichtshof (Germany’s highest ordinary court), you are responsible for securing your wireless network according to the current state of the art when you bought your wireless router, and if you don’t, you can receive a cease and desist letter demanding you secure your network in the future and be forced to pay around €100,- to cover the expenses of the cease and desist letter. However, you are not responsible for the copyright infringement that occured via your network, or the damages caused by it. Personally, I think this is a pretty reasonable decision.
21/12/2011 at 22:43 jrodman says:
How is that reasonable when everyone knows that both wireless networks and consumer operating systems suffer from an endless parade of security vulnerabilities? How can it be the responsibility of the consumer to secure systems they do not control, let alone understand or create?
20/12/2011 at 06:15 dragonfliet says:
There are some bizarre misunderstandings that are going on here. First, let’s look at the traffic ticket analogy.
It is imperfect, but it is good. What is imperfect about it: When you are given a speeding ticket, it is being issued by the government and an officer of the government enforcing the law. This is very different from a private company demanding money. What is good about it: If you are issued a speeding ticket, you are assumed guilty, and can simply pay the fine. If you wish to fight the ticket, you must go to court where both sides present evidence and a ruling will be made–if you win, you pay nothing, other than court costs, if you lose, you pay a lot more. With this, you are issued a chance for a settlement, the assumption being that you are guilty, and you can simply settle. If you wish to fight the accusation, you must go to court where both sides present evidence and a ruling will be made–if you win, you pay nothing, other than the court costs (and sometimes in such instances, the prosecuting party will be forced to pay your costs), if you lose, you pay a lot more. Both processes attempt to save the prosecuting parties time and money by making the payment for voluntarily claiming guilt and paying much lower than if they protest and make a stink about it. They are both designed so that people are less willing to fight and more willing to capitulate, but they both allow for the accused party to make their case in court.
It is a reasonable analogy, even if it is flawed. Yes, there are differences, and the differences are important, but they do not invalidate the argument. Likewise, while it does smell of extortion or blackmail, it is also a generosity. If these cases go to court, the fines levied are significantly higher than the settlements. Since this is a civil case, that money would be going to the same people (not the government) so the lawyers save time doing this, but not money (prosecuting more people makes them way more money).
As to the idea that people should only pay the cost of the game: On one hand, it makes sense. That is what they stole, that is what they pay. On the other hand, it makes little sense. If you take a cab ride and ditch, your fine isn’t the cost of the cab ride, but is significantly higher. Why? Because the point of the fine is to punish so that people are less likely to commit the offense again. If the worst case scenario is that you pay what you owe there is no disincentive at all.
Conversely, the fines being levied against pirates is ridiculous. Should a distributor who is making money selling bootlegs be charged tens of thousands of dollars? HELL YES. But bittorrent is not the same at all. While one hand it is much worse, simply due to the scale, ease and prevalence of it, it is not something where we are punishing profiteers. I fully believe that people should be charged in the hundreds for such crimes, up into the thousands, when necessary, but cases such as downloading a game should never cost this much. If I were to throw a fair number at this, I would say 300 Euros to settle would be the max. 1,000 as a fine, plus the cost of the game. Natch.
It is truly frustrating to me that things are at this point, to be honest. The actions of CDP (and other similar attempts) are generally handled poorly and give the industry a black eye. The approach is insulting and implicates innocent people because of the ambiguities of IP tracking. At the same time, piracy is a damaging thing that has hurt a great number of businesses (I know that Valve is unconcerned with piracy, but they happened to sell a game so popular they could employ a hundred people for five years without releasing their next game, and then they turned around and released a silly-hat market. I do not want a silly hat market in The Witcher). None of the reasonable people involved believe that a pirated sale is 1:1 a lost sale, but likewise, no reasonable people believe that piracy doesn’t cost companies sales. Likewise, we all know that the vast majority of people caught via IP tracking are, indeed, the guilty parties and have legitimately been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
Which is to say that I am frustrated with CDP and don’t know whether or not I will support future products of theirs. However, being a reasonable person, I understand their point of view and their concern is well-founded, even if their methodology is not so much. Likewise, being a reasonable person, my response ISN’T to pirate future works. Anyone who says this is a little bitch, plain and simple. If you want to protest, boycott. Pirating is not the same, and lame excuses are lame. What needs to be done is a reasonable system to handle the prosecution (one that will not clog up the courts with a billion ip filings, but doesn’t put the onus on lawyers sending scary letters to people who may not even know what’s going on) and fines/penalties/etc. more in line with the crimes that are committed. Inflamed rhetoric, however, isn’t going to help anyone.
20/12/2011 at 13:29 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
Lack of equal cost != 20x cost of the game. It can as well be 3x cost of the game or 5x cost of the game or a cost of the game + 100 Euro of fine.
It’s unacceptable because It discriminates against all the other people who don’t get paid stuff they should be paid according for the law, for example commissioned workers who didn’t get paid and went under or little children whose parents refuse to support them – all of them can’t get 20x compensations because they don’t have big lobbies that can bribe politicians to give them such outrageous privileges.
20/12/2011 at 17:47 Ragnar says:
@ dragonfliet
I just wanted to thank you for an intelligent, well thought out and written post. People like you are a credit to the RPS community.
20/12/2011 at 07:19 jhng says:
@JohnWalker — Well done on getting a good discussion going (both with CDP and in the thread).
