How do you sell software? By fucking your legitimate buyers...
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@danixdefcon5 said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Many of the 80's games used this method. It was known amongst my schoolmates as the "Prince of Persia code", as this was the most popular game back then to have the protection. Other one I remember with something similar was Day of the Tentacle. Wonder what happened with that?- Creative efforts always help. I remember one PC game from the 80s that had those "quiz" questions on start-up that only had answers in the manual. I didn't have the manual, but the game would let you play anyway. It was a "upgrade your spaceship as you do missions" type game but if you didn't answer the security question on start-up it altered the game so you would be pursued by the "Intergalactic Police" for the crime of copyright infringement throughout the game. If you were damn good you could escape them and keep playing for some time but even if you weren't it gave you a taste of the game and made you want more. Add in the modern ability to simply do a "Buy A License Now" type deal launching your browser right from the game and you essentially have a very effective sales tool that might get a few pirates to shell out some dough.
PDFs pretty much rendered that method obsolete. It's just too easy to package a scan of the manual in with the game..... Anyone remember the code wheels? you spin it around and line up some codes and type in the resulting value in the little window? At least that was a little harder to duplicate ....
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@Jeff S said:
So what should they do instead?
They should do a few things:
- Make games people will actually want to buy. "NHL 2011: Now with even more Shiny" might find a small base of die-hard fans for whom "NHL 2010: More Shiny" has lost its edge. Unfortunately for EA though, a third of that player base will opt for a cracked copy to see what the buzz is all about, realize they're being dupped and not buy the game afterwards. A new game that is trully innovative, fun and engaging will sell well, and far outweigh the revenue lost to piracy.
- Make game patches, updates and online content available to authenticated accounts only, ala Steam and Impulse. Sure pirates can still torrent the original game, but if they want the latest and greatest version - they'd need to either re-download the entire game and re-crack it, or shell out the measly $40.
- They need to stop pissing off paying customers with ridiculously draconian DRM schemes. 3 installations only? 10 activations? Blacklisted software? No thanks, I'd like my money back please.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Obviously there is a need for the publishers, though, which is why they exist in the first place.
Here's the thing though;
the classic method of packaged distribution is rapidly becoming obsolete. Any developer with a little cash-backing can set up its own digital download facility (and even adopt P2P-sharing protocols like BitTorrent if they must push back bandwidth usage; e.g. the WoW patcher) or buy into an existing platform (like Steam). The only thing a developer really needs is initial funding. Once the developer has acquired an equilibrium between needed funding and income from their (inhouse) online distribution channels, the publisher is out of the picture.
Rather than go with the flow and adapt their business model, the videogame publishers, like the large record labels did for a time, are grabbing whatever opportunity they have to fight piracy and any form of digital distribution tooth and nail: once it sinks in with the general audience how easy and user-friendly such a method of purchase is, the publisher is ready to go the way of the dinosaurs.
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@Jeff S said:
What are people's opinions on what the software industry should do to curb pirating? It is an issue for them -- games are pirated, they do lose money, and it can take huge investments of time and money to create these games... So, what should they do about it? If DRM isn't the answer, or activation limits don't work, what actions should they take to protect their products from pirates? None at all? What's a better way for them to handle this?
How come World of Warcraft isn't pirated?
That's how.
For all the cries that PC gaming is dead, guess which game is the most successful and popular of the past three years?(Of course, the fact that World of Warcraft actually runs on an average PC and doesn't suck, both unlike 90% of the other PC games, may have to do with it as well)
......
As for digital distribution: not everyone can buy online, not everyone has the bandwidth and time to download it (especially P2P... my monthly bandwidth is 25 GB bleh sputter, that's Belgium for you), so you're shooting yourself in the foot if you sell your game only online.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Creative efforts always help. I remember one PC game from the 80s that had those "quiz" questions on start-up that only had answers in the manual. I didn't have the manual, but the game would let you play anyway. It was a "upgrade your spaceship as you do missions" type game but if you didn't answer the security question on start-up it altered the game so you would be pursued by the "Intergalactic Police" for the crime of copyright infringement throughout the game. If you were damn good you could escape them and keep playing for some time but even if you weren't it gave you a taste of the game and made you want more.
Ooh, that's the best suggestion I've seen to date. Why not have a little fun with it?
I'm not a pirate either, but deeply offended that some software companies treat me like one. I used to have a game machine at home running Windows XP. It turned out to be rather a dog of a machine with various parts failing every six months, requiring Windows re-installs or just re-validation. I even discovered that the original Windows CD that shipped with my machine had an invalid CD key. When I researched online for that kind of problem, I saw that other people were referred by Microsoft back to the vendor who sold them their machine. But by then my machine was 3 years old and the PC company had no knowledge of me or my purchase. I was tempted to turn them into Microsoft, but didn't want to bother with the research or phone calls it would have taken to figure out how.
Just as Vista was coming out with all the bad press about it's DRM, some part of the machine failed again. I pitched the pos and bought a new Mac.
Expensive as they are, personal computers are short-lived commodity items. It doesn't make sense to pretend that the software can be installed once and work fine forever after.
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@Jeff S said:
@shakin said:
That [curbing pirating] is like trying to stop people from writing viruses: it's not going to happen.
No; it's not. It's like writing virus blocking software and patching vulnerabilities to stop viruses; it may not always work perfectly, but it's probably better than nothing. If your virus analogy holds up, then you are suggesting that we should all just stop patching/securing/scanning our PC's and let the viruses do what they want.
