Atari Founder: PC Piracy About to be Eradicated

[The Thief]

If they don't know where to look or can't be bothered then not having DRM would make no difference.

Ofcourse it does. If there was no DRM then the cd burner that comes with each computer would be more than enough and people would be passing around cds for fun like in the old days.

Copy Protection is different from DRM.

 

[Dejawesp]

There is a strong feeling on this thread that this anti-piracy DRM motherboard is one such mistake.

I also feel that this chip is a step in the wrong direction.

What I would have the police do is beat down the door of the people who run the pirate bay then take the list of all IP adresses that download copyrighted items. Handle it on a case by case basis. Those that can be proven guilty should be charged and sued. The one's that can't be proven guilty will be let go but the ordeal will serve as a valluable deterent.

Y'know, when the rape, murder, armed robbery, mugging, assault, GBH and all the other violent crime rates drop to minimal, then law enforcement can waste their time on protecting publishers loss of .5% of their profit margins. .

The police cannot ignore any type of crime. if the police lined up all types of crime and handled them one at a time then the ones not being handled would increase exponentially.

Yeah, and in the "old days" PC gaming was much healthier, so, isn't that evidence contrary to your argument?

It would have been but we have to take into consideration the growth of the internet and bandwidth that has helped power the pirates effort. Back when it took 13 hours to download counterstrike at it's mere 80 MB and you paid for internet use by the hour even the prospect of free 600 MB games would'nt have been all too appeling.

So by "And so the conversation degrades even further" you mean "yeah--I really can't disagree with what you're saying anymore so I'll ignore it"?

No it means that when you dedicate an entire paragraph to personal attacks on me then I preffer to overlook it for the sake of the thread instead of feeding it and let it ruin the thread.

 

[Undeed]

There's alot of circular arguing going on here. Pirates raise the pirce og games, because they're not paying! Companies respond to make up lost profit! Pirates see this as unfair, and recruit more to their cause! Revenues drop! Anti-Pirate steps are taken! Consumer cost goes up, and more pirates are born!

That is the extent of the causal argument. It can't be solved. Which came first, the over-priced game or the cheapskate hacker? The world will never know. It's foolish to try and prove your point with this method.

Most blanket statements(All X is Y) are generally wrong. The same goes for "All pirating is immoral". We even got Dejasweep to admit that under one very specific circumstance(Having purchased the game and needing the image for whatever reason) he had no problem with it, even though it's still tecnichally pirating! So we've proven that grey is there.

Dejasweep, I mean no offense, but you do come across as working for a corporation. This is because you side so firmly with them, even going so far as changing the topic to the morality of pirating rather than the prevention or sucess of the act.It's hard to see you as a person and not as a tool when you basically rehash the same arguments against pirates rather than for DRM.

Fondant, there is no .5% loss to profit as the pirates would likely not buy it anyway.

 

[adultswim810]

"Just because they make it hack-proof don't mean we ain't going to hack it."

win

 

[Junaid Alam]

First off, I have not read the whole thread. But it seems it has become the same as every other discussion about DRM and piracy. So I'm just going to jump right in:
Copy protections never stopped anybody who really wanted to pirate a game. For all those "casual pirates" a simple CD check combined with a serial does the trick just as well. Overall the copy protection business seems to be some self-conserving entity sent to us because we failed the gods of gaming or something like that, because I honestly don't see its real purpose and I don't get why it even exists after years of constant total failure. It simply has to be divine intervention. Or suits with their heads up their ass, which is basically the same thing.
The only thing strict copy protections ever will achieve is pissing off legit customers, and sadly that phenomenon is increasing with ever more complex protection mechanisms, which, naturally, are more prone to error. I was absolutely going to get Mass Effect for example, as well as Spore, until EA announced that they're basically renting the game to me as long as they see fit and I'm only guaranteed 3 installs, as well as again installing a copy protection that everybody except the publishers calls a rootkit, because it practically resembles one.
Sry, but that is just too much. I pay good money for those games, I don't want to be ripped off, simple as that. Pirates get a better product than the legit customers, which is the inherent flaw in the current idea about copy protection. Instead of punishing their customers and worrying about piracy so much, how about worrying about your customers and punishing the pirates for a change?
It is obvious that putting even more draconian procedures into place doesn't achieve that goal. Some developers have realized that, mainly small, independent ones. Perhaps the big guys should take a step back and learn from them?
Even the music and movie industry is walking away from that crap, how about the games industry getting sensible?