I was going to post a lengthy explanation of why settlement proposals in civil rather than criminal matters should not necessarily be considered akin to extortion (in fact, in the UK at least the Court would take a pretty dim view if you sued someone without making a settlement attempt first) but I think Sheng-Ji and others have covered this all very thoroughly.
Glancing through the 300-odd posts is also a pretty strong reminder of how radically different things can look from a tech mindset or a legal mindset. Let’s hope the twain can meet someday…
20/12/2011 at 07:35 Imbecile says:
I was on the fence, but I think I side with CDProjekt now – albeit I think they could have gone about things more delicately. That said I recieved a parking ticket in the UK recently, and it followed a similar pattern to the CDProjekt letters. I definitely wasnt happy about it, and I wanted to dispute it, but it would have jumped from £100 to £1000 had I not paid. So… I paid.
The fine needs to exceed the cost of the game, otherwise there is no deterrent
Equally some action needs to be taken against pirates. If thats not DRM, and theres no legal recourse, what option is there?
20/12/2011 at 13:33 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
But let’s say you work for someone and he wouldn’t pay you for the month you were working for him. Would you be able to go to court and demand 20x compensation from him?
20/12/2011 at 17:16 Imbecile says:
I dunno, what is certain is that its reasonable to charge a disproportionate amount. The question is, how disproportionate?
A quick internet search shows that people have been charged $200 for shoplifting a cd. I dont know how much a cd goes for in the us, but I’d guess around $10? The size of the charge seems a non issue to me. If theyve committed a crime then this is the penalty. The real problem is being sure that they have committed the crime….
20/12/2011 at 17:27 Milky1985 says:
“A quick internet search shows that people have been charged $200 for shoplifting a cd.”
Shoplifting is theft, there is a physical loss of the good, not only has the person who nicked it not bought it but no-one else can. the $200 would be fine handed down BY THE COURTS after proof that the person is guilty of the crime.
This is all about copyright infringement which is a civil matter, done when they think (the 100% has already been disproved because they admit to targeting a guy who did torrent , but did not pirate as he already had the game, thus proving they nede more info before they send the letters) that someone has been donig something naughty.
In the first case they charge when they have been proven guilty , in the second one they charge until innocence is proven. This is where it is still wrong and the ammount is very very wrong as well, I woudl expect it to be more than the cost of hte game, but not as much as they are asking for (would say £100 max as a fine and the cost of heh game)
20/12/2011 at 18:42 Imbecile says:
It doesn’t matter that you aren’t depriving someone else of the good, or that its not a “physical” good. Thats irrelevant – theft is theft, whether its information or the crown jewels. All that matters is its value.
I agree they need to be careful with the innocent until proven guilty aspect, and could be a lot more tactful – but I think the penalty is not totally ridiculous,
21/12/2011 at 01:56 codename_bloodfist says:
Fortunately, you’re absolutely wrong, Imbecile. There is a very large difference between shoplifting and piracy and, like it or not, it’s not a matter of opinion. Shoplifting falls into the category of theft and thus criminal law. Software and music piracy are civil offences and are deal with by civil law. Entirely different courts, entirely different procedures and entirely different means of punishment.
21/12/2011 at 07:46 Imbecile says:
Fair enough. Whats the logic behind treating them differently?
20/12/2011 at 08:20 Kleppy says:
Also, just a silly side note to what I’ve said earlier: an average game costs $50 on release. I went and bought The Witcher 2 on release day, from GoG, just to support CDP because The Witcher 1 was fucking awesome, and they seemed like cool guys. However, I didn’t like the game all that much, I thought it was slow, the combat was kinda clunky and the story didn’t grab me at all. Now, I paid a large amount of my paycheck, and as a student I don’t have to tell you that that’s quite a blow.
Had CDP released a demo of the game, I could’ve tried it, decided it wasn’t for me, and could have saved $50. I wish I HAD pirated TW2 just because then I could see if I even liked the game before shelling out a very large sum of money.
When I pay to see a movie, OK, that’s like $10 so even if it stinks (they usually do), no big deal. When I buy clothes, I get to try them out. When I buy a book, I get to either go to a bookshop and read a bit, or download the first few chapters from Amazon. When I buy a car, I can get a test drive. Anything you buy, you can try and see if you like it.
So you know what? next time, I WILL download the game to see if it’s any good. Because you won’t let me play even a 10 minute chunk of it, and you and most other developers feel I owe you $50 up front as a gesture of good will or something. Well, it doesn’t work like that, and I’m not going to be suckered into buying very expensive goods based on a hunch again. Standart industry practices need to change, because people end up feeling like suckers, and you will only fool someone once or twice before he says fuck it sets thepiratebay as his homepage.
20/12/2011 at 13:38 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
How about simply not buying games that don’t have demos?
20/12/2011 at 16:32 Kleppy says:
I’m not going to give up on my hobby just because some suits decided demos aren’t worth it.
20/12/2011 at 08:22 Belsameth says:
Oh god. This discussion again…
tl;dr and all that.
Excelent artikel John, and I agree fully.
Tho I must say CDP redeemed themselves to me at least in a small way. Being so forthcomming with their responses (even tho they still smelled like PR bullshit to me)
20/12/2011 at 08:38 michal.lewtak says:
I never buy a game without a demo.
20/12/2011 at 08:45 tenseiga says:
Sheng-ji,
Hey you know what that is? Extortion/blackmail! “I know you did something wrong, you could go to the cops and face the fines or you could pay me and we could keep this between us.” Although this brand of justice is useful for very minor petty cases it cant be done on the scale that it is being done on here. Scary looking lawyers and legal notices and court summons and threats from big companies IS getting out of line. He says they are regulated but i really dont see regulation anywhere. I am all for fining pirates and punishing them for their crime as prescribed by law and government (which is the only enforcement body I will accept).
