Witcher 2 Torrents Could Net You a Fine 724
An anonymous reader writes with this quote from Eurogamer:
"Gamers who download upcoming PC exclusive The Witcher 2 illegally could receive a letter demanding they pay a fine or face legal action. If gamers refuse to pay the fine, which will be more than the cost of the game, they could end up in court, developer CD Projekt told Eurogamer. 'Of course we're not happy when people are pirating our games, so we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies,' CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwiski said. 'In quite a few big countries, when people are downloading it illegally they can expect a letter from a legal firm saying, "Hey, you downloaded it illegally and right now you have to pay a fine." We are totally fair, but if you decide you will not buy it legally there is a chance you'll get a letter. We are talking about it right now.' Interestingly, The Witcher 2 will be released free of digital rights management – but only through the CD Projekt-owned digital download shop GOG.com. That means owners will be able to install it as many times as they like on any number of computers – and it will not requite an internet connection to run."
Intended Reaction? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Games should be released DRM free, publishers should be free to utilize what means have been approved to protect their work. At least that's how it would work in my perfect world....
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doing something that hurts no one
It does hurt someone. It hurts the creators, who would otherwise get some of the money. I know, I know--I'm well aware of the MAFIAA and believe me, I don't support them either. The fact of the matter is, however, that the creators nevertheless do gain revenue from their works (even though the MAFIAA does divest them of a large slice of the aforesaid monies), and illegally obtaining said works deprives them of money.
I'm not saying the system isn't broken--it is. Its brokenne
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It does hurt someone. It hurts the creators, who would otherwise get some of the money.
"Potential profit," then? For one thing, in order for it to explicitly hurt them, something that they previously owned must be taken from them.
Suppose someone decides not to buy a product from a store. Would the store have had more money if they did? Yes. Using the logic of those who utilize the potential profit argument, this would mean that they have 'stolen' potential profit from the store, and have therefore 'harmed' a legitimate business.
Suppose that someone tells all of their friends who were original
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Potential profit," then? For one thing, in order for it to explicitly hurt them, something that they previously owned must be taken from them.
Is time and research not valuable commodities? That is effectively what a lot of development is, time and research. They owned their time with the intent to sell off the fruits of their labor (say for example working in a field) for the price that would be set. Instead, people that pirate the game steal the time and effort put into the development as well as the publisher's return on investment and distribution costs.
You used the generalization that making a physical good is the same as making a piece of IP. Not the case. Physical goods require materials to be handed over to someone at the time of sale, while for IP it's handing over the representation of all that time and effort put into the creation of that work.
A lot of people that say "it doesn't hurt anyone" seem to firmly believe that the "P" word is completely evil. Profit is not evil, profit is what encourages further investments into future projects. Profit is what makes the next game of the series. Profit is what keeps people interested in development, just like profit keeps people interested in making cars, computers and aircraft.
Sure not every stolen copy (yes, I said stolen) is a lost sale, but the representation of the work is now effectively inside the pirate's head and cannot be removed. Simply put, games are a part of media. Publishers don't care if you steal the DVD, they care if you experience the game, movie, e-book, etc. without paying the fee asked to experience the medium.
Why should you get to experience a movie if you don't pay for it? Because you don't take away physical materials from someone by effectively copying that piece of intellectual property? The cost of development is front-loaded on the hopes that there are sales expected to be made.
Various piracy justifications keep falling flat on their face. Do every gamer a favor, buy your games or go do something else, something a little less expensive.
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
The few studies that have been done on pirating have found little to no negative effect on game sales. There's a reason the most popular games also happen to be the most pirated ones. A lot of people don't have thousands of dollars to divert solely to games, and by keeping up on the games they *want* to play they remain engaged in the industry and encouraged to buy games later on, when they *do* have capital to spend. Otherwise they'll simply resort to cheaper alternatives, and the games industry will get nothing.
I think the perfect example of this phenomenon is the PS3 vs. Xbox 360, Wii, and NDS. The latter two have been pirated for years while the PS3 was foolproof, but the sales of the 360 have trumped the PS3, while the DS has swamped the other two combined. The DS is on its way to break the record for hardware and software units sold *ever* for a standalone gaming unit (maybe it has already?). The Wii has demolished its competition. Arguing that pirates have harmed Nintendo's sales is just greedy, myopic, and ridiculously short-sighted.
tl;dr: Piracy doesn't hurt anyone. Nintendo's whalloping its competition. Not everyone's super rich.
