Don\'t Worry About Copy Write Protection!
 

According to Brad Wardell of Stardock (GalCiv developer), copy write protection is not needed because the PC gaming industry is "doomed."

Man I really don't know what to say other than WOW.

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

Uh, I think he's saying that the reason doom is predicted for the pc game industry is because it uses copy protection.

And I'd have to agree that that is a doom-type thing.

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

You are wrong on this one Atro.

Another one of his posts

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

I would hope that I am wrong. Being right is way to extreme for me to be dealing with at the moment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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

Yup. The computer game industry has been doomed since the late 1970's if memory serves. I bet it has been doomed longer than the author of that quote has been alive. No reason to think it will get undoomed any time soon.

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

The last console system that I've ever owned was an Atari 2600. Ever since then, I've only played PC games.

As far as I can tell, it's the console industry that's doomed.

Guess it all depends on a certain point of view. Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view.

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

The only console I've ever owned (and it was actually my parents...) was an original Nintendo system. Still have it actually http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

If I was the only customer, it'd be the shallow console games that were "doomed".

As long as there's even a small market for something, there will be suppliers. For the forseeable future, there'll continue being thousands of computer gamers, thus the industry is far from "doomed".

I see the end of dedicated computer gaming once the computer, TV, stereo, satellite system are all integrated into one unit. Then again, that'd spell the death of dedicated console gaming too!

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

Sounds like the Voltron of wallet-leeching electronics.

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

We are all doomed. Every product I own will be broken in ten years. Every company I do business with with be gone in 50. Every one of their entire industries will be gone and replaced by something else in 100.

By don't worry, you and I and everybody else we know will be dead by then, so it doesn't really matter.

I don't even know why I bother writing this. No-one will remember reading it in a month, and no-one will even remember humanity exsisted in a million years.

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

Humanity has a lot of illogical behavior that cannot be attributed to evolution - But that's OT.

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

What does any of this matter to us, we will all, every last one of us, be dead in a 100 years, our names, our accomplishments, hell everything about us will have been forgotten. Not even our offspring will recall us. Such is life.

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

Don't get your hopes too high. I'm pretty sure there are a few Archivists around, so your post will *not* be forgotten so soon.

So, I recall you saying something in favour of Copy Protection around Dec 8 2002, at 1500 UTC or so...

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

Remember reading what in a month? Huh? Did I miss something that I was suppose to read last month? WTF?? This isn't fair I tell you.

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

I'm not so sure. I plan on living another 100 years or so. 118 isn't too much to ask for, is it? As long as I still have all my brain cells intact...

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

If you keep reading this forum you won't have them intact for long. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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

All these doomsayers say is doom..... Doommm... DOOOM!

Hell, some of these companies would have you believe desktops have been doomed since nineteen-twenty-odd-six.

As for you Atrocities, I think knowing that in a 100 years will mean there won't even be proof that we existed should drive us to even higher hieghts, so that we may live forever.

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

I'm sorry, but this thread boarders on a piracy discussion and I have some strong feelings,.. "The problem is not with the Software Industry. (ie Developers, Publishers, Distributors) The problem Is now and 'Always' has been due to flooding the market with the 'Hardware' needed to do the copying and making 'duplications for backup purposes'. The fact that for $60 (cdn) The price of many games (some are even higher now) I can buy a CD Burner and a pack of 25 Blank CD's is the MAIN REASON Piracy has become rampid.

I equate the selling of 'Extremely' low cost duplication technology in the same vein as selling radar detectors.. (ie You can Sell/Buy them legally but it is against the law to use them.)

Note: My solution may seem drastic, but it is the 'Only' solution that will ever have a chance to slow the progress of Piracy. Make the 'Duplication Hardware' more expensive, 'AND' make the cost of blank CD's much higher. (ie $250/burner and at least $5-$10 per CD (like 49.95 for a 10 pack) and to further encourage the sales of 'official' copies lower the selling price of the originals.)