Note: I really appreciate DRM free games and the efforts this company is going to to try and protect innocents (if its true. They are still much better than UBISoft etc) but I cant accept a big guy bullying a little guy.
20/12/2011 at 09:02 kataras says:
Apart from the whole discussion on IPs and piracy, I think the most important info on that article was this:
‘Regarding Germany – it is about access to accurate data, which is allowed by the state. Regulations do not work in a similar way in all the EU countries. Germany does.’
Unless they re talking about private trackers, I cannot imagine what this means, apart from generalized surveillance with the state’s approval, or even worse run by it.
20/12/2011 at 09:21 Mikko-Pentti Einari Eronen says:
I don’t really understand what the issue is here. I have no idea what the letter would actually contain. I didn’t fully read this article or the responds except for major parts.
Anyway I don’t think CDP is doing anything wrong. Seriously, I bought The Witcher 2 from GoG. If I recieved a letter suspecting me of pirating the game, or even demanding anything. I wouldn’t be any worried. I could just contact someone and clear things out. Not a biggie.
I highly doubt they would jump at any innocent person’s or even guilty one’s throats for that matter to demand justice.
About the amount of payment. If you perform a crime you should always be wary of “what if I get cought”. You can’t just say it’s wrong or that you end up paying too much. That’s just silly thinking :)
Lets take an example. You are pretty sure your neighbour kids broke small statue from your backyard, you could contact either the kids or the parents suggesting or asking directly if they broke it. Or even if you told them that you know they broke it (as some of us would get a bit heaten and would rage off at them); Even in most of these situations we could negotiate out the situation. No matter if they were guilty or not.
I see no difference here. It’s just a letter anyway. It’s up to you if you get paniced or not ;)
20/12/2011 at 09:24 The13thRonin says:
We’re meant to feel sorry that a couple of pirates are getting shaken down?
Please…
Talk about political correctness gone wrong… Next RPS will be championing drug-addled criminals who sue their victims because they manage to injure themselves during their attempted robbery/rape/murder.
20/12/2011 at 09:46 Lee_Nox says:
Would people please stop calling it blackmail? Threatening to pursue legal action is not blackmail and is the usual practice. If you believed CD Projekt harmed you somehow you could go to them and tell them you are expecting a compensation or you’ll take them to court. It’s called settlement. Watch court dramas or something. If somebody just beat you and you told him “We can forget the whole thing if you pay my hospital bills and compensation for emotional trauma or we take this to court” would you consider this blackmail as well?
CD Projekt has proved time and time again that consumers are the most important thing and they are willing to take risks just to make our lives easier, please just let this go. It’s a great company that is just trying to secure their interests.
20/12/2011 at 09:53 jakonovski says:
It’s acceptable only if there is a genuine attempt to bring disputes to court. Using the legal system as a tool of bullying is not acceptable and unfortunately CDP has a history of participating in such a scheme (ACS).
20/12/2011 at 10:17 Kdansky says:
They have no chance in court. I mean, a pirate can just delete their game from their disk, or just replace the disk, and when the cops show up months later, it’s impossible to prove them guilty, which means they go free. I would certainly not pay up if I had gotten a letter. IPs are not static enough, and even if, you can’t sue a router.
20/12/2011 at 11:37 Kefren says:
This has made me really hungry. Ravenous. I must go and make a sandwich in a minute, and maybe have a cup of cocoa.
I sympathise with John’s viewpoint (in most cases I agree 100%, this time less so, but I still respect that viewpoint and am glad John voiced it). Strangely this hasn’t affected my view of CDP at all. Perhaps because my primary hatred is towards DRM, so any company which lets me buy games without it can then be forgiven almost anything else. I own the Witcher twice and Witcher 2 once, all bought at full price without having played any of the games, just to support the no-DRM stance. (I have since played The Witcher, and enjoyed it).
As a result – since I want a world where I can buy things DRM-free, rather than have to forego software and games due to not being willing to pay more than a peppercorn fee if it has DRM limitations – I support CDP. I would be much happier as a gamer with their approach than with the one adopted by Activision/Ubisoft/EA/Valve/Blizzard et al.
20/12/2011 at 11:50 netizensmith says:
If CDP think they have sufficient proof that an individual has pirated their game then they should have that individual charged. I don’t care how they discover someone has pirated their game. If they think they have sufficient proof then take it to court and sort it out there. Anyone guilty would likely try for an out of court settlement. Anyone innocent (let’s assume the justice system works) would be found innocent, CDP would have to pay the costs and (if it was me) the accused party would bring charges against CDP for, oh I don’t know, wrongful arrest, defamation of character, something like that.
It’s got to be hard to prove that someone pirated your game surely?
Did you pirate this game?
No
We have proof you did. your IP address etc.
Wasn’t me
Can you prove it wasn’t you?
I don’t have to. You have to prove it was. Can I go home now?
20/12/2011 at 12:25 scatterbrainless says:
Pirate! Pirate away boys! I, personally, pay for my games, because I like the developers and their products enough to throw money at them. But then I have a decent income and standard of living. Yar!
20/12/2011 at 12:30 Talorc says:
I’m with CDP on this. You sound like a bit of a whiny bastard John – I don’t really see the need to be concerned about the “devastating” consequences for the people that pirated a game from one the most consumer friendly, non DRM companies there is.
