tagged w/ Drm
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A lot of people complain about the DRM found on music bought at the iTunes Music Store. This is quite natural, since iTunes is by far the biggest supplier of music files, and the only legal place to buy files that play on iPods. iTunes only allows you to upload the files to a few iPods, burn them to a few CDs, and play them on a few computers. And you can only upload files to YOUR iPods; If someone else's iPod is set to play music from their account, the only way to put music from YOUR account into their iPod is to re-set that iPod to your account (which requires erasing all the music in it). And if you want to get music DOWN from an iPod, then this is basically impossible. So, what to do?...... http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/free-stuff/41092-how-to-break-itunesA lot of people complain about the DRM found on music bought at the iTunes Music... more
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worrg
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added this
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11 months ago
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In a “shocking development,” Ubisoft’s much maligned attempt at punishing their loyal customers was, supposedly, a waste of time and energy.
CNET has reported that a group known as Skid Row has claimed to have created a replacement .exe that completely circumvents the whole shebang. Whether or not this turns out to be true remains to be seen, but the files have already been uploaded to numerous file-sharing sites for anyone looking to play their Ubisoft games without the threat of data loss.
Hit the link for more.
http://www.crushfragdestroy.com/2010/04/24/ubisoft-drm-officially-hacked-probably/In a “shocking development,” Ubisoft’s much maligned attempt at... more
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In a not-so-shocking bit of news, Destructoid has reported that Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight is just about as useless to legitimate game purchasers as Ubisoft’s newest PC offerings.
PC Gamer has been poking and prodding the “final” chapter of the long-running franchise, trying to figure out just how far EA has gone in an ultimately useless attempt to keep people from stealing their games. As it turns out, losing your internet connection at any point in your game, for any length of time, will result in losing all of your progress.
Hit the jump for more.
http://www.crushfragdestroy.com/2010/03/21/command-conquer-4-new-enemy-revealed-drm/In a not-so-shocking bit of news, Destructoid has reported that Command & Conquer... more
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Hey, we’re back again!
This week, join the two Robs, Scott and Sage (who couldn’t make it for the first episode) as they talk about video games (Minecraft, Yakuza 3, Heavy Rain, Bad Company 2, God of War III and C&C4: Tiberian Twilight), incite weeaboo rage, and get confused over 300 getting a sequel.
In the second segment, we touch on a few bits of news before discussing Ubisoft and EA’s DRM woes.
Also, Sage makes everyone feel old and Rob T. presents his dream scenario for Duke Nukem Forever (and gets guilted by the staff for review delays). Come drink some haterade and enjoy!
http://www.crushfragdestroy.com/2010/03/21/cfds-team-deathchat-episode-2-3212010/Hey, we’re back again!
This week, join the two Robs, Scott and Sage (who... more
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According to a story posted on CVG, Valve may have allegedly made the (wise) decision to (wisely) remove all games incorporating Ubisoft’s infamous DRM from their UK Steam service. Ubisoft, of course, denies this, claiming the reason for two of their newest titles, Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter V (incidentally both with the DRM in question), not being available on the service is due to “a local business discussion between Ubisoft and Steam in UK.”
Hit the link for more.
http://www.crushfragdestroy.com/2010/03/20/steam-says-no-to-ubisoft-drm/According to a story posted on CVG, Valve may have allegedly made the (wise) decision... more
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To clamp down on PC piracy, Ubisoft implemented a DRM system which gamers must be connected to while playing their game. The DRM has been implemented in their recent blockbuster titles Assassin’s Creed II, and Settlers VII. The issue with the DRM is that it requires a constant Internet connection to play, and all saved games are stored on Ubisoft’s own server...To clamp down on PC piracy, Ubisoft implemented a DRM system which gamers must be... more
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Escapist Fourms - "It's taken me a while to realize, but we're the problem. In a way almost no other medium has to deal with, the target audience for games is such that we're a largely untenable audience now that technology on the back-end has gotten to the point where gamers writ large can go toe-to-toe with any anti-piracy actions the developers engage in. While the argument that "pirates can defeat any DRM software easily, so don't use DRM" holds about as much water for me as "burglars can break into your house even if you lock it, so don't lock it", the attitude of "DRM makes me pirate games" is prevalent enough to truly concern me.
