I paid for Spore, not Securom. I can't even find and uninstall Securom easily.

It appears the lead counsel that sued Sony over the music CD rootkit is the one going after EA. They successfully sued manufacturers that used StarForce, which resulted in StarForce changing their protection scheme, providing an uninstall utility, and allowing discs to be copied for backup. In addition, they also sued Activision over the quality of the Guitar hero discs for the Wii not meeting expectations (which resulted in an offer of refunds or replacement discs). So I wouldn't brush it aside quite so lightly.

the only copy protection that can FUNCTION would be trusted computing with severe penalties to anyone circumventing it and complete exclusion of all hardware and software without TCPM chips. Which would split the internet into trusted computing and non trusted computing hardware, have built in big brother for all people of all countries of the world, complete eliminate all personal freedoms, and will most likely result a civil war.

Anything short of it will be completely ineffective as the copy protection will be reversed engineered and bypass, as has happened again, and again, and again.

There is one cavet, you can have practical limitation on copying rather then DRM type. Things like making an MMO, which, by its very nature, is not copyable (well, you can make a private server but it will be severely lacking in data, and easy to take down as it is a single entity, not to mention costs would be high to manage such a server).

Heh - With apologies to frogboy (who obviously disagrees) I see it as an information theory issue, and frankly my intuitive suspicion that any system that can implement a copy protection system encrypting data sufficiently that it is both 

A. Accessible to be output and

B. Cannot be accessed by any unauthorized attempts in software, despite their having access to the system

probably no longer qualifies as a Turing machine.

The definition of a Turing machine is that any turing machine can duplicate the efforts of any other turing machine. By extension, any program on such a machine can have it's features duplicated by another program, running simultaneously, so, given access to software that can access the copyprotected data, it seems intuitively obvious to me that that software can be duplicated to whatever degree is required to give unauthorized access, so long as the system actually qualifies as a turing machine at all.

I don't think TCPM chips or anything else is ever going to stop it - the nature of the machine is that if you implement access restrictions in which the decryption scheme is available to an attacker, then the attacker can by definition duplicate that decryption scheme.

The only thing that's going to stop that is if the system is so simple that it no longer qualifies as a turing machine, and even that only means you have to have a second machine that *does* qualify as one in order to crack the system.

You can hand me a locked box, and a sufficiently complex lock can keep me out of it if I don't have a key. But all of these copyright mechanisms fundamentally rely on handing me a locked box, *with* a key, and endeavoring to make it so difficult to duplicate the key that I can't get in. I don't think that's fundamentally possible.

Jonnan

ah, a TCPM does NOT qualify as a touring machine. TCPM will be a disaster that will completely destroy the computer market.

Also TCPM does not send you a locked box with a key, it sends you a locked box and instructs you to request a person of authority to come over and use HIS key every time you want to do something.

A better example would be a bank safe deposit box.

I answered this question once before, Brad, and you rudely assumed I was a pirate (which I'm not).

I said then, and I still say, I would accept online activation, with or without limits, securerom even Starforce (the versions that stopped being destructive) if games publishers would start issuing patches to remove ALL DRM once the game hit bargain basement status. Even if I never play the game again, I like to know that I can install it and play it, long after the game company has gone bottoms up. I bought galciv 1 and 2 and would have kept buying the various additions except that you started using activation.....and called me a pirate.

I don't understand what stops publishers from removing DRM when it is no longer needed on a game. It would stop the moaning dead in it's tracks by removing all the arguments against it.

ps Put the most draconian DRM you like on a game and I wont care, as long as I know for sure, that you'll remove it when the time is right.

I'll throw in my two cents...

First, I believe that software really should be "owned" and not "licensed".  Licensing is a concept that software companies have created to exploit the intellectual property laws (mostly copyright) that benefit them, but try to avoid other parts of copyright (such as fair use, first sale, etc) that do not benefit them.  Its easy to throw together a legalese document and bundle it in a box or setup program, but that doesn't mean that the courts will buy it.  IANAL but not all courts accept the licensing model (i.e. ProCD).  Remember that all other forms of intellectual property, such as books and music CDs, are "owned" and not "licensed".  Why should software be the exception?

