As highlighted dozens of times before, companies making these accusations rely on weak IP address-only evidence and use their legal teams to intimidate their targets into paying up – guilty or not.

CD Projekt wisely moved to protect their hard-earned image and relationships with both the gaming press and their customer base, but quite rightly noted a few weeks ago that they were not the only companies sending out these letters demanding cash.

So, addressing concerns that CD Projekt might have been unfairly singled out, TorrentFreak decided to dig deep into the archives of various resources including legal firms, campaign groups and the account holders themselves, to find out which other games companies – either directly or through local distributors – have been generating revenue from cash settlement schemes in recent years.

We discovered that not only are new games being targeted but older ones too, possibly to bring in extra cash from games well past their sell-by date when it comes to generating profit from more conventional sources.

Atari, the distributor of the original The Witcher, pulled out of chasing alleged file-sharers in the UK several years ago, but like many of their competitors simply transferred their settlement businesses to Germany. Atari has been sending settlement demands of several hundred euros for several of its titles including Alone in the Dark, Test Drive Unlimited and 2011′s Test Drive Unlimited 2.

Survival horror fans might be interested to know that distributor Koch Media has been sucking the blood from alleged sharers of the Techland game Dead Island. Tales of Monkey Island distributor DAEDALIC Entertainment are doing the same for publisher Lucas Arts.

Those who prefer a good stealthy RPG might be surprised to know that alleged sharers of Eidos/Square Enix’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution are being crept up on and told to pay-up-or-else to the tune of 800 euros by local distributor Koch Media, as are those accused of obtaining Dungeon Siege III (800 euros on this baby) and Final Fantasy games for free.

Codemasters, another company that first tried the UK and then took their settlement work elsewhere, originally pursued alleged file-sharers over their Colin McRae Dirt game.

But having gotten bored with sending out letters for F1 2010, they are currently sending cash demands of 800 euros over their latest off-road installment, DiRT 3.

Ending the racing theme, RaceOn (BitComposer) and Nail’d (Techland) complete the grid.

Holy settlement letter Batman! The Eidos/Square Enix/Warner title Batman: Arkham Asylum has been the subject of an unknown number of cash settlement letters sent out in Germany.

If you like your adventures a little more open, Eidos/Square are back again, asking for several hundred euros from ISP account holders connected to Just Cause 2 downloads. The duo come in again on the 3rd person settlement front with Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, closely followed by the Prison Break: The Conspiracy action/adventure from Koch Media (yet again).

Tactical shooter fans might be concerned by the scattergun approach taken by (and here they are again) Codemasters when they ask for 800 euros in connection with their game Operation Flashpoint Red River. The same goes for Ubisoft when they send out letters to claimed Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six:Vegas downloaders.

First person shooters are always enjoyable, but being put in the crosshairs for allegedly sharing Painkiller addons Painkiller:Resurrection and Painkiller:Redemption can’t be much fun, especially when there’s a 300 euro headshot at the end of it destined for local distributor Koch Media.

Finally, if simulators are more your thing, stand by for a realism overload. Airline Tycoon 2 and Tropico 3 and 4 (Kalypso Media), Cities XL 2012 (dtp entertainment), City Bus Simulator/Simulator Gold (Aerosoft), Airbus X (Aerosoft), and Agrar Simulator 2011 (Koch Media), are all keeping it super-real with multi-hundred euro settlement demands.

The bad news is that the above sample is just the tip of the iceberg – dozens of devs and distributors of lesser known games are sending out these letters demanding anything from 300 to more than 1000 euros to make cases go away. But despite there being many games companies at the end of these settlement chains, three local names – Koch Media, dtp entertainment AG and Kalypso Media GmbH – appear more than any other.

It would be great if the companies listed above followed CD Projekt’s example and reconsidered their support for these horrible settlement letters. If any gaming publications would like to see the full list of games companies engaged in these schemes, feel free to contact us and we’ll happily send them over.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

TorrentFreak wasn’t really surprised by the statement. CD Projekt had done exactly the same before with the first installment of The Witcher.