Screw the law for a moment (and anyone who knows me, or has read my posts, knows that I don't write that lightly). And let's ignore any arguments about "fairness" and "what's right". We're helping usher in backward steps in gaming as a whole. And this in a way that movies, television, and music don't struggle with as much. Those forms of media have audiences who don't have the capacity, knowledge, or will to pirate. The pirate-ready population of moviegoers isn't as large a proportion as the pirate-ready population of gamers. We're a unique audience in that our capacity to use games (especially for PC gamers) is directly correlated with our ability to pirate them.
It's still prohibitively difficult to pirate games on consoles, but I believe that's the next step. At that point, game companies will either (a) escalate the DRM war, and alienate people, or (b) accept significant populations of people pirating rather than buying. "But-" I hear you cry "it doesn't cost them anything if I play without paying, if the alternative is that I not play at all, and it gives word of mouth, ect." It's possible, but in a weakened economy, that word of mouth is less likely to inspire "more sales" as "more piracy".
"Ah ha-" you reply "but it doesn't cost that much to make a game. Even if we include all the costs of developing Modern Warfare II, they more than made back their investment, probably twice or three-times over". That's true, but somewhat misleading. For every Modern Warfare, there's a dozen Okami. The profits from MW2 go into offsetting the cost of less-well-selling games. Madden pays for Shadow of the Colossus, Pokemon pays for Trauma Center.
Think of it like a pharmaceutical company. The money they "make" off of the sale of their drugs not only pays for their previous investment (or, more likely, future investments), but also for all of their failed products. So, what if, instead of researching low-profit and high-risk-of-failure drugs like antibiotics, all a company did was develop and sell erectile dysfunction medication? That'd kind of suck for us regular folks, wouldn't it?
It's even worse for us gamers (relatively, at least, since we're not talking about death). We expect new products every year, and there's no real consistency. If Phizer makes a cancer drug, then can expect to make good money on it for fifteen years. If Bioware makes a good game, the best they get is one sales season.
And, not for nothing, but without the ability to make up for investment in Okami with massive success in MW2, Okami doesn't get made. Games will become safer and safer, with companies unwilling to invest in innovative ideas, or do anything that won't appeal to the biggest audience possible.
So they need every penny they can get.
For a more proper analogy, think about what's been happening to the porn industry. Without the means to control distribution, and without a vigorous ability to prevent piracy, the industry is suffering heavily. Many studios are going bankrupt, and what was once considered "recession-proof" isn't really "internet-proof". Gone are the days (largely) of actual big-budget pornographic movies. It's all been brought to the lowest common denominator.
"Wait a second" you scratch your chin "what about all of the tube sites that give things like home-videos? Porn is alive and well". Exactly. Pornography has been relegated more and more to small companies making relatively low-budget productions, and to a lot of amateurs.
Do you want that in gaming? Gaming is hung primarily on a backbone of big-budget blockbusters. We want Halo, we want Mass Effect, MW2, and full 3D everywhere. Do you think that a bedroom programming company can do that? Imagine if all of gaming was Peggle and Steam games (not the big-name ones, the "independent" games); would that sate our thirst for games?
We should be helping to defend game companies from pirates, not trying to justify piracy. We should be trying to ensure that every company gets every dollar due it. Otherwise, we have no one to blame when companies re-release the same generic mainstream crap over and over again. Unless we try to make it feasible for companies to take risks, we're asking to be disappointed."
http://www.splitreason.com/Product_Images/cb992e19ee18-xl.jpg
I dont typicaly pull stories from fourms but I felt this had some insight to it.
C.D.Escapist Fourms - "It's taken me a while to realize, but we're the... more
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Last week the gaming giant Ubisoft announced their latest DRM invention. In order to play purchased games customers have to be connected to the Internet at all times. Game developers are skeptical of this new anti-piracy solution, but could it actually be a step in the right direction?
http://torrentfreak.com/game-developers-skeptical-abou-ubisofts-new-drm-100206/Last week the gaming giant Ubisoft announced their latest DRM invention. In order to... more
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They have cool liner notes and big album covers. Artists like them because they're way hard to pirate over the net. Sales are up and they're the next trend.
