Yes let's denounce them, write them off, because we all know Ubisoft, Activision and EA are so much better.

Well if you copy,obtain copies or sell copies of that product which you are not entitled to then that is fraud,for people to think doing so is fine and nothing wrong with it tells it's own story about those kinds of people,fraud is fraud and you need to be dealt with,you can't go around having people doing as they please,you have laws for a reason,why should people go around breaking the law and thinking it's ok? They didnt purchase the game or obtain it legally so why should they be able to play it?

Oh, gotcha. That's normally copyright infringement unless you take the added step of misrepresenting the copies and legitimate and attempt to redistribute them.

Pirates just ruin the industry for everyone,many just don't ever intend paying for any game,hell why don't they just walk into a store and take it off the shelf and walk out? It's no different that going to a file sharing or torrent site and downloading the latest game just because they want to and because they can,you generally get what you pay for in life so if you want witcher 2 just because it's there and you can have it without paying and giving hard earned revenue to the publisher then they do truly deserve to get something back,i personally would seek damages from the torrent and file sharing site and close them down and have them punished,it would be a whole lot easier than going after everyone that downloads it from them.

We do know a lot more than that. The letters were sent out by a Berlin-based German law firm called Reichelt Klute Aßmann on behalf of CD Projekt Red. They demanded the payment of 750 euros (nearly $1,000) and the signing of a cease-and-desist declaration, otherwise threatening a lawsuit in the amount of 30,000 euros (almost $40,000). Furthermore, the cease-and-desist declaration included a contractual penalty of 6,000 euros.

We know this from other law firms that offered their legal services to recipients of these letters.

Source: http://www.rechtsanwaltskanzlei-urheberrecht.de/news/Abmahnung_CD_Projekt_RED_Sp._Z.o.o._RKA_The_Witcher_2

I attempted an English translation here: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/cd_projekt_extorting_suspected_file_sharers_say_this_isnt_true/post86

Just because there are plenty of other lying pieces of shit out there doesn't mean that those who happen to work for CDP should get a free pass. Rather, they all need to be called out for what they are.

Oh that, it's just a bunch of people whining because they're being asked to shoulder the costs of investigating the infringement rather than just paying for the copy of the game.

I thought there was some new information that would make this seem unreasonable.

Bottom line is that if taken to court the damages would likely be only the cost of the game, but the fees associated with paying attorney's bills would be far, far higher.

I still haven't seen anybody posting any credible information that the letters were going out to people who didn't infringe on the copyright.

It's the only requirement.

Who is whining, and what does that have to do with anything I said? You claimed that the only information we have is from a pro piracy website and that we don't know how much money the letters were asking for, which is not true. The link I provided gives some precise and credible information regarding the letters. Whether innocent people were targeted is an entirely different question.

It's more of an aside really. And yes there was a lot of whining about it.

I may very well be missing something because of the language barrier, but it is true that those of us that don't speak German are more or less left out on the cold on this one. And even with your translation, it doesn't really give us much to go on. We know the amount that the letters were demanding, which is more than I thought we knew, but I'm not seeing any of the interesting things. Such as how they determined the identity of the individuals.

Depending upon the strength of the evidence this could be an extremely good deal for some of the people receiving the letters. But without more information it's really hard to say.

And ultimately, the issue here is what the likelihood of people being targeted that didn't do it. I still don't know that anybody knows the answer to that.

Well, the only people who could tell us more about how specific individuals were targeted are CD Projekt Red themselves. However, the only thing they said was that they had some secret, 100% accurate method of identifying pirates that they couldn't talk about in public. Now obviously, nothing is ever 100% accurate, so their claim is clearly bullshit. We don't know if any innocent people were affected, but that's not even the most important point to me.

The thing is, if you are the recipient of one of those letters, you are essentially unable to defend yourself, no matter if you're innocent or guilty. That's what makes these shakedown tactics unacceptable to me. It is blackmail and vigilante justice, and if you use such methods on a large scale, innocent people will unavoidably be targeted.

Or like the ticket inspectors: "Pay 200€ + price of a single ticket for the missing ticket (which you either didn't buy at all, or have just temporarily misplaced), or get sued for worse, it goes to distraint, or worse.".

The same still applies: if I know I have bought the ticket but I simply forgot it home, I'll go show them at the station later, proving that I don't owe them anything. Or if I know I have not pirated/shared Witcher 1-2 on my PC, I'll send the lawyer firm a polite letter/email back "I am awfully sorry, but go fjuck yourselves. I have never pirated nor shared the said items. If you feel you still want to sue me over something I have not done, try me. Have a nice day.".

But as said, I would have preferred that they would have simply sued (for 3000€, or 300000€, or whatever) the cases they feel would hold water,

You do realize that fines for not buying a ticket on a city bus have their basis in statutory law (or regional law), don't you? So there's nothing extorting here, because that's the law. In Poland, the fines are stated in regional law and chosen by the City Council.

In CDProjekt's case, it's nothing like it. Also, there is a difference, legally, between a letter with "pay 300 or we will sue you" and "pay 300 or we will sue you and you will pay 3 000 then". I'm not going to elaborate why it's such a big difference, but SimonG explained it hundreds of times, and I doubt he will do it one hundred and one.