“Mark our words, CD Projekt aren’t going to get an easy ride with this,” we predicted back then. But would they carry it through?

While trawling through endless Germany-based lawsuits in connection with another issue, the answer was right there – documents which showed that CD Projekt were sending so-called pay-up-or-else letters to alleged pirates demanding more than 900 euros per time. So, early December 2011, we reported what we’d found.

Response to the news was mixed. Some thought it was OK to chase down pirates but soon it became clear that this company, who had built up so much goodwill with impressive games and a refreshing attitude to DRM, risked damaging their hard-earned reputation with people they needed onside – the gaming press and their readers.

One of CD Projekt’s most vocal opponents (TF aside) were RockPaperShotgun, who proceeded to give the company a pretty hard time over their actions. Their arguments are well-worn, centering on the potential of accusing the innocent with disproportionate actions. But now, just a couple of months later, it is all over.

“In early December, [a TorrentFreak] 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,” says CD Projekt’s Marcin Iwinski in a statement sent to RPS. “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,” Iwinski adds.

“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,” Iwinski writes.

The full statement can be found here and is important on a number of fronts, all previously outlined in great detail.

But perhaps the most refreshing thing is the tone of the announcement. Look, let’s be under no illusions, the decision to abandon this ill-fated scheme is a commercial one, but CD Projekt did not tow the typically corporate line with a carefully sanitized release saying that their scheme had simply run its course, they actually listened to and then addressed the concerns of their fans.

For those already targeted by the scheme it’s too late, but the company can now move forward doing what they do best – making great games without needless distractions.

Oh, and for the other games companies doing the same in Germany but currently flying under the radar – we know who you are and we’re coming for you next, so you might want to get your retaliation in first, it’s easier in the long run.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Today, Purewal published another on the same subject in the online edition of Edge, which in my opinion is the most intelligent games publication ever committed to paper. As a fanatical gamer, former 8bit games coder, and proud owner of the publication’s issue 1 from 1993, I felt compelled to respond.

“By far the most emotive argument that is often proffered is that CD Projekt are blackmailing people by saying ‘Pay up… OR ELSE!’ and thereby are removing access to justice and denying due process and so forth. Sadly, from a legal perspective, the case seems to be slightly different,” wrote Wrigley in the initial piece.

“…if you haven’t downloaded The Witcher 2 illegally and CD Projekt cannot prove that you have then actually the entire process won’t cost you a single penny,” he added.

What we have here is someone who writes clearly with an undoubted understanding of the mechanics, but also seems to lack specific experience in a practical boots-on-the-ground sense.

Here at TorrentFreak we aren’t lawyers, but we have spoken intimately with dozens of people targeted in similar actions and for them to deal with court-bound accusations effectively they need lawyers, and they cost lots of money. It is not enough to say “oh, well, you’ll get the money back when you win”, because many of these people don’t have the money in the first instance.

In any event, why should innocent people be dragged through hell for months on the word of a faceless and largely unaccountable anti-piracy company? Well let’s not worry right now, since Gamer/Law seems to think that proving innocence is easy.

“It should first be noted that if CD Projekt do take you to court, they have to prove that you downloaded the game [TF note: It's uploading, not downloading], the only thing that you will ever have to try to prove is that their proof is wrong. This could actually be easier than anticipated, as IP tracing is far from a reliable source of evidence,” writes Wrigley.

However, proving innocence in the legal arena chosen by CD Projekt is not easy at all. After first hiring a UK law firm where the lawyers carrying out their pay-up-or-else scheme were later severely disciplined for their activities, CD Projekt shifted their enterprise to Germany to claim money from alleged file-sharers there.

