Mod maker thinks he's the police


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Gąska said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    If someone steals a car, did they break sales agreement?

    If someone makes a copy of a car, and the original owner didn't lose their car, has anything been stolen?


  • Banned

    @masonwheeler if I drive a car that isn't mine and the owner neither knows about it nor agreed to it, do I break any contract between me and the owner?

    If I use software that isn't mine and the owner neither knows about it nor agreed to it, do I break any license?



  • @masonwheeler
    If someone forces you to clean their bathroom without paying you, they didn't steal from you because they didn't take any Thing?


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @izzion Yes. What happened was not theft. (Please note that I didn't say anything I didn't actually say.)



  • @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    FTFY. There is no excuse for this. DRM is hacking, and it needs to be legally recognized as such and banned outright.

    How is this situation (in this case, not talking about rootkits and such) anywhere close to hacking? The mod checks an API, and either loads or doesn't. You choose to run the software knowing that that's what it does. And the source is available, so anyone with the knowledge to do it can look for themselves and make a DRM free version.

    People are free to decide what their efforts are worth. While I dislike DRM because they're a poor answer to a real problem, I wouldn't call it in principle immoral. Yes, some DRM schemes are immoral, but not the concept of DRM itself.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Gąska said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @powerlord said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Gąska said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    I can't help to point out that everyone missed TRWTF here. The mod's author says that pirates don't respect the license, while technically pirates have no license to respect. License is a right to use software given by owner. The owner never gave the pirates any right to use the software.

    The game itself has a license, which the pirates have chosen not to respect. That's not the same as the pirates having no license to respect.

    If someone steals a car, did they break sales agreement?

    If you don't pay a hooker, is it rape or shoplifting?


  • FoxDev

    @Polygeekery said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    If you don't pay a hooker, is it rape or shoplifting?

    What have rugby players got to do with this?


  • Banned

    @Polygeekery said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Gąska said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @powerlord said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Gąska said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    I can't help to point out that everyone missed TRWTF here. The mod's author says that pirates don't respect the license, while technically pirates have no license to respect. License is a right to use software given by owner. The owner never gave the pirates any right to use the software.

    The game itself has a license, which the pirates have chosen not to respect. That's not the same as the pirates having no license to respect.

    If someone steals a car, did they break sales agreement?

    If you don't pay a hooker, is it rape or shoplifting?

    Breach of contract. And because breach of contract is a form of abuse, and rape is defined as sexual abuse, and hookers sell sex, you can say that not paying a hooker is a kind of rape.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    How is this situation (in this case, not talking about rootkits and such) anywhere close to hacking?

    Well, I don't know what you call it when someone causes another person's computer to act against its owner's wishes and interests, but I call that hacking.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    How is this situation (in this case, not talking about rootkits and such) anywhere close to hacking?

    Well, I don't know what you call it when someone causes another person's computer to act against its owner's wishes and interests, but I call that hacking.

    Umm, yeah. That's a pretty broad term for "hacking." That's like saying a paywall for advanced features in software is "hacking." Or, fuck, even a login screen. If the developer adds something that prevents one from using the app they specifically developed (as opposed to crossing the bounds into preventing use outside of that app), that's a-ok in my book. Especially if it's free software, as this mod is.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @masonwheeler I call it "installing Oracle software" :rimshot:

    Seriously -- if you convince someone to want your product, it doesn't matter if it's in their best interests or not, they chose to install it anyway, you're in the clear. If you sneak into someone's computer via a backdoor and install Fallout 4, that's hacking. DRM is nasty and vile, but it's part of the product.



  • @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    Well, I don't know what you call it when someone causes another person's computer to act against its owner's wishes and interests, but I call that hacking.

    That definition you used is, I think, too broad. If my program doesn't do what my user wished it did, that doesn't constitute me hacking my user, it's just my user being ignorant of what my program does. From what I've read, all the mod does if you fail the check is not move forward from the license screen when you click Accept. I presume clicking cancel (and thus not installing the mod) works as expected. Since the license text probably includes some language to the effect that it's only licensed to use with non-pirated versions, clicking accept with a pirated version is essentially a lie, and the system is equipped to recognize it as such and not move forward.

