Empirical Study Shows DRM Encourages Infringement 375
Hucko writes "Ars Technica has a story about a study by Cambridge law professor Patricia Akester that suggests (declares?) that DRM and its ilk does persuade citizens to infringe copyright and circumvent authors' protections. The name of the study is 'Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment.'" The study itself is available for download (PDF); there's also a distillation here.
and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
ARRRRR!
seriously who didn't know this was the case?
someone has to crack that DRM just for the sake of cracking it.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be more likely believe the percentage of people who skip paying and just download the cracked version hasn't changed much over the years.
Give me a few years and a grand for $1,000,000 and I'll do a study that proves this. Just like there have been studies that have also shown that DRM lowers piracy... and this one that shows DRM increases piracy. Now we need a study that shows DRM doesn't affect piracy.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
They may not know what DRM is, but it surely affects them when they buy a DVD movie only to find out it doesn't play on whatever device it is they're trying to play it on. Even NASA fell in the DRM trap.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:4, Insightful)
The FBI warning is just the start... often there are minutes of crap before a movie that you can't get past. It's most annoying on my kids' videos - essentially advertising for other videos from the same company, and there's no way to get past it without re-ripping the DVD.
I refuse to buy from companies like that now - they shouldn't control my time like that. What I really am annoyed at though is that my DVD player enables them to do it in the first place.
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Here in the UK it's more like a minute+. Why wait if I can rip my DVDs and save that time?
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I'd bet that ripping the DVD takes more than a minute.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, but you only have to do it once.
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Well, I rarely watch a DVD more than once.
Sure, films that I like are on my PC, but it's just stupid ripping every film just to get rid of the warnings.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
Lacking cable and unwilling to pay for it, I'm currently watching airbender on DVD from netflix.
First there's the FBI warning. For like 30 seconds. Then there's no less than 6 segments of spongebob advertising that I can't skip to go to the menu to play the more interesting, slightly more adult anime.
If I'd downloaded it off the internet, it would have been free and advertising free.
What advantage does getting the legal copy give me again?
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I rarely watch a DVD more than once.
You DEFINITELY don't have kids, and you probably aren't married :)
My daughter watches the same 3 things over and over, and my wife is not much better :)
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What advantage does getting the legal copy give me again?
Warm fuzzies?
Yeah, it's especially rude if you have kids. You generally want some video entertainment for when you are on the road, which means either lugging around a bunch of DVDs or ripping them all to a portable player. This can literally take days, depending on how you do the transcode.
The easiest path? Google for a "Dora" torrent and get every episode ever in AVI format, free of commercials... playable by anything and it will all fit on one $20 USB stick.
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Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not talking about media you purchase, but media you rent.
Ripping it is faster, more convenient and removes the corporate propaganda. If I can't remove the propaganda, I won't watch it at all, and I won't let my kid watch it.
You would be surprised how jarring it is once you've freed yourself from it... like someone who grew up in the city going camping for a month in the wilderness, then coming home to realize that they've had people shouting in their ears their whole life and that they never realized how much their thinking had been muddled and their senses numbed by what was being done to them until they finally got free of it.
Once you actually experience it for yourself, you start to feel like someone who just realized they've been abused their whole life and didn't know.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Informative)
Ahh... now you're telling me it's impossible and/or impractical. Which is great, because it just so happens I already did it. As a matter of fact, I wrote a series of pieces for members of an eating disorder recovery group on how to avoid all the negative imagery and get healthier. It's on a private forum, so I'll just stick it in here.
--//--
How to avoid advertisements on the web:
If you're not using Firefox, you should be.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ [mozilla.com]
Once you've got Firefox, you should install tools to protect you from advertising. First one is Adblock Plus
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865 [mozilla.org]
This lets you block advertisements, and is configurable.
Next, if you want to block particular sites completely, you can use this tool, called BlockSite:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3145 [mozilla.org]
After you've done all this, you can customize Google to remove certain items you don't want to see with the CustomizeGoogle add on.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/743 [mozilla.org]
With this tool, you can remove advertisements, filter out sites you don't ever want to see in your search results, and remove google tracking. Which may screw up Muses website statistics tracking, but will prevent you from becoming a target for advertisements specifically related to eating disorders and dieting etc.
If you take the time to install and set up these tools, you will be amazed at the difference.