As for crying poor, for FFS if they really want the game, it will be less than $10 inside 12 months.
Well done to CDP for being so open as well. I am willing to take on face value the claim that they are are very sure the people being targeted have pirated – I suspect German laws allow them to do more than vague IP targeting and actually tie it back to the ISP records.
Targeting innocent people with lawyers letters who have not pirated the item in question is wrong. That is what you seem to be reacting to – Except there is NO EVIDENCE of this being situation with CDP, other than your vague “internet spider sense” tingling.
20/12/2011 at 13:45 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
Tell me one thing.
If you’d be hired by someone for a month and that person would refuse you to pay your wage that you should get according to agreement between you, would get 20x compensation for him not paying you?
Or actually, since work for that person is your sole source of income and that person modified your behaviour by promising to pay you and had you work for them personally, it’s much worse, so would you get a 50x compensation?
If not, why do you support such outrageous discriminating privileges that the copyright lobby bought for themselves?
22/12/2011 at 10:49 RegisteredUser says:
Clearly you are thinking too small.
The issue is enabling the practice of suing the pants off of people in the first place and abusing the legal system that is supposed to exist for an actual issue (the lost sale discussion shows clearly enough that the merit of punishing those who pirate is questionable towards its firming up of sales, i.e. even at 0 piracy sales would not suddenly significantly shoot through the roof), thus clogging it even further, delaying lawsuits that might have actual and urgent relevance to people, for people.
Not just laws serving as money rakes for those who feel sending out batches of subpoenas. And again, even if CDP is white knighting it and only sending out single digit letters, the enabling and acceptance of this practice lets others who just send out tens of thousands to try and make millions go forward.
THIS is the systemic issue.
The dimension that even writing a letter for a lawyer incurs fees over 500 EUR and that this amount of money IS REAL WORLD MONEY EVEN IN FRIGGIN GERMANY you soddin’ “pah, Germany” pish-poshing dicks is the other side of this. Making someone cough up what is 2-3 months worth of survival money for a SINGLE game, cd or movie is insane.
Especially as its not just rich entitled bastards pirating, but, crazy sounding concept, I know, those who already start out with little cash.
All this blind hurrdurr let-them-bleed attitude is just too short-sighted imo.
20/12/2011 at 12:33 Talorc says:
Relevant:
http://thenextweb.com/eu/2011/06/01/german-isps-hand-over-300000-accounts-per-month-in-fight-against-piracy/
German ISP’s hand over user details to rights holders. Makes it a lot easier to be damn sure who was pirating what.
20/12/2011 at 14:44 Gaytard Fondue says:
Not really relevant since it only targets illegal music downloads.
20/12/2011 at 12:43 wodin says:
An excellent article John and I agree 100% with everything you have said. If they where asking for the price of the game fair enough. As is I think their actions are pretty disgusting to be honest.
I’m also certain at least 80% of people replying here have broken copyright law in some way. Even if it’s just taping songs from the radio or copying a musiv tape\CD from a mate even if it is a home made compliation it doesn’t matter (showing my age here I think),
I think their actions are disgusting. The speed ticket analogy is bloody stu[id as pointed oout. plus you’ve either been caught on camera or by the police so there is no doubt to guilt. It’s also not going to be impossible for many to repay.
I think they should go after those who crack the games and put them up on the torrents. However leave those who then go and download them alone. I’m sure to god 90% at least would never have bought the game and many probabaly can’t afford them.
20/12/2011 at 14:28 jhng says:
I promised myself I wasn’t going to get involved in this one. However, there is a massive amount of ignorance about IP law on show here.
As a starting point for people planning on commenting, could I suggest at least reading through some of the material on the UK Intellectual Property Office website which explains basic IP concepts in words of one syllable (and is fairly transferable to most significant jurisdictions).
A good starting point is the following: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-basicfacts.pdf —
If you look at page 9 you will see the IPO’s suggestion that when you need to enforce your copyright against a third party the first thing you should do is contact them and see if the matter can be resolved through negotiation. This is not ‘extortion’ or ‘blackmail’ — it is just common sense. Yes, there are some IP-related crimes; however, 95% of the burden of enforcing IP rights is through the civil legal system and at the choice and expense of the IP owner (IP owners have lobbied for this to shift so that the taxpayer pays for IP enforcement in the same way they pay for -e.g.- parking/traffic law enforcement, but governments rightly resist this since IP is fundamentally a commercial interest and so should be dealt with as an expense of the businesses and creators involved).
I have no idea whether the technology behind CDP’s strategy is effective and successfully avoids creating false positives (certainly Davenport Lyons came very unstuck) and obviously would not condone throwing around unsubstantiated threats. (although I would say that IP infringement is often a case of ‘death by a thousand cuts’, particularly online infringement, and sometimes the choice is an invidious one between a blunt weapon or no weapon at all.)
However, the underlying principle that a party who believes they have a legal claim may put their case to the other party prior to going to court and offer not to pursue it if certain conditions are met — for example by concluding an agreement about how the parties are going to behave in future or payment of an agreed sum — is entirely legitimate. It is also far and away the best method of ultimately reaching an outcome that is best (or least worst) for all concerned.
I do this everyday (trade marks rather than copyright, admittedly) and I have never encountered a business or individual who would not prefer to receive some kind of starting settlement offer (even a crap one) rather than being sued without notice.
