CD Projeckt Ceases Lawsuits

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Derangel

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http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/12/splendid-cd-projekt-to-stop-legal-threats/

Here is the letter from CDP RED:

An Open Letter to the Gaming Community from CD Projekt RED

In early December, an article was published about a law firm acting on behalf of CD Projekt RED, contacting individuals who had downloaded The Witcher 2 illegally and seeking financial compensation for copyright infringement. The news about our decision to combat piracy directly, instead of with DRM, spread quickly and with it came a number of concerns from the community. Repeatedly, gamers just like you have said that our methods might wrongly accuse people who have never violated our copyright and expressed serious concern about our actions.

Being part of a community is a give-and-take process. We only succeed because you have faith in us, and we have worked hard over the years to build up that trust. We were sorry to see that many gamers felt that our actions didn’t respect the faith that they have put into CD Projekt RED. Our fans always have been and remain our greatest concern, and we pride ourselves on the fact that you all know that we listen to you and take your opinions to heart. While we are confident that no one who legally owns one of our games has been required to compensate us for copyright infringement, we value our fans, our supporters, and our community too highly to take the chance that we might ever falsely accuse even one individual.

So we’ve decided that we will immediately cease identifying and contacting pirates.

Let’s make this clear: we don’t support piracy. It hurts us, the developers. It hurts the industry as a whole. Though we are staunch opponents of DRM because we don’t believe it has any effect on reducing piracy, we still do not condone copying games illegally. We’re doing our part to keep our relationship with you, our gaming audience, a positive one. We’ve heard your concerns, listened to your voices, and we’re responding to them. But you need to help us and do your part: don’t be indifferent to piracy. If you see a friend playing an illegal copy of a game–any game–tell your friend that they’re undermining the possible success of the developer who created the very game that they are enjoying. Unless you support the developers who make the games you play, unless you pay for those games, we won’t be able to produce new excellent titles for you.

Keep on playing,

Marcin Iwinski
co-founder
CD Projekt RED
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Nice to see them listening to the community about this, even though it means pirates are getting off without having to actually pay for their bullshit.
 
I always have liked cd projekt. Especially since they completely rereleased witcher 1 for free, vastly improved, since they internally werent happy with their first release.
 
Hopefully they're going to get to work on the Witcher 3 :)
It took me years to finally get around to playing the first game, but after storming through both of them in a few weeks I'm anxiously awaiting the 3rd game now!
 
maybe their law suits were failing and they werent making the mad money they had hoped and it was costing them more money to do this than they were getting back so they dropped it but made it look like they care....
 
Regardless, its good to see them backing off from further wasting their time and money on something that isn't going to work.

Focus on the people who support them instead. Why waste time fighting a battle you can't win when you can put your attention on things that matters. I'm sure with the gaming community support, their fans would be more likely to persuade others to buy their game, rather than being a douche like the MPAA/RIAA and make everyone hates them.
 
MrGuvernment said:
maybe their law suits were failing and they werent making the mad money they had hoped and it was costing them more money to do this than they were getting back so they dropped it but made it look like they care....
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The cynic in may says this is the real reason. I also think they were some legal setbacks recently for this strategy.
 
Nice response, but they need to sweat it less. I get that it bothers them, but they need to focus less on theory crafting potential losses and focus on making the game something people want to buy. You want buyers to revel in the value of the purchase, not have second thoughts. Witcher 2 sold quite well if I remember, count the win for what it is and make the next one ever better. Once again, developers need to take notes from Valve.
 
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MrGuvernment said:
maybe their law suits were failing and they werent making the mad money they had hoped and it was costing them more money to do this than they were getting back so they dropped it but made it look like they care....
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I don't think the intention was to make "mad money". From what I understand, they sent out very few demand letters. This was an attempt to dissuade piracy without negatively impacting legitimate customers.
 
We were sorry to see that many gamers felt that our actions didn’t respect the faith that they have put into CD Projekt RED
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It's a shame that noisy little ballbags on messageboards opining and pontificating now have to be kowtowed to for fear of repurcussion. Protect your intellectual property as you warned you would months earlier? Boooo. Unacceptable. You're all bastards, CDProjekt Red. Lowest of the low.
 
I still haven't played Witcher 2. Not that I don't want to, or couldn't just pirate it, but I want to buy the retail box at some point when I have enough time for the game, and receive all those goodies + support CD project
 
Jellylesg said:
It's a shame that noisy little ballbags on messageboards opining and pontificating now have to be kowtowed to for fear of repurcussion. Protect your intellectual property as you warned you would months earlier? Boooo. Unacceptable. You're all bastards, CDProjekt Red. Lowest of the low.
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They didn't "kowtow" to anyone. Even those who don't pirate (such as myself) think these lawsuits are BS. They're an extortion scheme, nothing more. "Pay us X amount or you'll have to go to court and pay Y amount" (where Y is always higher and both X and Y are ridiculously high numbers). Even if the percentage of people wrongly accused is 1%, that's still too high. Kudos to CD Projekt Red, you did the right thing, regardless of the reasoning behind it.
 
always a poor decision to sue ppl who have near nothing. this is why pirating cant be stopped.
 