Maybe a clearer analogy would be that stopping anybody from ever cracking a particular game is like stopping people from ever writing a virus for a particular operating system.
The main reason I'm not buying Spore though is because the excitement and novelty of the E3 demo that I saw in 2006 has somehow worn off in the two years it's taken them to finish the damn thing. But I might play Braid.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Creative efforts always help. I remember one PC game from the 80s that had those "quiz" questions on start-up that only had answers in the manual. I didn't have the manual, but the game would let you play anyway. It was a "upgrade your spaceship as you do missions" type game but if you didn't answer the security question on start-up it altered the game so you would be pursued by the "Intergalactic Police" for the crime of copyright infringement throughout the game. If you were damn good you could escape them and keep playing for some time but even if you weren't it gave you a taste of the game and made you want more.
Pretty sure that was starflight 2. My dad had a legit copy when I was a kid, but I let a friend borrow the copy protection device (a map), and he never returned it.It was a map of the galaxy, and it'd ask you questions like "How many green stars are in sector 4Q?"
At any rate, the spore DRM issue comes down to this: if I've paid $50 for your game, I should never be prevented from using it legitimately. And I certainly shouldn't have to justify my legitimate use to your CSRs over the phone. That's just absurd.
First sale rights include the right to let other people borrow your copy, and the right to resale. This DRM prevents both. Reselling used games is not a crime.
The really funny thing, is that once EA stops shipping new copies of spore (and they will), the only version that will be left will be the pirate version.
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@merreborn said:
First sale rights include the right to let other people borrow your copy, and the right to resale. This DRM prevents both. Reselling used games is not a crime.
First sale rights are still not clear on licensed software. There have been decisions for against first sale doctrine, but in general it seems if you agree to the terms of the license and use the software you lose first sale rights. If you never agree to the license, you still have first sale rights.
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@Ragnax said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Obviously there is a need for the publishers, though, which is why they exist in the first place.
Here's the thing though;
the classic method of packaged distribution is rapidly becoming obsolete. Any developer with a little cash-backing can set up its own digital download facility (and even adopt P2P-sharing protocols like BitTorrent if they must push back bandwidth usage; e.g. the WoW patcher) or buy into an existing platform (like Steam). The only thing a developer really needs is initial funding. Once the developer has acquired an equilibrium between needed funding and income from their (inhouse) online distribution channels, the publisher is out of the picture.
Rather than go with the flow and adapt their business model, the videogame publishers, like the large record labels did for a time, are grabbing whatever opportunity they have to fight piracy and any form of digital distribution tooth and nail: once it sinks in with the general audience how easy and user-friendly such a method of purchase is, the publisher is ready to go the way of the dinosaurs.
Developers need someone to take a risk with that initial capital. The only business that will do that is one that stands to profit if the game is a success, to make up for the failures that are bound to happen. Additionally, publishers provide marketing, legal and management services that the developer cannot handle on his own. Publishers will probably be around for some time, but they will have to adapt to online distribution and will probably wise up and move away from DRM one day.
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@Jeff S said:
What are people's opinions on what the software industry should do to curb pirating? It is an issue for them -- games are pirated, they do lose money, and it can take huge investments of time and money to create these games... So, what should they do about it? If DRM isn't the answer, or activation limits don't work, what actions should they take to protect their products from pirates? None at all? What's a better way for them to handle this?
<sarcasm>
Dongles! Who doesn't love dongles?
</sarcasm>
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@Jeff S said:
What are people's opinions on what the software industry should do to curb pirating?
One have an online store that is as easy to use as the pirate sites (big companies tend to make sites that require way to many steps), allow something like EMT (and whatever the American and other versions of it are called) + PayPal + CC, because kids buy games too so they should be able to buy without needing their parents CC. From said store have the software downloadable, charge more for an actual box, offer a real manual (full color or grayscale) as a separate item. If applicable you can sell extras (T-shirts, mouse pads, zboard covers, etc). Also don't be fuckshit stupid and limit downloads to one country like bittorrent.com does for the majority of the shows (look at anything from Fox or under Sci-fi section).
PS: The manuals and extras can recover costs of piracy. Like morb said, you can just accept the loss, they arn't paying anyways even if they couoldn't pirate.
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@Brother Laz said:
WTF. WoW does get priated, there are WoW servers that allow pirated copies. Seriously, just because it's online doesn't mean that it can't be pirated, every MMORPG I've heard of has indy servers.How come World of Warcraft isn't pirated?
That's how.
Also someone else mentioned battle.net and the blizzard games that use it, bnetd has been around for a while, I've always had a legitimate version, but we (SC modding community) did use personal bnetd servers to play mods (as it didn't check the version and modding was done mostly by reverse engineering).
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Clearly, the only solution is to go back to distributing games on ROM cartridges.
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@Jeff S said:
Again, I am not saying the 4th activation requirement/process is right or wrong, hard or easy, or anything at all-- I don't know. I am reserving my judgement on it until I have more information.
No firsthand experience, but from what I've heard, they're currently requiring a snail-mail letter with a photocopy of the receipt. The assumption being made by EA is that nobody could have burned through all three installs yet unless they shared the activation code or pirated the game.
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@Lingerance said:
Like morb said, you can just accept the loss, they arn't paying anyways even if they couoldn't pirate.