20/12/2011 at 17:30 Milky1985 says:
“If you look at page 9 you will see the IPO’s suggestion that when you need to enforce your copyright against a third party the first thing you should do is contact them and see if the matter can be resolved through negotiation. This is not ‘extortion’ or ‘blackmail’ — it is just common sense. ”
How is sending a letter saying “you owe us £800, pay up or we will take you to court” a negotiation?
Your right, starting it with a negotiation is common sense, starting it with “you owe us money” is closer to the last two things you mentioned.
20/12/2011 at 17:59 jhng says:
How would you open the negotiation?
22/12/2011 at 10:51 RegisteredUser says:
If they simply contacted people directly without lawyer involvement on a personal basis, showing them the proof and asking 3x the current selling price(big enough to think about it, small enough to survive the hit e.g.) first, instead of just directly going nuclear with extortion right off the bat I would have a LOT less hate for CDP.
20/12/2011 at 14:45 Sooty says:
Sheng-Ji you’re very vocal, and I respect the amount of thought you have put into this issue, but I came here just to say that you could probably turn down the condescension down a few notches (back down from how it just went a bit up with your latest post which I can only describe as it appears to me – a diatribe).
20/12/2011 at 15:08 Consumatopia says:
sorry
20/12/2011 at 15:45 Consumatopia says:
ugh
20/12/2011 at 15:52 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
@Sheng-ji
I know several people who were abandoned by a parent who was doing everything to not pay alimony, including hiding incomes on alimony cases and not paying until repo-man sold their house/car/TV or stuff like that and I have never heard about any of them receiving any compensation for not getting paid besides small interest rates.
At the same time people in the same country get the 20x multiplier for stuff like someone using a photo made by them on a website without permission. It’s obscene.
20/12/2011 at 16:27 Consumatopia says:
Oh my god I can’t believe how bad I am at this today.
20/12/2011 at 17:29 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
@Sheng-ji
The same for people who have lost their businesses and had to fire all their employers because they contractor haven’t paid them. If they won a court case they just got the money they were owned (if the contractor had them – they sometimes “give away” all their stuff to their family), the costs of the court and small interest rates.
These multipliers are an exceptional treatment that the copyright lobby got for themselves by bribing politicians. It’s funny how they try to get ordinary people who haven’t got paid or had a car or a cell phone stolen to get on their side by using deceptive words like “stealing” or “not paying for a service” while in reality they just bribe politicians to get laws tailored especially for them while the other people that have money owed to them, whose lives are often ruined by it are treated as third class citizens.
You copy a program without making the maker lose anything or do any additional work for you – you have to pay 20x its price or more. Someone hires your company to make several roofs and doesn’t pay you, costing you time materials, and the opportunity costs of not doing work for someone else and you go under – you are lucky to get paid what you were supposed to after a long court case.
But hey, since you’re now in debts you can’t start a huge lobby that will buy politicians to make laws for you so, you’re basically a third class citizen that no one cares for.
All that stuff – both these outrageously high compensations and the discrimination of people who should get money aren’t doing copyrighted work is simply unacceptable. Especially that the gaming companies do everything to dodge any responsibility for the quality of their games. Hell, there were even a few instances of games where a faulty installation program would do disk-wipes – without any consequences to them.
Justice and Equality,
Zrzosaar Xun 12
20/12/2011 at 18:49 barfmann says:
I know we internet folk love our righteous indignation, but this isn’t really such an exceptional thing that’s happening. Most car towing, for example, is handled by private companies enforcing trespass laws entirely without judicial or law enforcement oversight. If a business owner decides your parked illegally in their lot, or if an individual sees a car they believe is parked illegally in their space, they call a private company and have the car towed. The person towed can contest the towing, and if it’s found that they were parked legally, the initiating party is liable for all damages to the car, has to pay the tow company fee, and may be subject to a lawsuit for wrongful towing. Both cases happen – illegal tows and legal ones – all the time. It’s how this law gets enforced.
The only potential downside I see is if whatever jurisdiction this is taking place in doesn’t have a “loser pays” system. If someone receives a fraudulent piracy notice, challenges it and wins their case, but still has to cover their own legal fees, then yeah, it’s lame (though still not necessarily illegal).
The grey area of course comes from whether or not CDP really has a legal right to issue these tickets in the first place. I’d be interested to see precedent for this kind of action – all the equivalents I can think of are like the car towing example, and involve physical space and property ownership, which allows legality. The whole action taking place over the interwebs makes this one a little weird, though.
20/12/2011 at 18:55 warkwark says:
Sheng-ji:
I’m sure you are technically right on most legal topics, and that most of the people you’re responding to are technically wrong, They misuse terms, they confuse civil and criminal law, etc. etc. I believe you have stated before that you work in the law industry; I am not sure. (I have not read every comment in this thread, or most other threads, for that matter.)
What CDP is doing is unpleasant and troubling for a wide range of reasons. People who understand this topic on a human level want to speak out about it. Unfortunately, in the process they tend to make inaccurate statements, because they do not know much about law . Then, with the precision of a fine Swiss timepiece, you invariably swoop in and tear apart their arguments. Fair enough. As I say, I am sure you are technically correct.
But this unsolicited class in beginner law topics largely misses the point. People are just expressing their anger. They are ANGRY. Do you see? Humans get angry sometimes. The specific arguments they use are typically not the point. Very often they are completely irrelevant.
Maybe you knew that already. If you did, then fine. Carry on.