--//--
How to avoid advertisements in your mail:
First, install Thunderbird:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/ [mozilla.com]
This mail reader has a built in spam blocker that learns how to identify spam as you mark things as spam/not spam. This will go a long way towards keeping your mailbox advertisement free.
Once you've got that installed, you want to be using it to read your web based mail, like Hotmail, Yahoo, GMail, etc.
So you need to install the Webmail add on.
http://webmail.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]
Once you've installed this, you'll be able to view your mail from all these websites without having to see their banners and other assorted crap.
After this is all done, you should set up folders for every piece of mail you expect to receive, and filters to automatically move them there. This will prefilter your pile, and your learning spam filters will also prefilter.
Between the two, you'll have an ever shrinking pile of messages that "might" be spam to wade through and mark as "is spam" or "is not spam".
--//--
How to avoid advertising in your multimedia:
Stop paying for cable television. Disconnect your service, and use the money you save to buy a DVD burner for backup, a video card for your computer that supports TV-Out, and a large external hard drive that you can use to carry files to and from your fr
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
That time belongs to me, not to them. Why should they be able to dictate what I watch? Just another reason to format-shift.
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Second, they happen every time you start the damn CD. This gets annoying as hell for TV based CDs where you only watch one episode at a time.
Third, it is my time, and I can keep it by breaking the DRM. Pirates and Linux users don't have to wait.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:4, Insightful)
Cool - you can mock ten seconds. What if it were ten minutes? And the DVD forced you to watch those ten minutes. Circumventing those ten minutes of instructive warning from the FBI/MPAA becomes illegal. Fast forwarding is disabled, and finding a way to enable fast forward past the warning makes you liable for a ten year prison sentence.
At what point would you revolt?
The whole point of the controversy is, "rights holders" are infringing on the rights of users, in the name of "rights enforcement". Without the activists, pirates, and lawyers, what do you think the state of "enforcement" would be today? Had Sony gotten away with their rootkits, how long do you think it would have taken for all the other "rights holders" to pull similar tricks? Your computer could be "phoning home" to as many as 100 corporate websites continuously to report on your activities.
Given free reign, the various copyright and patent trolls would have declared that you can't own a computer, DVD player, MP3 player, or even a telephone by now. You could only lease anything capable of reading digital media, constantly monitored, and subject to recall if you break any TOS imposed by the *iaa's of the world.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this 'what if' scenario:
/. is running an article about how the movie The Cotton Club [wikipedia.org] can't be recorded from one VCR to another. You say,
Imagine it is 1985 and
It doesn't stop you from recording your decaying tape if you have a macrovision free VCR, and most of them are.
Runaway1956 [slashdot.org] posts:
Yeah, but what if they introduced encryption and then made it illegal to circumvent that encryption.
Now choose carefully. Do you:
A) stand up for yourself and say the media companies have gone too far
or
B) say "you can't just make up arbitrary realities"
Congratulations. You chose B. Welcome to the real world, where if you don't stand up for your rights at even the smallest infraction, those stepping on your rights will continue down that path until your reality is based on their arbitrary actions.
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Don't feed the troll. Stewbacca is a well known MAFIAA shill.
Re:It's 10 seconds to the wrong people (Score:5, Informative)
More like 5 minutes. You've obviously not had the misfortune of trying using a disney DVD when you miss the "fast menu" button window, before it goes into a ridiculous number of adverts that you cannot bypass.
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And 10 seconds to the five year old who wants Spongebob Squarepants NOW!!!! IS a big deal.
Great. It is preparation for their future - get used to taking a big bite out of the shit sandwich now son...
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Funny)
"Even NASA fell in the DRM trap."
Orbiting people have their own problems.
Now we're in region 1. Now region 2, region 3, 4 5...
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And why was the codec for the built-in DVD player not installed? DRM licensing.
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"Tim"
Your supposed to say, " I don't think so, Tim"
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That pisses me off to no end too.
Also why I keep an old pirated copy of WinDVD around, just to install it for the codec.
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
The majority of users probably have no idea what DRM is and are thus unaffected. Those that do know what DRM is will either buy the software anyway and deal with it, buy the software then download a cracked version, or forego paying entirely and just download the cracked version.