As far as the customer is concerned, no license is really needed to run his/her legally purchased software.  Any copying (installation or RAM copies) for normal use of the software product falls under either specially allowed by the law or can fall under fair use.  Copyright doesn't reserve all rights to the copyright holder, but only a limited set of rights such as public performance, display, reproduction, and distribution.  Notably, the user still has the "use" rights to legally purchased software.  Its called "copy-right" and not "use-right" for a reason.

To close the legal loophole that publishers use for contracting away rights, I think copyright law must be amended with a clause such as "No person may voluntarily surrender his/her rights to use (in a normal manner) a lawfully obtained copy of a copyrighted work, or accept any restrictions on use.  No person may voluntarily surrender his/her statutory rights under copyright law, including the doctrine of first sale, fair use, or fair dealing."

More pertinent to DRM, I feel that any form of software activation is going over the line.  Any software publisher is not going to be around forever.  What happens when the publisher goes out of business or decides that the activation servers are not worth keeping around, or wants to 'force' users to upgrade?  All of the users who bought the software can no longer activate their copies.  This is not necessarily illegal (depending on contract wording) but it is certainly bad public policy.  People accept that they might not use their software forever, but also that the software won't have an artificially short lifespan.

If software activation is used, I think that any overall limitation on the total number of activations is going over the line.  These limits are not to stop piracy, but rather to kill off the re-sale/second-hand market.  I think a "de-licensing" utility is fine, but a even better idea is to limit the number of installs over a given time.  For example, instead of saying that the software can only be installed 3 times before a call to tech support is needed, a better idea is to say that the software can only be activated 3 times in a month, and that each activation lasts 1 month.  This means that an occasional Internet access is needed, but not for every time the software is started, and no need for the CD to be in the drive either.  If the user loses one license due to a hard drive failure or re-format, then that license automatically becomes available after a month's time.  The user can re-sell the software at any time.  The publisher saves money because no tech support calls are needed for activation reasons.  And of course, limiting a particular copy to 3 installs per month is useless for mass piracy.  The pirates will defeat the DRM scheme in time anyhow... but this activation scheme doesn't really hurt the honest end user.

Cheers!

Ockham's razor issue... in fact!

The simplest (or most effective) system of protection could only lead to a definitive solution UNLESS found or proven flawed.

Software is already treated differently by copyright law. No other class of material allows making copies for backup purposes (archival purposes, yes, but not individual consumers copying for personal use) or a damn-near unlimited right of reverse engineering. If software were sold instead of licensed, it would be permissable for owners to reverse engineer their software and remove all copy protection in the guise of reworking the software for "compatability purposes." Operating private servers for online subscription games would also be permissable. Sale of used programs would be mandated, instead of being at the publisher's disgression as it is now.

Licensing is not publishers exploiting copyright law; it is publishers avoiding being exploited under copyright law.

My 200/2 cents:

The only copy protection I will tolerate (and this type I consider a given) is having support and patches resricted to actual owners. Stardock does this quite well, and is a far as I'm willing to go with copy protection (and considering the current alternatives, I am quite supportive of them). All the alternate ones do (aside from having absolutely nothing, even token) is cause legitimate gamers like me to not buy games; some even turn to pirating instead.

Me speaking as a 20 year gamer (I'm 21 now - guess that makes me a lifer) who bought 15-20 games per year until being badly burned by copy protection. Now it's 2-3 per year...... maybe..... if I have a lot of excess money.

That I could get behind... With neverwinter nights bioware had a patch remove the the securom DRM later on. Ofcourse, now they have been bought by EA... "changes will not be made"... except mass effect has a 3 activation limit and it took them months to bring the "bring down the sky" content pack that was supposed to be available on release day. (bioware used to make lots of patches)

Not so much of a guise, considering older DRM is no longer compatible with newer operating system, the only way to play those older games you bought is to use a crack, which was made via reverse engineering.