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell no. What I am going to do is save up my money until I have enough extra to buy a copy for myself. The problem with people nowdays is that they are whiny little bitches who cry, "I want, I want, I want."
I get tired of their shit.
GO EARN IT
Sincerely,
Get the hell off my lawn...
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Well how about you don't expect to be able to get stuff when you don't have the money.
I get tired of their shit.
The parent never said that people should have it for free. He just pointed out, with the support of facts, that the claim about companies being hurt by piracy are unfounded.
The difference this point makes is in the legitimacy of the amount of damage that is claimed when teenagers get sued over this.
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I'm assuming the banks are investing the money (otherwise they really should stop giving me interest). So in reality my money is being used to help the economy in the form of loans and investments.
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
I try to avoid this subject, and unfortunately, I'm not always successful in that goal.
I'd like to offer you my perspective as an actual, real, game developer. Not some imagined or particularly convenient for your opinion one, a real one.
I disagree.
Some of what you say is correct, but just because those things are correct, does not mean you can make some wild leap into entirely unrelated contexts and base your reasoning on the previous thing.
Piracy is not theft.
WHEN someone downloads a copy of the games I create, it costs me absolutely nothing. -NOT ONE CENT-. I don't care if they enjoy the game, or thing it's the worst thing to have been created since the wheel. Those people are completely, and utterly irrelevant. The ONLY people who matter, are my customers. I create a product that they enjoy, and they pay me for that service.
I will not spend money paying tha 'mafiaa' thugs to bankrupt some sap because he didn't have the cash to pay me. I won't waste my time, money and effort trying to 'punish' or 'disrupt' the imagined boogey-man. I put every cent I have, and every moment of my development time -exactly where it's needed-, improving the product, and making the next product FOR MY CUSTOMERS.
If people don't want to pay me, that's their business. They haven't 'stolen' from me. "Potential profit" IS NOT PROFIT.
Because I spend my time and effort on making products that people want, they buy them. Occasionally I even get the "big bad evil pirates" buy my products. Not because I punished them (and my customers with them) but because they liked what I had to sell, and knew that paying me for it means I can make more.
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For example, let's say that copyright laws didn't exist. And whenever you release a new game, I make an exact copy of your game including all of the CD art, instruction manuals,
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Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free riders are a problem. Learn some economics before you start with the "hurts no one" crap.
Ambiguous reaction (Score:4, Funny)
property is thief.
I'm not quite sure where you're going on this one. Did you mean one of the following?
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even Marx criticised it as bollocks.... ok he never actually said "bollocks" but that's what he meant..LOL
here is a quote from the wiki [wikipedia.org]
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
You 'steal' potential profit by not giving someone money or by interfering with their flow of profit. That means that if you decide not to buy a product from a store, for example, you'd be 'stealing' potential profit (you've 'harmed' the store because the store would have had more money if you would have given it to them). That means that you're 'stealing' potential profit whenever you decide to tell people who are about to buy a product not to buy it (and they decide not to) as the artists would have had more money if you hadn't done that.
The government doesn't guarantee artists money. They guarantee them a chance by allowing the artist control over distribution of their work.
Perhaps the harm is to society as a whole, for if artists weren't given this control, a fairly large portion of our culture likely wouldn't exist.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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But seriously. I dare you to justify downloading games, how would the developers get paid?
How would developers get paid if people decided not to give them their money? How would developers get paid if people were allowed to warn others of potentially bad products (they might decide not to)?
Not giving someone your money doesn't harm them. Taking something from them does, but that's not what pirates do.
As I said above, this entire situation is a shortcoming of a broken system. The fact that artists supposedly (I'm still not convinced) need to introduce artificial scarcity and harm innocents who di
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I've seen about 8 posts from you in this discussion talking about fixing the system. What system are you talking about? Distribution system? Capitalism? The system where devs get paid by some altruistic fairy godmother to make the games you want to play? I am a game dev and I don't particularly think the system is broken, per se. What I do see is a lot of missed opportunities in the way things are priced and distributed, especially online. When you're talking physical goods you're talking about a min
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, it is. I applaud them for doing that, but that doesn't mean that pirates are doing any harm in the first place. I don't blame them for trying to make more money, however. This is mainly a problem with how the system is designed.