Then of course there are the majority of users that have been unable to get a game to work because of DRM, whether they knew it was there or not. And the people who don't have a music collection anymore because some servers got turned off, so now they just torrent. Or the people who can't get a DVD in their region, so just pirate it instead.
I agree, most people aren't like me - I buy what I can if it isn't DRMed to hell, mainly to make a point (albeit a tiny little one) to the companies that do it. But everyone I know has had problems with legit games, and when people learn that the only reason they're having those problems is because they wanted to reward a company for delivering a product, they'll stop. It's been years since I had a serious issue with installing or playing a pirated game. If the big companies started making ease of use more of a big deal than the pirates, there'd be a lot less 'piracy from necessity', as I like to call it.
Bottom line is, your standard pirate copy says 'Install, firewall, copy crack, play indefinitely' when to get the equivalent from even the standard very-little-DRM game means you need a magic CD that never gets scratched and never gets lost.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:4, Informative)
googled "HL:GoTY Edition ripoff", not seeing it. Link?
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Steam is the ultimate application of DRM to prevent the user from exercising Fair Use law. I for one would happily join a class action lawsuit against Valve for selling me a game I can't play without a blessing from their servers. There's no indication that you can't play without updating steam anywhere on the box. You also can't play "backups" without installing and updating Steam. Why do they call it a backup when it's not playable?
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> Give me a few years and a grand for $1,000,000 and I'll do a study that proves this.
A grand for $1M? That's a great return over a few years! And I get a study too. Where do I sign up?
Um... Any relation to Bernie Madoff?
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Informative)
The majority of users probably have no idea what DRM is and are thus unaffected.
I believe the sentiment of the study is that BECAUSE people aren't aware of DRM, they still do things that are illegal, according to the DRM. I don't believe most people go out of their way to infringe--they just do by the nature of using their content in the context of the current laws.
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The majority of users probably have no idea what DRM is and are thus unaffected
That wasn't true 5 years ago for music, which is why vendors are dropping DRM'd formats--they don't sell as well as plain old MP3s. It's currently becoming a big deal for E-books, because the cutting-edge of E-publishing is Romance & Erotica-- and R&E readers frequently aren't the kind of people who want to chase down pirate versions or DRM-cracking software; they just want to read their E-books without hassle. They perce
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Insightful)
seriously who didn't know this was the case?
(insert name of media corporation here)
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Another reason is especially prominent on the DVD:s that are bloated with this severely annoying copyright warning text that you can't skip.
If the media companies could stop annoy their customers that try to be legal then they wouldn't have to take so much crap.
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It's true! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's true! (Score:5, Insightful)
I pirated a piece of software just a week ago: it's a very specialized database application on steels that refuses to work if it doesn't find the original CD in the drive. Very useful indeed to use on a CD-less notebook... And I paid the damn thing almost $500!
Needless to say, a NOP has found its way into the executable. For the next version, I'll pay the license, but I'll download the ISO from emule, which not only doesn't require the CD, but also doesn't require the activation key.
This is the strange world of software and movies: when you're honest, you're hassled. If you pirate, your life suddenly becomes a lot easier.
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This is the strange world of software and movies: when you're honest, you're hassled. If you pirate, your life suddenly becomes a lot easier.
And when your PC version of Gears of War's DRM suddenly hits its arbitrary pre-set expiry date and locks out all the legitimate buyers, only the pirates are left on the servers to curbstomp each other on the multiplayer maps!
Re:It's true! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the strange world of software and movies: when you're honest, you're hassled. If you pirate, your life suddenly becomes a lot easier.
That's exactly the problem with DRM. It only hurts paying customers. If you don't want to get hurt, you need to get the cracked version. They're driving honest customers away.
Re:It's true! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the strange world of software and movies: when you're honest, you're hassled. If you pirate, your life suddenly becomes a lot easier.
To be fair, it's always been the case in every other field. It's easier not to pay taxes than to pay taxes. It's easier to steal your DVD than to wait in line for the cashier. That is, once you've defeated the stealing protection.
It's easier to follow no rules than it is to live by the law in general.
This is not entirely linked to DRM, you're stating here a fact of life.
DRM doesn't solve anything (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that paying taxes, paying for goods, etc. are all required by law.
Circumventing right-restriction is authorized by the law in some cases (="Fair Use"). But regularly you can't do it.
Besides, DRM is useless and doesn't even fulfill the basic mission it was created for (stopping unauthorized duplication of content).
