CD Projekt To Stop Legal Threats

[Dona.794]

CD Projekt To Stop Legal Threats

From Rock, Paper, Shotgun [source]:

An Open Letter to the Gaming Community from CD Projekt RED

In early December, an article was published about a law firm acting on behalf of CD Projekt RED, contacting individuals who had downloaded The Witcher 2 illegally and seeking financial compensation for copyright infringement. The news about our decision to combat piracy directly, instead of with DRM, spread quickly and with it came a number of concerns from the community. Repeatedly, gamers just like you have said that our methods might wrongly accuse people who have never violated our copyright and expressed serious concern about our actions.

Being part of a community is a give-and-take process. We only succeed because you have faith in us, and we have worked hard over the years to build up that trust. We were sorry to see that many gamers felt that our actions didn’t respect the faith that they have put into CD Projekt RED. Our fans always have been and remain our greatest concern, and we pride ourselves on the fact that you all know that we listen to you and take your opinions to heart. While we are confident that no one who legally owns one of our games has been required to compensate us for copyright infringement, we value our fans, our supporters, and our community too highly to take the chance that we might ever falsely accuse even one individual.

So we’ve decided that we will immediately cease identifying and contacting pirates.

Let’s make this clear: we don’t support piracy. It hurts us, the developers. It hurts the industry as a whole. Though we are staunch opponents of DRM because we don’t believe it has any effect on reducing piracy, we still do not condone copying games illegally. We’re doing our part to keep our relationship with you, our gaming audience, a positive one. We’ve heard your concerns, listened to your voices, and we’re responding to them. But you need to help us and do your part: don’t be indifferent to piracy. If you see a friend playing an illegal copy of a game–any game–tell your friend that they’re undermining the possible success of the developer who created the very game that they are enjoying. Unless you support the developers who make the games you play, unless you pay for those games, we won’t be able to produce new excellent titles for you.

Keep on playing,

Marcin Iwinski
co-founder
CD Projekt RED

 

[Garrison72]

I find this whole thing rather curious. It's either very fickle behavior by the guys at RED, or very calculated. Maybe I should take off my tinfoil hat...

Anyway, I'm sure everybody will be happy now.

 

[MrMida]

I personally didn't mind it as much that CDP went to get some money out of the pirates. But still, it's better to keep your customers satisfied by not coming across as a corporate bully looking for change. And they still got my respect for their policy of non-DRM.

 

[Kaldurenik]

Sounds great and im happy that they do listen to the community. Im not saying that CD Projekt should accept piracy instead they should focus on making a good game, give good support and if you make a pirate buy the game just smile and nod. Pirates are not customers they are outside the market and should therefor not be a major factor to have people make / release their games.

Thanks again you have restored my faith overall in you guys.

*waits for TW3*

 

[Georgie_Porgie]

I still don't see any problem with hunting down pirates like they did before but CDPR knows better than me what to do

 

[gregski]

Oh, the interwebz.

Release a game with securom/drm/online activation - "OMG you are hurting legal customers for the sins of pirates! We are losing faith!"

Remove the securom/drm, start chasing pirates AS YOU WARNED BEFORE - "OMG you are hurting innocent people that get their WiFis massively hijacked by them tech savvy pirates plus the pirates are good because they advertise your game and 1 of them might actually buy it cause the other 999000 is just too poor to buy every game they want to play, please understand!"

Stop chasing pirates because people claiming they support you stopped supporting you the same second you started chasing pirates - "OMG awesome, CDPR is back on my list of favourite developers, I might actually buy Witcher 2 on sale now"

Yeah, whatever.

And then people whine about Act 3 of the Witcher 2 being so short and so abruptly ended. It just doesn't come to their mind that if more people bought Witcher 1 instead of getting it for free from torrent sites just because they can CDPR would have enough budget to make maybe another full-blown Act 4. They wouldn't have to struggle and seek for investors, which disturbed the development process. No, that's just fine, pirates don't hurt the industry at all.

 

[Aver]

If I would find djinn one of my wishes would be unbreakable DRM that is not harmful for legal customers

 

[dragoonlordz]

But you need to help us and do your part: don’t be indifferent to piracy. If you see a friend playing an illegal copy of a game–any game–tell your friend that they’re undermining the possible success of the developer who created the very game that they are enjoying.

