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'
These lawsuits wont scare anyone outside the USA. And alot of goodwil will be lost.
Remember Ubisoft with their uncracked superstrong DRM? As they said themselves, piracy was annihalited for those games. But they had to remove it not so long ago cause they actually lost alot of money on all those games with the DRM no matter the quality of those games.
I'm pretty sure that one or two other platforms out there support this (the refunds at least) although I can't remember the specifics off the top of my head.
It's more likely "the end of society as Easy Rhino sees society as."
There is also the issue that some games, though quite good, do not contain a lot of hours of content. What is a fair measure of "trying to see if you like it"?
Although "law" is a norm of society, that does not necessarily mean that it is superior to other norms already simply by the fact of it being a "lawful" norm. Slavery was a norm as well, for example.
That is a massive .... profit or ripoff depending how you see it. it costs millions no doubt to produce games these days but in the end they sell you "air", and when you download you copy the dots in plastic on someone elses PC that come to you through fiber optic impulses and are set in the same order on your harddrive with magnetic impulses.....
Its a copy, legal or illegal set aside. If you have been brought up in a world without copyright and never been brainwashed with the whole "omg piracy is stealing!" then its very difficult to have moral objection to copy data of any kind, and to justify anyone who ever did that to pay 1000 euros for every copy they made without explicit permission of the "owner" who was the first to punch holes in plastic in a certain order.........
food for thought
www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141423
Regardless, since we are talking about society, and a "norm", the only certain way we could ever know what would really happen is to...know what would really happen in the future...by getting to that future.
Pre-historic society is significantly less "developed" when looked at by modern viewers, but since there is the absence of the norms of "legality" and "theft" as we know them right now today, it doesn't necessarily mean that society then ceased to function. They just functioned differently.
No concept of theft since among communities property is communal, and inter-community interaction was quite rare until the end of the last Ice Age.
Even in our pre-colonial period for example, because each barangay are communal, meaning everything is owned by the community, the concept of "theft" as we know it today simply does not exist. And if another barangay "steals" property of one barangay, it is not "theft" but an "act of war." Datus (communal leaders) are appointed by barangay elders by virtue of their capability of defending the barangay, not by virtue of having the most property, the most influence among the people, etc.
Please do not use the "What's wrong with the forums" thread as that is not its purpose.
Start a new one.
Just a tip from yer ol' Uncle Kreij.
For a single player game with a linear story line such as Half-Life 2* it will be split into chapters or sections. The developer will know how much they want to allow the game to be played and could allow only the first two or three chapters/sections to be played while allowing a refund. When this point is reached, an alert could pop up warning that progress beyond this point will forfeit the refund. Also, a time-out of say, two weeks would be reasonable in which to decide.
For games that just have a deathmatch mode perhaps, like the Unreal Tournament series, perhaps they could be time limited and/or limited to certain maps and game modes.
There's lots of variables and possibilities that could be adjusted here and these are just two possibilities.
The descriptions above sound very much like demo games, don't they - and they are. I think we all remember a while back when the big games houses said they would stop doing demos, because it was "very expensive" to make them. What BS. They're just greedy and don't want their games to be scrutinized before purchase, in case people realize what a crock their buying into. No, what should happen, is the return of free demos, like we used to get. If one can have a decent free demo, then it becomes reasonable not to allow refunds. One modern game that does have a demo mode is Bulletstorm - and more power to the developer.
*Ancient example lol, but it's my favourite linear shooter of all time. :rockout:
If you have a gripe, speak up in the right place and please tell people to do the same.
You're Frick, you will always be Frick, but your OUR Frick and I would really not feel comfortable if I did not think there was a Gremlin under the bridge every time I walked over the stream.
Carry on.
Anyway, screw it.
So, what about the websites I used as my sources - are they also wrong for publishing such a story? What about all the other websites that covered it all over the internet? Should TPU be too timid to cover such a controversial subject just to keep the forums sickly sweet, "happy" - and boring? Or should TPU grow a pair and cover these issues? Of course it should and I know that a lot of people on TPU agree with my viewpoint, too. :toast:
So quit yer whingin' and enjoy the news stories and the forums that hang off them. :)
Not my kind of game and maybe for other folks it may be good but IMO CERTAINLY not a game to be making this kind of big deal out of.