EA, Atari Sue Over Videogame Copying Software 409
Thanks to the Monterey Herald/AP for its news story regarding EA, Atari, and VU Games' lawsuit against the makers of the Games X Copy backup software. The article explains: "The federal lawsuit [PDF version], filed Tuesday in New York, alleges that Games X Copy software by 321 Studios Inc. of suburban St. Louis violates copyright laws by illegally cracking copy-protection systems used by [PC] game makers." Doug Lowenstein of the ESA trade body, also backing the lawsuits, explains: "I wouldn't get into speculating on dollar losses here. What's at stake here is a rather important legal principle - that products with no purpose other than to circumvent copyright protection are illegal under the DMCA." The piece also notes that "Federal judges in New York and California have barred 321 from marketing... [similar] DVD-cloning software - a victory for movie studios, which contended that such products violate the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
This is the same EA (Score:5, Interesting)
Kids (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I know (Score:5, Interesting)
What will I do with my knew found awareness? Probably nothing right now, but I'm sure I'll let others know about it eventually and there's a slim possibility I might buy a copy before they're gone...
Thanks EA and Atari! Now I know about another great 321 Studios project!!
Re:Good on the DMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
Copy protection my ass, I had to go and look for a way around it just to play it. I'm glad I did though, damn its fun.
Have it resurfaced (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, with your position though, that if media companies are going to take the we-own-the-media-you-have-to-return-it-to-us-on-d
Lunar 2 was better on the Sega CD anyway. The animation was more charming.
Re:Good on the DMCA (Score:2, Interesting)
These sorts of protections don't really do much other than piss off the consumer, anyway. No-CD cracks are released for games within hours, and those who simply choose to download a pirated copy instead of buying it will have little trouble running the games. Unreal Tournament 2004 requires you to leave the CD inserted to play the game until you get the first patch. Before that patch came out (which was a few weeks after the game did), several people I know had already downloaded the game and used a keygen and No-CD crack to play the game online for free. These disc protection systems don't stop the pirates for very long and just make CD-ROM drives freak out. Why even bother with them?
DMCA exemption for obsolete games (Score:5, Interesting)
(2) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
I know these classes apply to old, obsolete console systems, but couldn't they apply to CD-ROM anti-circumvention programs for games that are no longer being manufactured, because in that case the original CD-ROMs themselves are the necessary systems? If so, copy-circumvention programs like this would have a legal, legitimate use.
Of more general concern is the fact that such special exemptions need to be made in the first place, suggesting that the whole DMCA is bogus in the first place.
BPAC (Score:3, Interesting)
BPAC [adiungo.com]
Re:Good on the DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)
And actually, the NoCD crack turned out to be very popular where I was working. Apparently, nobody else likes a dongle either.
Yes, there were other games that wouldn't play due to faulty copy protection, but I thought people might like to know that we don't like those damned things either. It's the publishers that insist on them.
A bit of Apple ][ nostalgia (Score:5, Interesting)
This was innadaze of badly mimeographed manuals and a couple disks in a ziploc bag. BTW, that was the first ziploc bag usage I recall. Sue Glad, eh?
I still have an s.keyed "Wizard and the Princess" floppy here somewhere. How the HELL do you get past the snake???
From where I am standing (Score:5, Interesting)
That basically boils down to the fact that when you spend your hard earned 50 bucks, all you are getting is a CD / DVD disc (and hopefully a box and a manual), as you have no rights to do anything to the data contained on it.
That's one damn expensive disc.
Don't get me wrong, its their work and they should keep ownership rights, but for the money consumers pay for the product, they should at least have some freedom to copy the data providing it is for personal use. Whatever happend to "fair usage"? I can understand their concern over piracy, but from a business point of view, is screwing over your customers in an attempt to stop a few people getting the product for free really a wise move? Seems like the path most corporations and companies are travelling recently.
Also, by preventing your customers from copying the data, you are implying guilt before innocence, ie: people are more likely to be pirating than making legimate backups, so treat them as criminals by limiting their experience.
I hope they ignore first-amendment arguments (Score:3, Interesting)
I truly hope they skip the 1st-Amendment arguments entirely. There was an early case in computers involving a user making backup copies of software, and the software maker tried to sue him for violating copyright. IIRC the judge in that case not only ruled that making backup copies of computer software was fair use under copyright law (and the DMCA specifically says that nothing in it may be construed as limiting fair-use rights) but that any license provision purporting to take away or limit those rights wasn't legal. That right there would take the legs right out from under the game company's case, and would leave 'em with the hard argument to make that the courts should ignore existing precedent.
Ironically, the Eisner Company agrees with you (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is, if I scratch my CD or DVD, shouldn't I be able to replace it for the price of the media (like $1)?
Buena Vista Home Video has actually implemented this [go.com]. But that still doesn't end the boycott [losingnemo.com].
Re:Yes and apparantly yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Maybe consumers should sue game makers... (Score:3, Interesting)
Few years back I bought a copy of Steinbergs LM4 and 3 sample cds to go with it (200$ total I think)... LM4 won't install on Windows 2k because it has a LAME copy protection that only works in 95 EVEN THOUGHT WIN2k IS A SUPPORTED PLATFORM FOR CUBASE (lm4 plugs into cubase). Steinberg basically says "fuck you" and I download the Oxygen release of LM4 and continue about my business having vowed not to purchase any more steinberg software.
A *YEAR LATER* Steinberg releases an installer that will install on 2k, but won't install the samples that come with it.
What the fuck! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Good on the DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)
Do tell them you get alot of people complaining about the 'protection' who thing the problems thier computers are having are cause by your code and it's often the protection.
Tell them you can always find a bypass for it within a week of release on the net.