But if you think you’re winning any hearts or minds with this endless point-counterpoint on specific legal arguments, I believe you are sadly mistaken.
Hearts, anyway. Definitely no hearts won. No hearts for you.
20/12/2011 at 19:20 Consumatopia says:
“They misuse terms, they confuse civil and criminal law, etc. etc.”
Actually, I can’t speak for everyone responding to Sheng-ji, but my claims are about fairness, not legality. It’s not fair that someone who copied files inappropriately is punished many times more than someone operating a motor vehicle dangerously, regardless of what the law says. The law may have definitions of “extortion” and “blackmail”, but the formal legal definitions aren’t the only legitimate ones (hence the term “legal extortion”, which the law would not recognize but I think most people would).
21/12/2011 at 01:12 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
I don’t think you can count on anyone who decides to study law fully knowing that law is amoral and often sides with evil and injustice to have heart or any kind of morality.
21/12/2011 at 02:16 jaheira says:
Hello Zrzosaar,
In order for me to understand your point please define “evil” for me.
Thanks.
21/12/2011 at 02:35 warkwark says:
Consumatopia:
I understand, and you put it a lot better than I did: I believe most of the comments here reflect genuine concerns about fairness, not legality. Was just trying to say that in my opinion, any effort to pull the discussion away from these fundamental concerns (and into an endless swamp of point-counterpoint on legal topics) misses the point by a wide margin.
20/12/2011 at 21:48 Melf_Himself says:
I’m not necessarily against them using this method to defend against piracy. And I don’t think the cash amount asked for should be equal to the retail cost of the game, because there is a certain overhead to tracking these people down and sending out these letters.
But…. they are asking an order of magnitude more than the game costs, and I think that’s what makes it seem like blackmail. I think that speeding on the road is a far more awful crime than piracy since it risks LIVES, and depending on where you live that might cost you a couple of hundred dollars.
Cue mental image: CEO of CDP with his little finger touching his mouth in an evil genius way…. we will fine them ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
22/12/2011 at 10:37 RegisteredUser says:
What nobody is explicity saying is that of letters costing around 750 EUR, 500ish of those 750 are the costs of involving the lawyering. The actual fine-fine is more like the 2-300 EUR.
There is a huge lawyer lobby actively offering and encouraging these types of “services”, because it is literally a license to print money(=subpoenas).
I would not hesitate to assume that the lawyer folks are also the ones whispering into the ears of CDP and other fools that the human part of the equation is neglectable, because, really, what’s a thousand buckeroos here or there..as long as the fear gets in their eyes! Your product will be safe..trussssst usssss..
20/12/2011 at 21:51 Mathias says:
Here is a similar case in an article from “Der Spiegel”, just published today:
“A retired lady, who states does not even own a computer or even a router has to pay a law firm 650€ because of allegedly distributing a pirated ‘Hooligan-Film’.”
A lawyer quoted in the piece states that as the aggrieved of such a filesharing reprimand you have no real chance to fight such a legal claim.
Thus, under such current legal circumstances you are hard pressed to convince the court of your innocence. And I find it quite remarkable considering these letters have apparently only been send out here in Germany.
20/12/2011 at 22:44 jhng says:
Looking at these recent comments, I think my comment above at 14:28 has been mistakenly attributed to Sheng-Ji. I am not ‘Sheng-Ji’, I am ‘jhng’ — totally different person. That was my first substantial comment on the thread and not a continuation of Sheng-Ji’s earlier remarks.
I’m sorry if I appeared condescending — I had caught sight of a few comments like that of Tenseiga at 08:45 and it got my back up so I typed a bit more heatedly than I would usually. As an IP lawyer I feel quite passionately about people misrepresenting IP issues (the mainstream press are the worst with regular confusion between basic concepts like patent vs copyright vs trade mark).
21/12/2011 at 00:14 Thoric says:
I love CD Projekt’s games, and i love their company policies – no DRM, free DLC, PC-oriented development, it’s all great, but this here is something i simply can’t agree with.
See, i live in Eastern Europe and, not to whine, but the medium monthly wage in my country is about 250-300€. Age 12-17 the bulk of my spare money went to keeping up a gaming PC. Video games, movies, music, books – those i had to get from torrent sites.
I must’ve sifted through hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of media, and it was fantastic having access to all that in my teenage years. Screw how low quality releases here are, a lot of the stuff i’ve come to like isn’t even available without importing from outside. Piracy and the other copyright-infringing parts of the internet opened up a whole new world to me, I will be eternally grateful for that and simply can’t find it in myself to condemn it, even if there are people who pirate just for the heck of it.
Now that i have the means, i enjoy buying the entertainment i like. It’s great having legitimate, physical copies and supporting the people behind these creative works. Hell, i pirated The Witcher back in 2007, now i own TW:EE and TW2 both on GOG and from retail (kudos again to CDP for being one of the few developers nowadays that make worthwhile boxed releases), i don’t think of myself as a thief because of that, i hope CDP don’t either.
But if i was slapped with a 700€ fine for pirating a game as a kid, well… it would’ve been pretty traumatic, i probably would’ve dropped gaming altogether, and i consider gaming a significant part of who i am today.
I sincerely urge CD Projekt to stop this foolishness and focus their efforts elsewhere (maybe patching TW2′s damn interface). They’ve built a strong fanbase over the last 4 years and it wasn’t through extortion letters, but through honesty, kindness and understanding towards their customers.
