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Crysis 2 Leaked Over a Month Before Launch
iviv66 writes with this excerpt from Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
"According to a thread on the Facepunch forums, a developer build of Crysis 2 containing the full game, multiplayer and the master key for the online authentication has been leaked, and is currently freely available from all sorts of astonishingly illegal websites. This sounds like it might be a serious tragedy for Crytek. Crysis 2 was scheduled for release on the 22nd of March, so the leaked build could be dangerously close to finished."
EA and Crytek have responded to the leak, saying that the illicit copy is incomplete and unfinished, and that "Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community."
The only way there could be would be if whoever in the supply chain is responsible for this leak were to say, trip up and fall out of a third floor window into a skip full of broken glass and dogshit.
Please try to follow::
1. Crytek is a private company. They are free to use their property to do as they please, they care write code, they care barricade themselves in a bunker and otherwise do what they want to keep the secrets they want.
2. I on the other hand, I am also a private individual. I too assert my right to use my property as I see fit, including to store, transmit or otherwise manipulate data that was once unknown to me, and now isn't.
If Crytek lives and profits out of keeping secrets, which they are very much entitled to as a private association of private individuals, then they are solely responsible if said secrets become known. There are no imaginary strings that force me to use my property in such a way as to support the goals or business objectives of other private individuals. The right to use my property as I see fit for my goals is the cornerstone of freedom. Conversely, the confiscation of my freedoms by a handful of powerful entities is totalitarianism.
I have the unalienable right to download, store and copy the leaked copy using my physical property, regardless of what the copyright or anti-circumvention laws claim. If Crytek can find the individual that leaked said secrets, and has some form of legal binding contract with said individual that covers confidentiality, they are well entitled to damages under that contract. But by all means, don't hold me responsible when your business model fails because of your own ineptitude. Using your clout to draft laws against me is not only unjust, but a violation of my inalienable rights.
Likewise nobody should make big budget movies or try to sell their music?
Oh, you can try to do those things as much as you want. But don't base your business plan on governmental enforcement of artificial scarcity upon non-consenting individuals. The price of information is N dollars for the first copy, and zero dollars for all the rest. If you don't like that price structure, don't sell information. You need to find a buyer for the first copy, for example you might sell in-game advertising on the virtual banners. But expect a ripped copy if your advertising is too annoying.
First and foremost, don't expect you are entitled to a government-sponsored backdoor on every computing device in the world - the only way property over information can be enforced.
how about me saying "this is like someone copying your personal information off your hard drive while your computer is in for repair"
It depends on what you have on that machine:
1. If it's your secret work for the last 3 years which was not intended for public consumption, tough luck. You are the master of your own destiny and if secrecy is your business, you should do it well.
2. If it's your personal details or photos, the perpetrator should be jailed if caught; any private individual has the right to privacy and intimate life - and that too is an inalienable right.
3. If it's your bank account of PayPal password, the perpetrator should be jailed. Money clearly is property, and hacking into various databases to deposes you of your physical property is theft. I'm not saying you can't commit crimes trough informational means, I'm saying information _itslef_ can't be a crime.