Case 1:
I'm about to go on vacation somewhere and I want to have a couple of movie on my portable driveless device (PDA, iPod, Netbook whatever), without needing to lug around a drive and a pile of discs. I need to shift formats (DVD/BD -> H264 or whatever the portable device takes) it's authorized by fair use in most juridiction. But I can't because DRM blocks it.
Case 2:
I'm a student making a presentation on a movie director. I want to copy a (reasonably) short segment of a movie to show as exemple to my audience. I can't, DRM blocks it.
Case 3:
I want to make a backup of a movie and keep the original in a safe place (that's actually a case I've been through : I have a mentally challenged brother who has a tendency to damage his favorite movies. It's important to him because otherwise he goes into an autistic crisis. Currently the originals are safely locked away, and copies loaded onto- and played from a server)
DRM blocks it (or would have if I haven't resorted to DeCSS).
Case 4 : ...and this list can go long...
I'm a Linux user (that my case also, actually). I want to play a movie I've legally bought on my custom-computer. DRM blocks it.
All are legitimate uses, which unlike the example of tax fraud or theft of goods should be protected by fair use by copyright laws in most jurisdictions. (Or sometimes are even normal uses like the "i just want to play it, but the system doesn't let me" cases. Fair use isn't required)
But aren't technically feasible because manufacturer of DRM solution only take into account the big 80% of their market : basic average user which buys a media to pop it into a certified player.
They just don't want to spend the additional resource to handle all the exotic corner cases in the remaining 20% even if those are exceptions covered by fair use.
-----
Meanwhile,
Counter-case :
I'm an EEEVVIIILL pirate (Yar!) and I want to get a movie for free, because I'm a free loader and don't want to pay for anything if I can get away with it.
I just go to whatever is the most popular torrent portal-du.jour and just click on a link.
That's it. Just. One. Click.
At no time did any form of DRM get in my way to stop me from doing this.
At no time would I be subjected to FBI warnings, advertising for up coming disc releases, etc...
In my series of example :
- DRM got in the way in lots of situation which are legal
- the sole time when a copyright-forbiden act took place, DRM didn't make any difference at all.
Copy protection worked in the previous decade because the only way to get an unauthorized copy was to copy the media yourself. If it's protected, only a couple of users where able to make copies and thus the propagation was limited.
Today, with the magic of the modern internet, all it takes is one single user to publish a torrent (and at the scale of internet among all milions of user, there's always at least one user having the necessary knowhow/equipement/social engineering skill/whatever to do it) and then suddenly the media becomes easily available to anyone connected to the intertubes, without any protection stopping it.
The Internet is good at making some content instantly available to the whole planet without restriction, and that's what make duplication-level protection obsolete.
Barrier to entry: Money. Here's why.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Barrier to entry: Getting to the store with money.
People using the internet fall into 1 of 3 groups when faced with a 'paywall':
1) The people who CAN pay but DON'T just so they can keep their money in their pocket for later use out of greed or necessity. To a lesser extent, in this group are those who are TOO BUSY to stop what they are doing long enough to pay for the items they want.
2) The people who CAN'T pay but WANT to. They have just enough money for an internet connection or are borrowing the use of one, can't pay for anything and want the item any
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Pirated game = minor inconvenience + minor risk Bought game = major inconvenience + cost + implicit insult + infuriation + CD check + having to go out and buy it in the first place
Don't forget the limited reinstalls on a "legitimate" copy and running the risk of the DRM authentication server eventually shutting down, ruining your purchased copy forever!
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Empirical, right? (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope the adjective "empirical" is not there to hide unscientific or statistically weak methods... She's a lawyer professor afterall... sort of a scientist who talks her results out!
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Your coffee cup is a container. The implication of "content" is that a CD, DVD, etc. is a container also. When you buy it, you're not after the container, you're after the content.
At last (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, it's funny how DRM has become automatically negative. The reasons are obvious, but as I've said before many times, DRM can be a positive thing. I'll cite the much debated Steam argument again. Once I buy a game, DRM (positive DRM) allows me to redownload whenever I want, and to play it on any computer whenever and wherever I want. There are some advantages to DRM but of course they're over-shadowed by the many drawbacks and disadvantages from DRM's restrictive aspects.