Some of you will think this idea is outrageous but I for one believe that persons and or companies could afford to pay the extra money to backup their legitimate data. There could even be a tax credit for businesses who buy the hardware and blank CD's just like some other business expenses are eligable for tax credits.

Note: this would not affect the cost of 'Mass-Duplication machines/CD's just the ones available through retail. In fact this could be solved by placing a hefty retail tax in the 'recording media and hardware'. Priced for pre-recorded media that cannot be overwritten would not be affected. One of the main reasons that DVD took off so fast (replacing VHS) in Video store rentals is that the stores had to pay a hefty tax on the purchase of 'videos' they rented. (I have a friend who is a manager at Blockbuster and he told me the VHS versions of the movies often cost him $100-$130 per unit. When the DVD's came out,.. (because the DVD is not a 'recordable' Media) only Cost him $30-$50. Needless to say he is making much more money now, and that has in turn allowd many new promotions and 'Rent for 5 days type things without affecting the bottom line.

To sum up, As long as it costs 50 cents to make a copy of a game that sells for $19-$89 there will be piracy. No If And Or's about it. Pirates are not idiots, they just take advantage of how things work. When the system favors piracy to an extreme (like software piracy) then it thrives.

Nuf said, Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

P.S. Software 'Protections' do not prohibit piracy, They like a challenge. Only by making it more costly and or less profitable will piracy finally be slowed to a crawl and let the PC Software industry florish again.

Sorry for the rant,.. but every discussion I see about piracy makes me think the world is full of idiots. It's like people argue about which ongions to put in Apple pie, when there is no ongions in apple pie. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

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

My first CD burner cost me $200.00 US and it worked like crap. The CD's cost about $2.00 each and they most always were bad.


DVD burner - $50.00
A pack of DVD disks - $10.00
Pack of jewel cases - $10.00
10 assorted newer PC Games - $550.00

Feeling one gets from making multiple copies of non copy protected games and then selling hundreds of boot leg copies to tourist at the flea market ... Pricless.

And they do........... I can get a complete version of Vista Beta for around $12.00 US. (Or at least I think that is what the guy said it cost... I could not understand him, he spoke very bad english.)

Calling the police and reporting this activity is pointless as they never come. They have far more important things to do such as setting up speed traps, protecting the local Krispy Cream, and flirting with the hookers to be bother by something as simple as an illegal boot leg operations. The feds are even less interested the local PD so again, no one gives a rats *** and no one can do anything to stop it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

The police NEVER come and the sales continue.

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

*SJ makes a note to not bother looking for a good price on pens & paper from DG's store.

I for one like to be able to restore my system from a disk image on CD.
And putting stuff on 700mb CDs is a huge bonus when my Lappy's hard disk totals 2 Gb.

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

As the rest of that guy's post said, which was in response to Starforce's mods posting a link to a warez site on their fourms, they didn't place copy protection on their game because they thought it was useless. The people who pirate the game is not going to buy the game if they can't pirate it. And often, people find ways to get around copy-protection. So copy-protection only serves to annoy, not to discourage piracy effectively.

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

David, you must have been one of those guys who thought the additional tax on recordable media here was a good idea - even though it did nothing to stem falling music sales and the extra money went to record companies and not the artists...

A large percentage of pirates would never buy the game under most any circumstance anyway, so it doesn't make sense to punish people who have very legimate reasons for using recordable CDs, DVDS, etc. That's like assuming everyone is guilty and is contrary to our legal system.

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

Ah yes, the attitude that "Everyone's guilty, so everyone should pay". Sorry David, that's not really a good idea..and it wouldn't slow piracy much anyway. Unless you also want to tax internet connections..

Oh and you better tax those mass duplication machines as well..because there's a good chunk of the pirating right there.

