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Private investigators hired to stem Call Of Duty Black Ops piracy

by Steven Williamson on 25 October 2010, 13:20

Tags: Activision (NASDAQ:ATVI), FPS

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Pirated copies of Call of Duty Black Ops have already began to surface ahead of the game's official release date of Nov 9 and Activision has decided to tackle the issue by hiring a firm of Private Investigators.

Evidently, Activision has hired a firm called IP Cybercrime who deal specifically with tackling online piracy. Instead of going in hard, however, and perhaps trying to sue the pirates, the company is taking a different tactic - approaching sellers of the disc, asking them politely to stop and trying to find out how they got their hands on the leaked copy.

IP Cybercrime has reportedly achieved some success so far using this tactic with a number of pirates immediately giving up their copies, including one YouTube poster going by the name of "Computer Healer" who said he bought a copy for $150 and surrendered his copy after being approached by the company.*

IP Cybercrime uses a variety of ways to track pirates, including monitoring Facebook and other social applications and can also apparently track down leaked copies via Xbox Live.

* The YouTube video has now been removed.


HEXUS Forums :: 3 Comments

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I think Activision should be given a lot of respect for trying to reduce piracy without going bat **** at everyone they catch! Shafting potential customers in the courts only makes things worse so its refreshing seeing someone try something different. :rockon:
Respect to them for trying but lets don't fool ourselves - 12h max after the release torrents will be up…
spoon_
Respect to them for trying but lets don't fool ourselves - 12h max after the release torrents will be up…
If they can buy themselves that long then it'll have been completely worth it, and if they can improve the leaks that help piracy in the first place for next time then even better.