21/12/2011 at 00:39 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
Since according to the likes of CD-Projekt, you should have to pay a 20x price of everything you have downloaded, isn’t it a good time to stop supporting them and start treating them as mortal enemies that they are?
Especially that if someone would hire you and not pay you, you wouldn’t have a right to demand anything more from them than the money you were supposed to be paid and court costs and maybe small interests? Why support people who not only hate you bit also spit on your right to equal treatment?
21/12/2011 at 12:50 GrumpyLem says:
I very much doubt that these letters are used in your country. Why would you care if someone in Germany has to pay 750€? Their monthly wages are much much higher than yours.
I gladly support companies that make great PC games.
21/12/2011 at 01:34 Atrak says:
Sorry if someones already posted this.. but I can’t be bothered reading through 8 pages of comments to check..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuxO6CZptck
21/12/2011 at 01:54 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
By the way, do you, guys know that CD-Projekt was founded by Polish pirates which were cracking and distributing games in early 90s?
Marcin Iwiński – the founder and one of the bosses of CD-Project was cracking and selling pirated games as a member of warez group “Katharsis” under nickname of S.S. Capain.
He even gave his home address and phone number in demos playing before the pirated game runs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_Q4L99ZrY
So that people could order pirated games from him.
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/mirrors/amigascne/Scrollers/K-Groupstext/Katharsis/Katharsis-LetsStrip.txt
Maybe he should now pay several hundred thousands of Euro for every game he cracked and was selling back then? And maybe the company which he founded using his money gained on pirating should be confiscated?
22/12/2011 at 10:32 RegisteredUser says:
Half the talent in the coding departments of gaming companies used to crack, hack and debug ALL the things, all the while “infringing” on IP etc pp.
Half the industry talent of artists and designers got there because they had access to pirated Adobe etc products as teens. All of this crap is gigantic hypocrisy and infused with just as much wrongful entitlement (to cash money on this side) as they imply the other side has (the pirates, who are implied to feel entitled to free access to things).
Bottom line is – reality is always a bit more complex and intertwined than what we are led to believe. We all would NOT be in the same situation if every book were only ever read by 1 person and every program ever used by the person who bought it etc..
And just so that it doesn’t get lost: CDP is doing something wrong(as in: disregarding the human impact with a wave-off) and despicable.
21/12/2011 at 02:29 Sinex says:
If you steal a game and get caught, you are not deserving of our pity or mercy.
Since I’m sure that most reasonable points have been made by this point in the discussion, I’m posting just to throw my hat in with the people who disagree vehemently with the author of this article. I, personally, believe that you are a fool to even suggest that the fine for stealing a game should be equal to the price of the game. That isn’t much of a deterrent, is it? Idiot.
21/12/2011 at 11:00 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
Except that they didn’t steal a game. They downloaded a copy. If they would steal a game, the owner of the game would lose a copy that would be removed from inventory. It’s copyright infringement, not stealing.
As for the fines. It’s not just a question of whenever they are a deterrent or not but also of justice and equality.
Let’s say you work for someone and he wouldn’t pay you for the month you were working for him. Would you be able to go to court and demand 20x compensation from him? Wait, it’s much worse than copying a game, as you can do work just for a very limited number of people. So, let it be 100x. Would you get such compensation?
If not, why support such outrageous privilege just for the copyright industry?
21/12/2011 at 12:27 Sinex says:
I’m positing that a theft/copyright infringement was made — I’m not referring to someone who magically ended up with a copy of the game on their hard drive through no fault of their own.
And if your employer fails to compensate you for work done in his employ, as he is lawfully obligated to do — you *can* get more from him than he otherwise would’ve paid you. Imagine that! And if you can make a case that, due to his failure to pay you, you have lost opportunities/been unable to live up to your own lawful obligations to remunerate other people or entities things can get even worse for this dirtbag who decided he didn’t want to obey the law.
Granted this world where we can positively identify only individuals/entities who have committed crimes probably also is home to flying pigs and unicorns sliding down rainbows, but if a thief can be punished he’d Goddamn well better be punished.
21/12/2011 at 07:24 try2bcool69 says:
Wow, what a bunch of hypocrites there are on here! I’ll bet every single one of you has stolen copyrighted material, in one form or another, at some point in your life. Yes, you have-stop lying!
As a side note, Witcher and Witcher 2 are on Steam for hella cheap right now. I almost purchased them, but I’m glad I didn’t buy anything from these extortionists.
21/12/2011 at 12:28 Sinex says:
Filthy, worthless thieves and pirates will take any flimsy excuse to justify their actions in not paying for a product anyway. If they weren’t going to use this they’d dream up something else.
21/12/2011 at 13:46 Vas says:
The majority of you are skipping out on a major point that was illustrated in the second sentence of the article: “It’s a practice that is widely despised, due not only to its propensity for threatening the innocent, but more significantly, because it’s based on threats in the first place.”
“Its propensity for threatening the innocent.”
The simple fact of the matter is that firms that monitor file sharing have a remarkably high false positive rate. Meaning that a high percentage of people who are tagged for infringing upon a copyrighted work are in fact INNOCENT. In fact, a p2p monitoring firm from Germany recently LOST a case against the law firm that had previously hired it simply because the false positive rate was so high, and they purposely hid this fact from prospective customers.
If an innocent person gets a scare letter from a lawyer saying that they’ve been marked for action, that they can pay 500 to make it go away, or they can pay 5000 to defend themselves in court from the accusation and demand for tens of thousands, what are they going to do? The settlement amount is a fraction of the cost of a legal defense. What are they going to do? What would you do? For me, the cheapest way out would be simply to pay the settlement, regardless of whether or not I committed the crime.