    I don't see this as a hack in any way.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    it's just my user being ignorant of what my program does

    Or you being ignorant of what your users want, I mean, the fault can be either side, but it's not hacking.



  • @Yamikuronue said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    I call it "installing Oracle software"

    I was about to post 'recommending Apple stuff' :)


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @Yamikuronue said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @masonwheeler I call it "installing Oracle software" :rimshot:

    Seriously -- if you convince someone to want your product, it doesn't matter if it's in their best interests or not, they chose to install it anyway, you're in the clear. If you sneak into someone's computer via a backdoor and install Fallout 4, that's hacking. DRM is nasty and vile, but it's part of the product.

    So where do you see the Sony rootkits fitting in there?



  • @Dreikin Seems pretty much a case of sneaking into the computer, so hacking. There's no expectation of a music cd coming with software in the first place, nor a prompt warning that it would be installed, nor anything of the like. Sony sold the music, and the rootkit piggybacked on that.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Dreikin Seems pretty much a case of sneaking into the computer, so hacking. There's no expectation of a music cd coming with software in the first place, nor a prompt warning that it would be installed, nor anything of the like. Sony sold the music, and the rootkit piggybacked on that.

    And yet it's DRM, so part of the product.



  • @Dreikin said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    And yet it's DRM, so part of the product.

    That equivalence doesn't follow. The product is what is being advertised. Things outside of that that the seller wants you to get but doesn't want you to know you are getting are not part of the product, even if the seller thinks of them as such.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Dreikin said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    And yet it's DRM, so part of the product.

    That equivalence doesn't follow. The product is what is being advertised. Things outside of that that the seller wants you to get but doesn't want you to know you are getting are not part of the product, even if the seller thinks of them as such.

    I'm going off the possible implications of what she wrote, not what I personally think about it. (Which, if you're curious, is that all content that is bought (rather than rented) ought to be DRM free. Being "licensed, not sold" is BS for consumer purchases and ought to be banned. Things like Netflix or Spotify are acceptable uses of DRM to me. Things like Comixology and Kindle purchases are not. And any DRM installed without notice and consent is hacking.)

    I'm pretty sure she sides with us on this particular example, but the way she phrased it, combined with inborn :pendant:ry, demanded the question be asked ;)


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @Dreikin Yeah, I'm not even going to try to pretend there aren't DRM solutions that are hacking, but most DRM is benign. Kindle DRM, for example, just stops you from reading the books on any device they don't know you have, so you can't give them to friends. Sucks, and maybe unethical, but not "hacking".



  • @Dreikin Fair enough. It's a pretty gnarly subject so any kind of generalization will allow for "gotcha" scenarios.

    As for purchases vs licensing, the problem is how to deal with IP in a time when duplicating and transmitting information is so cheap as to be free. For example, if you buy a car, that doesn't give you the right to copy the car and sell duplicates of the car, even if you had the manufacturing capacity to do so. The shape of the car, the brand, patented technologies and such, "belong" to the manufacturer. You are effectively only licensing the use of the shape of the car, it's just that with physical objects there's no need to explicitly state it.

    If you were to buy a game, as opposed to licencing it, you would still only have the right to use it within reason (lend it to friends, say), but I doubt you are saying that you should be allowed to resell copies, or to make your own works using the characters and setting and such as if they were your own. Unless you are in the GPL camp, I guess.

    DRM is a means of trying to enforce the rights the law gives the owner of IP. Unfortunately, it's a shitty method, and some devs go to extremes that should frankly be deemed ilegal.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Dreikin Fair enough. It's a pretty gnarly subject so any kind of generalization will allow for "gotcha" scenarios.

    As for purchases vs licensing, the problem is how to deal with IP in a time when duplicating and transmitting information is so cheap as to be free. For example, if you buy a car, that doesn't give you the right to copy the car and sell duplicates of the car, even if you had the manufacturing capacity to do so. The shape of the car, the brand, patented technologies and such, "belong" to the manufacturer. You are effectively only licensing the use of the shape of the car, it's just that with physical objects there's no need to explicitly state it.

    If you were to buy a game, as opposed to licencing it, you would still only have the right to use it within reason (lend it to friends, say), but I doubt you are saying that you should be allowed to resell copies, or to make your own works using the characters and setting and such as if they were your own. Unless you are in the GPL camp, I guess.