That last part isn't entirely true. Many people pirate who would pay otherwise, but eventually you have to accept so much shrinkage as part of doing business.
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@Brother Laz said:
@Jeff S said:
What are people's opinions on what the software industry should do to curb pirating? It is an issue for them -- games are pirated, they do lose money, and it can take huge investments of time and money to create these games... So, what should they do about it? If DRM isn't the answer, or activation limits don't work, what actions should they take to protect their products from pirates? None at all? What's a better way for them to handle this?
How come World of Warcraft isn't pirated?
That's how.
For all the cries that PC gaming is dead, guess which game is the most successful and popular of the past three years?(Of course, the fact that World of Warcraft actually runs on an average PC and doesn't suck, both unlike 90% of the other PC games, may have to do with it as well)
......
As for digital distribution: not everyone can buy online, not everyone has the bandwidth and time to download it (especially P2P... my monthly bandwidth is 25 GB bleh sputter, that's Belgium for you), so you're shooting yourself in the foot if you sell your game only online.
Doesn't Steam do something similar in order to use any multiplayer functionality of their games now days? Anybody not on the internet, well, screw them!!! If you can't afford internet you shouldn't spend 50$ on a game anyway! I don't think anybody will lose enough money to justify NOT using a system like this since, as you have said, just look at WoW.
By the way, Chimey fucking rocks!@!! I spent 3 years in Mons, BE and drank myself silly.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@merreborn said:
First sale rights include the right to let other people borrow your copy, and the right to resale. This DRM prevents both. Reselling used games is not a crime.
First sale rights are still not clear on licensed software. There have been decisions for against first sale doctrine, but in general it seems if you agree to the terms of the license and use the software you lose first sale rights. If you never agree to the license, you still have first sale rights.
In the Apple VS Apple-Compatible computer vender (forget the name of the company) a point was brought up by articles that licenses on software are not "official" there is no actual signature and the way it is agreed uppon is not completely legitimate. So it is very difficult to prove that the user is in fact contractually bound by this license. For example I can have a sign on my house saying "if you walk on my property (sidewalk) I am not held responsible for damage caused to you by anything" it won't be accepted in court as people can still break a leg on my property and sue me for lack of maintenence resulting in them being hurt.
In fact apple is NOT suing for license breach only, because they know that such a lawsuit might earn apple a grand whooping total of a dollar or two per sold OS copy which was legally purchased.
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@Zylon said:
True. The Register also reported on that. Though I found even more fun the article from a guy who's PC popped its capacitors while playing. Now that's DRM. ;)@Voidpointer said:
BioShock, for example, is an amazing game, and I would throw my money (and perhaps a pair of scented underwear) at the developers to own that game, if only they hadn't figured I must be a pirate and felt the need to use rootkits on my computer in order to get the privelege of playing it.
Copy protection is mandated by the publisher, not the developers. I'm sure Ken Levine was not at all pleased with the DRM that Take Two inflicted on Bioshock. When it first came out, people were talking more about the copy protection than the game.
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I, for one, will never buy software that requires any kind of phone activation/install limits ever again. I already made that mistake with Vista.
I bought Vista soon after release and installed it on my PC. Didn't work at all. No drivers for anything, lots of crashing. Went back to dual XP/Linux which both worked fine.
Many months later I decided to try again (to play Crysis w/DX10). With the new patches/drivers/whatever it ran OK but Crysis did not run so well on my weak hardware (well for Crysis anyway). I ended up cannibalizing that computer and building a new one with some new parts including an expensive video card. So I go to install Vista again.
Of course the activation process complains that I'm trying to steal it and wants me to phone in.
So I call and get a CSR who wants to know every minute detail about my hardware/life/personal tastes.I honestly don't know which parts exactly were from my previous PCs or exactly what type of NIC is built into the mobo and the CSR was not happy about any of it. He kept asking me the same questions over and over. I think he was a rather lonely guy because when I mentioned I just wanted to play Crysis, he went off about how I've just got to play it with an Xbox 360 controller and how great his Xbox 360 is as a media center and how he likes to use it from the couch and it's so convenient and how he loves to play PC games with the controller and blah blah blah like we're long-time pals or something. So I feel like I've gotta play along and compare favorite guitar hero songs and shit just to soften him up enough to give me my goddamn activation code. This went on for OVER AN HOUR.
Now in a fair world, the box for Vista would have a warning label that you may have to pretend to befriend some lonely, possibly deranged serial killer over the phone just to re-install your legitamately purchased copy.
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How to go through three activations quickly:
Install it on a Mac's Boot Camp partition using Fusion. That's one.
Wonder whether it runs better natively, boot into Boot Camp. Oops! That's different hardware as far as activation's concerned, so that's two.
Go back to Fusion, decide it's not worth the hassle of rebooting, but you want to play it anyway. Oops! Hardware change, that's three.
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@Lingerance said:
every MMORPG I've heard of has indy servers.
FFXI doesn't have actually usable private servers. The latest status is something like: Log in to playonline (so requires a valid paid account. afaik, that will be requirement even after the emulator is completed) and actually in-game you cannot kill monsters or level up.
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@astonerbum said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@merreborn said:
First sale rights include the right to let other people borrow your copy, and the right to resale. This DRM prevents both. Reselling used games is not a crime.
First sale rights are still not clear on licensed software. There have been decisions for against first sale doctrine, but in general it seems if you agree to the terms of the license and use the software you lose first sale rights. If you never agree to the license, you still have first sale rights.