This method of copyright enforcement has a name here in America: Copyright Trolling. It’s become a multi-million dollar industry, and focuses primarily on pornography. Why pornography? Shame. The Shame Factor means that the sleazy lawyers have a higher rate of return on their scare letters, simply because people don’t want to get sued, and they don’t want to have their good name associated with Giant Transvestite Asses #24 on a legal docket.
This isn’t a matter of whether or not piracy is “good”. Piracy is theft. Theft is wrong. Plain and simple, black and white. This is instead a matter of the cure being worse than the disease. One innocent person who pays a settlement is one too many. And make no mistake, MANY innocent people have been accused and settled with slimy dirtbag lawyers just because mounting a legal defense is more expensive than paying them off by several orders of magnitude.
21/12/2011 at 17:54 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
@Sinex
How do you know? Have you ever tried suing someone for not paying you? Do you know anyone who did and received a 20+x compensation? Can you cite me the law that states that he would have to pay so much to you? Or is it just your wishful thinking? Also if it’s true, where do you live, I’ll consider moving there.
I was owed 20,000 PLN by a person who was bound by law to pay me, who was dodging payments, hiding his incomes (which was proven in court) and finally had to have his hidden second flat to be sold by a repo man who have found it so that I’d get the money that I was supposed to get. I had to take loans to cover my basic living costs and I’m paying back these loans until today.
I consulted lawyers, but the answer was always the same, I couldn’t get any compensation other than small interest rates that didn’t even cover the costs of the loans.
I heard the same story from many people who were cheated of their money which they were bound to get by contract or personal obligation. I met people who actually lost their prospering businesses when their contractor didn’t pay them. They didn’t get your imagined 20x or 100x compensation. If they managed to get their money back after a long court case they’d get only what they were owed, small interest rates and the return of the court cost.
Meanwhile the bribing copyright scum can get 12,000 PLN from a company that hires someone to do their website with the person doing the website used a copyrighted photo (costing 500PLN when done on comission) without the company owners knowledge.
Also, since you consider copying to be theft and a great evil in general that deserve to pay such huge fines, how do you feel about the fact that CD-Projekt was founded by a professional pirate that was not only cracking games but also selling them on a market on weekends for years?
Taking in account that he was actually selling these games for profit and in mass, the fine he should pay would be so huge that he’d end up as a homeless person or in prison and would never found CD-Projekt. Since he not only got away with it but also became a millionaire and now he’s taking money from other pirates without paying for his evil stealing and without resigning from the position that he gained thanks to that mass theft and passing off, would you consider boycotting CD-Projekt for Justice and Equality?
Cheers,
Zrzosaar Xun 12
21/12/2011 at 22:33 jrodman says:
This was a mispost.
22/12/2011 at 06:16 Sinex says:
@Zrzosaar Xun
First of all: I live in America, so the person owed my girlfriend USD (United States Dollars) — not whatever a PLN is. We have laws that guarantee an employee must be paid what he is owed by his employer, and these same laws penalize the employer if he fails to abide by said laws.
Also: I’m not sure why so many of you guys are against painfully large penalties levied against the people who are actually guilty of thievery/copyright infringement…! So what if someone can’t afford to pay his rent because he got caught breaking the law! Fuck that guy!
I understand that the system CDPR’s lawyers are employing is hardly foolproof, but that’s not my point. My point is that if someone *is* guilty of the crime of which they are accused: FUCK THEM.
22/12/2011 at 09:02 Zrzosaar Xun 12 says:
It’s because we’re interested in the good vs. evil axis, not law vs. chaos.
To people interested in punishing breaking laws copyright infringement is like thievery because it violates ownership rights.
To people interested in punishing evil copyright infringement is nowhere like thievery because thieves take away things from people, not copy them.
To me law will be forever marked as evil because how it failed me and other people when we needed its help in getting our money back and being compensated for the losses from those who agreed to pay or were directly told by court to pay but who was doing everything to not pay and the copyright law and copyright lobby will be forever twice as evil because of the discrimination that it created in my country by this unequal treatment.
22/12/2011 at 10:27 RegisteredUser says:
“But when the punishment is so disproportionate, and the efficacy is so ridiculous, I struggle to see any other way to interpret such actions beyond threats for money.
It is not blackmail. But it is often perceived to be. And that, to answer Nowakowski’s confusion, is why the company is receiving such a hostile reaction.”
I have been railing and railing hard against this idiotic practice in every single Witcher article and I continue to tell anyone and everyone that I am able to reach to boycott CDP for the reasons outlined in this article: inability to understand ON A HUMAN LEVEL what they are doing to an individual human being with these fines(not a small % of people pirate because they have little to no spare income – just the right group to ask for an amount that means 2-3 months of survival!), inability to understand the dimension of abuse of the legal system, inability to understand you do not just lose sales by piracy, but also BY BEING AN ULTRA DICK.
Which CDP is/are.
CDP, if you read these comments: Me and thankfully a good couple of people I have managed to reach have not bought your product because your “sue them, sue them all to hell!” stance is despicable.
“If my product and support stance is not good enough to sell, we’ll just sue them into paying” is still the sad and undenyable bottom line of what you ARE doing. And it should lead to public display for throwing rotten fruit at you, not the pirates.
Sincerely,
just another potential consumer gone missing thanks to your idiotic policy.