So... advertising CD Key sites

[OneMoar]

I am gonna make this clear before I continue I am absolutely pro-piracy I am however anti piracy for profit


there's no gray here the various EULA agreements all stipulate clauses for which region they are allowed to be used in and

transferability of the licence is generally forbidden if you are not the first-party owner (e.g windows and office)

and i am totally against people using stolen CC info or abusing currency exchange rates to make a buck thats flat out fraud

you can sugar coat it anyway you want but just because you pay for a product does not mean it was not stolen/misappropriated

at minimum this is copyright infringement and also runs afoul of the legal definition of piracy which is

Software piracy is the unauthorized copying/distribution of software

now either the rules around here get changed so we can freely discuss these topics or the key sellers can take there paid promotion and go pound sand
if tpu needs money ill cut a check (stipulations of course )


as for the people championing these because they don't live in the states and have to pay absurd inflation and exchange rates ... maby take that up with your government

 

[Vayra86]

I am gonna make this clear before I continue I am absolutely pro-piracy I am however anti piracy for profit


there's no gray here the various EULA agreements all stipulate clauses for which region they are allowed to be used in and

transferability of the licence is generally forbidden if you are not the first-party owner (e.g windows and office)

and i am totally against people using stolen CC info or abusing currency exchange rates to make a buck thats flat out fraud

you can sugar coat it anyway you want but just because you pay for a product does not mean it was not stolen/misappropriated

at minimum this is copyright infringement and also runs afoul of the legal definition of piracy which is

Software piracy is the unauthorized copying/distribution of software

now either the rules around here get changed so we can freely discuss these topics or the key sellers can take there paid promotion and go pound sand
if tpu needs money ill cut a check (stipulations of course )


as for the people championing these because they don't live in the states and have to pay absurd inflation and exchange rates ... maby take that up with your government

You actually have a point here. Its either/or, can't be both at the same time..

 

[OneMoar]

You actually have a point here. Its either/or, can't be both at the same time..

no accually the / means 'and or' not 'either or'

 

[plonk420]

this is NOT piracy. MS is selling a license to *someone.*

this is NOT a copy of software for which the developer gets zero compensation.

 

[Vayra86]

I'm not a very happy camper seeing URCDkeys listed on the headlines more often these days. The site looks very unreliable in every possible way. Authorized retailer for Windows licenses at bottom barrel prices? Have you verified that, or is that just copy pasted?

5 trustpilot reviews among which two 1 star reviews, here is one, take special note of the copy pasted email response from customer service. They can't even spell.

Its not a good thing when TPU supports a low quality level like this and its worse when its editors are posting things with blatant lies. I understand the source of income, but you can select better partners than this. What's even worse is putting a lock on those news topics. If you want to scare people off, this is the way to go about it... 'Here is a forced ad in your headlines, and no, you can't comment on it even though it spreads misinformation'

Customer service "may din't" receive messages due to 'network latency' (must be some awful latency there, did their English courses get stuck in network latency too?)

Kind regards, URcdkesy Team. Even their predefined text block about installation is full of errors. Red flags everywhere to me.

 

[sepheronx]

yeah, im sticking with scdkey. They haven't screwed me yet.

 

[londiste]

I'm not a very happy camper seeing URCDkeys listed on the headlines more often these days. The site looks very unreliable in every possible way. Authorized retailer for Windows licenses at bottom barrel prices? Have you verified that, or is that just copy pasted?

Especially nice that there are no comments allowed.
I would really love to see the Microsoft Authorized retailer claim being substantiated there.

 

[Splinterdog]

One of the first things I do when seeing anything that seems too good to be true on the Net, is to check the English grammar.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Even worryingly is 3 pages and not one response from W1zzard.

 

[Vayra86]

One of the first things I do when seeing anything that seems too good to be true on the Net, is to check the English grammar.

Thing is I'd even put more stock in allkeyshop or something than this crap. And they sell Windows 10 keys for five bucks.

 

[Kovoet]

Thank God I didn't go get a key. Thought let me check if anyone has tried.

 

[Hockster]

Anyone bought from here? I figured I'd give it a shot, hell it's only $11. Unsurprisingly the key I got for Win 10 Pro can not be activated. The key itself failed activation and trying to add as a digital license it to my MS account didn't work either. I will be filing a dispute through paypal.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Aparently guru3D had been putting the same site up on their FP

 

[Maban]

Advertising these grey market sites is definitely going to make me never sub to the TPU Patreon.

 

[R-T-B]

Advertising these grey market sites is definitely going to make me never sub to the TPU Patreon.

It's made me have second thoughts tbh. But only for a bit.