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

Sorry David, but your solution is not even close to solving the problem. With the advent of virtual CD drives, physical media are no longer relevant for piracy. All you have to do is download a CD image, mount it up, and you are good to go. No burning to CD is required. As long as the media can be read by a computer, any copy protection will be hacked. There are a lot of sick bastards out there that like to break copy protection schemes. Your solution does nothing more to stop "casual" piracy than CD copy protection measures already polluting the games market, and those do nothing to stop determined pirates.

Hefty media taxes will only hurt legitimate customers. Want to make a mix CD to listen to on your hour long commute to work? Well now it will cost you $10 above and beyond the cost of the music CDs you purchased in the first place... And then the ludicrous cost of backing up data this would impose...

Exactly... the people making money off of piracy have mass duplication machines at their disposal. It just isn't efficient if it is taking you 4-6 minutes to burn each CD, one by one. Not that this is an argument in favor of taxing them...

Look at VHS tapes. Content providers cried foul over how piracy on tape would ruin their industries. What really happened? A huge new industry of video tape sales and rental sprung up, creating a huge cash cow for them... Same thing with cassette tapes.

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

I have spent over $10,000.00 on music since 1990. Easily. I just bought two new CD's the other day, well used via Amazon, but still new to me.

The appeal of downloading music is a simple one, availablity. You can often find the songs, albums, or whatever it is that you are specifically looking for without having to endure all the crap that you don't want to hear.

But nothing compares to having it on CD, authentic real Music CD from the stores.

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

DEG's method would go a long way to help curb piracy. But it won't stop, as fyron said, people with virtual drives. However, if you tax media duplication devices, office theft of blank cd's would rise and shoplifting as pirates aren't detered by taxation.

Here's what I'd do.

1.) Have ISP's block ports used by peer-to-peer systems and ones that can be used.
2.) Require all servers to have a domain name if it is accessable to the web. This allows pirates to be hunted down and found. Domains can only be registered to valid mail addresses, no po boxes (but I'd allow an exemption for rural locations by means of a special application).
3.) Sites containing porn must use a .XXX extention as proposed. Many warez sites have prono advertisers and we can force them into the .xxx domain type and then use ISP's to lock them out.
4.) 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.
5.) Create a system of financial rewards for the successful capture and conviction of pirates. This will seriously harm flea-market pirates.
6.) Make piracy penalties involve a mandatory prison sentance and fine, not one or the other and up to limits.
7.) Require pirates to register in a national database distributed to computer companies and retailers when caught. Much like how sex offenders can't work or live near children, we want to make sure pirates are run out of computing for good.

Now that won't stop pirates, just really give them a bad day. We need to combat this on the industry level as piracy is rampant in price-senstive nations and areas where $50+ price tags on software is insane.

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

Lets fill up the jails with people who make illegal copies of software and music instead of the creal criminals. The only way to stop piracy is to simply outlaw the technology.

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

1) You mean block *all* ports? That's the only way its gonna happen.

2) IOW, destroy load balancing, and put every PC in the DMZ? No routers or NAT or serious firewalls?

3) Who's definition? Who enforces it? Take this simplified version, and see if you still think it will be possible:
You don't even need the ISP part. Just have them all change their names to "something.not-a-TLD" so they don't resolve.

4) That makes zero difference from today. The costs all get passed on to the consumer in the same way.

5) If police aren't going to take up free tips, why would they pay for them? And who is going to pay for that; You, in taxes.

6&7) Cranking penalties beyond reason dosen't help the issue. It may reduce some copyright infringement, but it certainly dosen't anywhere near fit the crime.
At what point does murdering the witness become less of a crime than getting caught copying something?


The REAL SOLUTION
- Stop screwing around, and parent your kids properly. Take responsibility.

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

Oh man, where to start!??

First off, David and KlvinoHRGA, I respect both your opinions but I am forced to disagree with you both, adamently.