And getting convictions in Germany is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Just recently a Retired, Computerless Woman was fined there for pirating a ‘hooligan’ movie. Her lawyer, Christian Solmecke, with law firm Wilde Beuger Solmecke, outlined her desperate situation to TorrentFreak.

“Normally the copyright holder has to prove who did the copyright infringement. As this is hard for him – because he has no chance to look into a thousand houses – the courts in Germany alleviate this burden of proof,” he explained.

Proving a negative was ultimately impossible for the woman and she had to pay 650 euros to the claimant. This is the environment CD Projekt know they are working in and they will be making nice profits from settlements because after hiring a lawyer at their own expense, people learn that they cannot win in court.

The rest of the initial Gamer/Law post had many other issues, but we don’t have all day and there is a more pressing issue – a fresh ‘open letter’ just published in the online edition of my beloved Edge.

“In case you hadn’t guessed, this is a letter to those folks who oppose developers taking legal action against people who download and play their games without paying. Hello,” begins Jas Purewal.

I’m going to ignore the exclusive nature of this invite and consider it directed at me, since as the title of this piece points out, you don’t have to support piracy to detest these hateful schemes.

Purewal lists several reasons people put forward as to why game devs shouldn’t chase down alleged pirates. His first two points – Technological Reasons and Evidential Reasons – are shown separately but in reality they are utterly intertwined. Here are some observations of our own on the same points:

1. CD Projekt refuse point-blank to reveal who their anti-piracy company is (let alone allow anyone a look at their systems) and as we can see from the ‘hooligan’ case listed above, in their chosen territory, Germany, conveniently there is a reverse burden of proof. In that case the court didn’t even examine the technical evidence. But for a moment, let’s pretend that CD Projekt’s impossible claim of 100% accuracy is real….

2. In previous UK cases, after initial harvesting IP address ‘evidence’ was shifted from company to company, from format to format, with no safeguards and no checks. IP addresses were even copied/transposed by hand (often incorrectly), and the wrong account names were attached to outgoing letters. Trust us, in these case humans can screw anything up, and they have done so in the past, royally.

3. CD Projekt’s ‘perfect’ anti-piracy contractor sends an IP address and a timestamp to the ISP of the alleged pirate and they match it to the correct subscriber – well, sometimes they do. There were several proven cases in the UK where ISPs identified the wrong subscriber and in a huge number of cases couldn’t identify the subscriber at all, which is hardly confidence inspiring.

Only last year, Irish ISP Eircom incorrectly identified 300 account holders as Internet pirates, despite them allegedly receiving the correct information from an anti-piracy company. CD Projekt can not claim to have a complete chain of accurate evidence because they are quite simply not in control of all of it.

Worryingly, Purewal (a UK lawyer) also rolls out the tired notion that it is an account holder’s responsibility to protect his own Internet connection, along with the implication that the person is then responsible for the actions of others. In previous UK cases that didn’t wash with the courts but wait – that is the case in Germany where CD Projekt is looking for settlements. Rest assured, they know that – why do you think they gave up on the UK?

Purewal goes on to give a 5/10 credibility mark to “The ‘little old lady’ reason”, that sending scary letters only scares people. Well, of course they do. The claimants have to give the impression that the end result of not settling is legal action or no-one will hand over their money, but as we know, these companies rarely go to court unless it’s an open and shut case. Like they all are in Germany.

Since CD Projekt’s actions are Purewal’s cited reason for his open letter, let’s end with them.

The company says they’re taking this action to reduce piracy, but the only reason the wider world knew about their lawsuits is because TorrentFreak wrote about them. If we had written something else that day, people would still not know, and if they don’t know they can’t ever be deterred from piracy.

But if people do know, they won’t get caught, and if they don’t get caught they can’t get a $1,000 invoice. Without one of those, CD Projekt don’t get paid.

What we have here is a business model – a complaint filing machine that generates around $1000 a time, split between a law firm, the anti-piracy company and CD Projekt, and the more letters sent out, the better it is for everyone. There are no outward checks, there’s no accountability and absolutely no compassion or understanding for those wrongfully accused through hidden incompetence.

