Hey, so this topic is regarding the old story where CD Projekt were identifying people who pirated Witcher2 and requesting compensation from them.

PCGamer have done a new interview that treads upon that subject:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/23/cd-projekt-red-admits-sending-letters-to-witcher-2-pirates-was-a-mistake/

Quote from PR Specialist Agnieszka Szóstak:
"It was all about sending letters to people who we knew pirated [The Witcher 2], and say, ‘Hey, we know you have the pirated version of the game, and it would be nice if you could actually pay for it if you find the game good enough."

Was it really that simple, relaxed and well intentioned? Regardless of whether the action was right or wrong, all the news stories at the time were reporting a law firm had been sending threatening letters on behalf of CDP demanding large sums of money, apparently up to $1200 from suspected pirates.

Quite a bit of a difference there, right?

*Edit:
And here's the full interview with a bit more about it:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/24/cd-projekt-red-interview-cyberpunk-2077-witcher-2-piracy-windows-8-and-more/

Well, they are certainly downplaying now what they were trying to do, they are also downplaying the ruckus that it caused, and they are probably not completely frank about their reasons for stopping it (they _may_ have stopped it because they realized that it was a mistake, but there was also a decision of the German court, which declared such actions illegal, just in that timeframe).

But I give them the benefit of doubt, and in any case, it's a good thing that they are publicly stating that it was a mistake. Makes it less likely that they try to pull a similar stunt in the future.

That said, personally, I still don't have much of a problem with the letters in the first place.

"And if you don't we will sue you for three times as much." :D

They're lying. They were blackmailing those people, basically saying 'pay or else.' If they're trying to act like they were all buddies with those people, CDP has just lost quite a bit of my respect.

About what I was thinking. It's good that they are apologizing at least.

I'm still pondering on why this particular incident makes SimonG go nuts.

And by the way, our friend here is a specialist in breaking fingers, so you better hurry and buy for the game today, even better buy some more copies and give them to your friends, son.

----

My guess is that they believed they would only target real pirates but I am sure it was more than just a reminder. I guess they thought, we are only going for the pirates, the bad publicity will be limited. But it wasn't. And they might have gotten some false positives as well. Nobody really knows.

I don't damn them for trying to catch the pirates (in fact I promote it, and I would be annoyed if they didn't), but I wish they would have simply sued the suspected pirates, not used such tactics which cause too much confusion.

I don't expect the companies to look through their fingers for people pirating their games, especially if they are willing to offer the games DRM-free, making piracy potentionally easier. Give the customers free hands, but punish them severely if they use their freedom wrong.

It's SimonG. He's old :P

But no, in this particular case, it was quite... bad PR from their side, to say the least. That kind of threatening letters may be (?) seen by German law as illegal threat / fraud attempt or something like that, so I can imagine why he's so mad about that.I remember when polish CDP folks were saying something like that "We don't want to use the DRM, because it doesn't hurt pirates, it hurts the legitimate buyers. It doesn't mean we don't mind piracy. We will fight pirates the different way - coming right at them" or something like that.

They probably haven't foreseen that tracking IPs via torrent files / trackers isn't the most accurate way to go after pirates...

Even then you can have false positives, like an old grandma getting sued, because somebody used her internet connection. It's so easy to get bad publicity.

The best way would be to warn first and sue the second time. Like first sending a warning letter and if anything happens again from this adress sue. Also lower the potential penalty (200€, something that hurts but doesn't look greedy). This way you can decrease the chance and damage of false positives a lot but still go after the pirates.

He cares a lot about that specific part of the law, had some suspicions that CDR Project RED's anti-DRM stance might be too good to be true, and then saw them exploiting a peculiarity of the German law system in a way that only scoundrel lawyers tend to do.

Imagine you're a doctor trying to cure people from drug addiction, and there's this beautiful girl you've fallen in love with. Sometimes you do have suspicions if she might be too god to be true, but you fight them back. Then a friend shows you photos of her dealing drugs to some poor souls on the street. That's probably the sentiment that hit SimonG, or at least that's the impression I got.

Yeah, well, when e.g. the ticket inspectors catch you riding a bus without a valid ticket, it isn't like they are going to charge you only for the price of the missing ticket. That would only make sure no one would pay for the ticket (until caught). :)

No, it wasn't a polite request, demanding ~$1200 from accused pirates is extortion.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/12/15/cd-projekt-demands-witcher-2-pirates-pay-up-100-sure-its-ta/

Talk about whitewashing it. At the very least they backed off once the backlash kicked off. It is one thing to go after pirates, extortion is another story.

Article is old, before they backed down I think.

Or did you and I misunderstand whitewash?

I've red one ... Somewhere, not sure where now, and I trust SimonG's judgement on the matter.