Have we discovered that technology has gone down the wrong road? Computer manufacturers are battling the poor performance that make computer users so frustrated, always locking up and crashing. Digital content is way volatile. It can be copied or corrupted, even erased. Kindle books just crashed eveyone's copy of Animal Farm because of some legal battle. DRM drives people nuts when they can't recover their music after a computer crash. Banks have total access to everyone's money and statements with direct deposit and online banking. It's becoming an Orwellian nightmare.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/nyregion/07vinyl.htmlThey have cool liner notes and big album covers. Artists like them because... more
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The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney is close to releasing a new system that will sell permanent, multi-device access to digital media. The system, dubbed Keychest, is being positioned as an answer to consumer concerns about purchasing digital media that are locked to a small number of devices, and thus as a way to finally shift media sales from an ownership model to an access model. They claim that such a service would reduce the risk of losing access to content as a result of a single vendor going out of business, as purchased content would remain available from other vendors. However, they do not seem to have addressed the question of what happens to customers' access to purchased content if the Keychest service itself is discontinued.The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney is close to releasing a new system that... more
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Something tells us Kaleidescape has a man (or woman, to be fair) on the inside, else United States District Court Judge Marilyn Patel is just downright trifilin'.Something tells us Kaleidescape has a man (or woman, to be fair) on the inside, else... more
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In Part 1 of a multi-part exclusive interview, GameVisions talks with with developer Vincent van Geel; co-founder of indie developer Isotx, Inc. on Iron Grip: Warlord and the industry at large.
The first installment covers the evolution of the Iron Grip universe from a Half-Life 2 total conversion mod to a full commercial franchise, and the business side of life as an indie including distribution, and DRM.
From the Interview:
"...we wanted to create a small-scaled, yet FPS/RTS hybrid game, not focusing on next-gen graphics like most in this genre do, but focusing entirely on wild arcade-like gameplay that could casually be played at LAN parties and such. It was an insanely risky choice, since most FPS players seem very hooked onto the next-gen appeal of the genre, but we got a good niche-bunch of them to get interested in Warlord. We come from a background of pure gameplay..."In Part 1 of a multi-part exclusive interview, GameVisions talks with with developer... more
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Award
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added this
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2 years ago
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For years the RIAA has defended the use of DRM, much to the dislike of millions of honest customers who actually paid for their music. Now, in a shocking turnaround, the outfit seems to have come to the realization that DRM does more harm than good and has officially declared its death.For years the RIAA has defended the use of DRM, much to the dislike of millions of... more
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Over the last year, governments and corporations have been pushing to crack down on Internet freedoms. But all is not lost. A cyber freedom movement has been growing over the last two and a half decades, and in late June, thousands of activists met at the 10th International Forum on Free Software (FISL) in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
“This is important today, because the Internet, our civil rights, have never been under such an attack as today. Right now they are looking to regulate the Internet,” said Marcelo Blanco, founder and organizer of the FISL, which they say is now the largest technology and information event in Latin America.Over the last year, governments and corporations have been pushing to crack down on... more
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The Open philosophy as applied to movies & animations deals with three related concepts:
* open, collaborative projects maintained by a community;
* open source software;
* the copyleft / public domain side of the digital rights spectrum.
In regards to the first issue, a good starting point could be just watching a video called “RIP: A remix Manifesto“.
(continue...)The Open philosophy as applied to movies & animations deals with three related... more
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A project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been created to help teachers provide accurate informations about the laws concerning digital rights & the concepts of copyright and piracy.
There are lots of free resources for both student and educators, available in PDF documents, external links, or “Frequently Asked Questions” pages; you can access all of them on the TeachingCopyright website, which is structured as a curriculum…
(continue...)A project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been created to help teachers... more
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In a recent interview, Capcom stated that SecuROM was not the large problem the gaming community made it out to be, making Capcom into one of the first few high profile companies to defend the use and functionality of SecuROM.
"The technology itself is not the bad guy. It's how it's implemented and, further more, how it's communicated or not communicated to fans. I think so many people have been beaten up so badly with let's say more restrictive forms of DRM that they always assume the worst. That's not always the case."
Through the answers provided in the interview, Capcom makes clear that the gamers themselves are meant to be the ignorant and evil force at work, not the game developers or the SecuROM system.In a recent interview, Capcom stated that SecuROM was not the large problem the gaming... more
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Apple has finally given in to record company demands and has changed the flat-rate price structure on iTunes. Individual songs will now be available at three different price points: 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. In return, the record companies have agreed to let Apple offer DRM-free music on iTunes, at twice the quality than previously available. 8 million songs will be available immediately for download without the DRM encoding. Apple plans to have the entire iTunes catalog DRM-free by March of this year. Looks like Apple is ready to play hardball with Amazon.com, who had struck a similiar deal with record companies earlier last year. If you'd like to upgrade your library, head over to iTunes to receive a discounted rate.Apple has finally given in to record company demands and has changed the flat-rate... more
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