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If you started paying for the content you consume, well done. you successfully proved that, in your one case alone, a pirate is definitely a lost sale. If you stopped consuming their products, then really well done. You've proven that pirates aren't lost sales, and they need to reduce their outrageous prices on digital media to get consumers back.
Here's hoping you send the right message.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Can you explain which gathering method makes it trivial to spoof IP addresses?
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"Honest question: why would you cry foul?"
I cry foul as well and I am perfectly willing to tell you why.
Remember when game releases were preceded by a demo release? What ever happened to that? I'll tell you. People didn't buy games that were obvious pieces of shit, but SOME would if you didn't give them a chance to test it first. So, gone are the demos of yore.
Unless there is a playable demo available to test the game, I have zero way of knowing if the game is actually finished (in terms of development), ha
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you assume 100% of pirates wouldn't have bought the game if they couldn't get it for free, what gives them the right to play the game without paying for it? I used to think as you did, but now I'm not so sure. I don't think exorbitant fines (such as the *AA enjoy) are the answer (in fact, I find them reprehensible), but neither can I condone piracy.
Or how about a different example. Are you in favor of people sneaking in to movie theaters? Assuming a non-full showing, it doesn't "hurt" the theater one bit, but it's obviously the wrong thing to do.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would think it rather obvious, but it is "wrong" for the simple reason that the movie theatre you sneak into only exists because paying for your ticket is what allows the movie theatre to actually exist and show movies.
The same goes for games, of course - people paying for the games they play is what allows developers to actually spend time and effort making games, instead of having to spend their time doing other things in order to feed themselves and their families.
I don't think illegal copying is the r
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Answer this: if it doesn't hurt anyone, then why does it matter? You know that no one is being deprived of anything that they previously owned.
You can say that they're 'stealing' potential profit, but not only is it impossible to steal objects that don't even exist, but you'd be blaming just about everyone in existence by doing so. You 'steal' potential profit merely by choosing not to give someone money or by interfering with their flow of profit. That effectively means that not buying a product from a store would mean that you have 'stole' potential profit from the store (and have therefore 'harmed' them because they would have been better off if you had given them your money).
Rather than hurting "anyone" is actually hurts "everyone". This is just another case of what's called the "tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org]". Each person who pirates a game benefits himself or herself, but if enough people do this it's no longer tenable to make games and no one has a game to play, for free or otherwise.
You can talk about people making things "for art's sake", and some people will, but a lot of them won't who would. I used to make games, and I still do in my spare time, but I work for Microsoft as my day job, so my productivity in making games isn't nearly as high as it would be if I could do it full time. Other people, people who might be fantastic artists but have a family to feed are going to be in similar spots because people pirate games. Piracy has a direct impact in reducing the profitability of the art, meaning there are fewer people who can practice it.
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Each person who pirates a game benefits himself or herself, but if enough people do this it's no longer tenable to make games and no one has a game to play, for free or otherwise.
Except that in practice this doesn't happen. There are enough people who don't consider the amount of money a big deal, feel there's some kind of intangible benefit in buying a legit copy, or are just plain lazy that plenty of people buy games. The only time I can see this not happening is if publishers raised prices to a truely unwise level.
Now, there will always be people who pirate, but for the most part they're people who wouldn't have bought it anyway. As someone upthread hints [slashdot.org], there's a reason why th
You need to focus on the correct problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than hurting "anyone" is actually hurts "everyone". This is just another case of what's called the "tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org]". Each person who pirates a game benefits himself or herself, but if enough people do this it's no longer tenable to make games and no one has a game to play, for free or otherwise.
Be extremely cautious when comparing information to physical property. James Boyle have written a nice book about the trap you are falling into:
http://www.thepublicdomain.org/ [thepublicdomain.org]
Instead of thinking in terms of black and white, we really need to focus on the real issue: How much legal protection is needed?
I think we can all agree that "life + 75 years" (depending on country) is vastly more protection that a computer game needs. In my opinion, this excessive protection can only lead to stagnation.
We need to crea
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:4, Insightful)
Friend, if you're going to call the system broken, it seems like you should propose an alternative.