In the Apple VS Apple-Compatible computer vender (forget the name of the company) a point was brought up by articles that licenses on software are not "official" there is no actual signature and the way it is agreed uppon is not completely legitimate. So it is very difficult to prove that the user is in fact contractually bound by this license. For example I can have a sign on my house saying "if you walk on my property (sidewalk) I am not held responsible for damage caused to you by anything" it won't be accepted in court as people can still break a leg on my property and sue me for lack of maintenence resulting in them being hurt.
In fact apple is NOT suing for license breach only, because they know that such a lawsuit might earn apple a grand whooping total of a dollar or two per sold OS copy which was legally purchased.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
We've been through this: if you click "I agree" or "I accept" or whatever you are bound by contract to adhere to the license. Contracts do not require a signature, only explicit (or strongly-implicit) consent. So clicking on a button actually binds you to the terms in the contract. This is well-established and any cases you find to the contrary are most likely hinging on finer points of law.
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@lrucker said:
How to go through three activations quickly:
Install it on a Mac's Boot Camp partition using Fusion. That's one.
Wonder whether it runs better natively, boot into Boot Camp. Oops! That's different hardware as far as activation's concerned, so that's two.
Go back to Fusion, decide it's not worth the hassle of rebooting, but you want to play it anyway. Oops! Hardware change, that's three.How to go through three wishes quickly:
- Wish for a glass of water to reverse the dehydration resulting from your cross-desert trek.
- Wish for a tasty pretzel to quell the savage hunger that erupted once your body was hydrated.
- Realize your folly and scream out "I wish I wasn't such a short-sighted fool!", resulting in the reversal of the slight myopia you were not even aware you had.
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@astonerbum said:
Could this be Power Computing? They used to have a license for building Macs back in the mid-90's. They got shafted when Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.In the Apple VS Apple-Compatible computer vendor (forget the name of the company)
Sheesh, had Power Computing stayed on that path, MacOS might've actually kept its foothold against Windows. Oh well...
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@danixdefcon5 said:
@astonerbum said:
Could this be Power Computing? They used to have a license for building Macs back in the mid-90's. They got shafted when Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.In the Apple VS Apple-Compatible computer vendor (forget the name of the company)
Sheesh, had Power Computing stayed on that path, MacOS might've actually kept its foothold against Windows. Oh well...MacOS might have kept its foothold, but Apple wouldn't have survived. The third-party vendors were targeting Apple's only profitable market: high-end desktop systems.
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@Carnildo said:
MacOS might have kept its foothold, but Apple wouldn't have survived.
If Apple had collapsed, how would MacOS maintain a foothold amidst the constant improvements to Windows?
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Personally, I don't mind entering a serial number at install time, that is pretty basic and not too much to ask. The problem is when people crack the software so not to need a serial number - they come up with increasingly cumbersome activation schemes, that the pirates still get around just as easily and we all get burned for it.
Every time a criminal finds another way to get their hands on a firearm illegally - should that mean we all have to jump through an ever deepening array of hoops to buy one?Hell, my Win XP got pretty screwed up not long ago, kept getting the BSOD before the desktop would fully load. I pulled most of the hardware I don't use (hoping to find some conflict) and swapped my RAM on boots, and next thing I know I have to reactivate my copy of XP. I manage to get into safe mode eventually - but nope... NOT ALLOWED until I activate it! It wants to me start up normally and activate, before I start in Safe Mode. Of course, I only want to get into Safe Mode because I CAN'T get it to load normally!
After shaking the rain stick at it enough times, and other obscure rituals I finally got it to start and reactivated it, thank god. Still - what a pain in the ass.
I think the best defense against piracy in today's world is enhanced online play, as has been mentioned that requires authentication. It works as well you generally want to identify the user for personal stats and such, so it ends up a feature instead of crippleware.Otherwise, anything more complex than "serial number at install time" will still be cracked by those that try, and only piss off legitimate users.
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@BeenThere said:
Every time a criminal finds another way to get their hands on a firearm illegally - should that mean we all have to jump through an ever deepening array of hoops to buy one?
Given the general political and historical knowledge of the forum, TDWTF might not be the best place to ask this.
I find it fascinating that I essentially advocated strongly the "pro-gun" position in this analogy. I think one of the best ways to fight piracy is to make legal copies of the game easier, faster and safer to obtain than the illegal ones. Some people will still pirate, but that's because they are assholes. Most people are generally decent enough to pay up when they use something, because they know it's the right thing to do. Not to start any kind of stupid political debate, but this parallels my feelings on gun control: the best way to fight gun crime is to make it easy for non-criminals to obtain firearms. Of course, opinions may vary and that's fine; I don't want to get into an argument about it.
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@Jeff S said:
I don't remember the a one-install rule with Steam. Now, that certainly is not the case -- you can install games on as many PC's as you want, but you can only play on one PC at a time. The only issue I remember with Steam initially was the servers were really slow at first.
Do you use Steam now or do you still boycott it?
Steam is a (almost) perfect example of a good DRM system. Rather than make you dig up a CD every time you want to play, or limiting how many times you can reinstall, it actually lets you download any Steam game you've purchased on any computer you log into it on. My only complaint is how often it goes through its "Updating..." process, and the "preparing to launch..." box -- all making the game take considerably longer to load.