This is why I, a prolific games player and games buyer of more than three decades standing, say that you don’t have to support piracy to hate bullying, intimidation, and abuse of position.

But, most importantly, the reason why games companies shouldn’t embark on these schemes is a lot more simple. They will ruin their hard-earned image and do nothing – NOTHING – to reduce piracy.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This is an interesting approach from a company that earned a lot of credit by releasing DRM-free games. CD Projekt doesn’t want to bug legitimate consumers with DRM, but for some reason they don’t see it as a problem that their piracy witch-hunt will undoubtedly lead to accusing people who haven’t downloaded the game at all.

How easy things can go wrong once again became apparent this week, as a retired woman who doesn’t own a computer or even a router was ordered by the court to pay a hefty fine for downloading a Hooligan movie.

But perhaps we’re wrong. Could it be that CD Projekt has some super-secret technology that magically allows them to identify real people instead of IP-addresses? A comment CD Projekt’s Michal Nowakowski gave to PC Gamerlast week suggests that this is indeed the case.

“We’re addressing only 100% confirmed piracy cases that are 100% possible to prove,” Nowakowski said.

“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 are aware of some past complications.”

The previous complications Nowakowski refers to are the many wrongful accusations that were widely published in the media after the notorious file-sharing lawyers Davenport Lyons started sending out settlement letters to people who allegedly downloaded The Witcher. But this is no longer a concern according to Nowakowski.

“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,” he said.

That’s great news of course, if only it were true. The reality is that CD Projekt is making bogus claims. It is by definition impossible to know that the right people are being targeted and there are still many complications that come with the scheme.

Although there are measures that can be taken to improve the quality of the evidence, such as confirming that a certain IP-address is actually sending data, it’s still a fact that an IP-address doesn’t identify a person. The game may have been downloaded by a neighbor over an unsecured WiFi-network for example.

The only identifying evidence CD Projekt can have is an IP-address and a time-stamp, so it is impossible to know with 100% accuracy that the right person is targeted.

While it may be safe to assume that most of the letters do indeed go to the right household, claiming that it’s possible to identify pirates with 100% accuracy is bogus. On the contrary, when you target thousands of people with these pay-up-or-else letters you can be 100% sure that there will be wrongful accusations.

If CD Projekt is not willing to accept that their anti-piracy scheme comes with collateral damage then it would be better if they drop out.

DRM is bad, but demanding cash from people who have never even heard of The Witcher 2 isn’t the best PR for a company either.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

According to the makers of the game, DRM only hurts people who buy the game, not those who download the pirated versions where the DRM has been stripped.

“Yes, it is then hard to crack, but you start messing with the operation system, the game runs much slower and – for a group of legal gamers – it will not run at all. None of these solutions really work, so why not abandon it altogether?” CD Projekt’s CEO Marcin Iwinski explained recently.

In the same interview the CEO also said that despite selling over a million DRM-free games, many people still pirated it. According to his own accounting some 4,5 million copies were shared on BitTorrent alone. Although this is a few million more than TorrentFreak’s tracking systems report, there have indeed been lots of downloads of the game.

However, for CD Projekt this is not necessarily a bad thing as they had plans all along to cash in on piracy.

“Yes we will track illegal file-sharing hoping people will find the game good enough to actually change their mind and be willing to pay for it,” CD Projekt’s Agnieszka Szostak told us earlier.

Although this initially sounded quite reasonable, away from the spotlight the company followed in the footsteps of so-called copyright trolls, by signing up for a so-called “pay-up-or-else” scheme. CD Projekt hired a law firm and torrent monitoring company to track those who illegally downloaded and shared the game, and has been sending them hefty cash settlement proposals.

