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Gamers, EFF Speak Out Against DRM
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:43 AM
from the because-bullets-won't-kill-it dept.
from the because-bullets-won't-kill-it dept.
Last month, we discussed news that the FTC would be examining DRM to see if it needs regulation. They set up a town hall meeting for late March, and part of that effort involved requesting comments from potential panelists and the general public. Ars Technica reports that responses to the request have been overwhelmingly against DRM, and primarily from gamers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also took the opportunity to speak out strongly against DRM, saying flat out that "DRM does not prevent piracy," and suggesting that its intended purpose is "giving some industry leaders unprecedented power to influence the pace and nature of innovation and upsetting the traditional balance between the interests of copyright owners and the interests of the public." Their full public comments (PDF) describe several past legal situations supporting that point, such as Sony's fight against mod chips, Blizzard's DMCA lawsuit against an alternative to battle.net, and Sony's XCP rootkit.
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Blizzard Rains on Bnetd Project 771 comments
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[+]
PS2 Mod Chips Legal In Australia 163 comments
Buccaneer-American writes "Over here on Groklaw, PJ is reporting that PS2 mod chips are now legal in Australia. The highest Australian court decided in Stevens v. Sony to overturn a lower court ruling that PS2 mod chips were 'technological protection measures' which would run afoul of the Australian DMCA-equivalent. Because they do not protect copyrights per se, but are rather region coding devices, they were ruled to be regional coding devices. In short, we have Sony to thank for being a loser yet again and establishing some of our rights in case law, albeit sometimes inadvertantly." The High Court's decision is online, with some legal commentary from the Australian court. More coverage of this story available at The Age and SMH.
[+]
Your Rights Online: California Class Action Suit Sony Over Rootkit DRM 508 comments
carre4 writes "Lawyers in California have filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony and a second one may be filed today in New York. The lawsuit was filed Nov. 1 in Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles by Vernon, CA attorney Alan Himmelfarb. It asks the court to prevent Sony from selling additional CDs protected by the anti-piracy software, and seeks monetary damages for California consumers who purchased them. The suit alleges that Sony's software violates at least three California statutes, including the "Consumer Legal Remedies Act," which governs unfair and/or deceptive trade acts; and the "Consumer Protection against Computer Spyware Act," which prohibits -- among other things -- software that takes control over the user's computer or misrepresents the user's ability or right to uninstall the program. The suit also alleges that Sony's actions violate the California Unfair Competition law,
which allows public prosecutors and private citizens to file lawsuits
to protect businesses and consumers from unfair business practices. EFF has released a list of rootkit affected CD's and Slashdot user xtracto also has a list."
[+]
Federal Trade Commission To Scrutinize DRM 211 comments
Ars Technica reports that the FTC is getting ready to take a hard look at gaming DRM, setting up a town hall meeting to be held on March 25th. They're currently recruiting panelists, and they say the meeting will, in part, "address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations." The controversy over DRM came to a head in 2008 with the release of Spore and the multiple subsequent class-action lawsuits focusing on the SecuROM software that came with the game. Ars Technica says the town hall meeting will also look at "legal issues surrounding DRM" and "the potential need for government involvement to protect consumers."
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Wrong battle? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong battle? (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM is also the problem. Where does this idea come from that you can only fight on one front?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's not actually true, code itself is still protected under first amendment grounds, and the companies would be nuts to try and enforce it on foreign nationals or people that are downloading it. Well, providing that you're within the provisions set forth in section 1201 of the DMCA, that is, which shouldn't be that hard to demonstrate.
In pretty much any case where you'd want to remove the DRM for personal use you'd likely be covered.
RIGHT battle! (Score:4, Insightful)
I really wish people would stop the arrogant assumption that they can always work around whatever DRM manufacturers create, even when they all get together to work against the public. Breaking cryptography is HARD. Some crypto is UNBREAKABLE in any reasonable amount of time, using any known techniques. The UK's Sky TV, for instance, has been using the same crypto on their satellite broadcasts for years now, with no cracks available.
Parent
Re:NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:RIGHT battle! (Score:5, Informative)
You're wrong.