I've bought Steam games before and would happily do it again. Though with single-player games like Portal, I like to unpack the GCFs and use a tiny "Steam emulator" to launch them faster and using less system resources. A faster, lighter version of Steam would be nice.
@morbiuswilters said:"Intellectual psuedo-property rights"? I can barely parse that. IP is property and it has its own set of rights just like tangible property.
Yes, except when it comes to "stealing." The key thing about theft is that it deprives the other party of the thing stolen. If I steal your TV, you can no longer use it. If, instead, I could somehow "scan" your TV and make an exact replica of it, I would not have committed theft, even if some intellectual property right (patents, or the design of the TV, perhaps) were violated.
When somebody pirates a game, the company making it still has it and can still sell it. It has not been stolen. The pirate is most certainly guilty of copyright infringement, however.
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@Zylon said:
Clearly, the only solution is to go back to distributing games on ROM cartridges.
Winner! Not just harder to pirate (there are writable cartridges, but they cost quite a bit), but zero load time.
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@amischiefr said:
Sounds as anoying as Vista itself, I had to replace the ram on my machine recently and it took me an hour on the phone with MS Customer support in order to get a new key generated for Vista... I will never buy a product again that has these lame ass restrictions if I can help it.
The only time I had problems with Microsoft's activation was when my XP decided to deactivate (and not let me log in) on Friday afternoon (for no good reason - I haven't changed any hardware, nor played with BIOS settings), after the local MS support stopped working, and I had to call the UK number to get it activated again (there's no automated phone activation here - you always speak with an operator). I actually never had Windows deactivate when I was changing hardware - not when I replaced the disks in my workstation, nor when I upgraded the CPU and RAM in my laptop.
On the topic of game protections, I gave up on PC games years ago. Back then I had a Pioneer DVD-ROM and a Teac SCSI CD-R drive, and this caused countless problems with games - practically no game would work if I had the CD in the Teac drive (because it was seen as the second drive in the system), and some had problems with the Pioneer, too (I was actually advised by tech support to find a no-CD crack if I didn't want to wait for a patch that would make the game work with the Pioneer drive more than once). Consoles don't have this problem - pop the game in, and play.
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@bstorer said:
I'm not in love with DRM by any means, but I think people are going way too far here. So you can only install 3 times without calling EA support? Most people aren't going to be inconvenienced by it. Who really gives a shit?
You're right. Most people won't be inconvenienced by it - if they're using a pirated copy :)
That's something I don't get - don't these companies realize that it's impossible for a pirated copy to have any of their restrictions? Don't they see the flaw in their 'security'?
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@shakin said:
I think what's important is that game publishers should make sure that the purchased version of the game is at least as good as the pirated copy. This often means poorer online support in the pirated version. With Spore, EA seems to have done the opposite and made the purchased version inferior to the pirated version. That can only increase piracy, so they'd have been better off not including any piracy protection at all.
Or to look at it another way, think of the pirates as your competition. They're competing on price. You compete on quality(no worrying about bugs - auto patches, etc.); better packaging; 'offline' freebies like discounts on merchandise, access to customer service, special promotions (buy HL2 and get invited to SuperPopularGameCon!), etc.
I think the key is in rewarding people who buy the game, rather than trying to punish or restrict those who don't. Like it's been proven time and time again, restrictions ONLY hinder legitemate users. If I've downloaded a cracked copy, I'll never know what these restrictions even are!
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@joemck said:
Yes, except when it comes to "stealing." The key thing about theft is that it deprives the other party of the thing stolen. If I steal your TV, you can no longer use it. If, instead, I could somehow "scan" your TV and make an exact replica of it, I would not have committed theft, even if some intellectual property right (patents, or the design of the TV, perhaps) were violated.
When somebody pirates a game, the company making it still has it and can still sell it. It has not been stolen. The pirate is most certainly guilty of copyright infringement, however.
You are depriving the company of the revenue they would have obtained by selling the copyrighted work. Your TV analogy is pure bollocks, as making a copy of my TV deprives me of nothing. However, if I spent time improving my TV with new technologies I developed myself and then you copied it, you would be stealing the fruits of my labor and depriving me of compensation. Copyright infringement is theft, plain and simple. It is taking something that does not belong to you for your own enrichment. Where do people come up with the idea that copyright infringement is not depriving someone of the fruits of their labors?
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@astonerbum said:
As morbius said/implied, the problem isn't the lack of signature specifically, it's the lack of opportunity or evidence that the user actually has agreed to a contract. It's impossible to argue that a user agreed to a contract just because the vendor printed a copy of the contract in the shrink-wrap box.In the Apple VS Apple-Compatible computer vender (forget the name of the company) a point was brought up by articles that licenses on software are not "official" there is no actual signature and the way it is agreed uppon is not completely legitimate. So it is very difficult to prove that the user is in fact contractually bound by this license.
Forcing a user to acknowledge a dialog box (agree/disagree) is essentially the same as a signature. Failing to read (and truly, deeply, agree with) the contract is the user's problem regardless of whether the user signs a piece of paper or clicks on "agree". The method of acceptance does not change the legality of the contract.
@astonerbum said:
For example I can have a sign on my house saying "if you walk on my property (sidewalk) I am not held responsible for damage caused to you by anything" it won't be accepted in court as people can still break a leg on my property and sue me for lack of maintenence resulting in them being hurt.
That would be the tort of negligence, not contract law. Go read a text on common law.