 

[Dejawesp]

We even got Dejasweep to admit that under one very specific circumstance(Having purchased the game and needing the image for whatever reason) he had no problem with it, even though it's still tecnichally pirating! So we've proven that grey is there.

There is nothing illegal or immoral about making backup copies of the games you bought. However companies can not make it possible to make backups and at the same time make it hard to copy to distribute so backup copying suffers but they can't be blamed for that.

Dejasweep, I mean no offense, but you do come across as working for a corporation. This is because you side so firmly with them, even going so far as changing the topic to the morality of pirating rather than the prevention or sucess of the act.It's hard to see you as a person and not as a tool when you basically rehash the same arguments against pirates rather than for DRM.

I have no particular love for any specific company (except mayby RWS) But it's become so easy for people to dismiss the rights of people who run companies with this imaginary fasad of the cold, evil capitalist company that seels only to consume all take our children.

When a crime is commited against a company it's easy for people to think no more of it because the company does not have a face like a person. Even though the company consists of people. Arguments like "they have enough money anyway" infuriates me because people think that they are perfectly justified to cheat and steal from other people because those people run a company. It's not that I favor companies. I just dont have as much dislike for companies as the majority tends to have. So although I stand on the middle line. With everyone else standing closer to one side. For them it looks like I'm standing on the other side.

Well, alas, but that may be a tad difficult. Firstly, the Pirate Bay operates in a legal grey area. While there have been numerous court cases, cease-and-desist orders, etc, no-one's actually been able to prove that what they do is illegal. Hence why they've gone on so long, when other sites have had to pack up.

Napster also used to be in a grey area. The pirate bays grey are is shrinking by every passing day.

Secondly, a site like Pirate Bay will have been used by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. Operating on a case-by-case basis is like trying to plough a field using a teaspoon. The number of man-hours required, the legal costs... it's an unrealistic plan of action.

After the IP adresses have been aquired then the companies are free to take the users to civil court. Those that choose to.

And police beating down the door? Valuable deterrent? Are we living in Soviet Russia or something?

That was mostly me speaking out of passion rather than reason. Although I don't think deterrents to crime is very unhumane and we do beat down criminals doors in the west too.

 

[Dejawesp]

Ops double post.

 

[Undeed]

There is nothing illegal or immoral about making backup copies of the games you bought. However companies can not make it possible to make backups and at the same time make it hard to copy to distribute so backup copying suffers but they can't be blamed for that.

What was discussed was downloading a copy from a common pirate source for use as a backup. This is still technically pirating. Now we can be in agreement that there are circumstances where it is not immoral.

I have no particular love for any specific company (except mayby RWS) But it's become so easy for people to dismiss the rights of people who run companies with this imaginary fasad of the cold, evil capitalist company that seels only to consume all take our children.

When a crime is commited against a company it's easy for people to think no more of it because the company does not have a face like a person. Even though the company consists of people. Arguments like "they have enough money anyway" infuriates me because people think that they are perfectly justified to cheat and steal from other people because those people run a company. It's not that I favor companies. I just dont have as much dislike for companies as the majority tends to have. So although I stand on the middle line. With everyone else standing closer to one side. For them it looks like I'm standing on the other side.

It's easier for the majority to see it from the other side because this ultimatly becomes about money, both at the root and as the result. And the majority of people here are consumers, not producers, so it's more difficult to see how this is supposed to change anyhthing, especially when it's so limiting to them. What's going on here is, in it's simplest form, a group punishment, since we cannot figure out who the pirates are.

 

[The Thief]

When a crime is commited against a company it's easy for people to think no more of it because the company does not have a face like a person. Even though the company consists of people. Arguments like "they have enough money anyway" infuriates me because people think that they are perfectly justified to cheat and steal from other people because those people run a company.

That is very true, but nobody here is saying it is okay to steal from these companies.