I'll start of with David http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Taxing/increasing the price of recording software, hardware and media will not stop piracy. Most piracy does not require those things at all, as others have mentioned. The only thing this might stop is the people on the streetcorners selling bootlegged material. Might. At the cost of every single person who wants to back up information from their computer to a safe location.

Lets say I have a couple kids, and I love videotaping them. Or even my cats. I love cats, maybe I have a lot of video of them. This video quickly eats up hard drive space, so I want to back it up. But why should I have to pay $200-250 for the burner plus the expenses of the media to record it on? Because it's assumed that if I use those things, that I'm a pirate? Do I deserve that? Do we in a free society assume guilt before innocence? No, that is not the solution. People making legitimate backups should not be punished, when those people are in the vast majority over the people who use such devices to pirate. It'd be like hugely increasing the price of electricity, just to try and cut down on the marijuana grow-ops!!

Anything that I wanted to pirate would not require burners, blank media, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm no pirate. I earn the money to buy the things I want. But there's no need for all the hardware.


Now, KlvinoHRGA http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif My opinion. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

On your point #1, I have no opinion.
Point #2, well you'd be excluding a lot of Canada right there. Huge areas of Canada only have PO boxes. Not to mention the fact that you'd have to get international cooperation on things like this, which, practically, would not happpen.
Point #3, no opinion.
Point #4....here's where I vehemently disagree with you. Holding people liable for the way their products are used is, in my own opinion, the worst thing that could possibly be done. Think of what it would open the door to. People would want to hold Ford responsible for making the car that someone ran down and killed someone in. Gun manufacturers could be held responsible if one of their guns was used in a crime. The software that is used in piracy has many legit uses. Our legal systems are not predicated on the "guilty until proven innocent" idea. People can not be held responsible for the actions of others, that would be just another extension of the rampant feeling nowadays that it's someone elses fault that I did something wrong. There's already too much of that.
Point #5, go for it. Don't think it'd work, but it wouldn't hurt legitimate consumers.
Point #6, sure. But you'd have to define the term "piracy" much better. People who download the pirated copies, or people who crack and create and distribute the illegal copies? But if you mean the people who 'just' download the illegal copies...well if you don't even go to prison for multiple car thefts, why would you go to prison for a $40 theft? You sure don't if you shoplift that much!
Point #7, seems a little overboard. If you already implemented #6 and that didn't stop them, no database will stop them.

That's about it for me. My main point is this; just don't punish the multiple legitimate users that exist for every one illegit user. Don't presume everyone is guilty, or make everyone suffer monetarily.

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

[Sarcasm] Don't be silly. It may be possible to allow some ports from trusted sources. So, you could still bask in the glory of port 53or port 137 , so long as you stick with approved servers. There are probably a few other such services, where all traffic can be routed to a few, trusted servers.

Yeah, so perhaps you will lose access to a handful of ports. Well, it's not as if they were actually important. I mean, who uses port 25, port 80 or port 110? And don't start complaining about ports 22 and 23: only crackers and hackers (them are the same exact thing) have any use for them. [/Sarcasm]

Yup, ain't gonna happen, unless you really want to be stuck with DNS, NTP and their ilk (in a best case scenario; closing down everything ought to be faster and easier). And you should really close down port 80 to begin with: it's probably the one most used for downloads of all sorts. It also happens to be used by the HTTP protocol, but hey, who cares about that? Well, perhaps you would. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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

I do.

After the servers for FTP, HTTP, and etc, I've got lots and lots for games.

Besides, you can always use any port for any purpose you like.
Limiting them just means more hassle for users who have to turn X off inorder to free up a port for Y.

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

Sorry if that wasn't clear. The sarcasm was not intended at yourself, but at the idea of closing down ports.

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

DEG's method would go a long way to help curb piracy.

Actual piracy where physical media are sold, marginally. p2p usage? Not in the slightest.

1.) Have ISP's block ports used by peer-to-peer systems and ones that can be used.

