Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

Hmm...Perhaps everyone could step back for a day. We've talked over this before and rarely gotten anywhere.

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

Hmm.

One of these is not like the other! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Seriously. I have a copy of Starcraft in my possesion, but no original CD. Slam-dunk piracy? Bzzt. Try again. The copy was made and the original was later stolen..

You did not specify "illegal" in your post. Under this quote from your first post:

" Levy taxes against companies that manufacture recordable media software, hardware, and media. Individuals that make the software can be made liable for infringment suits if their software is involved in piracy"

ANYTHING could be made liable for piracy.

Actually yes that are. Side note: The "calm down and go away" angle is really trite technique, especially when there's been next to no flaming going on at all.

I'd debate a bit more but you seem to be changing your story; your initial list would do many of the things that you said it wouldn't (making IP addresses illegal, making software makers liable, etc).

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

The best copy protection is simple, non-invasive copy protection. Treat your customers like customers. Follow Stardock's, Malfador's, and even LucasArts' example. Piracy will happen, but this is no reason to piss off your customers ('lo StarForce). No reason at all.

The software industry learned its lesson about bad/annoying/over-restrictive protection once (remember dongles?) -- looks like they will have to learn it again. The best way to fight piracy is not with technology, it's with quality, and building a rapport with the customer. Treating all customers (as the only ones affected by it are the ones who bought the game) like criminals doesn't build rapport.


Same here.

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

I was going to post about the "calm down" stuff, but Phoenix-D already covered that. Thanks.

I was speaking of fair use in a reasonable sense, not what may or may not be on the law books. Politicians almost never have any understanding of the real world in any case. Any law that prohibits me from making an excessive number of backups, mix tapes, etc. for personal use is an unrealistic law. CDs/DVDs are extremely fragile media, and it is unreasonable to force people to have to buy them again when they break. CD-Rs are even more unstable, prone to more random failure (even sitting in storage) than the originals. Hence, making 2 or 3 backups greatly increases the odds that you will actually still have a backup in a few years. So does using a copy regularly instead of the original. This isn't quite as relevant for movies, which are rarely used compared to music and game CDs.

What is important is the license to use the music/movie/software/etc., not the physical media itself. We are already there in the corporate software market, just need to go further. Game CD keys of yore were also going in the right direction, since they are a concrete embodiment of your purchase license (except when you download a keygen, but that is beside the point). The heinous CD copy protection schemes (especially the ones from Starforce and Sony) were three steps backwards.

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

Fyron, my calm down posts were in direct response to your overblowing of my statements - and I stand by them. I know there was no flaming, but the sarcastic remarks aren't helpful discussion either.

Fruthermore, you say that laws prhibiting the number of backups you can make is unrealistic, but explain to me how many backups does it take to become unrealistic. Let's suppose you backup SE4 10 times? What possible reason would you have to do that? I can understand two or three, I myself make a backup of all my program disks every couple years and keep the originals safely stored and exclusively run off the backup copies and destroy the old backups once I'm done - I love my sheds-anything Snapper mulcher.

As for registration keys, Microsoft seems to have some good ideas with office 2003 and similar.


Sivran, american culture today is a price-senstive, fast-service-based culture. Few people today appreciate good quality customer service anymore. Most people want more for less as fast as possible. The only exception being Gas which americans have proven to tolerate continual price hikes with little serious response.

I beta tested a program about 8 years ago where the developer encoded a system that would check the registration codes whenever you completed the automatic update at my suggestion after several early betas were leaked. We also decided that if the same registration code was used more than once during the update process, that it would disable the program and flag that registration so if anyone else attempted to use that registration, they would be alerted their version is pirated and the program would default into a trial/cripple-period.

The system was actually very successful, the developer caught 2 pirates and identified about 15 downloaders who didn't know any better and was victimized by the pirates.

Pheonix-D, making a backup, then loosing (in your case stolen) the original copy doesn't count as piracy. In the same item, I wouldn't count people who convert their cd's into mp3's and then wind up having their cd's stolen out of their car as pirates.

As for my point about individuals, I shouldn't need to explicitly state each and every iota of what it means. It should be common sense that I am refering to people who make software solely for bypassing copy protections.

furthermore; "" Individuals that make the software can be made liable for infringment suits if their software is involved in piracy" "

I didn't say anything, I specifically stated software.

And I think people are forgetting that these are just ideas being thrown out for discussion, I get the distinct impression that some of you actually think this is a piece of legislation ?!

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

"Fyron, my calm down posts were in direct response to your overblowing of my statements - and I stand by them. I know there was no flaming, but the sarcastic remarks aren't helpful discussion either."

Illustrating how your more extreme proposals would negatively affect many things unrelated to piracy was certainly not "overblowing" anything. Any proposal must be examined to the fullest extent before implementation can be considered. I wasn't generally trying to be sarcastic, just extrapolating on the results.

And besides, as someone else said already, there is no way you can possibly prove that the purpose of a piece of software designed to duplicate CDs or whatever was piracy. There may be the occasional item specifically labeled "Pirate CD Ripper" or something, but that is by far the exception, not the rule. How do you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were making it for piracy purposes and not so that people could exercise their legal or reasonable fair use rights? There is no "common sense" test that could be applied in a court of law here that I can think of.