The price CD Projekt is asking through their lawyers is slightly higher than what gamers have to pay in stores, to say the least. Over the past several months thousands of alleged BitTorrent users in Germany were asked to cough up 911,80 euros ($1230) to pay off their apparent debt to the company.

As is often the case, these mass settlement schemes do not exist without collateral damage. Aside from targeting many people who indeed downloaded and shared the game without paying, CD Projekt’s lawyers are also wrongfully accusing people who have never even heard of the game.

After all, an IP-address doesn’t identify a person, and Wi-Fi piggybacking is not unusual. But CD Projekt, who don’t want to bug legitimate consumers with DRM, apparently take this collateral damage for granted.

The company, however, is no stranger to the business model which a US federal judge recently described as a shakedown. In 2008, large numbers of Internet users started receiving letters from notorious file-sharing lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK demanding cash settlements. Among those letters were demands for payment on an Atari-published game with a familiar title – The Witcher.

At the time the actions were widely criticized in the UK by consumer rights groups and the media, mainly because of the many wrongful accusations. Despite this critique, CD Projekt continues to pursue BitTorrent users in Germany, probably because it earns them good money.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Like a breath of fresh air and bucking the trend of more and more prohibitive and invasive protection schemes, CD Projekt intend to release The Witcher 2 in May 2011 without any DRM. This impressed our readers.

“A lot of gamers, even many of those in, or in favour of, the torrent/filesharing community seem to be looking at this as an opportunity to show the industry that a company can release a game completely without DRM and still see it become a huge success,” reader Ben H told TorrentFreak.

“The message, I think, isn’t ‘don’t pirate’ but rather ‘let’s prove our point’ by supporting a developer who’s willing to treat its customers as customers, rather than criminals by default,” he concluded.

Although more of a console gamer, the name The Witcher did ring a bell with me, but not for any good reason. A couple of years ago, large numbers of Internet users started receiving letters from notorious file-sharing lawyers Davenport Lyons demanding cash settlements, a scheme that most readers will be familiar with and one which has gotten the company in a lot of trouble.

Among those letters were demands for payment on an Atari game with a familiar title – The Witcher.

Needless to say, alarm bells started to ring and since I was travelling, I quickly emailed Ben H back and told him what I remembered.

“I didn’t know that was related to The Witcher – after digging a little deeper it seems that Atari were the ones chasing up file-sharers, while the actual game developers maintain a much more positive and realistic position on piracy,” he told me in response.

“Atari are ‘marketing and distributing‘ The Witcher 2 as well, so I wonder if the DRM-free release indicates that CD Projekt have more control over things this time, or if their relatively file-sharer-friendly stance is actually quite shallow in practice,” he concluded.

As it turns out, those alarm bells were ringing for good reason.

“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 Iwinski told Eurogamer today.

“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.”

What Iwinski means by “totally fair” (using the Davenport Lyons operation as a guide) is that his “sneaking companies” will harvest IP addresses from torrent swarms with no oversight whatsoever and farm them out to ISPs via the courts.

The ISPs will then try their best, for a fee, to match them with their customer records, but will occasionally make mistakes and identify the wrong one. Letters will then be sent out by a lawfirm to ISP account owners who may or may not have done any sharing at all, and will be told that they are responsible for what happens on their connection. Then, in order to make nasty court cases go away, subscribers will be asked to pay a cash settlement.

So, while lack of DRM might be a great idea, sending out these awful letters is the absolute opposite. Mark our words, CD Projekt aren’t going to get an easy ride with this and nothing good will come out of it, especially if they dare to try this again in the UK.

In theory a DRM-free game should give consumers less incentive to download it illegally, but it’s also easier to share. We can’t look inside the minds of CD Projekt’s bosses but it’s not totally inconceivable that they secretly hope that many people will pirate their games. After all, the pay-up-or-else schemes are more profitable than actually selling games.

The Witcher 2 comes out in May 2011, which means that CD Projekt have plenty of time to change their minds. Let’s hope they do.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.