And can we please not turn this into a "Steam sucks!" - "No YOU suck!" debate again? It was just an example.
Re:At last (Score:5, Informative)
What happens when steam goes bust? And don't give me the "we will patch authentication out if we go under" crap. If they are going under they will not be releasing patches to strip the authentication as noone will be getting paid to perfom such a job.
DRM is always evil.
Re:At last (Score:5, Interesting)
What happens when steam goes bust?
What has happened every time digital restrictions interfered with the desire to use some content: Someone will break the protection. In Steam's case this has already happened for many games.
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Anyway, my original point wasn't about Steam, it was pointing out how "DRM" autoamtically is assumed to be bad when it has the potential to b
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Re:At last (Score:4, Insightful)
You lose access to your content, of course. Wow, it turns out that there really are stupid questions. Here, I'll ask one too: will Steam ever go away?
Stupid answer to that stupid question: yes, of course it will, sooner or later. The smart question are: when is steam likely to go away, and what are the practical losses when it does? For bonus credits, consider that the majority of your content on it wouldn't have been played again anyway, and whether that loss is worth more than the benefits.
As well as the clear benefits listed above, there's also the consideration that the Steam pricing model sends much more money to the actual developer than a shelf-on-a-box purchase, and that it gives developers a level playing field on which to compete, rather than having to struggle against Corporate Sports Sequel 2009 for limited shelf space.
Steam demonstrates that DRM doesn't have to mean "You don't have rights to play that game". It can mean "Hey, you do have the right to download and play this game, anywhere you want, any time you want. Go ahead!".
Now, would you like to have a grown up conversation, or are we going to stick with slinging slogans around?
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This still does not help with issue: What happens when you loose access to DRM & Content delivery system?
Reply is, of course, you loose access to content.
Now, DRM system can have its merits and can be run by nice company, but that does not mean anything when its turned off. It just won't help me (re)play classic.
Notice that this is part of wider issue:
What happens to my email address when gmail stops working?
What happens to my data when cloud provider bankrupts?
What happens to my assets when bank goes b
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The only way to avoid the things you've stated is to become a hermit in a cave who communicates with others via carrier pigeon and keeps all his money in his mattress. Unfortunately in today's society, you have to have some level of trust in the companies you deal with. Steam has never given me a reason not to trust them. I realize that there are people who have been burned by Steam and now choose to avoid it, but not me. I trust that Valve will be around for a long time, because they make quality games tha
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I do agree that DRM is always evil. No doubts about it.
But, if I am going to get saddled with DRM (and these days, I am) I'd rather get saddles with something like Steam. Yeah, the DRM-y bits suck... But there's also some value added. Un
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Re:At last (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, you can't stop a "Steam sucks" thread in an anti-DRM post.
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So you totally disagree with me that until your hypothetical situation whereby Steam dies and cuts users off we enjoy some positive benefits from the way Steam manages our digital rights to games?
I know I do.
I find more positive benefits in not having to worry about Steam, EA, or anyone else "managing my digital rights to games." The one advantage (able to download onto another system when away from the main one) is not remotely worth the losses
Re:At last (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:At last (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At last (Score:4, Informative)
DMR specifically restricts (manages) what you can do (rights) with a (digital) file. It is not, and cannot, be a positive thing from a consumer perspective ever.
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DRM has its uses in business with rights managements on documents more than it has its uses in limiting the freedom of a consumer to use their product as they see fit.
As for "positive DRM", as I've mentioned on a comment to a blog recently that said about the "age of Steam", I've recently started playing a game from 1995 without any problems. Are your Steam games still going to work in 2023? Can you be sure that the activation or even download servers will still be there? With DRM in consumer goods you can
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Let me fix it for you: DRM has its uses hidding evidence in business and government corruption more than it has uses limiting the freedom of a consumer...
Good Old Games (Score:5, Informative)
I'll cite the much debated Steam argument again. Once I buy a game, DRM (positive DRM) allows me to redownload whenever I want, and to play it on any computer whenever and wherever I want.
I'll see your Steam and raise you a GOG.com. No DRM at all, ever, and you can redownload your games whenever you want. Sure their catalog is still small and contains older games (although some are only 2-3 years old), but I'm hoping they'll go from strength to strength and I'm supporting them with my dollars
I'm still hoping to see LucasArts back catalog on there one day.