    DRM is a means of trying to enforce the rights the law gives the owner of IP. Unfortunately, it's a shitty method, and some devs go to extremes that should frankly be deemed ilegal.

    Sure, but the same applies to, e.g., physical books and movies, and (at least in the US) the laws already cover those sensibly (including the ability to make personal copies for certain purposes). OTOH, using the same exact restrictions of the laws on physical media keeps us from having the benefits of digital media - why shouldn't I be able to have the book downloaded in the kindle app on my phone and my tablet and my desktop and my laptop?

    I'd actually be okay with licensing if it didn't have limits on personal copies and usage. I'm also already okay with licensing in certain domains like stock images for commercial use and stuff like that (which I don't really consider "consumer" purchases in the same sense).


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Dreikin said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    And yet it's DRM, so part of the product.

    That equivalence doesn't follow. The product is what is being advertised. Things outside of that that the seller wants you to get but doesn't want you to know you are getting are not part of the product, even if the seller thinks of them as such.

    And how is that different from any other DRM? It's not advertised and publishers want you to know as little about it as possible.

    If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed.
    -- Peter Lee, Disney executive


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    DRM is a means of trying to enforce the rights the law gives the owner of IP. Unfortunately, it's a shitty method, and some devs go to extremes that should frankly be deemed ilegal.

    Actually that's the other reason why it should be banned entirely.

    Copyright violation is breaking the law. DRM helps publishers enforce the law against those who would violate their copyrights.

    What do we call a person, in any other context, who takes it upon himself to enforce his own interpretation of the law, by his own private methods and his own private standards of determining guilt or innocence? And what is the legal status of such actions?

    Why should it be any different when the law being broken is copyright law?


  • FoxDev

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    And how is that different from any other DRM? It's not advertised and publishers want you to know as little about it as possible.

    If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed.
    -- Peter Lee, Disney executive

    1. Devs and publishers may not shout it from the rooftops, but they're not secretive about it either. Heck, EA specifically mentioned their use of SecuROM in some of their products.
    2. Everyone already knows most games have DRM anyway.
    3. Disney is a terrible example to use to prove a point.

  • Impossible Mission - B

    @RaceProUK said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    1. Everyone already knows most games have DRM anyway.

    If by "everyone" you mean "a very small, very well-informed subset of the population, to which most of the people reading this belong," then yes. :P

    1. Disney is a terrible example to use to prove a point.

    Why?


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    DRM helps publishers enforce the law against those who would violate their copyrights.

    DRM helps publishers try to enforce their views of how they think their products should be allowed to be used. Whether that equates to the requirements of copyright laws is a different matter.


  • FoxDev

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    1. Disney is a terrible example to use to prove a point.

    Why?

    They just are


  • 🚽 Regular

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Kian said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    DRM is a means of trying to enforce the rights the law gives the owner of IP. Unfortunately, it's a shitty method, and some devs go to extremes that should frankly be deemed ilegal.

    Actually that's the other reason why it should be banned entirely.

    Copyright violation is breaking the law. DRM helps publishers enforce the law against those who would violate their copyrights.

    Benign DRM like the one in the OP isn't enforcing anything. Its more like locking the door to your house to prevent burglary.

    Why should it be any different when the law being broken is copyright law?

    The OP is simply choosing to have his OWN software behave as he likes. As long as it doesn't have any adverse effects on the user's computer outside of that software, no law should prevent that.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Dreikin yeah, and that's exactly why it's so problematic. Like any other form of vigilantism, it flies in the face of our entire legal tradition.

    You're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. With a vigilante, you're not. You're not even guilty until proven innocent; you're simply guilty unless you manage to convince the vigilante otherwise, according to his whims and personal standard of proof. And if he's having a bad day (in this case, software bugs, server problems, network trouble, etc.) it might go badly for you where it wouldn't otherwise.

    It gets extra problematic when the vigilante and the alleged victim are one and the same, as they tend to lose objectivity and perspective, and mete out wildly disproportionate and inappropriate punishments. (See: DRM disabling hardware, installing rootkits, etc.)

    So if we don't allow this behavior anywhere else in society, why is it OK in the context of digital copyright?



  • @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    Why should it be any different when the law being broken is copyright law?