DRM circumvention is a trusted-client-subversion problem, not a cryptanalytic problem (which is, indeed, much harder, though not typically impossible).
In DRM scenarios (which is what distinguishes them from securable encryption scenarios), the attacker has the ciphertext and the key, albeit possibly in an obfuscated or hard-to-access form. Given a sufficiently motivated attacker who has the key (in whatever form) under their control, the DRM scheme will always lose. (I've never seen any copy-protection scheme survive a serious attack, and I probably never will.)
The VideoGuard scheme used by Sky is broken in various ways, but the crackers are very secretive, and the breaks are almost unpublished (thanks mostly to heavy crackdowns). The presence of unencrypted transport stream rips of HDTV broadcasts proves the existence. You can't get the cracks easily; but clearly someone must indeed have them.
Parent
Maybe not (Score:3, Interesting)
"The presence of unencrypted transport stream rips of HDTV broadcasts proves the existence"
Not necessarily. I've noticed that almost every HD cable box has a component out that supports 1080i. There are boxes that will capture this stuff (for Myth as one possible use). The 1080p rips out there likely came from BluRay cracks.
In many ways, it's like WMP files from MS. The one genuine crack disappeared pretty quickly, and has not been repeated. However, I'm not convinced it's because WMP is "hard" to cra
Re:RIGHT battle! (Score:5, Insightful)
Please do not confuse DRM with standard encryption techniques. Normally, encryption is used between two or more parties to keep one or more other parties from reading the encrypted material. DRM, or TPM to be more precise, is used to keep the recipient of the material from copying it, while at the same time allow them to read it (otherwise they would never buy it). As such, any DRM that people want cracked will be cracked. I think your example says more about Sky TV than about their encryption technology. :)
DRM is a failure in that it provides the would be attacker with the message, the cypher, and the key. They just try to hide those last two, which is no true basis for protecting material.
Parent
Re:RIGHT battle! (Score:4, Funny)
Encryption is unbreakable. DRM is not because per definition you have the decryption key even if it's hidden very well. I'm quite sure I've seen SkyTV broadcast captures so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make, maybe there's no hack to decrypt the live broadcast but the content gets around anyway. Amazon and iTunes is dropping DRM, CSS is broken, AACS is pretty much broken, BD+ still has cramps but is dying so from where I'm sitting it looks like most entertainment has no effective DRM and no practical way to put that cat back in the bag - if DVD was good then Blu-Ray must be good enough for the next century. Software and consoles get a lot uglier but unbreakable is hardly the first word that comes to mind. Ultimately, that's why TPB is so popular and why we're having this case, right? Because DRM does not work, otherwise there wouldn't be anything to share on TPB.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, encryption is not unbreakable. It's merely hard enough to break that it's rarely feasible to do so.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Every music CD you buy comes without DRM.
Not true at all. Ever heard of the Sony rootkit fiasco? (and that is just one example)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:RIGHT battle! (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention that the DRM that is in these games is costing folks money and time right now. As a PC repairman I can't count the number of times I have had machines brought to me because "it is acting funny" with strange errors, all burns of CD/DVD would fail, drives are killing themselves, etc. And when I found there wasn't an infection I would immediately begin looking for a DRM "infection" and sure enough it would be infected. I have watched Safedisc and SecuROM throw drives into PIO mode(which will burn them up) Starforce cause all kinds of program failures and weird crashes, etc. These programs are often worse than many of the malware apps written today as far as causing trouble.
It has gotten bad enough that I now longer buy games at release date anymore. I wait until they have been out 6 months at least, then I buy the nice box and put it in the closet. Since I have bought the game I then go and download the "safe" version at one of the many sites available. Sad that the "pirate" version is actually better for the consumer than the "legitimate" one huh?
The point is while DMCA really needs to be throw in a fire, with the DRM used today it is costing good hard working folks money right at this very minute. It breaks their machines which are then brought to guys like me which have to be paid to have it repaired. And let us not forget that these DRM "programs" don't support each other, which means I can't count the number of times I have seen machines infected with SecuROM AND Safedisc AND Starforce. Can you say major conflicts boys and girls? I think you can. These programs can cause more damage(especially if you have two or more which seems to be begging for PIO mode) than most of the viruses and trojans out there. There certainly cause more weird and hard to track down errors in this repairman's NSHO. But magically when they are removed the problems just.....go away. Amazing, huh?
Oh, and in case some are wondering what is so bad about PIO mode, PIO mode is a leftover for seriously old legacy drives, like the old serial CD ROMs we used to have. The modern optical drive simply isn't made to operate at that low of a speed and gets too hot if it is left in PIO mode too long. Picture yourself driving down the freeway at 60MPH with the emergency brakes on. That is pretty much PIO mode to a 16x or above drive.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
More like going down the freeway at 60mph in first gear where you're right over the redline...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You do realize that by purchasing the game anyway you're sending the message that the DRM is ok. That you'll still bend over backwards to take it you know where regardless of what the publishers do? If you want to stop game DRM, don't buy DRM'd games. I know that you'll start shaking unless you get your fix, but there are plenty of options out there.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While cracking the crypto may not be possible, in order for a DRM scheme to function you have to give paying customers the keys...
Those customers can just copy the keys and give them to people who haven't paid.
Sky TV have been using the same algorithms, but they keep changing the keys because the keys frequently leak.
Re:RIGHT battle! (Score:5, Insightful)
When companies spend millions to implement a particular solution, it's fair to assume they have a goal. For broadcasts that are 'free' (usually with the price of watching commercials), we can rule out some goals.
Copyright law is primarily economic - that is, the original goal was to prevent direct, measurable economic harm to the owner, not to prevent other kinds of harm. The exception, of course, is the European moral copyright model.
If DRM isn't protecting from direct economic harm, then what it ends up doing is making an end run around the limitations built into US style copyright, limitations such as fair use, or first sale rights.
All these end runs are wrong. It really doesn't matter if the goal is to protect against indirect economic harm from perfectly lawful competition, or to restrict consumer rights that the courts have long upheld, or to selectively enforce 'moral copyright' in countries where there's no actual law passed, and only for certain privileged entities. None of those is a good thing.
It's like catching somebody sneaking into a woman's dorm with a roll of duct tape, a bowie knife, and six pairs of handcuffs at 2 AM. We're getting into an argument over whether the goal was rape, murder, or robbery, and ignoring that none of the options are good things. When it comes to public airwaves style channels, no one has seriously been able to suggest a reason for DRM backed by the DMCA that doesn't involve something bad, whether it's an unfair government granted monopoly, an effort to screw consumers, or an attempt to enforce laws that haven't actually been passed.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA is based on the assumption that DRM works. It is much harder to defeat the DMCA if you ignore the fallacy of DRM because, then, legislators will keep believing it helps a large part of the US economy (that is, the media industry).
Re:Wrong battle? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's really the wrong battle. The big problem with DRM is that it arguably means that you're being sold a defective product. You're being sold something that's designed to break and ceases to serve its purpose under some circumstances.
I don't want to get into the particular argument here whether products with DRM are always defective, but it seems like a step in exactly the right direction for the government to recognize that DRM *can* constitute a defect in the product. Once there is some sense that DRM is not always valid, that it's possible for DRM to make a product so defective that they should be barred from selling it, then we can begin to talk about what, exactly, is "fair".
Personally, I don't think DRM is always awful. For example, companies putting DRM on movie rentals rather than movie sales seems fair. Although I didn't think I'd like Steam, once I tried it, it seemed to be a pretty reasonable use of DRM. In that particular situation, I view it this way: I've agreed to sign into a service before playing games, and in return, I have copies of my games hosted such that I have access to them wherever I want.
And I'm not sure where you draw the line on what's "fair" on DRM; I know plenty of people who just thing it's always bad. However, it would be a big win for consumers, for the government at least to recognize that it's not always acceptable. I would at least like to see a law that says that, if you're selling (not renting) products with DRM that checks against some server, then if you ever shut that server down, you are responsible for making available the means to permanently remove that DRM.
Parent
Re:Wrong battle? (Score:4, Interesting)
When killing the enemy it is important to smash their weapons. DRM is an enemy weapon and breaking it is simply part of a continuing war to let communications be free from any governments desire to keep people in their own little box.
