Slashdot Mirror
Witcher 2 Torrents Could Net You a Fine
An anonymous reader writes with this quote from Eurogamer:
"Gamers who download upcoming PC exclusive The Witcher 2 illegally could receive a letter demanding they pay a fine or face legal action. If gamers refuse to pay the fine, which will be more than the cost of the game, they could end up in court, developer CD Projekt told Eurogamer. 'Of course we're not happy when people are pirating our games, so we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies,' CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwiski said. 'In quite a few big countries, when people are downloading it illegally they can expect a letter from a legal firm saying, "Hey, you downloaded it illegally and right now you have to pay a fine." We are totally fair, but if you decide you will not buy it legally there is a chance you'll get a letter. We are talking about it right now.' Interestingly, The Witcher 2 will be released free of digital rights management – but only through the CD Projekt-owned digital download shop GOG.com. That means owners will be able to install it as many times as they like on any number of computers – and it will not requite an internet connection to run."
If you're torrenting a game that's sold as a download without DRM, I'm pretty sure you're not a customer.
Just sayin'.
You aren't a customer if you steal the product.
>>I think youd have a tough time convincing the courts that you thought being offered a single chunk from a "torrent sneaking firm" constituted permission to download the game;
How about pointing to TFA? The company itself put a version of their software up on a torrent site for people to download from freely. How can they then say said downloads were illegal?
As copyright holders, they have the right to put their software up for free download, but they can't complain when people take them up on it.
Even if you assume 100% of pirates wouldn't have bought the game if they couldn't get it for free, what gives them the right to play the game without paying for it? I used to think as you did, but now I'm not so sure. I don't think exorbitant fines (such as the *AA enjoy) are the answer (in fact, I find them reprehensible), but neither can I condone piracy.
Or how about a different example. Are you in favor of people sneaking in to movie theaters? Assuming a non-full showing, it doesn't "hurt" the theater one bit, but it's obviously the wrong thing to do.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
You're angry at them for...what exactly? Demanding reasonable out-of-court settlements from those who downloaded illegally (as opposed to the unreasonable out-of-court settlements commonly placed on people who've torrented music by the RIAA), and releasing their game without DRM. Seems fair enough to me. The only real concern is how many "false positives" they might get from people who never downloaded a thing, or whose internet connections were used illegally and/or without their knowledge.
I more or less agree with you, but I'll add that calling something "wrong" without further qualification severely undermines your argument.
A more convincing point to make would be that the ability to enter a movie for free works to degrade the perceived value of the paid tickets. Basically, consider all the customers who did pay turning around and questioning why they parted with $x while those guys in the front didn't, and subsequently concluding that they shouldn't have to pay either next time. Perception of value drops like a stone.
Sure, it's all based on a more or less imaginary value to start with, but that's how a lot of our economy works - those who want to argue about the validity of that have a much longer debate on their hands.
Free riders are a problem. Learn some economics before you start with the "hurts no one" crap.
I remember getting a letter from Direct TV years ago because I had supposedly pirated their satellite signal. Their sole evidence was that I had purchased a USB smartcard writer. Because, as everyone knows, Direct TV invented smart cards and were the only company on earth to ever use them for anything. They promised to forget about the whole thing if I coughed up the small sum of $10k. My lawyer found it very funny and sent them a letter in return asking for contact information for our counter suit. Strangely they never replied.
Answer this: if it doesn't hurt anyone, then why does it matter? You know that no one is being deprived of anything that they previously owned.
You can say that they're 'stealing' potential profit, but not only is it impossible to steal objects that don't even exist, but you'd be blaming just about everyone in existence by doing so. You 'steal' potential profit merely by choosing not to give someone money or by interfering with their flow of profit. That effectively means that not buying a product from a store would mean that you have 'stole' potential profit from the store (and have therefore 'harmed' them because they would have been better off if you had given them your money).
Rather than hurting "anyone" is actually hurts "everyone". This is just another case of what's called the "tragedy of the commons". Each person who pirates a game benefits himself or herself, but if enough people do this it's no longer tenable to make games and no one has a game to play, for free or otherwise.
You can talk about people making things "for art's sake", and some people will, but a lot of them won't who would. I used to make games, and I still do in my spare time, but I work for Microsoft as my day job, so my productivity in making games isn't nearly as high as it would be if I could do it full time. Other people, people who might be fantastic artists but have a family to feed are going to be in similar spots because people pirate games. Piracy has a direct impact in reducing the profitability of the art, meaning there are fewer people who can practice it.
When games are DRM'd I can understand. DRM sucks and people want to play but don't want it. Ok, I can understand that position, if not support it. Also I can understand when you can't get a game via download. I'm lazy, I love buying stuff online. I can understand the feeling of saying "screw it" and just downloading it because it is easy.
However when it is downloadable AND DRM free? Well then you are just being cheap. They are giving you what you want and you are refusing to pay for it... That is just cheap.
I try to avoid this subject, and unfortunately, I'm not always successful in that goal.
I'd like to offer you my perspective as an actual, real, game developer. Not some imagined or particularly convenient for your opinion one, a real one.
I disagree.
Some of what you say is correct, but just because those things are correct, does not mean you can make some wild leap into entirely unrelated contexts and base your reasoning on the previous thing.
Piracy is not theft.
WHEN someone downloads a copy of the games I create, it costs me absolutely nothing. -NOT ONE CENT-. I don't care if they enjoy the game, or thing it's the worst thing to have been created since the wheel. Those people are completely, and utterly irrelevant. The ONLY people who matter, are my customers. I create a product that they enjoy, and they pay me for that service.
I will not spend money paying tha 'mafiaa' thugs to bankrupt some sap because he didn't have the cash to pay me. I won't waste my time, money and effort trying to 'punish' or 'disrupt' the imagined boogey-man. I put every cent I have, and every moment of my development time -exactly where it's needed-, improving the product, and making the next product FOR MY CUSTOMERS.
If people don't want to pay me, that's their business. They haven't 'stolen' from me. "Potential profit" IS NOT PROFIT.
Because I spend my time and effort on making products that people want, they buy them. Occasionally I even get the "big bad evil pirates" buy my products. Not because I punished them (and my customers with them) but because they liked what I had to sell, and knew that paying me for it means I can make more.
Well how about you don't expect to be able to get stuff when you don't have the money. I would love to have a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops right now. But I can't afford it. So, should I whine about how I should be allowed to pirate the game just because I want it?
Hell no. What I am going to do is save up my money until I have enough extra to buy a copy for myself. The problem with people nowdays is that they are whiny little bitches who cry, "I want, I want, I want."
I get tired of their shit.
GO EARN IT
Sincerely,
Get the hell off my lawn...
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain