14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the upcoming role playing game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings have said that they plan to take legal action against those who illegally download their video game, with letters going out to pirates forcing them to chose between paying a fine or going to court.
Marcin Iwiński, who is one of the co founders of CD Projekt, has told Eurogamer that, “Of course we're not happy when people are pirating our games, so we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies.”
He added, “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.'”
Apparently the process will be pretty similar to that used by record companies when they seek out those who illegally download music tracks in order to get them to pay damages in court.
The CD Projekt executive says, “I'm sure you've heard about stories in the US when recording companies were chasing people. We don't want to be so harsh, but there is a chance that this might happen to some people if they download illegally. There will be an initiative.”
The process can be pretty complex and lengthy, with a law firm needing to first contact the site which hosts the torrent files in order to get information about the Internet Service Providers which have accessed a particular file.
Then the ISPs need to be contacted and persuaded to reveal the real life identities of those who did the downloading.
Only then can actual people be fined or threatened with legal action and even then there are issues linked with privacy and with the fact that the user who registered an Internet connection is not necessarily the one who performed the illegal download.
The threat from CD Projekt might be more of an effort to show how damaging piracy can be and to persuade gamers to buy The Witcher 2.