I have thought a bit about my answer for this topic, simply because I think it is important to think and talk about it.

I don't have problems with activations itself, BUT I have a problem if they require an active internet connection, when you want to install it. From what I have read you need one for Spore. Now let us compare it with GCII. We need an activation to play it or for upgrades, but I'm not force to have a connection when I'm going to install it. I get even a manual how I can activate it an a PC with no internet-connection when I have access to one with a connection.

One of my friends is a hardware-freak (or at least that's my opinion), he buys new hardware ever 3 to 6 month, simply because he has the money and wants up-to-date hardware. If he would play Spore he would have a problem after 1 year.

So, I think a better solution for this would be a de-activation ability.

Next thing is the software that is installed in the background. I was one of the few people who had Problem with StarForce. To be more accurate it caused crashes in every other game. Yes, SF did I couldn't believe it, but it was true. I check everything, till I found something about SF and find a tool to remove it. After that I had no more problems, but I was also no longer able to play the SF protected game.

Now, let me come back to Pirates, they won't have such problems, because the CP is removed for them. If they should have problems, then they can live with it, because they haven't payed for it and maybe they have the option to re-download it. (Some of them are even so impertinent to contect the support with a problem.)

The paying customers on the other hand can have serious problems, have to contact the support and wait for an often not helpful standard answer (yes, I know many problems are standard problems), while the others can play it without such problems. You think it is not bad to wait some weeks, well it is. If you are a part of the community you want to play the game and maybe you want to play it till the end as fast as possible to be able to talk about it. It's just like a movie, you can't talk about it without haveing see it.

Edit: Here is one more thing I have missed.

Companies should begin to have better product informations. Those hidden informations or announcements after a few weeks are not very nice. Maybe it would keep people from buying the product, but at least they can say that they haven't been warned or fool when you're honest. A simple "this game is copyprotected" isn't enough. It could mean everything. Imagine a game that says only "requires an Intel CPU" (no more informations).
So, don't fool the customers, be honest and don't hold important informations back.

By the way, back in the DOS days, limited activation was already being used, just not over the internet. Some games had a system whereby a token was copied from the disk and had to be in place before the game could be run. The token had to be copied back to the disc before the game could be installed and used some where else. Thanks to disc crashed etc I still have several expensive games that no longer work. This is the main reason I wont buy any Stardock game that uses activation, or any other software for that matter. Having recently heard from another user that also suggested removal of DRM from Stardock games by a patch after the support life of the product had ended and was told he wasn't the sort of customer that Stardock wanted, I'm more set against ever buying anything from Stardock again. This is the sort of treatment that encourages piracy and drives away loyal customers, such as I once was.

Effectively, removal of DRM from Stardock games does end after support life is ended, you can copy the last patched version of the game to a disk, and give it out as much as you want, since there's no more patches, their copy is just as good as yours.  Stardock won't be too happy about it, but if the game isn't supported no need to worry about registering it.

The answer to the original question is no, there is no viable copy protection.  Look at Blu-ray and the now defunct HD-DVD.  Both used AACS, which has been cracked.  The only thing accomplished by this "anti-piracy" measure was increased cost to the manufacturers and consumers.  The hardware required to decode the encryption in real-time is considerably greater than if it was not present.  The biggest deterrent for their piracy was the size of the medium itself.  No one wants to download 20+ gigs of data when they could just go with a lower quality DVD rip.  This only hurt their sales because of the high cost of the players.  Player performance also took a hit because of the required decryption.  DVD decryption was defeated long ago, yet DVD sales are great, as are CD sales - both of which are easily pirated. 

If I want to get my hands on pirated entertainment, it isn't difficult.  Looking at piracy as lost potential sales assumes much, and yet companies that employ these "anti-piracy" measures do so at the expense of paying customers.  The fact that these companies continue these actions in the face of increasing negative publicity, while losing sales to customers that prefer to actually own what they purchase, proves that the leadership of these companies is ill-equipped to deal with the distribution of entertainment in today's society.  Without their customers, these same companies couldn't exist, yet they seem unaware that they are biting the hand that feeds them.