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What is REALLY interesting is: Even electronic versions are not useable. The I Agree button is CRAP because of the following:
- If I sign a contract BEFORE buying a box with software, then I am 100% aware of my purchased contract BUT, I am not given the contract before I buy, only afterwards which means I BOUGHT something and agree to some licensing for how to use it. Most EULAs also state that they can change at any time with no notice. Meaning that tomorrow my EULA can state that using the software costs 10000 dollars a minute. I don't even have to tell users. The point is this EULA business is complete and utter horsecrap and I am sure much of it will soon be rejected by courts.
- If I read the contract prior to downloading software (such as what happens when you download Google software) the actual EULA has a lot more weight since I agreed to a contract PRIOR to my "purchase" (free or paid).
- I never stated that me putting up a sign on my sidewalk is acceptable law. I am saying that the contract given in software boxes is exactly like that, you can only see the contract AFTER the purchase, it is a reasonable hassle and possibly monetary loss to disagree with the contract, and the contract can usually be changed at any moment.
Also please don't point out my lack of knowledge of all laws. I am simply pointing out the flaw of EULAs and possibly having a debate about it, not everything is a flame you know...
- If I sign a contract BEFORE buying a box with software, then I am 100% aware of my purchased contract BUT, I am not given the contract before I buy, only afterwards which means I BOUGHT something and agree to some licensing for how to use it. Most EULAs also state that they can change at any time with no notice. Meaning that tomorrow my EULA can state that using the software costs 10000 dollars a minute. I don't even have to tell users. The point is this EULA business is complete and utter horsecrap and I am sure much of it will soon be rejected by courts.
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@astonerbum said:
1) If I sign a contract BEFORE buying a box with software, then I am 100% aware of my purchased contract BUT, I am not given the contract before I buy, only afterwards which means I BOUGHT something and agree to some licensing for how to use it. Most EULAs also state that they can change at any time with no notice. Meaning that tomorrow my EULA can state that using the software costs 10000 dollars a minute. I don't even have to tell users. The point is this EULA business is complete and utter horsecrap and I am sure much of it will soon be rejected by courts.
Buying the software has nothing to do with being able to use it. You must agree to the license to use the software, just like you sometimes have to assemble a product before using it. The EULA changes are allowed with most kinds of contracts, but there are limits on what can be changed. Seriously, have you never encountered another type of contract that says "we reserve the right to modify this contract at a later date"? Courts are not going to reject software licensing, you dumbass. Not only would it decimate the IT industry, but the courts have already reaffirmed the validity of licenses many times.
@astonerbum said:Also please don't point out my lack of knowledge of all laws. I am simply pointing out the flaw of EULAs and possibly having a debate about it, not everything is a flame you know...
There is nothing to debate. This is the law, it is established. Nobody is arguing whether software licensing is just or unjust, merely that it is the law. I don't want to get into a debate about if licenses should exist, I'm just pointing out the flaws in your points and trying to stop people from spreading misinformation.
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In many countries, especially in Europe, the EULA cannot become effective if the buyer didn't agree to it before or while doing the actual act of buying the product. Even the "by clicking 'I accept' you agree to..." statements on the install screens have no legal relevance.
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@Carnildo said:
@danixdefcon5 said:
@astonerbum said:
Could this be Power Computing? They used to have a license for building Macs back in the mid-90's. They got shafted when Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.In the Apple VS Apple-Compatible computer vendor (forget the name of the company)
Sheesh, had Power Computing stayed on that path, MacOS might've actually kept its foothold against Windows. Oh well...MacOS might have kept its foothold, but Apple wouldn't have survived. The third-party vendors were targeting Apple's only profitable market: high-end desktop systems.
And doing so badly. I had one of those clones; Photoshop did not work on it. Of course the users didn't complain to PowerComputing or Adobe; no, they complained to Apple.
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@ammoQ said:
In many countries, especially in Europe, the EULA cannot become effective if the buyer didn't agree to it before or while doing the actual act of buying the product. Even the "by clicking 'I accept' you agree to..." statements on the install screens have no legal relevance.
Should just reiterate that everything I have said so far only applies to the US, AFAIK. Many countries model their IP laws on the US, but I have no familiarity with legal systems outside the US. Good info, though.
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@astonerbum said:
What is REALLY interesting is: Even electronic versions are not useable. The I Agree button is CRAP because of the following:
1) If I sign a contract BEFORE buying a box with software, then I am 100% aware of my purchased contract BUT, I am not given the contract before I buy, only afterwards which means I BOUGHT something and agree to some licensing for how to use it. Most EULAs also state that they can change at any time with no notice. Meaning that tomorrow my EULA can state that using the software costs 10000 dollars a minute. I don't even have to tell users. The point is this EULA business is complete and utter horsecrap and I am sure much of it will soon be rejected by courts.Ultimately, an end user needs the ability to return the program for a full refund if they disagree with the license. I'm fairly certain there have been some court cases where the court forced the retailer and/or software publisher to provide a refund. Usually they try to avoid this problem by sealing the CD and putting a big fat sticker on it saying "if you break the seal, you're agreeing to the license, and you ain't getting a refund with a broken seal". Obviously they need to have a printed copy of the license available outside of the seal.
(I realize this has frequently been difficult in practice for many people... but I assume that we're talking about this in principle for the moment...)
Having an electronic "I Agree" button in these cases just reinforces the user's agreement with the license terms.
