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'
for every one person not willing to buy something there is always someone that would
lets take a hypothetical walk for a moment
say everyone one in the entire world stopped buying games music software whatever ? would that put a stop to the creation of said items no
time and time again the above has happened for one reason or another and time and time again art and music and written language have thrived anyway but for the sake of this stroll down hypothetical lane lets say EA and blizzard stopped producing games because there was no profit in it ? would the medium simply die or would it evolve into something else ?
www.gog.com/en/forum/general/cd_projekt_red_goes_after_file_sharers_riaa_mpaa_style/page1
Life really doesn't get any better than this. :D
If eveyone keeps it civil, I don't think we'll get taken down.
I don't care who you are
one of the things that disgust me are people that repeat there opinions over and over and over without thinking logically or bothering to explain there thought process
maby its because you feel its simply not worth the effort ? but then again why post at all
OR maby its because you are worried me might drag you into a long discussion at the end of witch you end up questioning your original position
threads like this have a tendency to make people sit and think ... something I do enjoy from time to time ....
True you are not "stealing" the original, but you are depriving someone of the right to gain monetary compensation for their work.
We will offically stop calling it "stealing" and hence forth call it "purposeful monetary compensation deprivation". Which is still wrong.
But the same?
Not by dictionary definitions or legal definitions.
That's why when you copy something in an illegal way you don't get arrested for theft.
"True you are not "stealing" the original, but you are depriving someone of the right to gain monetary compensation for their work."
Ahh, I guess this is why people have such varied opinions on this, for example if I had intellectual property and someone simply used it/ copied it even though I could make money from it, I wouldn;t be fussed.
I would be fussed if they made money from my hard work though.
Private use though, why would I care? Honestly to me it would not make sense too, hell how would I even know someone was using it if they only copied it?
Sorry for the extreme example but I am honestly and shocked that people let their morals group things.
I have a product be it digital or otherwise. I sell the product for a fee to make a means. The product would not exist if it were not for me, I own the product. Taking this product for any reason or means withot paying the fee for the product that I own is theft. You do not deserve my product, you didn't make my product, you are stealing my product. If I have software that I made and own, when you purchase my software you now own the software but are prohibited in selling or giving my software to anyone else under the thing callled a "terms of service" which any original owner of something would clearly have. Pirating is theft.
Argue with me all you want. I'll have something to back up my claims. It will go on forever, and that's why I usually post in these threads "half assed" as you would call it. I'm pretty firm in my stance here, there is always a grey area, but I'm not talking abouut grey areas as a majority of the issue is clear cut.
At the end of the day, I think this all comes down to misuse of language.
Theft like others have said is a very specific thing.
a)i don't pirate.
b)i said piracy is bad, it's just not theft.
c)i'd be in trouble, for copyright infringement. for piracy, but not for larceny or theft. because it is not theft.great minds huh ;) beat me by seconds!!!the fact that our stance on the use of language makes you think you have any knowledge of where we stand morally or ethically makes me think less of you as a person.
Short answer is no :laugh: If people couldn't pirate something they wanted, they would go with out.
It is not like taking a physical object where you can no longer sell said object and thus lost a sale, even if a billion people pirate your software you can still sell just as many.
IE "purposeful"
there is 'content' I would never buy because its either
a: costs to much for the amount of use I would get out of it
b: does not interest me enough for me to take a risk and buy it without knowing exactly what it is
but: given the ability to download a copy and run it and see if it is something I might enjoy or use of course I will take the _low risk_ option and this is where the second part of the counter piracy argument usually rears its ugly head I have downloaded said software or game and I liked it does this mean I would buy now that I got my use out of it ???
well thats something one needs to decided based on there own moral code ...
if I really enjoy a bit of software I buy it ...
this would be a totally different subject matter if I was allowed to return a game I didn't like ( in most cases you can return a dvd or a music disk ) but as for software and games no not so and so this little viscous circled started WAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the day when people where swapping programs with disks and sharing software and games before the advent of Cdkeys and such
and the cdkeys and such are the the very reason why we are not allowed to return goods we ( the consumer) feel are not of sufficient quality or of use