Companies that take the correct approach will continue to try to gain more customers by giving them what they want - great support, ease of use, and high quality products that are updated for FREE on a regular basis.  Any company that continues to waste time, money, and effort on "anti-piracy" measures will continue to alienate customers, to their own detriment.

Actually, software is not treated any differently under copyright law than any other type of creative work.  You are generally allowed to perform/display privately, or make private copies, in whole or in part, of any copyrighted work.  [Note, I said private here, as in you don't give your copies away.]  So you can make backup copies of a book or music CD all you want because copyright law doesn't prohibit you (the owner) from doing that.

All of the examples that were cited doesn't really treat software as special in any way.  Reverse engineering: You effectively reverse engineer a book when you read, study, and analyze its plot, characters, and theme.  Grade school students reverse engineer stories all the time.  Running private servers: There is no real prohibition on running a private server.  You can run private servers all the time.  The major case against private servers (BnetD) was because BnetD allowed unauthorized copies to play (a DMCA thing), and that a no-reverse engineering clause was violated on the terms of service (ToS) for BattleNet.  But the court didn't rule that the concept of running private servers itself was illegal.  [Note: The ToS is fundamentally different than the software EULA.  You can still "own" the software but when you connect to BattleNet, you still would have to abide by their ToS since you don't own BattleNet.]  Sale of used programs: The sale of used programs IS currently mandated and not under the discretion of the copyright holder.  I don't know who told you that the copyright holder has the right to control the secondary market... but they can't.  Trust me, if they could, they would-- every sale of a used copy of a game at Gamestop "deprives" the copyright holder of a sale of a new copy of the same software title, even though we somehow don't call this "piracy".

Publishers should not get to "avoid getting exploited by copyright law" if they benefit from the protection of copyright law.  The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to create and ultimately benefit the general public.  It isn't to protect or enrich a copyright holder.  A software publisher or any other copyright holder might not like parts of copyright law, but those parts are in there for good reasons and contracts shouldn't be able to take those rights away.

Lastly, reverse engineering is not an "evil" practice of thieves, but rather it is a standard engineering methodology.  Medical science has been trying to reverse engineer the human body for centuries.  A grade school student effectively reverse engineers a (copyrighted) story when he/she reads, studies, and analyzes the elements of the story.  I think reverse engineering for ANY reason should be legal, whether it is to figure out how to improve something, or defeat a limitation (such as a copy protection scheme), or even to create a competing product.  No one has really provided a justification why software needs or deserves any special protection from reverse engineering compared with other types of works.

Cheers!

Stardock has the perfect DRM in my opinion. Be good to  your customers, treat them like customers instead of thieves and the customers will reward you with their loyalty. Stardock does not release something and just leave it your lap. They coninuely offer updates for their titles for years. In other words, they dont leave you hanging with a disfunctional title. They offer nice pricing, they offer quality goods, this all equals to people coming to buy instead of pirate. You will always have piracy, but those people will pirate anything including their mothers purses just for the rush. I think Stardock has the overall perfect solution to piracy. DRMs of any kind have had no effect at all on piracy, seems like it only gets worse as the DRM gets worse. Stardock games give you soo much for your money, great  product, well supported, moddable, and great community. Your sense of guilt would get to you I would hope if you had to lower yourself to pirating Stardock games. They are every solution a pirate uses as an excuse to pirate. Game is too expensive, the publishers are jerks, the games been left unifinished, the games buggy and no patches ever were released. Stardock has and continue to address all those concerns not by words, but by example.

Regarding EA's of %0.4 install over three times.

1. This is a pretty unfair number since it was based on Spore Creature Creature which hasnt been out there very long. Why not numbers from their other games? Say released 6 months to a year ago? I bet those numbers dont hold well. EA has been on a huge disinformation campaign as of late so I have a few questions about their numbers vs an independent study.

