Saturday, December 17th 2011
The Witcher 2 Contains Secret Sauce To 'Catch 100% Of Pirates'
Yes, really - 100% of those pesky "pirates" will be brought to book! The game's studio, CD Projekt RED (CDP Red) isn't letting on how it's doing so, either, claiming it's a "trade secret" and not giving out the name of the external company that's implementing the anti-piracy technology, claiming that to do so would damage their business. Seriously. The problem with identifying a dodgy copy of something is that the main info they have to track them down, are the IP addresses of the suspect. This has been shown many times over now, not to be a reliable tracker of who's doing what. At the most, it will pinpoint the account holder that it relates to, in some cases. However, this outfit reckons they've nailed this dealbreaking problem once and for all - and without any evidence on how they go about it. Snake oil, perhaps? The Polish company have therefore been sending out legal notices to thousands of suspects in Germany, chosen because this country has some of the strictest copyright laws in Europe. Presumably, they must be leaning on the ISPs to hand over customers' physical street addresses, although this isn't made clear, but read on for how this might be accomplished. In an email to PC Gamer, CDP Red VP Michael Nowakowski made the following statement:
So, there appears to be two options to how this tracking technology works:
1 There is no technology and this is just smoke and mirrors (with a dash of snake oil) designed to extort marks into coughing up money to make CD Projekt go away
2 They really do have some "tracking technology" in their games. Now, what could this be? Well, as they're not telling us, it's only right and proper to be highly suspicious of what it actually does and to put it in the same class as common criminal malware. This is because the only logical way that they can track the individual in any semi-reliable manner, is to lift personal information off their computer. Let's speculate on how this could be achieved. It would include stuff such as email logins, bank logins, Facebook logins, network traffic sniffing to read the contents of highly personal and confidential messages and any other login where personal information such as a name and address might be kept. You name it, they might be doing it. This kind of activity is of course highly illegal everywhere, so no wonder they'd want to keep quiet about it. It makes traditional draconian DRM schemes such as SecuROM and the like seem like a walk in the park by comparison, doesn't it?
So, do you really want to install software that does some or all of this on your computer, just to play a lousy video game? Obviously, that's a resounding NO!
Regardless of how they track down suspects, this exercise is extortion with a legal veneer, pure and simple. This is because there haven't been any independent studies showing that "piracy" reduces profits and makes companies go to the wall - they have all been big media industry sponsored. However, there are several independent studies that show it does nothing, or actually enhances sales by indirect means, such as reputation spread by word of mouth. Of course, the powerful media cartels based in America, are able to buy government reps all over the world to make them pass corrupt laws as if all this "piracy" really was hurting them - three strikes, PROTECT IP & SOPA are just three examples. Consider the blockbusting sales here and here of Modern Warfare 3 recently. This will be the most "pirated" game of all, yet it still outsold all of Hollywood put together...
There is of course, one sure fire and legal way to beat a company that tries such dirty tricks: the boycott. Don't buy their products and don't pirate them, then laugh as you watch them go under (all the while still blaming alleged "piracy", of course). I personally wholeheartedly recommend this course of action. Once again www.techdirt.com is recommended as the site to go to, as they expose abuses like this daily.
Sources:
TG Daily, PC Gamer
We're addressing only 100% confirmed piracy causes that are 100% possible to prove. We are not worried about tracking the wrong people. As this is the trade secret of the company working on this, I cannot share it. However, we investigated the subject before we decided on this move, and we aware of some past complications (the famous Davenport case). The method used here is targeting only 100% confirmed piracy cases. No innocent person was targeted with the letter so far. At least we have not received any information as of now which would indicate something like that.Notice how the Davenport case is "famous" rather than "infamous" - they actually went down in flames over their extortion tactics. Also notice how they covered themselves by saying "At least we have not received any information as of now which would indicate something like that." So, they could be targeting the innocent after all, they just haven't heard about it. Nice.