I would be curious to know if the "EULA can change at any time with no notice" terms have ever been upheld in court. Well, even if that term is crap, the judge would almost certainly just tell the publisher that the changes are null and void, but the original terms still apply.
@astonerbum said:
3) I never stated that me putting up a sign on my sidewalk is acceptable law. I am saying that the contract given in software boxes is exactly like that, you can only see the contract AFTER the purchase, it is a reasonable hassle and possibly monetary loss to disagree with the contract, and the contract can usually be changed at any moment.
Also please don't point out my lack of knowledge of all laws. I am simply pointing out the flaw of EULAs and possibly having a debate about it, not everything is a flame you know...My point was that it's a bad analogy because negligence has nothing to do with contract law.
You may be able to argue that certain terms in certain EULAs are crap, especially those that a "reasonable person" wouldn't expect to be there. But here's what a reasonable person would expect in just about any EULA: you may use this software on a limited number of computers (i.e. one, two); you can't modify it; you can't reverse engineer it; you can't copy & distribute it; and if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. By and large, these terms have been held to be entirely valid, except the prohibition on reverse engineering is far less broad than many publishers would like (to have you believe).
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@lrucker said:
@Carnildo said:
Microsoft has survived pretty well with this, hasn't it? Even when some crappy app is crashing because of crappy code, this blame will usually go to Microsoft. If it's a crappy driver, well, the same thing happens. Hell, my HP Laptop used to barf because of the crappy Intel M830 drivers; even the "fix" wouldn't really work.@danixdefcon5 said:
@astonerbum said:
Could this be Power Computing? They used to have a license for building Macs back in the mid-90's. They got shafted when Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.In the Apple VS Apple-Compatible computer vendor (forget the name of the company)
Sheesh, had Power Computing stayed on that path, MacOS might've actually kept its foothold against Windows. Oh well...MacOS might have kept its foothold, but Apple wouldn't have survived. The third-party vendors were targeting Apple's only profitable market: high-end desktop systems.
And doing so badly. I had one of those clones; Photoshop did not work on it. Of course the users didn't complain to PowerComputing or Adobe; no, they complained to Apple.
I think Apple would've survived Power Computing pretty well. Back in 1997, there were still enough "killer apps" on Mac to keep 'em going; the only real problem with Macs were the pricing. System 7 was as easy as you could get, and it could read DOS-formatted floppy disks. By just selling MacOS in a similar OEM licensing as MS does, they would've made enough profits, even if they didn't sell as much Apple Macs as they should've done.
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Copy outside of the seal:
Yes, if it is shipped WITH the box where I read the copy BEFORE opening the seal with no work on my part in trying to acquire it. By making it a bit difficult for the user to get the contract beforehand is grounds to call this deception, and deception usually does not play well in court (deception of the consumer not deception of the jury which by definition is mandatory).
Regarding EULA:
You are right if terms are unreasonable then they can be contested. They need to make EULA like BSD or Apache licenses, there are a few to pick from, then pick them. That way users have to know say 10 or 20 EULAs, not one per website they visit and per software they install, and per service they use. These EULAs need to be inspected but consumer affairs and approved before being provided to the users. This will benefit the consumer.
I am dropping the analogy point because it is irrelevant to this topic. Lets just leave it at I take it back.
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@Voidpointer said:
If you buy a car, and change the battery (or the freaking engine, or the shocks, or pretty much anything on the car), you don't have to call Chevrolet to tell them you need to start it up again (although some radios will reset to a "omg I may have been stolen" mode, requiring a special firmware tool to unlock, which is equally retarded). You don't have to call ASUS everytime you plug in a new power strip.
Oh, for cripes sake! Comparing a turkey to a daydream doesn't make sense - one is physically present, the other isn't. Neither does comparing a physical piece of hardware like an automobile or a motherboard to a non-physical item like software - the automobile or motherboard is physically present, the software isn't. (The digital media may or may not be present; the software never is. Unless, of course, you can explain how you can actually touch the software itself and not the media it resides on.)
You can bet your ass that, if the day ever comes that replicator technology like that in sci-fi movies is actually available, Chevy and Asus will try and come up with a way to keep people from cloning their cars and electronic components; they're not going to want you to copy their cars or motherboards and sell them to your friends. Of course, that technology doesn't exist, so they don't have to worry about it now.
On the other hand, copying software is just a [b]little[/b] bit easier than copying a car, isn't it? I'm sure even someone with no logical skills can manage to copy a software product from a CD to their hard disk or another CD, or onto a web server somewhere. Try that with your Chevy Suburban and let me know how that goes, though.
There's a [b]very[/b] big difference between protecting intellectual property and physical property. If you can't understand the differences, please find another line of work; technology is obviously not where your career path lies.
@Voidpointer said:
Piracy is a vicious cycle of DRM-knee-jerk reactions
Spoken like a true /.'er who doesn't rely on revenue from software sales for their income.
The current DRM measures may well be knee-jerk reaction to the worsening issue of software piracy. It'll probably take some time for things to shake out to a form that's reasonable for all sides of the issue (except the pirates, of course). I don't necessarily agree with the current implementations, but I can certainly understand the reasoning behind the efforts.
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@bstorer said:
@ammoQ said:
If I was to buy it, I would want to install it on my PC at home and on my notebook. This already makes 2 installs. Add one more install when I choose to upgrade my XP box to Vista (which would be sure-as-hell a clean install, not an upgrade). So I've already used my three install attempts... but then, since we've assumed it's a great game, I surely want to play it again in 2011 or 2015, for good old times sake. Boom. Sorry, can't do that. I have to rely on EA's support to be available for all the years to come.