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Once I buy a game, DRM (positive DRM) allows me to redownload whenever I want, and to play it on any computer whenever and wherever I want. There are some advantages to DRM but of course they're over-shadowed by the many drawbacks and disadvantages from DRM's restrictive aspects.
Eh? The DRM in Steam isn't what is allowing you to download the games anywhere. That's an entirely unrelated feature. The DRM restricts the game to running and authenticating through Steam and nothing else.
Steam without DRM would work exactly the same as it does now, the only exception being that you could run games without authenticating online with the Steam client. That's exactly how it works if you crack a game you bought through Steam.
Hurry... (Score:4, Insightful)
The RIAA better discredit Dr. Akester before this gets pickup by a major news source.
Actually I take that back. Everybody knows that there is now room for science and research when it comes to lobbying!
What was I thinking?
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Their purpose is to represent the interests of the record industry. Not to force DRM on everybody unless that is in the interests of the record industry. This article insists that it isn't.
This is not to say the RIAA won't do this. just that it would be illogical.
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That is good that you finished with that line. By their history, we can expect the RIAA to discredit that study, but you are right, it would be completely illogical.
DRM is pushing me towards piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
I stopped buying PC games about a year ago due to DRM technologies such as SecuROM and StarForce, because of the faults they can cause when burning CDs, which is an essential part of my job.
Last month I bought a new mid-spec laptop and went shopping for an "old" game that would run on it, and I settled on Civ4. After buying it, I discovered that it too uses SecuROM so I will not install it. Instead, I think it's morally (and legally?) acceptable to download a pirate copy without DRM.
A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I both bought The Sims 2. Neither copy worked! I've since discovered that the copy-protection on the DVD is known to cause installation errors, and one of the recommended workarounds is to install the disk imaging software Alcohol, and this indeed allowed us to install the game. Alcohol can of course be very useful for people who want to pirate games.
I feel like games publishers are pushing me towards pirating their products. I don't want DRM to harm my system, and if the only way I can play a purchased game is to pirate it then how long will it be before I skip the purchasing?
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Last month I bought a new mid-spec laptop and went shopping for an "old" game that would run on it, and I settled on Civ4. After buying it, I discovered that it too uses SecuROM so I will not install it. Instead, I think it's morally (and legally?) acceptable to download a pirate copy without DRM.
Morally, yes. Legally? Forget it. The uploader violated the law by distributing illegal copies. You violated the law by downloading and burning, thereby making an illegal copy. Remember what copyright is: it's a legal right to copy, literally. Also, usnig a Alcohol to make an image of the DVD is probably also a violation of the law, though the Software Act of 1980 does allow for you to make a copy for archival purposes and as an essential step in executing the program. Whether imaging the DVD can be
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Um... It's only specifically illegal to distribute copies.
No, that's just completely incorrect. You should really consult a lawyer rather than rely on "he said, she said" in forums on Slashdot.
Here is the relevant law, Title 17, Chapter 1 Â 106 US Code: Exclusive rights in copyrighted works [cornell.edu]:
List of DRM-free games (Score:4, Informative)
You don't have to assume all PC games use DRM. ReclaimYourGame lists companies not using any form of securom etc. here is the link:
http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=14&Itemid=62 [reclaimyourgame.com]
Disclaimer: I'm one of the companies on there.
The conclusions of the study (Score:5, Insightful)
Here are the conclusions of the study:
1) Although DRM has not impacted on many acts permitted by law,
certain permitted acts are being adversely affected by the use of
DRM;
2) This is in spite of the existence of technological solutions
(enabling partitioning and authentication of users) to
accommodate those permitted acts (privileged exceptions);
3) Beneficiaries of privileged exceptions who have been prevented
from carrying out those permitted acts (because of the
employment of DRM) have not used the complaints mechanism
set out in UK law;
4) Article 6(4) of the Information Society Directive put an onus on
content owners to accommodate privileged exceptions
voluntarily. Voluntary measures have emerged in the publishing
field, but not all content owners are ready to act unless they are
told to do so by regulatory authorities.
My commentary:
1) As far as I can tell, DRM for the most part also hasn't had a noticeable impact on the uses not permitted by law. In other words: DRM only harms the customers, not the pirates.