 

[Vayra86]

What annoys me the most is the complete lack of any kind of response from @W1zzard

What is the idea, is there an idea to it, is it necessary and/or to what degree... so many questions. This is clearly one of the worst key sellers you can find. Of all the ones that exist, why this one? Did it find TPU or the other way around?

TL: DR W.T.F.

 

[Assimilator]

The longer TPU staff are silent on this, the worse it looks.

 

[dj-electric]

We all know what's going on.

Look, written media is on the decline. This isn't a secret. Every day more and more basement youtubers emerge and take from the traffic of websites like TPU.

There are a few options, and sometimes when an ad offer comes, they have to bite the bullet and receive the funds to keep going. Is that a good decision? Depends on the individual's moral. I do not agree with this ad campaign, but i respect TPU's owner decision to go ahead anyway knowing the backlash. I think that W1zz and stuff will definitely take next ad campaign decisions in more seriousness and if such opportunity arise, they will think twice if its worth it.

 

[Mussels]

The longer TPU staff are silent on this, the worse it looks.

the staff have no control, TPU is not a democracy. This is entirely in W1zzards court.

 

[Assimilator]

the staff have no control, TPU is not a democracy. This is entirely in W1zzards court.

bta posted the article though...

 

[Vayra86]

We all know what's going on.

Look, written media is on the decline. This isn't a secret. Every day more and more basement youtubers emerge and take from the traffic of websites like TPU.

There are a few options, and sometimes when an ad offer comes, they have to bite the bullet and receive the funds to keep going. Is that a good decision? Depends on the individual's moral. I do not agree with this ad campaign, but i respect TPU's owner decision to go ahead anyway knowing the backlash. I think that W1zz and stuff will definitely take next ad campaign decisions in more seriousness and if such opportunity arise, they will think twice if its worth it.

No we don't know anything, because nothing has been said. This is just the most rosy explanation of it. Wishful thinking? Who knows.

I do know that if I see a couple more of these straight up fraudulent sellers, I'm out. I thought this was a different website. No amount of great reviews and testing can withstand this level of advertising.

 

[dj-electric]

No we don't know anything, because nothing has been said. This is just the most rosy explanation of it. Wishful thinking? Who knows.

I was the one who opened a thread last time a keyseller ad was up. I had talks, i know. You can take it or leave it, but this is how things work

 

[GlacierNine]

Firstly, let it be known that I am not against TPU accepting sponsorship from key resellers. In fact, I shared the scdkey offer with a friend who I knew would find it useful.

I'd also like to know if this "No comments on sponsored posts" approach is being taken for *all* sponsored content - I went back through the frontpage as far as June, looking for other sponsored content via TPU, but it seems as though these four advertisements for Key-Resellers, are the only sponsored content TPU has actually done to date.

That said, after seeing this on the frontpage today: https://www.techpowerup.com/251929/cdkoffers-lets-you-save-big-on-genuine-software-and-games

I noticed that there are no comments and the thread is locked. I recalled that there were previous offers of this kind, marked as sponsored, so I went looking.

It appears that of the 3 previous sponsored content pieces, and their threads:
https://www.techpowerup.com/250562/...and-office-2016-lifetime-keys-at-up-to-92-off
https://www.techpowerup.com/249958/...for-discounted-software-licenses-up-to-87-off
https://www.techpowerup.com/249492/...k-on-major-game-publishing-platforms#comments

Only the very first entertained comments at all, and, somewhat predictably, given the nature of the service, most of those comments focused on the legality of the keys and website. Not surprising, given that these websites operate on a model that is oft-criticised, to the point LinusTechTips/Techquickie have recently done a video on this exact topic, explaining the ethical and legal questions these websites often run into:

The other threads were all locked as soon as they were created.

I'm also concerned that across the comments in the one thread that allowed them, btarunr was clearly aware of the reasons for people's concern and disappointment, but instead of actually assuring anyone that there was no dubious practice to worry about, he instead chose to rely on the point of "it's not piracy", which I think I and many others will note, technically dodges explaining the somewhat academic difference between a legitimate key obtained through illicit means (Not piracy, but still illegal and unethical), or an actual cracked key (Definitely piracy).

To me, I believe that when this comes up, TPU should have the integrity to either stand by their choices and provide assurances, rather than prevent concerns being raised - else, simply refuse the offer if it cannot be justified to a satisfactory standard or in good faith.

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

I was thinking about buying metro exodus from the site advertised here, and I assumed that cuz it's here on TPU it was 100% legit. Is this not the case?

Because many people are going to think the same honestly.

 

[neatfeatguy]

It was brought up in another thread.....found it here:

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/so-advertising-cd-key-sites.249995/

Without taking the time (I'm lazy this morning) to look through the other thread, I don't think there was any specific mention of why these advertisings for CDKey sites were allowed or why we're not allowed to comment on them.