2. How well did Spore Creature creator sell? What are the numbers we are basing this on? 20,000 units? How old was this study or how up to date is it?

3. Why does EA not take a more detailed study over a larger group of their PC games rather than one title that wasnt really even a title but a tool for a game that would eventually include it anyway?

Jim

There are fundamental differences between analysing a story and cracking a game. One is intended to be done (by good writers, anyway) and the other is not. Much of the value of a book lies in analysing the different levels on which the story works, and how different themes are portrayed. On the other hand, cracking the security features of a program is not necessary for it to be used as intended. It is generally only necessary when one is attempting something prohibited by copyright.

Running private servers: the unauthorized copy problem would exist on any private server, unless the person running it also duplicated the legitimate server's authorization processes and had a comprehensive list of authorized copies. That's extremely unlikely to ever happen. You DO see private servers, but some games allow them. I've seen games that actively encouraged them. That doesn't mean it's legal to do so without the copyright holder's permission.

I see you belong to the "EULAs aren't valid" school. If the software was owned instead of licensed, what you said about resale would be true. But since the consumer does not own the software, the publisher retains resale rights. If this were not true, every person who bought a game that prevents full resale (basically, any DRM you can think of, including Stardock's) could and should sue. And yes, in the context of software, selling used copies can often qualify as piracy. Most people don't think of it as such, but it can be, depending on how the license is written. For example, Blizzard explicitly ALLOWS resale for Diablo II, but not for WoW.

And the incentive provided is mostly monetary. Yes, public recognition, professional standing, bragging rights, etc. are all protected by copyright, but the main force behind it is allowing the creator to sell his work without competition from people simply reprinting his work.

I'd really like not to repeat the game cheats are illegal? discussion, but the basics are this: in no other form of media can one person reverse engineering a product affect the usability of someone else's copy of that product. Hacking the security system of a game to your benefit inevitably damages the usability of that product for others.

I might add that reverse engineering for purposes of creating competing products is generally breaking copyright (or patent, as is more common). That's the major reason patent rights run out so much faster than copyright - REing a physical object is often the first step in creating a (newly legal) competing product.

Accidental double post.

The easiest way to fix the DRM issue is to simply look at what the consumer wants. Piracy isn't there just cause people are theifs, it's merely a result of an old buisness model that refuses to adapt. The Music, Video and Gaming industry is failing because they are trying to change the consumer to follow their rules, instead of listening to what the consumer wants and needs.

Most politicians fail to understand that society doesn't like to be controlled, without choice - order won't remain. You can impose all kinds of restictions and laws, but if they kill choice, they'll retaliate.

Compete for the consumer, and not against them.

Still excusing licensing for something that doesn't exist?

How can I adversely affect another user by reverse engineering Gal Civ?  Windows?  What can I do, that isn't already illegal, that can harm anyone in any software that isn't a multiplayer game?  Try in no form at all.  Only in a small portion of software, that didn't even exist when the bans started, do they actually protect other users from any potential problems.

The kicker?  Any such multiplayer usage can be covered by terms of use.  Your argument against reverse engineering sucks, find a new one.

Have to stongly dissagree with you on this. Copyright law lets me make as many copy/backups as i want wether its 1 or 1000 as long as its for your personal use.

You're right, most of the harm that can be done is a criminal offense anyway, but including it in copyright allows the company thus victimized to pursue damages, in addition to whatever criminal penalties may apply. Nothing brings the lols like someone doing millions of dollars in damage to your buisiness and making money off of it, then getting a slap on the wrist while you can't recover damages.

And a sucessful RE of a security system could entirely bypass any such ToU. Not to mention that setting up a private server would necessarily bypass the ToU of the authorized server.

I suppose O.J. signed a contract stating he wouldn't kill his ex-wife and boyfriend?  Law suites don't even need something illegal to be filed and succeed.  All you need to get in is standing, and monetary damages are standing.