Parent
Re:Wrong battle? (Score:5, Insightful)
The DMCA wasn't, in itself, a bad idea.
You're joking, right? The DMCA was a horrid idea, just like the eternal "copyright extensions" (which should have been unconstitutional as ex post facto law changes anyways) the content cartels have been buying constantly.
Think about it. Mickey Mouse - or at least Steamboat Willie, the cartoon - should have passed into the public domain DECADES ago. Meanwhile, Disney rapes and pillages the public domain with impunity; if you want to make an animated or live-action Snow White, or Beauty and the Beast, or anything else they've already done be prepared for their army of lawyers to start screaming "it's too similar, shut them down" even if you follow the original plotlines of the story/book in question.
What happened was that there was no attempt made to stop companies misusing it
Bullshit. DRM rapes the public domain AND tries to take away the fair-use rights of consumers at the same time.
Under fair use, I have the right to make a backup copy of something I purchased. There are MANY reasons to do this - fire/flood concerns, degradation of the original media (DVD's scratch, tapes wear out, etc), and of course the ever-present Small Children and My Dog That Likes To Chew On Things problems.
Under fair use, I also have the right to space-shift and time-shift content. Broadcast over the airwaves, but I'm out to dinner? No problem. Set a VCR up with a timer, watch it later. Archive it for posterity. Want to convert it for iPod, or PSP, or something else that's portable? I have the right to do so. The next round of "DRM" will be trying to push the so-called "broadcast flag" into the shortly-only-available-variety Digital TV broadcasts, which will require either (a) a recorder that ignores the flag or (b) the goodwill of the broadcaster. This is a fundamental shift that will wholly strip away people's ability to, say, record the sunday Packers game for later because they're busy volunteering as an adult chaperon for a church retreat.
With DRM, I am prevented from exercising my fair-use rights for perfectly legitimate reasons. Prior to the DMCA, if I could figure out a way around it (such as a Macrovision Stripper for VHS), I was able to get my rights back.
After the DMCA, no dice. I committed a "crime" doing what was necessary to exercise my legal right to safeguard what I had purchased.
The DMCA itself was a bad idea. Anyone who says differently needs to be slapped repeatedly.
Parent
Re:Wrong battle? (Score:5, Informative)
The DMCA was a horrid idea, just like the eternal "copyright extensions" (which should have been unconstitutional as ex post facto law changes anyways) the content cartels have been buying constantly.
"Ex post facto" has a specific legal meaning, which is completely different than whatever you think it means. Copyright extensions do suck, but they don't have anything to do with "ex post facto".
Parent
Re:Wrong battle? (Score:4, Informative)
"Ex post facto" has a specific legal meaning, which is completely different than whatever you think it means. Copyright extensions do suck, but they don't have anything to do with "ex post facto".
Ex post facto refers to something that changes the legality of an action retroactively. The DMCA changes the nature of copyright retroactively. It's not that inappropriate. Close enough for government work, at least.
Parent
You're quite right, but... (Score:3, Informative)
While you're absolutely correct that ex post facto refers to criminalizing something after a person has committed the act, then arresting them, I would like to point out that the copyright extensions should have been unconstitutional for a very different reason.
I believe it was Eldred v. Ashcroft that pointed out that they were violating the "limited times" clause of the section of the constitution authorizing copyright laws by doing retroactive extensions. The only reason the Supreme Court didn't uphold t
Re:Wrong battle? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
"Screw art and culture. Chew your cud, cow." (Score:3, Insightful)
> People act like consuming entertainment media is air that you need to survive.
Humans need to create art. It's what makes us human. Art exists to be consumed. We forget that at the risk of losing our humanity. The desire to create and share art freely is no less than a battle for the soul of humanity itself. There's nothing fucking pathetic about it.
Speaking strongly against DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
"DRM does not prevent piracy"
Which implies that piracy is an undesirable thing. Therefore we shouldn't be focused on DRM as the sole solution to the piracy problem, but as part of a larger set of steps to eliminate the problem.
Either piracy is a bad thing which ought to be dealt with, or it is a good thing which should be encouraged.