2) As the record has shown in various court cases, the media companies are a bunch of assholes. Of course they're not going to care if little Ms. Teacher wants to (fairly!) use some copyrighted piece of work in hear lessons. They have "Power!! Unlimited POWAH!!!!"
3) What, there's a complaints mechanism? That would have been pretty good if people knew about it and used it.
4) Wait, what??? The DRM control freaks are supposed to voluntarily give up control? That sounds like a misunderstanding of human psychology. Also, quote The Matrix 2 (too bad they never made any sequels): "[Oracle] What do all men with power want? [Neo] ... [Oracle] More power".
Re: (Score:2)
1) Not entirely true.
DRM slows down time between release and general ability on torrents. Hours are hoped for. Days are considered success. Weeks are *Epic Win*
DRM disables "handing out copy to friend" for most people.
2) 'Fair use tool' would be security hole. It is naive to expect that it would be used for its intended purpose.
3) Everyone knows how this kind of stuff ends up. Bureaucracy would swallow it and media would ignore it.
4) Here, have a cookie.
Even BBC's Have Your Say has got the plot (Score:5, Interesting)
We're accustomed on Slashdot to saying that the general public is not aware of the issues surrounding DRM and file sharing. However, this debate [bbc.co.uk] seems to suggest otherwise. I know the HYS debates are often full of ranting morons but it is still an audience of non-experts. Looking at the most recommended comments there seem to be quite a few people who know what's going on.
Uh? (Score:2)
How much did this guy get paid to do this study? (Score:5, Insightful)
People prefer files that aren't troublesome to play and aren't tied to some publisher's good will, to files that are troublesome to play and tied to some publisher's good will. News at 11...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
When put like that it is obvious to almost everyone, but how many people have bought huge amounts of songs from Apple and didn't realise they couldn't use them on other machines or devices because of the DRM? The majority of the population don't care because they don't get bitten, and when they do they just assume there's nothing they can do and go in to another cycle of getting bitten by DRM.
Since most people don't get bitten to a degree they notice (e.g. "I have to use my iPod? Oh well, I guess I like it
Interesting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Headstrong.mp3 (Score:5, Interesting)
My daughter wanted Ashley Tisdale's Headstrong on her iPod. (Please no comments - I'm ashamed enough as it is).
We can't get it from iTunes because we use Ubuntu.
We can't get the mp3 from Amazon.com because you have to be US resident.
We can't get it from Amazon.co.uk because you have to have a UK billing address.
We can't get it from Amazon.ie because that doesn't exist.
So I have a choice, buy the whole album on CD from Play.com or pirate it....
I'm getting a bit sick of this malarkey where I'm told what I can and can't buy with my money. Obviously, I accept the principle that Xyz has the rights to sell something in this market, but if Xyz won't sell it to me then I say screw Xyz.
So this news doesn't surprise me - the more you tighten your fingers yada yada yada...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Waitaminute, here's what I don't get. What's wrong with buying the CD? Most (all?) CDs these days don't have any DRM on them. They just plain work, no matter what country you're in and without any proprietary software.
I understand movie piracy, where non-DRM content simply isn't on the market -- they simply aren't interested in selling playable content (presumably because they don't want any money). But for music, DRM was jus
Re:Headstrong.mp3 (Score:4, Informative)
Good point... led me to this: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/26052009/399/eu-nears-bloc-wide-music-licensing.html [yahoo.com]
Locks were meant to be broken (Score:3, Insightful)
But everyone honors the honor system. Well, at least honest people. But as long as you can catch and reprimand the few crooks out there, then you've got a pretty good system going.
Frankly, I don't know why watermarking isn't in higher use. It could even add an element of personalization ("This album / movie expressly prepared for John Q. Smith") and help communities self-police themselves so we're not wasting government money on DRM enforcement / investigation etc. If the studios find out who's redistributing their work, it's a simple matter to report and disable their account.
A Zero DRM Experiment Is Successful (So Far) (Score:3, Interesting)
As I have mentioned before, I have written and am selling a book for entrepreneurs, salespeople, project champions, and others called Elevator Pitch Essentials (http://www.elevatorpitchessentials.com). After much debate, and with the encouragement of multiple
Since I released the eBook, my hardcopy sales have continued to hold up. In fact, sales through Amazon.com have been doubling every month and I just got a volume order for 50 books. I have also sold 53 eBooks.