I've not myself encountered another way for artists to be sufficiently supported to continue in their art. I've certainly seen single case examples (Cory Doctorow and his one book, Stephen King and his one book), but these things don't work at scale and it's notable that neither of them did that twice.
What would you suggest?
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:4, Insightful)
cheekyjohnson, are you crazy? Christ man, you're not just "copying data". That's just an inane rationalization. The data you're copying IS the game. It's simple economics. If enough people get it for free, the game maker makes no money. That's all people are trying to point out to you here.
Yes, the system is broken. On slashdot, you're not going to find many people arguing against you on that front. But until the system is fixed, the fact is that the game maker will be out of business if everyone copies his "data". Even an idealist occasionally needs to get a grip on reality.
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Your claim is that any system built on artificial scarcity is inherently broken (although this only because you are following your own moral code, which nobody else seems to agree with).
There IS no alternative, logically, unless you consider something along the lines of selling merchandise. Your argument considers any system that sells an unlimited-supply item to be broken, all data is unlimited, so any system that sells data is broken. This includes video games, all written language, music, movies, and to
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Perhaps it is a good thing that the game makers whos business model is based on a pre-digital/pre-internet era goes out of business. Obviously people doesn't value them very highly if they need to legislate their rights for sales.
Perhaps the problem lies in charging $50-$100 for a game full of artificial restrictions. I personaly haven't bought games in years, until i found gog.com who sells drm free games for $6 and $10 and no more (some they even give away for free). I've happily payed for a couple of gam
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You're really overthinking this. I pay $60,000/year for 50 developers/artists/writers for 3 years to create a game. That's $9,000,000 out of my pocket to put out a piece of entertainment for others to enjoy. Let's say I need to pay that big loan back at some point and it would just take too long waiting tables. So I sell my game at $60 per copy. I need to sell 150,000 copies of that game to break even. I'm not Electronic Arts or Blizzard so I'm not famous nor do I have a large marketing budget. The on
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Now I have people playing the game, but not giving me any credit in a form that allows me to pay my debtors: money.
But, see, this is where it gets interesting. You're mainly upset with these people because they haven't given you money, not because they're playing your game (as copying data doesn't hurt anyone as no one is deprived of anything). This is a category that also includes everyone who merely didn't buy the product. Not to mention that not giving someone money doesn't harm them (as that is an action that deprives them of nothing).
If artists need to introduce artificial scarcity to continue doing what they love
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One could argue that they are increasing the supply, and thus for a more or less fixed demand they are reducing the market value.
Not really. Digital media has always been in infinite supply. Merely making more copies does no damage to anyone.
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I'm not voicing my disapproval of rewarding game developers who have done a good job with money, but what I am voicing my disapproval of is the notion that by not giving someone money, you are harming them. I actually think that in the current system, it is a nice thing to give someone money for a product that is in an infinite supply.
Re:Intended Reaction? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm cheering, tentatively.
My "Ideal Future" is no DRM whatsoever, with the game companies selling their product through digital downloads, and possibly brick-and-mortar/snail-mail retailers for those who want physical media.
I want this future specifically so that I can be sure the games I buy today are still good to go fifteen years from now. Not as unreasonable as it sounds, when you consider that my own collection includes titles like X-Com (1993), Fallout 1&2 (97/98) and the Infinity engine series (late 90's), all of which work, or can be made to work, on a modern PC.
The biggest resistance to the "DRM free" approach comes from the fear of piracy. I don't think this is a particularly rational response to the problem on the part of the devs, as only a single game copy needs to be cracked and torrented to make the DRM irrelevant - you can't reasonably stop that without complete control of the box that runs the game, something you can only partially achieve with consoles, and arguably not even then.
Is suing the pirates in lieu of DRM any more rational? Debatable. But I've no doubt it's an improvement. After all, DRMing the games causes problems for me, the legit user, while anti-piracy suits do not.
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A DRM-free game released by a publisher that intends to hunt down pirates. Am I supposed to cheer them on or cry foul? I'm so confused :(
Cheer. DRM punishes non-pirates more than it prevents piracy. The pirates are in some ways on our side with the DRM vs no DRM argument, but that doesn't mean pirates have a peg-leg to stand on with all arguments.