I wonder if CD Projekt really intended to go through with it at all. The announcement came just before The Witcher 2 went for 40%-50% off on Steam and GoG, so the intention might have just been to spook those who pirated the game into into buying it.
 
Plague_Injected said:
I wonder if CD Projekt really intended to go through with it at all. The announcement came just before The Witcher 2 went for 40%-50% off on Steam and GoG, so the intention might have just been to spook those who pirated the game into into buying it.
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Good point. Remember the "We're shutting down, guyz. Bye!" followed by "Just kidding! We only left beta, thx for the moneys!" stunt a little while back?
 
Fix Me said:
They didn't "kowtow" to anyone. Even those who don't pirate (such as myself) think these lawsuits are BS. They're an extortion scheme, nothing more. "Pay us X amount or you'll have to go to court and pay Y amount" (where Y is always higher and both X and Y are ridiculously high numbers). Even if the percentage of people wrongly accused is 1%, that's still too high. Kudos to CD Projekt Red, you did the right thing, regardless of the reasoning behind it.
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Except they're not. They're symbolic if anything, not to mention the actions of CDP, not CDP Red. And all the other things everyone went over in the last thread that raised this. So not only did they say months ago "this will happen", then followed it up by acting as though they're about to do it, they then see the overreaction on messageboards and call it off. Seemingly.

Basically I was just anticipating more retarded OMG THIS IS BULSHET posting that I saw in the last thread about it.
 
I'm a big proponent of GOG and their fantastic attitude toward their customers.

I was really turned off by the lawsuits, so this restores my faith in them.
 
MrGuvernment said:
maybe their law suits were failing and they werent making the mad money they had hoped and it was costing them more money to do this than they were getting back so they dropped it but made it look like they care....
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Forceman said:
The cynic in may says this is the real reason. I also think they were some legal setbacks recently for this strategy.
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Yeah, that's being pretty cynical. Maybe they were just not making money off it so dropped it, though I don't think they were doing it for money in the first place. I like to believe they did it to make the community happy... look at the HUGE amount of support CDProjekt give to their games, look at how much they listen to the community by implementing changes people are asking for, look at how much they're willing to stand up for gamers by charging Aussies $50 online for an uncensored game when they were contractually and legally obliged to charge $90 and censor the game.

CDProjekt are one company I'm more than happy to give the benefit of the doubt. They're one of the few companies in gaming producing AAA titles that still appears to listen and care about gamers. When I bought TW2 I didn't feel I was buying from some big evil overlord of gaming like most AAA games, I felt like I was buying from a group of enthusiasts who care about what they're making and care about their customers.

I know that sounds like an advertisement for CDP, but honestly, I'm mighty impressed by them.
 
socK said:
count the win for what it is and make the next one ever better. Once again, developers need to take notes from Valve.
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And every developer creates their own online service that is required for all their games? Don't get me wrong I love Steam, but it's not like Valve's games have no DRM.
 
Litfod said:
And every developer creates their own online service that is required for all their games? Don't get me wrong I love Steam, but it's not like Valve's games have no DRM.
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Not everyone loves and trusts their Steam overlords. Somehow by being the "not so bad" DRM they've gotten the love of the PC gaming community.

Steam may be not-so-bad DRM, but it's still DRM. I keep purchases on Steam to rental price ($10 and under) only. Even then I've only bought 1 game on Steam.

GOG and CD Projeckt gets my support. I'll buy 5 $10 games from GOG before I buy a $50 Steam-DRM'd game.

You have to support with your dollars. Support the no-DRM guys. Show that you'll pay for games with no DRM and don't pay for games with DRM.

I'm glad to see them back down from their lawsuits.
 
Glad they've finally seen sense, while I think that piracy can and does hurt developers to some largely unknown degree, this isn't the way to go about solving the issue, innocents have been caught in these sorts of schemes before and I don't think that's acceptable.
 
Tudz said:
The game has been around for, what, 8, 9 months before the lawsuit fiasco but its only now you'll buy it? :p
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Seriously. Statements like "I'll buy it now that CD Projeckt has done so and so" are such pandering.

Good of them to see the light and understand that the process of lawsuits via IP addresses as proof is entirely and completely flawed way to go about combating copyright piracy. At least we didn't have to hear in the news how CD Projeckt sued a 95 year old Grandma in Alabama who has never owned a computer and how she's being dragged into court.
 