I think this has been a successful experiment in part because of the relatively low price. It seems that people think that's a reasonable amount to charge. From my own experience, I know that I have absolutely no problem paying $1 for a song.
P.S. Please don't crush my buzz by telling me it's all over the torrents (although that really may not matter).
treat me like a dog.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So much of life was captured eloquently by Smythe's Andy Capp [wikipedia.org] cartoons -- most of which are too impolitic to run in today's newspapers. (Smoking, drinking, thumping and getting thumped by your wife... oh my.)
In one of the classics, Andy sums up the entire public's reaction to DRM; After being berated by Flo for the transgression of having some unauthorized fun, he says to her: "Treat me like I'm a dog, and I'll treat you like I'm a dog." ...And proceeds to bite her waggling finger.
Ain't that the damn truth.
i was watching pbs a few nights ago (Score:4, Interesting)
i forget the guy's name, but he was a behavioral economist, and he was attempting to explain the recent economic meltdown in the terms of his profession, and why the whole notion of rational actors in a rational marketplace is a crock
one of his precepts was that all of these derivatives, while having an economic value, were not actually money itself, and so this abstraction allowed a layer of rationalization of immoral behavior by otherwise normal people
he crystallized this down to a simple experiment:
he put 6 cans of coke in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. of course, the cans of coke slowly disappeared. then he put 6 dollar bills on a plate in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. guess what? no one took the money
the whole point being: when value is made an abstraction, people can rationalize "theft" a lot easier than when the value of what you are taking is starkly presented. it explains a lot of the sticking points in the argument over "pirated" media
Re:i was watching pbs a few nights ago (Score:4, Interesting)
interesting about the dollars and cans of coke.
however, companies often provide soda for free for them employees. this complicates things as the employees could have thought those were from a company event (leftovers) etc. happens ALL the time where I work (bay area companies).
another problem with this is that the 'value' of a song is VERY debatable! its complicated to add in all the costs involved and assign 'reasonable' profits to those in the chain. I'd say its actually impossible to do this correctly. so what we have is a system that is now gouging the consumer and attempting to float some idea of fair price on 'song listening'.
for me, the right price is a few pennies per song. the industry sees that as 100x. we are not even on the same page, here.
until then, I will continue to get my music any way I want. until the pennies-per-song comes back (I miss the russian sites!) I won't be buying the overpriced 'dollar per song' that the industry demands.
once they become reasonable, I'll become reasonable. that's the lesson and that's all she wrote.
Consider the source (Score:4, Insightful)
Reading her bio is enlightening. Seems to me she is anti-DRM and anti-IP. So, an anti-DRM, anti-IP law professor does a study and concludes that DRM is bad. Big surprise.
By the way, "interviewing dozens of lecturers, end users, government officials, rightsholders, and DRM developers to find how DRM and anticircumvention laws affected actual use" is not necessarily empirical. I would bet that the methodology used was guaranteed to get the result she wanted.
If this had been a study by the .*AA, there would have been dozens of posts calling it bullshit, but because it goes with the beliefs of so many unethical slashdotters, it's ok. I am never surprised by the depths of slashdot hypocrisy.
Unethical? Hypocrisy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
[quote]So, anytime someone creates anything, it immediately becomes "cultural content" and they automatically lose their rights?[/quote]
Yes. This is why we have copyright -- to [i]return[/i] some rights to the author.
Keeping in mind that copyright is temporary, DRM is intended to circumvent the public's right to the work after the authors rights have expired, effectively creating an unlimited copyright term.
Philosophically, DRM is a horrible horrible thing. The public has a responsibility to fight against
To be fair it's a function of DRM and Price level. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think a lot of people will buy something that is reasonably priced with or without DRM.
I think a lot of people will pirate or not buy something that is unreasonably priced.
The longer DRM exists, the lower that price gets however. Because once folks pirate something at $70 because of price + DRM, then they are more likely to pirate cheaper titles.
Some of my titles without DRM from the 1990's still work. I don't know if my titles with DRM work- I lost the original media or it broke. The non-DRM software I was able to back up in multiple places so I have not lost it. Of course Total Annihilation (which still rocks) was DRM'd but a crack came out years ago that allowed me to back it up.
anoter empirical study ... (Score:4, Informative)
done by yours truly showed that the absense of DRM encourages infringement as well.
Sounds like a win-win situation, eh?