So, there appears to be two options to how this tracking technology works:
1 There is no technology and this is just smoke and mirrors (with a dash of snake oil) designed to extort marks into coughing up money to make CD Projekt go away
2 They really do have some "tracking technology" in their games. Now, what could this be? Well, as they're not telling us, it's only right and proper to be highly suspicious of what it actually does and to put it in the same class as common criminal malware. This is because the only logical way that they can track the individual in any semi-reliable manner, is to lift personal information off their computer. Let's speculate on how this could be achieved. It would include stuff such as email logins, bank logins, Facebook logins, network traffic sniffing to read the contents of highly personal and confidential messages and any other login where personal information such as a name and address might be kept. You name it, they might be doing it. This kind of activity is of course highly illegal everywhere, so no wonder they'd want to keep quiet about it. It makes traditional draconian DRM schemes such as SecuROM and the like seem like a walk in the park by comparison, doesn't it?
So, do you really want to install software that does some or all of this on your computer, just to play a lousy video game? Obviously, that's a resounding NO!
Regardless of how they track down suspects, this exercise is extortion with a legal veneer, pure and simple. This is because there haven't been any independent studies showing that "piracy" reduces profits and makes companies go to the wall - they have all been big media industry sponsored. However, there are several independent studies that show it does nothing, or actually enhances sales by indirect means, such as reputation spread by word of mouth. Of course, the powerful media cartels based in America, are able to buy government reps all over the world to make them pass corrupt laws as if all this "piracy" really was hurting them - three strikes, PROTECT IP & SOPA are just three examples. Consider the blockbusting sales here and here of Modern Warfare 3 recently. This will be the most "pirated" game of all, yet it still outsold all of Hollywood put together...
There is of course, one sure fire and legal way to beat a company that tries such dirty tricks: the boycott. Don't buy their products and don't pirate them, then laugh as you watch them go under (all the while still blaming alleged "piracy", of course). I personally wholeheartedly recommend this course of action. Once again www.techdirt.com is recommended as the site to go to, as they expose abuses like this daily.
345 Comments on The Witcher 2 Contains Secret Sauce To 'Catch 100% Of Pirates'
Example, how many games have you bought that you had jump through hoops to get to run or had never run at all.
Last week I picked up Dirt3. It took me two days of googling to get it to launch. Codemasters knows of the problem but has done nothing at all to fix it.
Today I bought a X-box live points card so I could play a DLC that you can only get through them and when I enter the number it says it's not valid. WTF!!
Every time I try to do things the right way, I run into problems.
If people want to play pirated games, go ahead.
Honestly that surprises me, if someone copied my custom designed machine I would be flattered.
As long as they didn't sell my design I would be more than a 100% cool with it.
Profiting from someone else skill/knowledge = a douche thing to do.
Utilising someone elses skill/knowledge for your own benefit = Naturally Human thing to do.
Seriously if humans didn't copy other humans who had good ideas then we'd never be a successful species.
I can just imagine the first cave man to make fire from scratch huddling in by his self hiding away his discovery from other people and I laugh to myself XD
" NO ONE CAN HAVE MY PRECIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
what they're doing is more like an undercover cop selling you weed and then arresting you for it. just because you broke the law, doesn't mean they can get arrest you if THEY didn't follow the law in the first place.
if they did illegal data mining to get the information from you, be it IP addresses or anything else, then they broke the law to 'catch' you, and the information they gathered is invalid.except thats been made illegal to, or at least been attempted to. i just cant remember the exact details on it.
I tried entering it through the website and it still doesn't work. I sent them an e-mail.
I am so pissed off right now. I just found out about the DLC for Bioshock 2 and I so want to play it......:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
(Sorry for the derail but this is sorta related that legitimate purchases are more hassle)
I just want to say, that the ability to effortlessly and perfectly reproduce copies of digital data at almost zero cost means it cannot be treated like property of the old. The data itself, of course, is owned by the creators, not you, who merely paid for a cheap end-user license. There is no analogy for this, unless we can effortlessly and perfectly copy a Toyota at almost no cost.