"Furthermore, you say that laws prohibiting the number of backups you can make is unrealistic..."

It's not even relevant why someone would want to make 10 backups. There is no need to have an arbitrary limit on the amount of backups you can make. If I wanted to make 10 backup copies of SE4 out of paranoia, does that really make me a criminal? Why does there need to be a legal limitation? Its already illegal to give even a single "backup" copy to someone else.

"...I get the distinct impression that some of you actually think this is a piece of legislation ?!"

I didn't see anyone treating them as legislation currently on the table?

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

Oh, a reason for making 10 backup copies of the original CD? That's a little trickier; a reason for making arbitraty X+1 backups of the software (where X is the legal limit, of course)? Not difficult; suppose you make regular, full backups of your computer. Suppose that you put these backups onto write-once media (such as CD-R's or DVD-R's). You don't have any particular need to destroy the old ones, and, in fact, older backups are sometimes useful if you get hit with a sleeper worm, virus, trojan, or what have you, or just need to recover a file you thought you'd never need again five years ago. Well, if you're making routine, full backups, that copywrighted software that's on your machine gets copied to the backup. You never go through and destroy them (pointless, after all, and occasionally useful to have an ancient copy) so after an arbitrary X+1 number of full backups, you've exceeded the legal limit of X. If you happen to have a full copy of the data on your hard disk (for whatever reason - perhaps the CD is in a network drive, and it was worth the space to cut down on the traffic; perhaps the game runs more smoothly when it doesn't have to reffer to the CD every level, but just the hard disk (it's rather common for Hard Disk load times to be much shorter than CD load times); perhaps you just want to be able to plug your own music CD's into the player while playing the game - why is fairly immaterial) then those backups include a full copy of the CD data.

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

I never said my idea would stop piracy. (See above quote)

The problem IS that making copies is rediculiously cheap. And Software protections do not change that in any way. As it is, the Software industry's only solution has been to raise the prices of games to offset the loss of sales due to piracy. Well,.. the industry WILL die if that continues. No matter how good a game is, $89 for a game is way over budget.. I just wait for it to hit the bargain bin then buy the game.

I laughed out loud when I read an article about 'Bargain Bin Sales' where they said the 'budget/old' game sales were quickly becomming a large chunk of the industries total sales.. (I believe it was approaching 20%) That's allot. What I see in those numbers is that $19.95 is a price people are willing to pay, and not that people have a fondness for 'Retro Gamming'...

Anyways, since none of you are pirates, discussing ways to curb the growth of piracy will always feel like 'YOUR' rights and liberties are suffering for the sake of fighting piracy.

The ultimate solution (which publishers will never adopt) is to lower the prices of the games to 'reasonable' levels. If you could pick up the latest games at $19.95 would you? I would. If the answer is yes for the vast majority of game players then THAT would make a difference. What the publishers lost in single unit sales would be gained in volume of sales.

The reason the prices will never drop that drastically? No Publisher is willing to take the risk. Imagine going to the bank and saying "We have a great idea we want to sell our next product at $20 instead of our usual $89. We feel we will make much more money in volume sales." LoL the banks would laugh so hard and spit them out so fast it would be funny.

Bottom line,.. Piracy is getting cheaper while Software is geting more expensive,.. That can only lead to one destination. The fact that nobody sees that, and in fact would rather the industry collapse than take the 'risk' and lower the prices of their games. This spells Doom. 'PERIOD'

My first post was a failed attempt at pointing out that the 'gap' between the cost of piracy and the retail game is getting further and further appart. Close the gap and piracy will slow down.

Nuf said.

Cheers!

P.S. At my local Block Buster renting a movie costs $5 (so what if I can keep it at home for 5 days) a 'previously viewed' DVD costs from $6.99 to $16.99. Care to guess if I rent or buy? (throw $5 out the window or make a $12 purchase and 'Own' an original DVD for life... simple choice imho.

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

Back ups are only good if you have a safe place for them. There is no reason to make a back up and then leave it laying about the office without ever using it again. I have back ups of many of my important software in my safe. But I do not have back up disks for any of my Operating Systems. My XP, Win2k, and Win98 disks are safely stored in a draw where they can be stolen at a moments notice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I have a safe but fear that it would be the ONE thing that any would be house burgler would spend time stealing. So anything important is not in it. I have however placed a small neutreno bomb in it that will detonate 30 minutes after the safe as been removed from its mountings without the use of the proper disarm code.

Seriously, I can see no reason to have more than one back up of anything and only then if you properly take care of the original and use the Back up for day to day use. Keep the original safe.

I have back ups of all my money. I keep my real money hidden in shoe box under the water bed. Its a ***** to get too, but at least I know its safe there.

Re: Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

Money is safest in a bank. What are they going to do, loan it to Ethiopian warlords then write it off? That's about as likely as them freezing your account at the request of the IRS, until they figure out how to do subtraction and realize THEY owe YOU money. This isn't like the old days when the Mafia was the lender, and they broke the kneecaps of borrowers. That was very inefficient, since the lender had to hire thugs. Whereas nowadays, banks have the police, paid for by the borrowers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif