New study: DRM incites piracy

[S.P.Q.R. Praetorian]

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new...incites_piracy

The general consensus among consumers is that DRM sucks, and the often draconian measures used to prevent copyright infringement do very little, if anything, to prevent software piracy. The argument is that DRM only shackles the honest consumer, while pirates figure ways around the copyright schemes regardless. But could DRM also be giving otherwise law-abiding citizens cause to cross the legal line?
That's exactly what DRM is doing, according to the first empirical study of its kind in the UK. In a new paper titled, "Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment." Cambridge law professor Patricia Akester says she spent the last several years interviewing lecturers, end users, government officials, rights holders, and DRM developers to see what affect DRM was actually having.
In one example, Akester cited a situation in which a blind person who bought a legal electronic copy of the Bible from Amazon could not utilize text-to-speech. Amazon's policy is not to refund eBooks once they've been downloaded, and the publisher proved little help. Seemingly out of options, Lynn Holdsworth, the individual in question, ended up tracking down an illegal copy without the text-to-speech limitation. Not exactly what one envisions as the typical pirate.
You can read Akester's lengthy paper here, or view the shorter version here.

I could not agree more with this. I should not pay $50 to be shackled by something like SecuROM or any other kind of DRM for that matter, than can cause many crashes and slowdowns. As a consumer who pays for these products and aquires them through honest methods, I should not be punished.

[Jaketh]

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new...incites_piracy



I could not agree more with this. I should not pay $50 to be shackled by something like SecuROM or any other kind of DRM for that matter, than can cause many crashes and slowdowns. As a consumer who pays for these products and aquires them through honest methods, I should not be punished.

Thats why Vuze is your friend

[mrmouth]

The current DRM methods are just absurd, and will drive people to piracy, when the clans are cracking DRM protected games within days (often same day), and they work better than the boxed games.

And Piracy is way overblown. These developers and publishers are banking serious money. Piracy is taking a chunk out of the profit, but it is small, and isnt costing anyone their jobs, or pushing up costs. If publishers decide to raise prices in response, its nothing more than greed.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

I just love the recently released game "Cryostasis" there is absolutely no DRM and no dumb keycode that you have to type in to install. And once you have the game installed you don't even need the CD to start it! If every game were like that we'd be damn close to a perfect world

[Musthavename]

Yay for a survey stating what gamers find obvious.

The mere fact that some gamers (myself included) have boycotted games because of DRM shows that its a bad thing. I've wanted Mass Effect for a long time, but I refuse to buy the CD version, and annoyingly it's not on Steam in the UK yet.

[Selifator]

The problem is more apparent for indie developers. They don't have massive amounts of money but their games are pirated the same, though they are far cheaper and in my opinion, have more value for money.

[Freddie]

Piracy does hurt the industry a great deal and saying it doesn't is wrong in fact tell that to the people who lost their jobs when Iron Lore was closed down.

"If even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today," he wrote on the Quarter to Three forums.

People can afford to spend a thousand £'s or $'s on a PC but their not prepared to spend money on purchasing their software legitimately. If you can afford to buy a PC then you afford to pay for your games. DRM isn't the answer but a monster created by desperate developers and publishers who are just trying to protect their software. The SecuRom fiasco of 2008 showed just how narrow minded some publishers like EA can be, if they want to reduce piracy rates they should make their games more accessible to purchase (downloadable), offer new and free content, regular support and updates and drop DRM.

[Phier]

They are focusing DRM at killing the rental market more than piracy.

[Freddie]

They are focusing DRM at killing the rental market more than piracy.

Don't you mean the re-sale market (E-bay, Amazon market place etc)?

[Phier]

Don't you mean the re-sale market (E-bay, Amazon market place etc)?

That too, and yea.

[mrmouth]

There have been so many studies as to whether piracy does anything negative to the point where people lose their jobs, etc. The general argument, carried in the media, does not differentiate between software spread, and physical theft. Often, most games today have a MP aspect, in which revenue is generated, for both the developer, publisher, server hosts, and even clans, based on the amount of people playing the game. So software spread, which is what piracy is, is very often beneficial down the line.


"People just like big numbers, so they guesstimate that 100,000 people who stole a game, that retails for $50 USD, equates to having lost 50 Million dollars, even though software has no replication cost and the developer does not even pay for bandwidth."

"In most cases, piracy is made easier by trying to force DRM down people throats, which just entices hackers to take them out as a personal challenge, and it just makes everyone else angry. At the right price point, you would be amazed at how many people are willing to pay for games as entertainment."

"The companies just want the types of cash flow they had from the 90s when the net was a lot slower and people had to pay 50 bucks to use their $3000 machines. But that times over, and it’s never coming back. And it does not need to, because with the spread of the internet, the number of potential customers has also jumped sky high. Charge 50,000 people $50 or 250,000 people $10, it’s all the same, and the net allows this."

"In the case of business software, like Office 2007, Microsoft WANTS people to steal it, which is why they translated it into Chinese with basically no copy protection. A defacto monopoly is easier if you give it away to people free at home and everyone uses it and becomes familiar, then charge businesses who have a financial incentive to not risk lawsuits and fines for theft. Eever wondered why its harder to get a hacked steam account, for gaming, than it is to steal a WHOLE OPERATING SYSTEM like Vista, which is in a much better position to detect and thwart hacks and cracks because it has kernel level access and internet connectivity?"

"I am not trying to defend piracy or any type of theft. I’m not trying to make a moral point, but a realistic one that has a REAL solution that does not go along these lines: We’re legally in the right, and we’re going to make the world comply. Well first off you can’t make the world do anything, its going to go the path of least resistance no matter what. For people, that’s stealing things that are way too expensive for them personally (or taking illegal drugs because they can’t afford real professional care for whatever ails them, mentally or otherwise, because it’s so damn expensive)."

"For businesses, the least resistance is paying up the dough to ensure future revenue without lawsuits. The industry right now is indignant, and reacting like an angry shop-keep chasing off little kids. It’s acting in PRINCIPAL instead of INTELLIGENTLY and trying to apply physical security measures to digital content."

[GrnEyedDvl]

"People just like big numbers, so they guesstimate that 100,000 people who stole a game, that retails for $50 USD, equates to having lost 50 Million dollars, even though software has no replication cost and the developer does not even pay for bandwidth."

Well that part is blatantly false, I can assure you they pay for bandwidth and probably about what TWC pays for bandwidth. Backbone providers like Cogent and Qwest charge a premium, and it gets passed on down the line.

Now if they are saying that developers dont pay for bandwidth on pirated copies that would be true, but there is also no income involved.

[Phier]

I've been told piracy is Adobe's business model.

Let them pirate you so they learn how to use your product, and then become the standard for the business world.

[the_mango55]

DRM is not what drives piracy, getting free games is what drives piracy.

DRM is just an excuse that pirates can use to feel like they are "sticking it to the man"

[Timefool]

DRM is not what drives piracy, getting free games is what drives piracy.

DRM is just an excuse that pirates can use to feel like they are "sticking it to the man"

Quoted for the truth.

[Wheelchair]

Well ok, I bought GTA4, Alright?

So It asked me to Enter the Serial Code, so I did, and it couldn't validate it so I had to do it manually, which meant I had to go to the site, get an Unlock code, to unlock the PROVIDED SERIAL CODE, And re-enter about 40 characters over 2 times repeatedly! But their smart and make it so the Characters appear as ******* So you don't know if you ed up or not, YAY! there was alos ALOT of I's and L's that looked the same, FUN!!!!!

FINALY! I got the game installing, I'm excited to see how well it runs, It run's ok, I want to save my game though..and what!?!?!? "YOUR SERIAL KEY MUST BE PROVIDED TO SAVE A GAME"

lkjdhalkjhdakljahdalkhdalkhdlak

Cost: 30$

Time to Activate: 20 Minutes

Pirating: Free

Time to activate: 1-2 Minutes

Hmmmm. Some games are a little over the top.

[Jaketh]

Well ok, I bought GTA4, Alright?

So It asked me to Enter the Serial Code, so I did, and it couldn't validate it so I had to do it manually, which meant I had to go to the site, get an Unlock code, to unlock the PROVIDED SERIAL CODE, And re-enter about 40 characters over 2 times repeatedly! But their smart and make it so the Characters appear as ******* So you don't know if you ed up or not, YAY! there was alos ALOT of I's and L's that looked the same, FUN!!!!!

FINALY! I got the game installing, I'm excited to see how well it runs, It run's ok, I want to save my game though..and what!?!?!? "YOUR SERIAL KEY MUST BE PROVIDED TO SAVE A GAME"

lkjdhalkjhdakljahdalkhdalkhdlak

Cost: 30$

Time to Activate: 20 Minutes

Pirating: Free

Time to activate: 1-2 Minutes

Hmmmm. Some games are a little over the top.

yep

[Strelok]

DRM is just an excuse that pirates can use to feel like they are "sticking it to the man"

There are six billion human beings on this planet and there are quite a number of internet users and a large number of pirates. There are many anti-DRM groups such as this one (note that this is a link to an anti-DRM group and not a pro-piracy group) that will hate any form of DRM. Hence there are plenty of people who will take it to high levels and will pirate a game just because they do not want to support a game that includes something that they are strongly against. It is the same way with some vegetarians. Some vegetarians will not eat meat because they do not support the killing of animals.