Impossible. You would have to block literally every port, since p2p apps (as well as the vast majority of TCP/IP capable apps) can be reconfigured to use arbitrary ports... This is of course never going to be a workable solution.

2.) Require all servers to have a domain name if it is accessable to the web. This allows pirates to be hunted down and found. Domains can only be registered to valid mail addresses, no po boxes (but I'd allow an exemption for rural locations by means of a special application).

Totally the wrong solution. What happens to free dynamic domain services then? Have to pay for them? Not a good solution at all for people that just want to host a photo gallery or whatever from home. Why should I have to pay extra money above and beyond the cost of my Internet connection (and electricity) to run a little server? And don't tell me I can just give out IP addresses, since that is unfeasible.

4.) Levy taxes against companies that manufacture recordable media software, hardware, and media.

Good idea, tax legitimate users of recordable media for the small fraction of illegal users. Wait... that's a terrible idea.

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

So... lets sue Microsoft. They let me copy CDs as a default feature of XP. And lets sue all CD drive manufacturers, since all CD drives can be used to create CD images, thus spreading piracy. And of course sue MS for providing CD driver software in Windows, since they are used for piracy all the time. Now let's sue every maker of a CD burning application. So what if they let you do all sorts of legal things like make mix CDs and backups and burn whatever non-copyrighted materials you want onto a CD to give to friends and family (photo CDs, anyone?)? They can be used to create distributable copies of games, movies, music, whatever!

Even if you create some sort of DRM solutions to allow authorized makers of software and hardware, you can not touch people in most foreign nations that choose to make software that circumvents all of it. It will never work.

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

Under his system it would be ILLEGAL too.

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

Well, the thing about US law is that it doesn't effect foreign nations. Clearly anything the Us does won't exceed it's borders.

Atrocities, outlawing the technology will only slightly curb future use. What's to stop someone from making their own software and obtaining/maintaining old equipment. Y2K clearly showed that despite end-of-life expectations, software and hardware lives on for years after it was supposed to die.

As for filling up jails, no. Prisons. If there is no current sentance, send them for a minimum of 367 days. By default, they must go to prision if it is a year plus a day. 367 covers leap years.

Renegegade13, my point with #4 is against individuals who make programs and distribute them as freeware that is designed to bypass protections and copy software/movies/music. They should be held responsible because a person who makes a program that rips DVD's with a commercial film on it does so for only that purpose. If a person makes a program to copy home DVD's of his cats playing and lends it to a friend who uses to pirate his movie collection wouldn't be held responsible. But if you make software thats only purpose is to pirate software and cover yourself by saying "Well, I made it for backup puposes only and distributed it so others could make their backups too" doesn't excuse guilt.

#5 is geared as an effort the industry has to make and sponser with the federal government, local authority and most state authorities won't do anything.

SJ, Renegade, bear in mind 6 & 7 would make these pirates known and make sure that they recieve a punishment that hurts. There is no national registry for released murders, I should point out. However, the punishment does fit the crime when you take into the amount of money lost and direct income those losses have on individuals and their lifestyles. Yet under current laws, a software pirate can get out of jail and pay their fine by simply going back to pirating.

#7 is specially designed to hurt them by denying them access to technology-based jobs that could enable them to further pirate software. I'd put it on par with bank fraud. Surely you wouldn't want person that defrauded a bank working in your back, just as you would want a pirate in your IT deptartment, or rev. fred phelps as your lawyer (he was disbarred after extorting thousands out of people by demanding $1500 retainer fees every month from his clients, when that failed he threatened to sue people for the $1500 retainer.) What the database does is alert retailers and companies that a person who is a known computer pirate is applying for a job. Now that won't tell the company to not hire that pirate or not, but it will alert them.

I'm not talking about blocking all ports, but many of the uneeded ones. Nearly all larger ISP's currently block port 25 because of spammers, for example.

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

SJ, it wouldn't be illegal, but many pirates operate via IP adresses. An alternative to this might to ensure some method of locating the person so companies can locate people actually engaged in pirating.