However, do you think the companies see their consumer base any differently? We see an evil company, they see a bunch of greedy pirates.

 

[Dejawesp]

However, do you think the companies see their consumer base any differently? We see an evil company, they see a bunch of greedy pirates.

How they see us is unimportant. What they do to us matters. If they do something illegal against us then they are punished and judged but the same should apply to when we do something illegal against them. We should be judged and punished. Not come out clean as a whistle and be hailed as heroes for standing up to the evil corporations. As frustrating as some DRM might be they are not illegal. At worst they are questionable but not immoral. No malice. Just incompetence.

What was discussed was downloading a copy from a common pirate source for use as a backup. This is still technically pirating. Now we can be in agreement that there are circumstances where it is not immoral.

Not that is not actualy pirating because you have aquired the liscence for the game already.

What's going on here is, in it's simplest form, a group punishment, since we cannot figure out who the pirates are.

No we are'nt all being punished. Pirates get sued, jailed and fined when possible. The honest consumer get's a game to play. What you see as a punishment is just a very unfortunate side effect of the companys attempt to protect themselves from the pirates. The real punishment is the legal action taken against pirates when possible and the inability to easaly copy the game which is not very damaging for the honest customer.


People just love picking on companies for the sake of it. If there's a debate then people find out what side a company could be on and pick the opposite. Here are some examples

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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.60860.482931

The guy doing the voice for Niko in GTA 4 signed a contract to do it for $100.000. Now he want's more money and rockstar refuses. Instantly people porttray this as the evil corporation stomping on the little guy. The artist and actor.

---------------------------------
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.60837.482751

Apparantly microsoft is making Vista use more system resources on purpose so they can sell more computers. I had no idea microsoft was selling computers but apparantly making your OS unusable on old computers is good business strategy.

At the same time apparantly games that require alot of computer power are going to kill the PC gaming industry because no one will be able to play games anymore. The way I figure it is if a company makes a game that no one can run then people will just buy other games instead. leaving the industry unharmed.

Just like if I was to make a car that uses liquid gold as fuel. The car industry would not go under. My company would probably go under as people would just go buy other cars.

 

[Slakah]

Whats the motivation for mobo manufacturors too fit this unhackable chip?

I really hope this doesn't mean the red ring of death will be transfered over to PC.

 

[Junaid Alam]

@Dejawesp:
I think it is important how a company perceives its customers, because that perception will define their actions, as we all can witness. I'm not going to argue with you about piracy itself, as I agree with you on that one: It is illegal and just because the crime is committed against a company doesn't make it less of a crime.
Where you're wrong is that, in my opinion, legit customers do get punished compared to the pirates, be it "collateral damage" or not: Legit customers take the damage while pirates continue unharmed. This is the current state of things.
Another thing that really ticks me off is how publishers can seriously justify things like limited times of activation as a copy protection mechanism. Sorry, but that's just ridiculous: A pirated version of a game will be activated exactly 0 times. So, how exactly do activation limits help fight piracy?
Next example: How does it help fight piracy not to inform your customers during the installation process that SecuROM or other copy protection systems will be installed on your system?
It doesn't help fight piracy either that you can't remove SecuROM in a reasonable manner, but have to resort to trickery or just plainly reinstall your OS.

All these things have no justification when the matter at hand is supposed to be fighting piracy. The only proper way out for a legit customer is to buy the game and then download a cracked version, which is downright shameful. The current iteration of copy protections is close to breaking the game, and is partially illegal or at least very shady.

One thing you seem to defend rigorously is that copy protections actually successfully fight piracy. The problem is: There are no factual numbers about how much damage piracy is actually causing. They don't exist, because you can't even begin to estimate them. You can estimate how often a game was pirated. But, as there is no known data about how many pirates buy the game afterwards or how many people would have bought the game if they couldn't have downloaded it, the number of pirated copies doesn't mean a thing. Yes, it's an estimate about how many crimes have been committed. Does it give any clue about how much money was lost, i.e. not made, though? No, it doesn't.

As you don't know how much damage piracy actually causes, how exactly do you know that copy protections help fight piracy, as a success in doing so would mean less damage done, right?
How do you know that copy protections don't actually cause more damage by scaring customers away than the problem they ought to fix?