The EFF's point (as is typical for them) is full of rhetoric but fails to truly understand the issue. It's a shame they are on the right side because they aren't really helping.
Re: (Score:2)
A bit like yourself then.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
From the EFF submission:
"DRM is touted as an effective means
to restrict copyright infringement, yet evidence continues to mount that DRM not only
does little to inhibit unauthorized copying, it may actually encourage it"
Sounds to me like they're not only calling it ineffective, but counterproductive.
You left out E-rated games and handheld games (Score:2)
Auth systems work. By keeping the bulk of the game functionality on the server side, and requiring a login, 99% of DRM issues are covered.
So I guess the remaining 1 percent is that you're now completely ignoring the following markets:
If what you said were true, there would be no E-rated games, no Nintendo DS games, and certainly no E-rated DS games.
Hearing this, RockStar announced their new game (Score:3, Funny)
DRM Killer, available later this fall featuring SecureROM.
Will they Listen? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that I don't see the political establishment listening to "a bunch of gamers and the EFF."
I think it tying together the Sony Root Kit issue with farms of own machines used for SPAMing, scaming, or organized crime would get a little attention.
The biggest problem I have had with DRM is that I rented Ratatouille [amazon.com] last year and was unable to play it on a standard DVD player, unable to play it on two different computer DVD players, and of course unable to make a copy (which I only tried because I couldn't play it.) The disk cause me to have to unplug and plug back in my Toshiba DVD player to even get it to eject, it totally locked up the player.
Re:Will they Listen? (Score:5, Insightful)
The politicians won't listen. Their ears will be plugged with earplugs made out of the lobbying money from the media conglomerates. They won't see a problem because consumers continue to buy and buy regardless of DRM in 90% of cases, and corporations continue to make money. There's nothing wrong with the situation, so far as they can see. That 10% that won't buy DRM'd media? Pirates. All of them. We just haven't caught and convicted them yet.
The only way to shut down the DRM monster is mass boycott. And I mean MASS. I mean you have to get your parents that don't know shit about DRM protesting. You have to get soccer moms, the 14 year old kids vulnerable to media hype and willing to buy anything, the exec with his iPod crammed with DRM'd tunes... get them ALL educated and more importantly angry enough to stop buying for a couple years.
It's difficult enough to appear very close to impossible.
I demonstrated it to my mother when she wanted to play a CD for me. At the time I had no CD player other than my PC. Her CD refused to play. I looked it up online, sure enough it had copy protection preventing us from listening to her CD she paid for. I showed her how to circumvent the protection (a little marker on the outside track), and she became incensed. She's not purchased music for about 5 or 6 years now. She was disgusted that people were treating her, one of the most honest people (to a fault) that I know, like a common criminal even though she gave them money for their product.
Find a way to make people feel that way BEFORE it bites them, and you'll have what we need to win. Until then, good luck. So long as the money flows, they won't hear a damn thing we say.
Parent
"Oh No!! Not... not The EFF!!" (shudder) (Score:2)
Sometimes I think Slashdot invented the EFF.
It certainly goes out of it's way to keep it alive. Certainly it's efforts in this area are way disproportionate to the EFF's actual credibility in legal circles, where they are the Britney Spears in a boardroom full of King Crimsons.
DRM is essentially illegal in spirit (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole copyright agreement is to allow exclusive distribution rights to specific material or content for a limited amount of time, after which the works would be released to the public domain.
So far, the industry has managed to have copyright duration extended to unreasonable durations increasing the likelihood that after the copyright term expires, it will no longer be available for access or distribution. But that isn't harmful enough. Now they want to keep the works locked up in an encryption scheme that will likely make copyrighted materials extinct long before the copyright term expires as no one will be able to access it after the term expires.
This is a complete and total breech of the copyright agreement with the people of any given nation that respects copyright under law.
What a timely story (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What a timely story (Score:4, Informative)
Also, you should go back to the store you bought the game from, ask to see the manager, and tell him one of his employees is stealing CD keys from the games.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I had that happen with The Orange Box (sealed package with in-use key). A email to Valve and a copy of receipt was all it took to get a legit key. Took about 2 days.