I don't expect someone to make a good game and then be happy people are playing it without paying them, no developer is claiming to be a charity, and good revenue for good games means more good games. If devs want to specifically punish pirates, that's a good thing in my book.
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It is in no way vigilantism. Or would you say that a person filing any other civil suit was vigilantism?
Leaking (Score:4, Interesting)
'Of course we're not happy when people are pirating our games, so we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies,'
That makes it sound like they are going to seed the torrents, making it available. I can't see that being airtight - If the copyright owner is making the torrent available, a leacher should be able to assume that they were granted permission to download it, no?
Seems pretty bent to me either way.
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Re:Leaking (Score:5, Insightful)
>>I think youd have a tough time convincing the courts that you thought being offered a single chunk from a "torrent sneaking firm" constituted permission to download the game;
How about pointing to TFA? The company itself put a version of their software up on a torrent site for people to download from freely. How can they then say said downloads were illegal?
As copyright holders, they have the right to put their software up for free download, but they can't complain when people take them up on it.
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This can potentially be tracked with custom made software that request data but tosses it out as it recieves it, never storing or sharing it back. This software would then log the IP address and time of all packet transactions.
I'm sure they dont just go out and run a torrent and seed stuff and occationally look at the IP list, this would result in them not catching a lot of seeders or leachers.
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How about pointing to TFA? The company itself put a version of their software up on a torrent site for people to download from freely. How can they then say said downloads were illegal?
I may have just missed something here, but I've just read both links available and I can't see anything where it says that they have uploaded a version of their software, or created any torrents. Where is it written that they did? I don't mean this as a troll as I may have just overlooked it somehow..Or has that juicy little bit of information been removed from the article since its initial publishing
Just to note, if they did upload/create their own torrents then I completely agree with you. That is them ef
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CD Projekt is a Czech company, so it's entirely possible that the meaning of "torrent sneaking companies" got lost in the translation. I can think of a few ways you could identify the IP addresses of people downloading torrents without uploading any material yourself, so they might be using some of those.
Or, you know, they're a Czech company - copyright law doesn't mean the same thing over there as it does here*, so this may be above-board in certain countries.
*cue ACTA lobbyist saying "Yet"
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CDProjekt is definitely a Polish company
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You can get swarm information (IP's, percentages, etc) without seeding yourself. The problem here lies with the fact that they'll have to know for sure that the content beeing shared between peers is their copyrighted content, for this they would have to download it at least once. I don't think this would be a problem since they would be downloading their own content.
Inevitable posts blasting this... (Score:2)
That issue aside, id be interested to see the objections raised-- I suspect theyll boil down to "I cant have whatever I want? No fair!".
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As someone who's had plenty of people raise objections to me (I happen to be firmly planted on the other side of the debate), I can tell you they almost always boil down to one or more of the following:
1) There's nothing wrong with sharing/copyright is bad
2) Sharing is only bad when companies do it (though I've had real trouble getting anyone to be able to justify why that is)
3) OK, sharing is bad/copyright is fine, but I still don't like companies suing people
4) I can't have whatever I want? No fair!
Althou
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2) Sharing is only bad when companies do it (though I've had real trouble getting anyone to be able to justify why that is)
Sharing copyrighted material for profit is bad, how about this?
What I mean is - it is difficult to prove or disprove that somebody who downloaded the game for free would have bought it, after all, there is a huge price difference between free and $50 and I have a limited amount of money and could buy a limited amount of games, while I could download much more games (depending on the hard drive size and connection speed). However, if somebody bought the game from a pirate it is more likely that they would ha
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Ah, yep. That's the one I mean.
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They don't need to know exactly who used the computer, they just need the external IP address and the time of download. With that they can contact the ISP and get the household that was doing this.
If the people download it from their work computers, IT will get a notification, from there it may be hard to track down the actual user. But at a household, it's not hard to just know it was the household.
Language, language... (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling a private party's essentially extortionate demand to pay up or face (ruinously expensive even if innocent) legal action a "fine" is acccording it far too much legitimacy.
Sure, as a matter of probability, not all the threat letters will miss their mark, and some percentage will in fact be sent to people who downloaded and/or uploaded the game in violation of applicable law in their jurisdiction; but even those cases will hew to no established standards of evidence or due process. Given the known sloppiness(and clear perverse incentives involved) of these sorts of things a fair few won't even be accidentally correct, they'll simply be pure extortion without even coincidental overlap with justice.