What you've just described is an uncommon occurance that might be a problem for some in 3 to 7 years. Again, I'm not supporting DRM as a concept, but this seems like a really lame time to be taking such a huge stand.Not really - as a legit owner of Spore I installed it on my laptop (for quiet times in work) and on my home PC - two usages already taken up. My home PC then decided to corrupt it's hard disk and required a reinstall (and this was used as an excuse to shove more RAM in and go 64bit). If I reinstall on my home PC I have used my 3 installs pretty much within a week of owning the game.
If I downloaded a pirated copy I wouldn't have any such issues...
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@spenk said:
@bstorer said:
@ammoQ said:
If I was to buy it, I would want to install it on my PC at home and on my notebook. This already makes 2 installs. Add one more install when I choose to upgrade my XP box to Vista (which would be sure-as-hell a clean install, not an upgrade).
What you've just described is an uncommon occurance that might be a problem for some in 3 to 7 years. Again, I'm not supporting DRM as a concept, but this seems like a really lame time to be taking such a huge stand.
So I've already used my three install attempts... but then, since we've assumed it's a great game, I surely want to play it again in 2011 or 2015, for good old times sake. Boom. Sorry, can't do that. I have to rely on EA's support to be available for all the years to come.Not really - as a legit owner of Spore I installed it on my laptop (for quiet times in work) and on my home PC - two usages already taken up. My home PC then decided to corrupt it's hard disk and required a reinstall (and this was used as an excuse to shove more RAM in and go 64bit). If I reinstall on my home PC I have used my 3 installs pretty much within a week of owning the game.
If I downloaded a pirated copy I wouldn't have any such issues...
The moral of this story: Don't buy from EA.
This is exactly what is needed. The consumers need to get some RIDICULOUS shit poured onto them, then get pissed off, and refuse the title, demand EULA-based refunds from EA, and have EA's 2 year super-hyped product go to shit.
Edit: A fair open market will correct itself, there is no need for new laws. Consumers will learn their lesson quickly when extremely ridiculous crap is given to them.
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@astonerbum said:
The moral of this story: Don't buy from EA.
I never claimed to make the purchase in a moment of sanity - had some vouchers to spend and it looked interesting enough.
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@joemck said:
Yes, except when it comes to "stealing." The key thing about theft is that it deprives the other party of the thing stolen. If I steal your TV, you can no longer use it. If, instead, I could somehow "scan" your TV and make an exact replica of it, I would not have committed theft, even if some intellectual property right (patents, or the design of the TV, perhaps) were violated.
When somebody pirates a game, the company making it still has it and can still sell it. It has not been stolen. The pirate is most certainly guilty of copyright infringement, however.
You are basically nitpicking at the definition if "theft" - both "stealing" and "copying" are at the very least crimes resulting in damages. In modern times, where information is a powerful commodity, the term theft applies. If you don't like it, write to the newspaper when they report "Hackers steal social security numbers from xyz servers" which you do hear about now and then. Nobody lost their social security cards, but their data was stolen.
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@joemck said:
@Zylon said:
Clearly, the only solution is to go back to distributing games on ROM cartridges.
Winner! Not just harder to pirate (there are writable cartridges, but they cost quite a bit), but zero load time.Would it be all that hard to make an image of a ROM cartridge, and then create a virtual ROM loader that loads that image?
Not sure how a ROM cartridge is really any different than a CD-ROM, which used to be secure before people figured out how to write virtual CD image readers that acted (and mounted) just like CD drives.
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@KenW said:
There's a very big difference between protecting intellectual property and physical property.
I actually sort of disagree with this. Protection of physical and intellectual property ultimately fall back on the law and the physical force of the government. I know you were meaning more in a practical sense that someone couldn't copy an SUV but could copy software, but right now copying software is more like stealing the SUV rather than copying it. Both happen and both require law enforcement efforts to protect against.
@KenW said:
Spoken like a true /.'er who doesn't rely on revenue from software sales for their income.
The current DRM measures may well be knee-jerk reaction to the worsening issue of software piracy. It'll probably take some time for things to shake out to a form that's reasonable for all sides of the issue (except the pirates, of course). I don't necessarily agree with the current implementations, but I can certainly understand the reasoning behind the efforts.
Agreed. I understand the reasoning, but I don't like DRM. I think it is a bad short-term decision for companies to push DRM and I think their best bet would be altering their business model a bit to cut as much piracy as possible. Just as we can't stop car theft completely, we will never stop piracy. One thing I do have to disagree with is the old "DRM never works" line. If DRM keeps being built into all electronics, there eventually will be no practical way to copy digital content illegally. I really don't want to see that day to come, because I don't think DRM provides enough benefit for the publisher or consumer to make up for all the PITA it creates for both. To use the car analogy again: I support locks on doors, but I don't think the car needs 18 levels of differing security -- including biometrics -- to be able to drive it. It costs producer and consumer more and it just pisses people off and makes them to think of your product as a burdern rather than something desirable. That will hurt the bottom line, especially for things like games where the entire point is to give people a brief escape from real-life bullshit.
I must admit, I'm actually impressed and glad that these forums can have a semi-reasonable discussion on DRM. This is way better than Slashdot where not conforming to the groupthink automatically makes you a troll.