I'll be punching them in face but I will remember your advice before doing so if that helps.

Seems today is the day thieves will be jumping for joy.

Crime without risk of punishment due to caving in of CDP-R to a vocal minority.

 

[Dona.794]

Inb4 "It is not a crime".

Let's not get this thread closed as well, okay? ʘ‿ʘ

(Also, Gregski, well said, as always.)

 

[Garrison72]

Yeah I think I'm with Gregski on this one.

 

[Jackinthegreen.152]

Mmmhhm... I really am surprised about this. And I find it nothing but a "knee-jerk" reaction to the critics...

It would be different if they come up and say... "we tried this policy for the last 6 months, but it didnt work... and on top of that theres this criticism... so we are not doing this anymore" or "We found out that this is not a system 100% full proof of errors, so we are not doing it anymore...".
Maybe they were inundated by hate-mail, maybe in the GOG.com forum this decision was much more critisized than here (where I think the people were much divided at least), but I just cant understand this reaction... I thought CDP had more character.

Apparently all you need is a very outspoken minority (none of which were hurt by said "pirate-hunting" policy) to make CDP RED change their mind... I just hope Slim doesnt start a petition about "Let's have a Triss Rubber-Doll in the Witcher 3 Collectors Edition"... CDP RED may listen to him...

 

[CostinRaz]

Well it's good to know that at least one company has the brains to understand that pissing off your buyers, even your potential buyers is a very bad idea and I respect CDPR for taking this approach.

Granted I don't really give a spit about DRM in general or what CDPR was doing with it's legal actions but I think their approach is the smart one.

What did another company say about piracy? One that has games being constantly pirated, oh yeah Blizzard.

"We don't give a shit."

Crime without risk of punishment due to caving in of CDP-R to a vocal minority.

"Crime" as you put it should be left for law enforcement to handle. If the law doesn't view piracy as a crime but a civil offense then it's not your place to judge people for it.

My neutral view on piracy is as someone who lives in a country where without piracy the IT industry wouldn't even exist, and today Romanians IT experts are considered some of the best.

The irony is that I think Romanians designed SecuROM. Secu can stand for a Romanian name while ROM is shortened for Romania.

we tried this policy for the last 6 months, but it didnt work...

Come on you can't really expect them to admit that.

What I'm worried about is CDPR listening TOO much to their fans, one of the flaws Bioware and Blizzard developed in my view.

 

[Dona.794]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[dragoonlordz]

If the law doesn't view piracy as a crime but a civil offense then it's not your place to judge people for it.

I can judge anyone I wish, you just are not forced to like it or agree with me and I can't march them off to prison and throw away the key as they won't let me in.

 

[CostinRaz]

I'd argue that it's better to not do anything then using a method that's just going to work. There's just no DRM method that will work.

AC2 has the best so far and even that failed, and it pissed a LOT of people off.

I can judge anyone I wish, but you just aren't forced to like it or agree with me and I can't march them off to prison and throw away the key.

Throw away the key, yeah you're just as bad as those supporting SOPA.

 

[dragonbird]

THANK YOU CD PROJEKT RED. Today you have restored my faith in you as a fair and honest company.

 

[dragoonlordz]

Throw away the key, yeah you're just as bad as those supporting SOPA.

I see the benefit and downside to SOPA. While I would not support it I certainly would not shoot it down either based on propaganda and fear mongering going on that specific topic right now.

 

[Garrison72]

I still say that if it's possible they should bug pirated copies.

 

[CostinRaz]

I think the sight of Loredo's mum having sex with Geralt would turn away any pirate.

Permanently. Bad part is that pirates would tell their friends of stuff like that in the game and word would get around potentially scaring off people who where asking about the game who had no pirated it and wanted to know if it's worth buying.

Word got around pretty quickly of the invincible scorpion in Serious Sam 3 for instance.

 

[siklara]

Poor CDPR, no matter what you do, you can never please everybody, but my love for you remains unchanged.



clapping Iorveth fukken saved