    Do you leave your house's door unlocked and trust the police to handle situations where people enter your house and make off with your stuff? Or do you lock it under the assumption that anyone that doesn't have a key probably shouldn't be allowed in?

    @The_Quiet_One said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    Benign DRM like the one in the OP isn't enforcing anything. Its more like locking the door to your house to prevent burglary.

    Dang, :hanzo:'d!


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @The_Quiet_One said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    Benign DRM like the one in the OP isn't enforcing anything. Its more like locking the door to your house to prevent burglary.

    No, it's someone else locking the door to my house, and it's 100% unjustifiable.

    Piracy is their problem. It is not my problem, and they have zero right to make it my problem unless and until they can prove in a court of law that I am part of the problem! To take any weaker stance than that is a legal and moral abomination.


  • FoxDev

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    No, it's someone else locking the door to my house, and it's 100% unjustifiable.

    I should point out that the check in the mod doesn't stop you playing the game, only from using that mod with the game: you can still play the game without it.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    it's someone else locking the door to my house

    It's a gym locking the door after-hours despite your having a membership. You paid for the right to be let in, but only when they tell you it's okay. Don't like their hours? Don't go to that gym. Problem solved.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Yamikuronue Again, "the gym" is inside my house. It's on my property, and therefore it needs to behave itself as a guest in my home, instead of acting like it owns the place.

    Put simply, my real property rights as owner of a computer trump all "intellectual property" rights of stuff that runs on it, and I firmly believe that nobody has any right to say otherwise without first applying due process of law. And to be honest, I don't understand how any American can find that statement the least bit controversial. Since when do we believe otherwise in any other context?



  • @masonwheeler The problem is that PC game sales were effectively dead in the early 2000s because of the rampant piracy. Steam pretty much single handedly saved PC gaming.

    If DRM is a problem, use GOG.



  • @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Yamikuronue Again, "the gym" is inside my house. It's on my property, and therefore it needs to behave itself as a guest in my home, instead of acting like it owns the place.

    So if you want someone to stay over for the night you wouldn't let them close the door to the guest bedroom, and if their cellphone ends up on eBay after the night then it's just you exercising your property rights?


  • 🚽 Regular

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @Yamikuronue Again, "the gym" is inside my house. It's on my property, and therefore it needs to behave itself as a guest in my home, instead of acting like it owns the place.

    Put simply, my real property rights as owner of a computer trump all "intellectual property" rights of stuff that runs on it, and I firmly believe that nobody has any right to say otherwise without applying due process of law.

    I don't know how to explain this any more simply... You installed software that someone else designed for you. Yes it's on your computer, and the developer shouldn't be allowed to mess with stuff on your computer outside of the software but the developer has the right to let the software, within its bounds, behave however it wants. If you don't like the way it behaves, you can uninstall it.

    I dislike draconian DRM mechanisms too, but outlawing a way a piece of software behaves that only affects the experience of the software itself sets a bad precident.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @lucas1 said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    If DRM is a problem, use GOG.

    Umm... doesn't the success of GOG undermine your entire argument?


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Maciejasjmj said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    So if you want someone to stay over for the night you wouldn't let them close the door to the guest bedroom, and if their cellphone ends up on eBay after the night then it's just you exercising your property rights?

    Uhh... what? That's venturing perilously close to TDEMSYR territory...


  • FoxDev

    @lucas1 said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    If DRM is a problem, use GOG.

    GOG sells games with DRM now


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @The_Quiet_One said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    es it's on your computer, and the developer shouldn't be allowed to mess with stuff on your computer outside of the software

    ...but they still do. It happens all the time, over and over and over again. The Sony Rootkit may be the most notorious example, but it's nowhere near the only one!

    Again, my earlier analogy to vigilante justice applies. If vigilantes could be trusted to always enforce the laws fairly and never overstepped, do you think we'd have a problem with them?

    No one has yet given an answer to my fundamental question: given that it's completely non-controversial that this sort of behavior is entirely unacceptable in any other context, why should it be considered OK in the context of copyright? Until you can answer that, no other argument makes any sense.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    it's completely non-controversial that this sort of behavior is entirely unacceptable in any other context

    tell that to everyone writing angry letters about "FREE SPEECH!" whenever someone tells them they're wrong. Generally, restraining people, hurting them, taking their money, or killing them are powers reserved for the government; people are allowed to do other things on behalf of others all the time. If you steal my friend's wallet and I refuse to sell you any of my books because of it, that's pretty much uncontroversial.



