In Mark42x' case, it was easy to tell that he was seeking help for an illegitimately obtained copy. There were several dead giveaways: firstly, the download size he claimed was ~26 GB, when he should have known it's only ~24.18 GB if purchased on GOG; secondly, his issue with extracting .bin files from a .zip archive; and finally, he revealed where he got his copy from by linking to the pirate site.

Mistaking the official GOG website for one offering illegal copies is a weak excuse at best. People who are aware of GOG's existence know that it is a shop, and a website offering all games for free cannot be legal. This basic understanding should raise a user's alarm bells to leave, instead of using it, and then turning to this forum and asking for help. ;-)

We are never going to agree with a blanket assumption so let's just leave it there. I appreciate all your comments and explaining it to me though, thanks.

That's actually a very probable error, it depends which unit he's is using and his value is actually right, you confused the binary Gigabyte GiB with the decimal Gigabyte GB (like most other people do, even the guys at Microsoft ignore it, even if it's valid for over 20 years now).

decimal: 1 GB = 10^9 Bytes = 1000000000 Bytes
binary: 1 GiB = 2^30 Bytes = 1073741824 Bytes

24.18 GiB = 25.963 GB

Not going to help them either myself, but I smell a logical fallacy here. If the guy I'm supporting or helping with f.ex. backup, network congestion or with tips on what to buy, and it turns out that he as a 19 year old stabbed another person at a bar, would that mean I support violence? Of course not.

No one is guilty by pure association, And rightly so; I'm personally not going to blanket assume they're all pirating GOG's games. Just like I'm not going to automatically assume that people have pirated a Steam game if the owned icon isn't there (as some do because some Steam users have never heard of other gaming shops like Epic, GOG, etc.)

No, this isn't about piracy, but spam in general. I've also been advocating, as AB1220 mentioned, the need to buy at least one game or use x amount in order to use the forum because GOG has neither the manpower nor money to properly filter out these spam accounts or dual accounts in a timely fashion. This happens every single weekend. As with Galaxy, GOG can't compete with Steam there either.

Besides, I'm for software "archiving" when it comes to older warez, however, I have to laugh a little when people ask for help for their pirated game. That would be like asking your neighbor on how to use/repair the chainsaw after you took it without permission. :D

"Stop supporting crime by helping the elderly!"
(Because you never know what terrible deeds they might have committed in their lifetime...)

Back to topic: In that particular case, it was quite obvious that the poster didn't acquire their install files in any legitimate way. So it is a good thing to raise general awareness that piracy exists and what signs to look for. However, I agree that answering questions and helping people on a public forum does not qualify as complicity.

Olay, this is getting blown way out of proportion.

How about we stick to these steps.

1. Check when account was created.
2. Check number of games owned by account.
3. Check information provided by poster.

Make a judgment call on if you feel the user does legally own the product they are asking for help with.

It is true it's not best to paint everyone with the pirate label who fall under certain criteria, we just need to be observant of what is going on.

My stance, is if you can't/don't own what you're paying for then you shouldn't have to pay for it. As a recent saying has gone, if you can't own it, you can't steal it :P

And guess what. You don't own what you 'purchase' here, or steam, or epic, or Nintendo, etc. You can't sell it, trade it, etc. Flat out you don't own it.

Sony with the recent 'we're going to wipe our entire library and delete your bought items' bought that to the forefront. Yes they backpedaled, but you don't own it. Crunchyroll changes people lost their digital files too that they were promised when they bought other physical goodies. (You can't buy these, they were redeemed with physical sets, so like Get a Blueray movie, oh and get it on Hulu too for free with digital code!)

Sony with a recent early playable demo also showed they have a kill switch to disable any and all your games you downloaded; This is not too unlike Amazon kindle which DELETED PURCHASED BOOKS OFF YOUR KINDLE!.

When this changes I'll change my stance.

Sony Steals Customers' Purchased Content
Studios disabling paid, lifetime licenses

GOG is digital license ownership, which implies it's non-transferable. If I don't plan on selling the games I buy here, I effectively own the game.

Those GOG pirating sites gives GOG a bad name and hurt GOG's chances of securing more games. Because either GOG has a hard time taking these sites down if their SEO is so good it's on the first page of Google search results and devpubs know their game will be uploaded once they distribute here. Not my thinking of course, theirs.

What wolfsite wrote just here is really the best sound advice.

I witnessed a case a few weeks back where one user asked for help directly in the middle of a sea of spam. -.O
Account was fortunately not locked, had several games, even the game in question was the one currently being played. Is not bot, is not pirate.

Simple as.

Are there even cases where you cannot be sure if the user in question purchased the game?
From the cases I have seen - they either outright state they bought a key or pirated.

While you are correct, the actual size of the download chunks is calculated as 4.29 GB * 6, totaling 25.74 GB. This does account for the discrepancy in Mark42x's case. However, it's essential to note that the displayed file size on my drive is 23.9 GB, so a size of ~24GB is what I would rather expect. It's also doubtful that Mark factored in the difference between GB and GiB, or the compression overhead increasing the total size, instead of just relying on the size of ~6.3 GB listed on the website he downloaded his copy from.

Regarding version numbers, there is also a discrepancy there. The website lists it as 1.6xxx, whereas our library shows 0.1.3905696. This difference could also provide a clue as to whether it's a legitimate copy.

I found a certain website that does offer GOG games but they make it clear the intent is for you to TRY the game and buy it from GOG if you like it. The INTENT is not for you to keep the game for free. I will NOT list the site either so don't ask.

I stand with the OP here.

Can you guarantee GoG will exist for the next 60 years to keep track of your purchases? Or will all of them just Poof one day?

I'm not sure. I'm not convinced anymore. We can certainly hope.

Also a digital good should be treated the same as a physical good, meaning you should be able to transfer or sell it. The fact you can't, means it's more akin to an extended rental. GoG's better position i the DRM free stance means they can't stop you from accessing downloaded goods.

Well, no.
A month ago, Skyrim SE got an update that changed its version number from 1.6.xxx back into the 0.xxx range.
(Gogdb changelog for reference)
That not only broke compatibility with popular mods / mod loaders, but also resulted in many related questions popping up in the forum.

edit:
The update could also explain differences in size

edit 2:
To sum it up:
Be aware of piracy but do go on a witch hunt, either.

Thank you for telling me, as I wasn't aware of that! :-) Fortunately, I still have a copy of the previous version as a backup, so there's no problem there.

There is no need to go on a pirate hunt. Filing a report to GOG and letting them investigate if there is a suspected case of piracy will solve the matter.

I've been saying this for some time now.