Fryon, I didn't say sue microsoft, what I said is that individuals who make software specifically for the purpose of evading copyright protections for the explicit purpose of duplicating copyrighted material should be held financially responsible and punished.

I'll also point out there are a number of free services that allows the posting of files and images out there. Most domains can be now registered for as little as 3 bucks a year, I don't see how much an inconvient 0.25 cents a month is. I'm sure dynamic url services can compenstate easily as well.

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

Well, this is about books, but it has lots of relevance: http://www.baen.com/library/

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

Making copies of commercial DVDs is _absolutely_ not piracy. _Distribution_ of said DVDs is piracy (when it is for profit; otherwise it is not piracy, but copyright infringement). Making backup copies solely for personal use is perfectly legitimate. Therefore, software designed to create copies of commercial DVDs is not inherently piracy software, it is software designed to let me exercise fair use rights. Some might be made with the intentions of piracy, but not all of it. Same with software that lets me create images and rips. The fact that such software can be used for piracy does not make its purpose to be piracy any more than the fact that I can use the DOS "copy" command to make copies of copyright-protected executables makes "copy" a piracy tool, or even Internet Explorer's save command on copyrighted web pages. Even better is using an alternate browser for which the javascript used on a page to lock out the IE save command has no effect. According to your definition, Mozilla is a piracy tool!

How about a program that bypasses DRM copy protections placed on music CDs? Is that really a piracy tool? It is there so I can continue exercising my fair use rights on these CDs that I have exercised on all the other CDs: make backups of my CDs, make mix CDs, play them on my computer without juggling CDs, etc. Of course, the illegitimate DMCA claims that this is illegal, but it is a wrong law in the first place...

Piracy is a huge ghost. All of these schemes are not about stopping piracy, which the big content providers know can not be stopped, but rather to restrict or eliminate fair use.

There is no such thing as an "unneeded" port. Ports exist so you don't have communications conflicts. So long as you can run another service, you will need more ports. Further, ISPs restricting free ports to a few hundred (or less...) will make malicious attacks _easier_, since the time to scan for available ports on target PCs will be reduced 100 fold (32x to 100s range)! Zombie networks will become vastly more efficient if they can reduce the time spent analyzing target machines... There is no tangible benefit to restricting ports in a draconian manner.

Destroying the anonymity of the Internet is not a good goal to strive towards, especially not for the boogey man of piracy.

Prisons are already overcrowded with non-criminals persecuted in the war on drugs. We don't need to construct dozens of new prisons for petty software pirates too.

And don't forget about foreign, free proxy servers and encrypted transfer protocols that make any sort of tracking difficult...

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

Who decides when something is meant for backup purposes or for the purpose of breaching copyright? Who can truly know, unless someone confesses? The courts? Not a good idea. Half the judges wouldn't even know what a CD or DVD burner was, let alone the concept of cracking a game or movie. It'd be a waste of time and, more importantly, taxpayer money. After all, they have to PROVE it was INTENDED to be used to break copyright. An extremely difficult task.

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

Actually, it's pretty easy to determine if someone is pirating or not. All you have to do is obtain a copy of the item in question from the person.

Gryon, please calm yourself before posting. You're overreacting by screaming about how browsers also commit piracy, next thing we'll know you'll be claming I want to outlaw pens because they can be used to copy notes with.

Furthermore, Fair-Use doesn't cover your completely. It only covers the production of a single backup copy. Now this doesn't mean if you misplace your first copy and make a replacement that is also piracy, it becomes piracy when you share it, sell it, or give it away to someone else.

My suggestions may sound extreme, but I'm sure most people realize that while some, like the ports on unfeasable, most aren't nearly as severe as they sound or you portray them to be. So again, I urge you to step away from the computer, go outside and spend some time and calm down.

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

In which case you prosecute using the existing channels.

You don't need to trade your freedoms for percieved security.

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