No matter how much you hate copyright infringement, conflating vigilante 'justice' with process of law is dangerously sloppy. I don't know whether the CD Projekt spokesweasel is simply internally sloppy, or engaged in deliberate spin; but it is unacceptable.
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torrent sneaking? (Score:2, Insightful)
What the hell is "torrent sneaking?"
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Too late.
Maybe I'm missing the point but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I'm off based but shouldn't the only person that receives the fine be the one who posted the copyrighted content on the torrent site?
The internet is about sharing content if you put your own copyrighted content out on the web I would assume you are granting the public access to it unless stated in a disclaimer attached to the link to the file.
Since most torrent sites have a disclaimer saying DO NOT UPLOAD THIS UNLESS YOU OWN THE RIGHTS TO IT. Doesn't it mean that either the person who uploaded the file is acting on behalf of the owner with their knowledge and permission or they are violating the copyright of the item? And since I cannot issue a court order to get the persons name of the ip address of the person who originally seeded the torrent how am I to determine if the file is legally there or not? And even if I did have the original seeders name how am I suppose to know he doesnt own the copyright of the file?
I've got a idea. I will make a music cd rip it and let my (friend) have it for free... but he might not be the friend i thought he was and uploaded it to the torrent servers.
Now since he is somewhat still my friend but i'm pissed at him I will take him off my friends list on facebook.
But any dumb fuck that dared download my audio cd I will find you and sue you into the ground.
Btw did I mention every month I will have my name legally changed to whatever the current best selling artist is?
DRM-free means no excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
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Penitent pirates? (Score:2)
Oh, that's also stealing their IP? Shucks.
GOG not the only place to get The Witcher 2 (Score:2, Informative)
Send me your letters. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey... (Score:2)
If I turn the chair 'round and use the neighbor's wifi (because it comes in spectacularly if I do that), who gets the letter?
Not like I'll do it (and really, i have better things to do).
--
BMO
Hahaha (Score:2, Flamebait)
Ok, so all those people still think they can change human nature using laws and papers...
Exclusively? (Score:2)
Or are you sure it won't be released via steam as well?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/20920/ [steampowered.com]
Yes, but does it run... (Score:3)
...on Linux?
I kinda wish it did. I really like to support people who release games DRM-free (The Humble Indie Bundle was straight awesome), but since I haven't owned a Windows box since 2007, well, will I actually be able to play it?
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The game is sold digitally, drm free.
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Re:that's not how copyright law works (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:that's not how copyright law works (Score:5, Informative)
If you're torrenting a game that's sold as a download without DRM, I'm pretty sure you're not a customer.
Just sayin'.
Ya I have trouble with sympathy in that case (Score:5, Insightful)
When games are DRM'd I can understand. DRM sucks and people want to play but don't want it. Ok, I can understand that position, if not support it. Also I can understand when you can't get a game via download. I'm lazy, I love buying stuff online. I can understand the feeling of saying "screw it" and just downloading it because it is easy.
However when it is downloadable AND DRM free? Well then you are just being cheap. They are giving you what you want and you are refusing to pay for it... That is just cheap.
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Re:that's not how copyright law works (Score:5, Insightful)
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SO you don't think the government created right to exclusive control over the copying and distribution of copyrighted works is being deprived?
Because that's what they are trying to protect.
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That right created by law is a primary driver for of value to the product. You are talking that from them. Also, you obviously think the product has some value if your willing to take it. This is especially obvious by how you appear to be wanting to take it and go though great lengths justifying how your theft is somehow not wrong even though the law says otherwise.
Might I suggest that you put your efforts into actually trying to change the laws instead of justifying why you shouldn't follow them. Perhaps t
Re: (Score:2)
You are talking that from them.
But, I ask again, how does this hurt them? They have been deprived of nothing that they owned.
Also, you obviously think the product has some value if your willing to take it.
Entertainment value. But, if I can get it for free, and I don't pay them, I'm not actually harming them.
Again, not giving someone money doesn't harm them if you haven't even interacted with them in the first place. They haven't deprived the artists of time, property, or anything else.
If I took some of that, you are in not different shape under your same excuses then if I took your latest fiction works and copied it.
