Legal status

[IHaveHugeNick]

This is way too much drama for something that can be bought for 5$, with the potential fine of 10$.

[Drool]

True. But on the plus side, I'm now mildly versed in a portion of Polish copyright law.

[macksting]

Lately, $5 is nontrivial for me.

[Drool]

Didn't every tier of WL2 backer include a free copy?

[macksting]

Yeeeeees, and damn if that didn't mean I got my money's worth just from that alone.

[Lucius]

From my layperson reading of the 1994 Polish Copyright Laws, the aggrieved party would have to request government action. Which makes it look like a weird hybrid of tort and criminal law.

Isn't that essentially the same how it works in the US as well? If you go and download the Fast and Furious collection, isn't it up to Universal to notify the authorities because the police don't sit around monitoring bit torrent traffic? I suppose they could and you could get some huge fines and possibly jail time, but it's extremely unlikely unless the copyright holder goes after you first or you are redistributing copyrighted copies. Honestly, I thought most of these copyright infringement deals were basically civil cases at this point, unless you are actually running a torrent site, then the Feds pay attention. Like Kim Dotcom.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a seen a single news article of someone being arrested or even sued due to video game piracy, ever. It's always been music then movies, and the last 5 years or so I've never heard any big stories of end users having any consequences whatsoever.

[IHaveHugeNick]

I don't know about US, but here, like I already said, its pretty much unheard of for anyone to get in trouble (of a criminal kind) for simply owning a counterfeit copy. It obviously isn't legal, but police have better shit to do then to bust down doors with a warrant because some teenager downloaded Call of Duty 57.

If you're distributing (ie sharing on a torrent), selling, or profiting from pirated software by using it in a business, that's a different story entirely. But downloading? Nobody cares.

Majority of cases that I've ever heard of where civil cases, and even that is usually handled by predatory small potatos lawyers trying to scare people into out of court settlements with spooky letters.

[kipper]

Myrth, if this is seriously that important to you, just buy the freaking thing already. Not only would you support inXile and GoG, but your own country gets a cut from gog's taxes as well. Everyone wins.

I agree with your sentiment, although I have to point out that GOG is legally based in Cyprus (that's where their bank accounts are, for taxation purposes). But their offices are in Poland, so Poland still gets some benefit.

[Myrth]

But their offices are in Poland, so Poland still gets some benefit.

They are based on Cyprus exactly to avoid Polish taxation. It's like you never heard of tax haven

Anyway, thank you all for few bits of important informations. Guess the thread can be now locked.