Tell them they are being sold snake oil by "the purveyors of that junk".
That last one is telling. If you can show them how it hurts thier bottom line, they'll stop doing it.
And that's ALL it doese is cost them money. They ARE being sold a bill of goods by the 'protection' people. Most of these schemes are broken withing weeks of thier introduction, and are sold for a year or two for many titles.
Find the article about how one scheme was bypassed by drawing a line with marker on the cd!.(slashdot covered it)
Follow the Money, fix the Problem.
Mycroft
hey, that's pretty cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I want the second disc damnit! (Score:3, Interesting)
321Studios? (Score:5, Interesting)
As Macrovision (creators of SafeDisc) have said in the past, their products are not so much copy protection as copy dissuasion: making it more of a pain in the ass to copy stuff. And it sure is. Copying a SafeDisced game takes hours in raw mode, as exactly duplicating the ECC/EDC data on the disc is a painfully slow process (probably because ECC/EDC checking has to be done in software for every block when it's disabled on the drive).
Anyway, all the above is besides the point. 321Studios have made a critical error which I see as remarkably foolish: Marketing their product as "HAY GUYS, SOFTWAREZ TO KOPY UR GAMEZ!" Who in their right mind would do this and not expect their ass to be kicked severely by some legal body? You don't get any more obvious than calling it "GameXCopy" which is a name that doesn't even make sense anyway. What the hell is the X about? Other software remains legal because it sells itself on the fact you can create exact clones of any CD for back up purposes: not just games.
It's not this kind of software they should be going after anyway. People don't copy games onto another CD anymore. People create images of a game and distribute it over the internet. It's considerably easier to create an image file, and from what I can tell GameXCopy doesn't let you do this. Furthermore, software such as Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120% and Virtual CloneDVD will let you mount ripped protected images in Windows as if they were a CD-ROM drive. Just download and mount. No burning. Surely this should be what they're worried about?
Re:321 Studios (Score:4, Interesting)
These are the good guys. They are pissing off the evil copy-protection guys. They have a very reasonable argument.
you obviousally never owned one of their products... their activation and CALL HOME scheme is nastier than anything any game maker or movie maker has ever created.
I a msitting here with a legitimate copy of DVD X copy PLatinum that they REFUSE to give me a activation key for bcause they did not see a "uninstall call home" when my hard drive crashed.
they are Assholes that are no better than the people suing them. and their products are BASED on open/free versions that are on the net now... DVD shrink is 20 times better than their dvdXcopy product. (I unfortunately found out about 2 months after I bought the crud from 321.)
and the tools to backup PS2 games have been on the net for just as long...
they are NOT the good guys otherwise they would not be jerks to their own customers.
Copy Protection is not worth it. (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a much smaller amount of people who use DRM software because they are normally lazy. So their profits should be going up from all the sales that they are not loosing. But they are not. It is a simple reason why. Piracy on a small scale is good for business! what piracy is, is a form of advertisement for their product and for the company. Lets use some old true story to show my point. Back when I was a kid on my Amstrad 8086 (thats right a 8086 (Or a 086 or the Pentium -5) not an 8088) I liked to play games but mostly action games but my friend gave me a copy of Sierra's Kings Quest 4, (and for the amstrad buffs) the 80's Kings Quest 4 came with a video for the Amstrad 16 Color Display! The only game that had it to my knowledge. So I was in awe of the graphics it displays if you squinted it looked almost real), All my other games were in 4 Colors (Red Green Yellow, 1 of 16 background colors usually back) or (Cyan, Magenta, white, and one of 16 background colors usually black) that was in 300x200 resolution. so a 16 color game was like heaven. After that I was hooked to the Sierra Game company and Ill save up my money and buy myself a new game when it comes out (and copy the video driver over) Like Quest for Glory 1 (hero's quest back then), Code Name Iceman, Space Quest 6, Quest for Glory 3, then share it back with my friends and they did the same Space Quest 3, Quest for Glory 2, Kings Quest 1 remake. So except for the company making 1 sale from 2 people of the product they actually made 4 or 5 sales out of 2 people because each version was a little better and encouraged them to get the next game.
Controlled piracy is great for business and the companies should not try to hard to contain it, just get the big guys who actually sell the pirated software, or people who mass spread it. But for the friend to friend sharing it actually is helpful.
Re:Just wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
Somehow, I think it's not that. It seems to me that what they're really afraid of are people who download these games and programs for free off of P2P software (I'm thinking Kazaa, Morpheus, Gnutella, etc. more than BitTorrent). Even the RIAA has said that making a copy for a friend or neighbor is fine and that it's the mass distributors they're really focused on.
Digital Rights ? (Score:2, Interesting)
we have the right to make a copy but for our safety , so that we will not inadvertantly make a 2nd coy, we no longer have the tools.......
the pendiulum will come the other way eventually
and the further the IP coorperations pull it away from center , the bigger the swing the other way/force it hits their asses with on the way back!
Re:Just wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
You're missing the point that busting the early-adopters is a powerful technique for keeping the rest of the population in line. Especially since they're so easy to find, they post about it on
Re:Maybe consumers should sue game makers... (Score:2, Interesting)
Quick note on your assumptions: they're wrong.
What's considered 'poverty' in america is middle class in many other places, europe included. Our 'poor' people own, on average, 1 car per adult and 2 televisions per household. A large number of our 'poor' have cable or satellite television. A trailer park resident in the us has an average of 1000 sq feet of living space. In many parts of the world, these people would be considered quite well off. This is the only one of your incorrect assumptions that I can be bothered correcting atm.
EULA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps they should be held to their side of the EULA, just like the users of the software? Or maybe they should have to put a "copyright-protected" notice on the box.