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I haven't seen anything to suggest they went after anyone who didn't deserve it. I'm totally ok with what they did. and the penalties seemed realistic. I think the major complaints against the RIAA and MPAA is that they are heavy handed and no money was going to the artists. That isn't the case here.
 
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jbrukardt said:
I always have liked cd projekt. Especially since they completely rereleased witcher 1 for free, vastly improved, since they internally werent happy with their first release.
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Wait, Witcher 1 is free legally? Can you provide info? Google isn't my friend today.
 
Ludic said:
Wait, Witcher 1 is free legally? Can you provide info? Google isn't my friend today.
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I think he means overhauled it for free, as in, not paid DLC, but free. You still have to pay for the game :) That said, its only $10 on GOG or Steam, and I've seen it in retail stores for $5, so if you're not trying it because of the money, you must be a real tight arse or extremely broke. :p
 
If I bought every $5-10 game I wanted to try, I'd be broke :) It hasn't been on my radar, but for free I'd install it. I still have both Dragon Ages and Dead Space 2 to finish, as well as LA Noire.
 
Ludic said:
Wait, Witcher 1 is free legally? Can you provide info? Google isn't my friend today.
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No no no. People who bought the original Witcher 1 years ago could download the huge-ass Enhanced Edition patch for free that practically remade the whole core of the game. Nowadays every Witcher 1 copy you see on sale are Enhanced Editions already.
 
Derangel said:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/12/splendid-cd-projekt-to-stop-legal-threats/

Here is the letter from CDP RED:



Nice to see them listening to the community about this, even though it means pirates are getting off without having to actually pay for their bullshit.
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lol. Fail attempt was fail.
However, I love the Witcher games and own them and understand what these people were on about but paying lawyer fees hurts them more than random dudes copying their games :p.
 
MaZa said:
It seems like CDProjekt hasnt been the only one doing this kind of thing:
http://torrentfreak.com/square-enix-eidos-other-game-giants-all-demand-cash-from-pirates-120115/
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Haha, I find this amusing. The people who said they would not buy another CDP game because of them sending warning letters to people suddenly lost a whole bunch of companies they could buy from, unless they want to be hypocritical douches and keep buying from them anyway. :p

Ubisoft
Codemasters
Eidos/Square Enix (better ask for a refund on DEHR)
Eidos/SE/Warner... no more Batman, LEGO, FEAR and LOTR:WITN
Atari
bitComposer (who are a European distributor of many games, including Simbin titles, STALKER: COP and a bunch of others)
Koch Media (distribute a bunch of games, including Dead Island, Risen, STALKER: CS, etc etc)
Kalypso Media (Tropico games, Disciple games, etc)
Aerosoft (make a bunch of simulators)

And if you happen to be one of the same people who things Origin is the devil, you're starting to narrow the field of games you can potentially play.
 
Tudz said:
Haha, I find this amusing. The people who said they would not buy another CDP game because of them sending warning letters to people suddenly lost a whole bunch of companies they could buy from, unless they want to be hypocritical douches and keep buying from them anyway. :p

Ubisoft
Codemasters
Eidos/Square Enix (better ask for a refund on DEHR)
Eidos/SE/Warner... no more Batman, LEGO, FEAR and LOTR:WITN
Atari
bitComposer (who are a European distributor of many games, including Simbin titles, STALKER: COP and a bunch of others)
Koch Media (distribute a bunch of games, including Dead Island, Risen, STALKER: CS, etc etc)
Kalypso Media (Tropico games, Disciple games, etc)
Aerosoft (make a bunch of simulators)

And if you happen to be one of the same people who things Origin is the devil, you're starting to narrow the field of games you can potentially play.
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Yeah, it is actually self selection. Glad such whiners will be away from most threads in PC gaming :p
 
I haven't really read or researched this much but...

Didn't Namco throw a fit because CD Projekt didn't implement DRM (or strong enough DRM) in Witcher 2? Then Namco won some kinda court battle against CD Projekt because of this?

I thought I had seen bits and pieces of that on news sites. I figured that because Namco threw a fit, CD Projekt went after pirates to make Namco shut up and then because they (CD Projekt) didn't really care, they stopped.
 
Rule #1 of business: Make people want to buy your product.

How stupid do you have to be to think that suing people for not buying your product will make more people buy your product?
 
evilsofa said:
Rule #1 of business: Make people want to buy your product.

How stupid do you have to be to think that suing people for not buying your product will make more people buy your product?
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Ok, if someone illegally downloads the game, they obviously wanted it, so how is it the companies fault that worthless pieces of shit out there like to be dishonest scumbags and not pay for what they are using?

They also aren't suing people for not buying their product, they are suing people who are using their product without paying for it, if you cant see the difference, you are probably one of the people stealing the product.
 
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