No, I wouldn't be. I do not support illogical arguments for personal gain. Stop blaming people who are not depriving anyone of anythi
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Let's apply this principle to something less contentious. Say, like many people, you have a bank account with your life savings in it. You willingly gave the bank money, and they kept track of the amount of money owed via some kind of digitally stored number. Let's say I then managed to somehow reduce that number to 0 and increase my number by exactly the same amount. By your characterisation of theft, this is certainly not theft. If anything, the bank is the one guilty of theft, because, by refusing to pay
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This seems familiar.
By your characterisation of theft, this is certainly not theft.
That really depends on what you owe for in the first place. Not paying for damages that you caused would, well, be damaging (due to the fact that the person never actually paid it off and the original person had to). Same thing goes for not paying for something that you bought, as they lost a physical object of a certain estimated value (according to the current system) and were never paid back for it. Pirates don't actually deprive them of anything or interact with them in any way.
No sensible person would dispute that I have hurt you
I dis
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Re:Witcher 2 threats could net you publicity (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't heard of the Witcher 2 (until now), but The Witcher (1) was a pretty good RPG game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher_(video_game) [wikipedia.org]
If the sequel is as good as the first, it's well worth paying for. Having no DRM is a definite plus. Going after those who infringe on their copyrights ... well, it sounds like they've decided that any publicity is good publicity. And they may be right.
And really, I don't have any problems with them going after the pirates, especially if they make this "fine" a reasonable figure -- more than the cost of the game, but less than thousands of dollars.
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Why are the pirates always blamed for the shortcomings of a broken system? Don't you think that it's sort of odd how people who don't even take anything or harm anyone are being blamed for stealing (potential profit or otherwise)? Don't you think that it's sort of odd how artists (and others), in order to (presumably) make a living in said system, must introduce artificial scarcity through the use of scare tactics? I certainly do. It's not pirates that are the problem, it's the broken system which doesn't a
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And how would you propose fixing this system? What shortcomings are you talking about?
I like free stuff as much as anyone else, but really, what's so difficult about the concept of paying whatever arbitrary price someone asks for? If you think the price isn't worth it, then don't pay and don't play/watch/listen to whatever they created. It's hardly the end of the world.
Re:Farewell, gog.com (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
And "allegedly" guilty thieves? Explain to me, how do you download from a torrent of copyrighted material without committing copyright infringement?
I take it you missed the story a couple of days ago about some British lawyers apparently sending out threatening letters to 'downloaders' when they knew that some significant fraction were completely innocent?
The simple reality today is the the legal systems in the West are so corrupt and expensive that someone who's completely innocent simply cannot afford to pay the legal fees to prove their innocence.
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So what's your suggestion, that nobody bother to enforce the law at all?
When it's him breaking it, of course!
None of these people have a consistent, rational, moral argument in favor of piracy. It always boils down to greedy little shits. Hell, I've had plenty of pirated software on computers over the years. Know why? I'm a greedy little shit too. Difference being I'm not afraid to admit it.
(Truth be told, I have FAR less than I did while younger. Just deleted CS5 the other day, figuring I can use Gimp, iPhoto, and Pixelmator.)
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Explain to me, how do you download from a torrent of copyrighted material without committing copyright infringement?
Well if you already bought a copy for one.
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If you think that "information wants to be free", and are disgusted with the idea of anyone being sued for copyright infringement, then why do you even bother with GoG today? In your ethical value system, it should be perfectly okay to just go torrent things.
If you do find some value with GoG, enough to actually give them money for the services they provide, then you should understand that those services aren't free to implement, and that freeloaders (like those who torrent) make the price go higher for you
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now I am not over the activation energy of playing Witcher 2 even for free, let alone paying for it. If I were over that, via free demo or torrent, I'd be one step closer to thinking "Hmmm... maybe I WILL pay for it."
It's not released yet. But the first game had a free downloadable demo, and the second one probably will, too; so "but I need to try it" is not a valid excuse here.
But hearing that they think their not-that-amazing game is so precious that they want to take money-wasting punitive actions
Regarding "not-so-amazing" - I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like the first one. I didn't, either; but they have 81% at Metacritic, and, more importantly, 9.3 user score - which is pretty high.
For the rest of it, I don't understand why you have a problem with property owner using legal means to defend said property. Even if you disagree with their assessment of its value.