DRM Kills Angry Birds

[Karloff]

DRM Kills Angry Birds

If recent updates made your Apple apps unplayable, you can blame FairPlay DRM.

Over the last few days over 70 apps - including such fan favorites as Angry Birds - have been rendered unplayable, and now the problem has been linked to Apple's FairPlay DRM. Thanks to improperly managed implementation, the DRM fails to recognize the game after the update has been applied. It then crashes the app, and even uninstall/reinstall won't solve this problem.

Affected developers claim that the problem is being resolved, but that for the moment there is no certain cure. The problem is thought to have affected users in the UK and US who had updated at some point between July 3rd and July 5th. One developer, Readdle - makers of ScannerPro - said that the fault meant that after installation the application "doesn't pass DRM validation and terminates immediately." The problem only affects users who updated within that July time frame, so in theory the best solution is simply to wait for an unbroken copy before reinstalling.

Apple has since claimed that the problem has been fixed and wasn't as widespread as first thought, though the affected developers dispute this. Moreover there are some indications, as yet unverified, that even installing a clean copy after the 5th wasn't enough to solve the issue in all cases.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike DRM, without Apple giving its customers a reason to curse FairPlay. Timing is everything, and for something like this to happen over the 4th July - when America goes on a day-long holiday - is doubly unfortunate. There will have been thousands of people trying to download Angry Birds and many other popular apps on the 4th. For FairPlay, of all things, to stop playing fair during a national holiday is an Apple nightmare.

Source: Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jul/05/iphone-apps-app-store-corruption?intcmp=239]


Permalink

 

[Fappy]

The picture used for this article fits perfectly.

 

[shiajun]

Pardon my ignorace, but what was the point of this DRM in the first place? Isn't the App store and the multiple Apple locked OSs already a sort of DRM system? What would FairPlay accomplish?

 

[XMark]

I see that DRM continues to penalize legitimate customers more than actual pirates.

 

[DEAD34345]

Another own-goal by DRM in the anti-piracy debate, I see. Honestly, I'm starting to think they want people downloading their games.

Nobody is really expecting DRM that works at this point, but you'd think they could at least stop it from breaking peoples' legitimate copies. Why don't they just release dummy programs and call it DRM? At least a placebo doesn't actively make things worse...

 

[Desworks]

"FairPlay"
. . . and it's not fair, and you can't play it.

Alternatively, it's being Fair and stopping everyone from Playing. Letting nobody play is just as fair as letting everyone do it, after all.

 

[Stripes]

Thanks pirates! I never realised there was DRM on apps, now there is and its fucking us up because people wont even pay a dollar/59p for a game.

 

[Able Seacat]

Well that sucks, stupid DRM causing problems it shouldn't as usual.

Spoiler

 

[McMullen]

Seems like Apple, like so many others, is failing to see this as an indication that using DRM at all is a bad idea.

 

[thomaskattus]

Yea, my android port of Angry Birds never stopped working. *pets his Droid 3 in a disturbing fashion* My precioussssssssss.

 

[galaxygamer]

Pardon my ignorace, but what was the point of this DRM in the first place? Isn't the App store and the multiple Apple locked OSs already a sort of DRM system? What would FairPlay accomplish?

I was thinking [em]the exact same thing[/em].

 

[Tamrin]

There are plenty of reasons to dislike DRM

Because you never hear, "There are plenty of reasons to like DRM".

 

[hooksashands]

Now imagine how pissed everyone will be when this starts happening to $60 games.

 

[draythefingerless]

Im sorry but if you spend your long awaited day long holiday downloading and playing fucking angry birds, i feel sad for you. Angry Birds is what you do when youre NOT on holiday!

 

[grigjd3]

Now imagine how pissed everyone will be when this starts happening to $60 games.

It already has. Bioshock for the PC never functioned right and the Assassin's Creed games regularly crash to desktop because of DRM.

 

[Lunar Templar]

yay!! for having an Android

 

[itsthesheppy]

I see that DRM continues to penalize legitimate customers more than actual pirates.

Ah, one more reason to envy pirates. Nothing like paying good $ to be treated like a thief anyway.

Succinctly, the problem with DRM in its entirety.

 

[UNHchabo]

Yea, my android port of Angry Birds never stopped working. *pets his Droid 3 in a disturbing fashion* My precioussssssssss.

Except we now know that Rovio is in favor of putting DRM on their games. If they find a way to do it on Android, they probably will.