My solution? Everything digital are sold through online stores only, embedded with unique identifiers, with verified user accounts managed by a (few) central organization(s).
Go on, put your tin-foil hat on and curse me.
It won't happen anytime soon though, too many people have the misguided idea that they own the thing after paying only 60 dollars.
I am pretty sure we're not the only place on earth with that in our laws.
Where this "it's my right to try something before I buy it" attitude came from I have no idea. Do you know what they used to be called...?
Demo's.
They are your right to try it and then decide whether you want to buy it. Now as I am aware there aren't many demo's being released any more then what the gaming population SHOULD be doing is harassing the developers to release a demo. Not outright playing the game they did not pay for and then saying "oh this is crap, I've completed it, but seeing as I am a c*nt, I'm not going to pay for it". You have been entertained by a medium that you are not paying for when you should be paying for it. It's like going to the cinema and not paying for it because you in all your infinite wisdom think it is unworthy.
I for one am a great supporter of CD Projekt Red and I hope that they succeed in what they are doing. You people make me sick.If you had any sense you would have seen that this game is called "The Witcher 2". The "2" indicates that it is the second game, thus there being a first. If you wanted an indication as to what it might have been like you would have picked up the first one for next to nothing in the bargain bins as it was going for around $5 at the time of number 2's release. That would have given you every indication about the story, the controls, and what the world of the Witcher is about. But instead you decided to fuck the very people that worked hard to provide you with an entertainment source and not pay for it. It does not matter that you "only got to the tutorial" you still should have paid for it. If you are that lazy, or that cheap to pay for the game then you should give up your right to play any game. You are an insolent fool, who quite frankly should revise your attitude. The game was around $30 on release, and if you couldn't afford it then, then you should have waited all of a month before it went down to $20-25.
Downloading a game on the pre tense that "it's my right to try it before I buy it" is never excusable. That's like going into McDonald's and taking a chunk out of a burger and walking out without paying because you didn't like it.
you simply cannot judge a game by its predecessors - jesus, go compare supreme commander 1 and 2, for example. apart from the genre and a few names, they're nothing alike.
Read a fucking review, watch the youtube videos, talk to other people who have bought it. There are PLENTY of outlets that will tell you all about the game, reviews, previews, players comments, videos; all of which are perfectly legal sources to find out more about the game.
The "try before I buy" excuse is null and void.
Hell even "reviewers' scores" and "user scores" from Metacritic can vary wildly. :laugh:
Check MW3's ratings.
Second, if you tick the EULA and it says that you agree to the terms and conditions, then if you break those terms, you are breaking the contract to which you agreed to. They have every right to take you to brown town. If you, just like everyone else who does, just tick it so you can move on to the next step then you are shit outta luck because ignorance is not an excuse.Then use your common sense and make a judgement call. You decide whether you buy it based on the available information to you. If sales are going down then there should only every be two excuses for it;
1) the game is shit and no reviewer positively spoke about it, and
2) the developers/publishers did not advertise the game well enough to get peoples interests.
There should be no 3) because of piracy.
Is the law wrong? It might well be. But that's not the issue here in any case. You should be railing against your politicians, then, and not against CDP.
If CDP have not done anything which is illegal to collect this information, then whoever infringed upon their copyright is only getting what he has had coming. Tough luck.
If they have broken a law in collecting this evidence, then they will be punished for it, no doubt.
You can almost smell the violation of human rights and the invasion of privacy here...
We all know this the only real way any company can catch so called "pirates" because everything any company has ever tried has been sledgehammered, within days in fact.
Now, I don't believe sending the ‘men in black’ round to people’s front doors is the right way to tackle this, but this company clearly does. What companies should be doing is lowering the price of their games, and stopping pirates at the same time! That way everyone wins, but will that happen… NO!
For anyone who has even an iota of common sense will know that these companies will never lower the price of their games, NEVER! The prices will only go up, as the working class are screwed for even more money.