  • @masonwheeler
    I think it's a fair analogy for your position, as has been presented so far.

    Your position is, once something (someone's software) is in your physical property, regardless of how it got there, you have absolute right to do whatever you want with it. Which makes it a fair analogy that if a guest was in your house, you could make them do what ever you want because hey, they're in your property.

    Software is someone else's property. They have the right to require payment for that property before someone else uses it.

    I agree that current law is probably slightly too tipped in favor of software makers, and that DRM schemes that prevent resale of purchased software violate the doctrine of first sale that has been pretty common in physical property for basically forever.

    But to say that software makers have no right to use technical copy protection mechanisms to prevent people from stealing their property is even worse in the other direction. Does the US Government not have the right to put counterfeit protection mechanisms in currency? Do handbag manufacturers not have the right to put hidden identifying marks in their goods to make it easier to identify Chinese knockoffs? Do you not have the right to arm the car alarm in your new vehicle, to make it more difficult for someone else to steal?

    Edit: And yes, if someone's copy protection mechanism causes damage to other people's property (the Sony Rootkit), then they should be liable for that damage.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @masonwheeler said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    @The_Quiet_One said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    es it's on your computer, and the developer shouldn't be allowed to mess with stuff on your computer outside of the software

    ...but they still do. It happens all the time, over and over and over again. The Sony Rootkit may be the most notorious example, but it's nowhere near the only one!

    Yeah and we've mentioned over and over again in this thread that we aren't talking about those cases. Those are cases where the software clearly overstepped its bounds and should have the book thrown at them. We are talking about what happened in the OP.

    Again, my earlier analogy to vigilante justice applies.

    Only to your rootkit and similar scenarios.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Yamikuronue Of course, but what does any of that have to do with what I'm saying here? 😕


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @izzion said in Mod maker thinks he's the police:

    Your position is, once something (someone's software) is in your physical property, regardless of how it got there, you have absolute right to do whatever you want with it. Which makes it a fair analogy that if a guest was in your house, you could make them do what ever you want because hey, they're in your property.

    No, that's not my position. My position is that I have the absolute right to a fair trial, with the benefits of due process of law and the Presumption of Innocence, before anyone can take action against me for allegedly violating it. DRM throws our entire legal tradition out the window.

    Software is someone else's property. They have the right to require payment for that property before someone else uses it.

    I never said otherwise.

    I agree that current law is probably slightly too tipped in favor of software makers, and that DRM schemes that prevent resale of purchased software violate the doctrine of first sale that has been pretty common in physical property for basically forever.

    Yup...

    But to say that software makers have no right to use technical copy protection mechanisms to prevent people from stealing their property is even worse in the other direction.

    Why?

    Does the US Government not have the right to put counterfeit protection mechanisms in currency? Do handbag manufacturers not have the right to put hidden identifying marks in their goods to make it easier to identify Chinese knockoffs? Do you not have the right to arm the car alarm in your new vehicle, to make it more difficult for someone else to steal?

    You know what the difference is between all those things and software? Everything, really, but most importantly they exist as tangible objects in the physical realm. The US Government's counterfeit protection measures and the handbag's secret identifying marks, and even the car alarm, do nothing whatsoever to prevent counterfeiting. The only thing they can do is make counterfeits easier to identify, and that's as it should be. Why should the rules be different in software? Simply because it's technically possible? If you adopt that as a general principle, you end up in "might makes right" territory very quickly.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @masonwheeler You're pretending it's entirely unheard-of for one party to act on behalf of another party and do things which are not otherwise illegal in response to actions that are (probably) illegal. Specifically, you're pretending the publisher has no right to protect the creator's intellectual property.



  • @masonwheeler
    So instead we go with because you have the Might to make unlimited copies of someone else's work and redistribute it (or get it from a torrenting site or whatever), you have the Right to use it until and unless someone catches you, and runs you through an expensive trial.

    TDEMSYR, I believe the saying is...


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Yamikuronue No, I'm claiming that they have no right to do so extralegally. There's a huge difference there.


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