Writing your own laws (Score:5, Insightful)
With the DMCA and the anti-circumvention provisions, the restriction code has the power of law - circumventing it is illegal.
So they can ignore whatever fair use privilege we used to enjoy, because fair use privileges aren't guaranteed rights: if you can't make use of it for whatever reason - tough; they're not required to provide you with tools or systems to give you what you want, even if it could be legal.
So this all boils down to the fact that we've lost all fair use in copyright law (maybe not in theory, but definitely in practice), and as such, copyright has become completely unbalanced in favour of the copyright owners.
The tradeoff was: a temporary monopoly on distribution with some fair use exceptions, in return for a rich public domain later on.
Not only have we lost fair use, we've also lost the public domain part later on. Because the DRM on copyrighted works that end up in the public domain isn't going to magically disappear.
All we're left with is "a monopoly on distribution" - that's not what copyright was supposed to be.
DRM has become a bad sore for consumers (Score:3, Interesting)
Sony may argue stating that the movies wont play because they are pirated. They are not. They were DVD's bought from reputable stores.
This is how bad DRM has become. Consumers are at the mercy of manufacturers of DRM laden products.
I don't see the point of this (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood today, but... what good are these discussions?
The whole DRM mess has been chewed over and over and over again, and we always get the same results:
* DRM or not DRM doesn't matter: piracy is around 80% either way. This has not changed for 25 years.
* Company managers are too reality-disfunct to realise this, and are willing to pay for (expensive) DRM systems to include in their product.
* Dito politicians, usually bought by the industry, and who are worthless by definition anyway.
* Nobody will do a boycott.
* We cannot change any of these points.
Possible solutions:
* Buy the original with DRM and live with it.
* But the original with DRM and download a pirate copy.
* Download a pirate copy only.
* Refuse any DRM games, buy from the indy market instead.
Note on the last point: I bought very very few 'normal' games in the last few years (I refuse DRM), but quite a few from these interesting small companies. Cheaper, ofter better (even if the graphics usually aren't), lots of fun, and you have the feeling that you're supporting the good programmers directly instead of some worthless CEOs 3rd Mercedes 500SEC.
I bought (and can highly recommend) games like "World of Goo" or "Galactic Civilization II".
HOWEVER: some indy games have now come out with DRM. Beware of these! A good example would be "Defense Grid". An excellent, cheap game, but sold only via STEAM or Greenhouse, both of which are a form of DRM not allowing you to play the game without internet access. And even if you install them on a different PC (eg at work, with net access) and transfer the registry info, it won't work as it's registered to your CPU ID.
(Yes, I'm very pissed off about this specific example. Particularly as the support from Greenhouse does not exist).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But the root of all greevil is of co
Re: (Score:2)
Just wanted to say, login/auth is just a silly form of DRM. It's how blizzard has made so much, really. If it wasn't authenticated that way it'd be, I don't know, BnetD? God forbid people play on other things, and all that. Not like that made their company big, or anything. (/sarcasm)
meanwhile, a VM would absolutely never work. There's a problem with VM's, and it's called adaptability. Also once there is a VM that can handle openGL in its entirety (better than wine), you just opened a new bag because nobody
Emigration to avoid copyright abuse? (Score:2)
The DMCA is another point entirely as it's only for USA citizens.
Three problems with this line of reasoning:
How do I do it right without multiplayer? (Score:2)
World of Warcraft does it right, imo. You have an account and you log in. They authorize you. Warden is non-intrusive.
So how would one "do it right" on a handheld gaming system that isn't a cell phone, or another single-player gaming environment?
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Just spinning your wheels (Score:5, Informative)
The use of the word "piracy" to describe copyright infringement is as old as the 1709 Statute of Anne
--- when the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean.
The geek is NEVER going to win this argument.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The best "DRM" I've seen was a shareware program that shipped with source code for UNIX based systems. The directions were to register it for $25, then set the REGISTERED macro to 1. Of course, you could do that without registering it, but it was obvious that doing so was an EULA violation.
Another example of this is iDupe, a program to find and optionally remove duplicate tracks in iTunes on OS X. When you register it, it has a very simple method to tell the program that it is registered (and not the sha