 

[The Thief]

However, do you think the companies see their consumer base any differently? We see an evil company, they see a bunch of greedy pirates.

How they see us is unimportant. What they do to us matters. If they do something illegal against us then they are punished and judged but the same should apply to when we do something illegal against them. We should be judged and punished. Not come out clean as a whistle and be hailed as heroes for standing up to the evil corporations. As frustrating as some DRM might be they are not illegal. At worst they are questionable but not immoral. No malice. Just incompetence.

What they do to us completely depends on how they see us, so don't tell me it's unimportant.

You keep making this into an argument against piracy, when we are arguing against DRM. We all know piracy is wrong, but DRM is too. Two wrongs don't make a right.

DRM may not be illegal, but it is doing harm whether you choose to believe so or not. The harm is being done to the customers, not the pirates, and the companies aren't stupid so they would know this. Knowingly harming somebody innocent for no real gain can be seen as malicious pretty easily.

No we are'nt all being punished. Pirates get sued, jailed and fined when possible. The honest consumer get's a game to play. What you see as a punishment is just a very unfortunate side effect of the companys attempt to protect themselves from the pirates. The real punishment is the legal action taken against pirates when possible and the inability to easaly copy the game which is not very damaging for the honest customer.

DRM doesn't stop pirates, it stops customers. The honest consumer has the chance of his DRM damaging his computer or not letting him play, while the pirate plays hassle free.

Barely any legal action is taken against pirates because it is near impossible to charge them and it costs them money to do so.

 

[Undeed]

Not that is not actualy pirating because you have aquired the liscence for the game already.

It is technically pirating in that you are downloading a product being provided by a free source. Regardless of the fact that you have already purchased the product, it still fits the bill. And unless you keep a very detailed account of what you buy there's little way of proving you purchased said product.

What's going on here is, in it's simplest form, a group punishment, since we cannot figure out who the pirates are.

No we are'nt all being punished. Pirates get sued, jailed and fined when possible. The honest consumer get's a game to play. What you see as a punishment is just a very unfortunate side effect of the companys attempt to protect themselves from the pirates. The real punishment is the legal action taken against pirates when possible and the inability to easaly copy the game which is not very damaging for the honest customer.

I'm trying to show you that the companies dedicate more income to putting massive inconveniences in the way of consumers as a way of making systems "unhackable" than to actually stop pirates. These inconveniences can be seen as a group punishment in that they are measures taken to prevent the illeagal actions of a compratively small group of people in the future, and are seen as a detterent to said action. It is damaging to consumers as they must put up with slews of ridiculous new security precautions that damage the lifetime and playability of the disk.

The guy doing the voice for Niko in GTA 4 signed a contract to do it for $100.000. Now he want's more money and rockstar refuses. Instantly people porttray this as the evil corporation stomping on the little guy. The artist and actor.

I'm inclined to disagree with "people" in this case. The man signed a contract and, if he read it, should have discussed this with them before hand. That's his fault.

Apparantly microsoft is making Vista use more system resources on purpose so they can sell more computers. I had no idea microsoft was selling computers but apparantly making your OS unusable on old computers is good business strategy.

I'm sure that MS manufacteres parts. In any case, it follows that when you try to improve a system it needs more space. If old computers do not have this space then they should remain on older OS's. I hear Vista's pretty lousy anyway.

Those are both beside the point anyway. We shouldn't be disscussing whether or not the argument is valid. For every 10 people on the bandwagon one has a valid point. And while the Band-Wagoneers are just in it for kicks some of us have issues we would like to adress. I find your dissmissal of popular opinion, and my own, rather disapointing, but there's hope yet as you have been replying to said opinions.

 

[Vidiot]

so my first question is whether i'll need to buy a new machine to play these "uncrackable" games? if so, that's unfair to the honest paying customers who meet system requirements, but can't play the game because of my choice in motherboard, and if i can still play the game on an old motherboard with updated chipset and videocard, then the point is moot, because hackers will simply retrofit old motherboards to run new games. kind of a lose/lose if you ask me.