I've wanted Mass Effect for a long time

I bought Mass Effect and made use of my three install limit. I had to fight with Bioware and then SecuROM to get another activation (and that took a month). There is no chance that I can get a fifth. I refuse to buy the game again. Above all, I definitely hate with all of my heart and soul the form of DRM that induces game activation limits.

If you can afford to buy a PC then you afford to pay for your games

Not necessarily true. I have spent thousands on my PC by now and I definitely have a major struggle in affording my favourite software. I have missed out on a few games because I can only afford the necessities in my current financial situation. Mainly because my PC was built upon a small stroke of luck of acquiring a sum of money of high enough magnitude to afford my PC. That chance comes only a few times in a life time.

I don't like having useless software included with my game that have the potential to induce performance and stability issues with the game or my system overall and do nothing to prevent what it is intended to prevent. I despise having excess drivers and other files related to this software that can potentially impact the OS boot-up time, the overall responsiveness or the overall reliability of my system. For example, the version of SecuROM included with the 1.01 patch of Mass Effect needed an official patch or an unofficial workaround because it caused Windows Explorer to crash when right-clicking on certain *.exe files. Certain versions of SecuROM create a file named CmdLineExt.dll in C:\Windows\System32\ which adds to Windows Explorer context-menu entries, which appear when right-clicking on files. One of the original reports of this issue was found here and acknowledged by many users in that topic. Bioware released patch 1.01A which induced a fix for the SecuROM related Windows Explorer crashes. Going back to 2005-2006, the protection StarForce was relatively young and buggy and performed very aggressive and constant disk read checks on the DVD/CD drive and in turn noticeably reduced the life span of the drive. A large number of users reported a dramatic decrease in lifespan of their DVD/CD drives under these conditions. I felt the full force in my personal experience when I had three fresh DVD-drives die within a month of having the young version of StarForce installed and playing StarForce infected game. While others have experienced zero issues, I definitely have felt the full force of potential copy protection damage. The latest StarForce update was in February of 2009 and has definitely fixed the issues it once had. I have found that the protections SafeDisc and Tages have been relatively harmless to my system.

All known releases of copy protection do nothing to stop piracy, because bypasses for the protection are released under 24 hours of the games release, or even before the games release. They then have the potential to harm the performance and stability of your system, put you through unneeded hassles before being able to play the game and is a waste of the developers money to pay the license fee to use the protection software on their game, which would be better spent on the game itself.

[the_mango55]

There are six billion human beings on this planet and there are quite a number of internet users and a large number of pirates. There are many anti-DRM groups such as this one (note that this is a link to an anti-DRM group and not a pro-piracy group) that will hate any form of DRM. Hence there are plenty of people who will take it to high levels and will pirate a game just because they do not want to support a game that includes something that they are strongly against. It is the same way with some vegetarians. Some vegetarians will not eat meat because they do not support the killing of animals.

Actually it's like people who claim to be animal rights activists who still love to eat meat.

They still eat the meat, but they steal it rather than buying it, so that the ones responsible for this "atrocity" have to suffer for it.

Never mind that they are getting enjoyment and free meat out of this "protest." If these people really want to protest, don't play the games at all.

[Strelok]

They still eat the meat, but they steal it rather than buying it

The meat is the DRM, not the game. Pirated copies of games have to be cracked to bypass the protection and hence the protection software does not get installed on your system, because the protection software does not install until the first launch of the game. Meaning you play the game without the "meat". When someone pirates a game out of spite for DRM, they don't eat the meat (DRM) and show the developers their strong dislike of them including useless protection software with their games. This is different than animal rights protesters eating meat. Whether you buy or steal the meat you are clearly showing it has a useful purpose of nourishing your body and satisfying your taste buds. Any form of DRM will do nothing positive for you, and ultimately do negative, especially for the legitimate buyers, as Wincest demonstrated above. While there may be evidence for the potential health negatives when eating meat, there are undeniable benefits. As I have said, this does not apply to DRM.

I do agree that the majority of software pirates will steal software just because it's free to do so. However the point is that DRM is sometimes the reason people chose to pirate, even if these people are only the minority of the software pirate population.

If these people really want to protest, don't play the games at all.

Some people do this. However it still sends the same message if you steal the game, since the developers still do not receive any money from you and especially since you get to play your game "meat" free.

Note: I am not advocating piracy in anyway and am trying to keep my posts as much within the rules as possible.

I hate any form of DRM on any software I buy, but cough up the cash, deal with any related annoyances and try to enjoy the product.