I went reading comments on one of those there torrent sites when The Witcher 2 came out and there were actually a lot of voices ringing in support of GOG and CDP, encouraging others to "buy this one." They didn't win over 100% of pirates but they never will: it was still noteworthy. Unfortunately this move will probably do little more than nullify all the goodwill they invested in for several years.

I own The Witcher 1 Enhanced Edition (DVD), I bought the Witcher 2 from GOG (preordered), I even bought the Witcher 1 again on GOG because one of my DVD's broke! And though I can in some way understand this action, I won't condone it because it reeks of Mafia-intimidation style politics.

IF this is all true, and CDproject won't change their way, I will not EVER buy anything of them again. And that would be a shame, as I really want to play the Witcher 2 expansion and part 3 somewhere in the future.
I already stopped buying and playing all Ubisoft games because of their draconian DRM, but this sleazy lawyer mafia practics is even taking it further than that. If this is true, I am disgusted. Shame on you CDproject! You've potentially lost all goodwill that was there for you!

I was calling them pro-piracy because of the first impression I got after reading the article and some of the comments. Now, after re-reading it, I must admit that I was a bit hasty with that conclusion. Thank you, for giving me the opportunity to prevent another mistake.

But I still find parts of the article suspect. The whole thing seems to me pretty one-sided. And where did they get their information? I've been looking for better sources and to the best I could find I linked earlier. That one was from the 5th July. So why is TorrentFreak making that big a deal about it now and not earlier? And all the sources I could find mentioned a fine of 750€ not 911,80€. But that could have changed over time. I am no legal-expert. So I don't know if that is legal.

In the end it's like I said before: I just don't have enough information.

I can't tell you about this particular case, but in a lot of the RIAA cases in the US people faxed or imaged and emailed their demand letters.

If that happened in this case too, it would certainly explain where they got some of their information. But then, why didn't they just say so in the article?

Whatever CDP might have said or might have not said is not the point here.

The fact that they used lawyers (imagine that being said with an Alan Rickman voice) is,in laymen terms, the master dickmove of them all. And I know those people, heck I might even know the people doing this, depending on the law firm.

Scaring of schoolkids that are stupid enough to still use open P2P networks for a few quid and a cheap scare is nothing I would expect from a reputable company. This is pointless and disgusting. You wont get the "bad guys" (real "pirates" that sell illegitimate copies via fake "retail") because they don't get caught by that. Or anybody else that knows how to put up a VPN. But you will have a very negative impact on the lives of a bunch of innocent kids.

I would guess, that over 70% of the people beeing harrased by those lawyers are children below 18 years of age (And I know those numbers are true from other P2P cases, they don't come up in the stats because the internet connection is on their parents name). If they want to pirate your games, let them. They might come back in ten years, and spend their hard earned money. Like I did!

Pirating a game is not a fucking crime (at least in most countries). An illegal action is not always a crime. The biggest transgression those kids did is beeing young and stupid. And having a family pay several hundred or even thousand Euros for this might be legally right, but it is in my opinion morally wrong. Especially if those kids are pirating because they are from unfortunate families, then the fine is hitting them even worse.

There could, however, the possibility, that those lawyers acted on their own for a few cases, than contacted CDP to make a deal, which CDP accepted. That practice is more common than anybody could like. Doesn't make it good, but it would be somewhat redeeming.

I'm with TheCheese on this one, at least in sentiment. I will still use and buy games from GOG. But the second they are doing this with GOG games, I'm reevaluating my position towards them.

Again, it's not about being for or against piracy. It's against the harassment of some children for beeing young and foolish.

Disclaimer: I have 40+ GOGs, including the Witcher I+II bla bla bla

Edit: A few typos

I honestly don't care, as I don't do piracy (much, yes, I pirate some stuff that I won't for a second consider buying (call this double standard if you like, I don't care, but never in my life I'd able to pay $4,500 for an AutoCAD Map 3D license (luckily, Autodesk now offers software for students so I don't have to pirate that anymore)).

But if I got in the crossfire somehow, or even if I was doing piracy, and CDP sent me a letter telling me to stop because they are going to sue me, kill my cat, or whatever, I'd just show them the .!. and continue on my way.

If I have to choose a side, I'd stand with TheCheese33 and SimonG on this one.
TorrentFreak is a legitimate website.

I couldn't say, really. It seems like you could anonymize them easily enough that you could actually post the thing, if they had a copy. Perhaps their baiting for some denials before they show their hand. If it is happening there should be some folks willing to share their demand letters though.

Sure. It's legitimately a biased pro piracy site. Anyone who refers to a company as "a bunch of copyright trolls" gives up their legitimate status in my book.

The more there are such pro-piracy sentiments here, the stronger message it is to publishers that DRM-free is a _bad_ idea. As if taking DRM out of your games automatically makes everyone entitled to them, even without paying.

I find it especially alarming that according to some messages people have thought wrong that GOG approves piracy, ie "GOG is cool with piracy". WTF??? Yeah, the potentional publishers would really love that message, not...

When you copy something to your use without paying the IP holder, then you are earning something from it, ie. using goods without paying for them, saving the money for other uses.

And the distinction is hazy anyway because as far as I've understood, don't many torrent sites use some kind of quota system, ie. you'll have to share in order to download? Thus, people share as much as possible so that their quota goes up and allows them to download a lot as well. That's the gain right there.

Either way, I think the idea that it can be called "piracy" or wrong only if someone makes money out of it is crap. Are there any people anyway who would pay a dime to piracy sites? 99% of pirates get their games from free torrent sites (quotas or not) anyway.

Riiight, especially when you "save" money you wouldn't have anyway. In that case, your gain is some potential entertainment / happiness... But I assume that to the minds of those like you, only those who can afford it are entitled to that.

Newzbin for one, since it made the news lately. And all sites hosting content that charge for "premium membership" or even simply display ads. But I'm mainly talking of the old-fashioned software pirates, who sold disks with stuff. Those are the ones file-sharing put out of business, and they're the ones who stand to gain the most when it's being clamped down on.
As any "Pirate Party" from anywhere (including those from Sweden who have made it into the European Parliament or those from Berlin who won enough seats in the regional parliament to enter every single one of the members they had on the list) will tell you, plain P2P shouldn't count as "piracy" and shouldn't be illegal, period.

It would be very nice to hear some official statement from either CDP or GOG about this, but I guess this is never going to happen... and admittedly, this is certainly the wrong place to ask for it, because CDP will not read what is written in this forum and the members of the GOG team who do read it probably have no idea...

Most "legitimate" reporting also has a bias. Just look at Fox News.

Here's a statement from last year