By virtue of being illegal, a company has grounds for civil remedy against a hacker to recoup damages that total greater than $5000.

The private server issue is one of those wonderful reasons why a virtual object needs a patent, and not a fucking copyright.  If WOW servers were patented, Blizzard wouldn't need to worry about private servers.  The only thing you could legally do before the patent runs out, by which time Blizzard will have made hundreds of millions, it set up your own private server for yourself.  Not exactly the experience of an mmo eh?  After the patent ran out, capitalism would take over.  You wouldn't have to worry about buying an MMO and having the company shut it down to force you into their new game, never to play it again.

Besides, competition is a good thing.  These government enforced monopolies are ridiculous cash cows, it's why the industry drools over them so much.  First you make a fucking fortune selling it, then you charge the poor saps ten times what it costs to run it and hose them for twice the cost of the game every year they play it.  The only way they get away with it is because they're legally protected from competition.  It's the very reason monopolies are banned.

Unfettered, most likely they'd be running off advertisements with a minimal pay to get rid of these option, and you'd be playing them for free.  There are quite a few mmo's making money off that very model.  Blizzard wouldn't be making a few hundred million off WOW every year, but then Blizzard doesn't need to be making a few hundred million off WOW every year.  It was already a lucrative game without the subscription income to start with.  IP laws are artificial restrictions on the free market, not components of it.

Your comments are imply a value judgement (good writers analyze stories, but somehow only evil pirates crack security protocols.)  If a security feature of a program makes my computer more unstable, or causes undue wear to the hardware, or otherwise impedes the efficient or normal operation of my computer, then I should have the right to remove the said security features.  Remember that its stil MY computer, regardless of the status of the software (which is, of course, under debate.)  I should be able to reverse engineer the security features to ensure tha the software itself isn't doing anything illegal or violating my privacy.  (For example, if a publisher uses a product activation scheme as a innocuous looking backdoor to distribute child porn, and they find that stuff on my computer, guess who is going to jail?  At the very least, I would need to reverse engineer the activation scheme to prove my innocence.)  I should have the right to reverse engineer a security protocol to make fair use copies of the work.  Fair use copies are not prohibited by law.

Copyright law stays clear from value judgements anyhow, with the exception of the fair use clause.  Copyright law focuses on specific acts: Public performance, display, and reproduction are reserved to the copyright holder.  But private normal use of a work is implicitly reserved to the owner of a copy.  I firmly believe that any attempt to limit my use of a software product infringes on my rights, as much the same way as any copies I make and give away infringes the publisher's rights.  Copyright law does NOT allow a publisher to control private use, or limit use under any criteria, including the intended purpose of use.  And IMHO since private use is not something that the publisher gets to reserve by copyright, then such use is out of bounds of being controlled by any EULA, regardless of whether you believe the software is licensed or sold.

The authentication issue that you noted with a private server is a recent thing, thanks to the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA.  The section on anti-circumvention does not make any exception to intended use or purpose, so liability is incurred even for lawful uses (hence, why this section is so controversial.)

Ultimately, the supreme court will have to decide whether software is sold or licensed, because there is a long string of court cases that support both sides.  However, I believe the court is likely to be conservative and treat software like all other copyrighted works--i.e. sold, not licensed.  With competent lawyering, a licensing scheme will be seen as a loophole to unfairly remove fair use and other statutory rights from the user.  Furthermore, many states have specifically amended their uniform commercial codes (remember the whole UCITA debacle?) to specifically state that a mass-market software product is a good that is sold.

My point is that a software publisher has NO right to control resale at all.  And this is a principle that's been reinforced time and time again-- you can bet that book publishers and music publishers have tried to shut down used book stores and used CD stores, but they have always failed.  The same principle should apply to software-- notwithstanding any attempts to call the transaction as a "license" as opposed to a "sale".  A software publisher should not have the right to fundamentally alter the nature of a transaction that is essentially a sale, simply by drafting a document in the box and suddenly calling it a "license".