Blizzard concedes that DRM is a losing battle.

And those who missed out on the original DoW2 don't have to buy it - it's a standalone expansion.

Very generous to the players, but perhaps not the best business model. It's far too tempting to just wait until all the expansions are out and buy the last one.

(But seriously, Chaos Rising is definitely a worthwhile purchase!)

 

Does one who only owns Chaos Rising have access to all of the races in multiplayer games? I can't remember.

Vanilla owners also can not use Chaos in the multiplayer portion.

 

That and the new units released in the 2nd and 3rd (or 1st and 2nd?) campaign (expansion?).

 

I have yet to have a problem with DRM of any kind. If you don't like it then don't buy it. Seriously, it's a shame that it needs to be utilized at all but unfortunately some bad eggs ruin it for others. I don't blame anyone for using DRM because that is their meal ticket.

 

Not to play the Devil's Advocate but you more or less just contradicted yourself lol .

According to your logic "don't like DRM = don't buy game"; that leads to less sales and in contrast leads to less money for said company producing the game which in turn will prompt them not to continue making any games and therefore putting the nice developers out of a job.

Unless you were talking of the people that think of the DRM and code it. Well yeah, they'd lose their wages if DRM stopped

 

I'm pretty sure the multiplayer portion is the same in the 3 games, I mean, updates will apply to the everyone. It's just that each campain is sold separately as a standalone game.

 

I meant the extra units released for multiplayer with each campaing (expansion). I am sure I read that in their website.

 

It's not a contradiction at all. The company has to do what it can to avoid letting the thieves of the world run off and use their stuff all willy-nilly. Assuming that a dislike for DRM will cause people to simply not buy the game is plain silly. I don't like punching in activation keys for Windows 7, MSOffice, or any games, but I do it so I can use the software. The value of the software is far greater than my concern that the DRM is going to hurt me. Heck, my computer calls home every time I install those programs as well. The method Blizzard is proposing is pretty similar to those methods - activate online, then use the software. Yes, there's the added burden of registering online, but you already have to register online to play on Battle.net (to some extent) for WC3 & TFT. This isn't the call-home style DRM that created the call to arms, this is the same cd-key drm we've seen since the mid-90's.

There's actually a bonus to registering online - I've registered on battle.net and linked all my Blizzard CD-Keys to my account so that noone else can use them. Does this mean Big Brother Blizzard is keeping tabs on me? Probably. But it's not a one-sided DRM. This is ME actively keeping THIEVES from using my cd-key via cd-key generators and locking me out (happens ALL THE FREAKING TIME on WC3/WC3:TFT/SC:BW).

 

I never advocated DRM as bad per se, simply that it can lead to reduced sales. Assassin's Creed 2 was an example in this forum of the disdain some people have for extreme method DRMs, no matter how good a game can be.

Blizzard's success with its method of DRM is dependent on the fact that half of their games enjoy the multiplayer or online facet. If I wanted to play WC3 offline I could easily just get my friend's CD key and Blizzard would never be the wiser. The difference is that WC3 is most enjoyable with the added multiplayer experience hence the whole registering online and whatnot.

Single player games are what's the crux of the DRM issue seeing as the online or multiplayer portion does not compel nor necessitate an online form of registering.

 

the real issue is not Multiplayer valid CD type DRM's those are by far accepted and encouraged (Any and all blizzard products really do it the best).

On the other scope you have just about any and every game made by UBISOFT. While i respect UBI's decision to include DRM its a losing battle for them. The DRM is so extreme it causes user's who legitimately purchase more headaches then the pirates who pirate it.

In those respects UBI's current form of DRM is a failure. Really when DRM become detrimental to the ease of access of legit users youve done something wrong as a developer. This is the stance i think blizzard is taking on it. UBI's way of doing it with assasians creed lost them money thats for sure. I can think of about 30+ posts from different users saying "I woulda bought AC2 if it wasnt for that damn DRM, instead i pirated it and had no headaches".

Lets also look at the difference between single player only games(ME,ME2, Dragon age) and games that really survive on their multiplayer(Source engine games, MW,MW2,BC2).

I promise you the amount of pirating the singleplayer games recieves are alot higher then the amount that have much more multiplayer and online content. Mainly cause with a multiplayer game there is more incentive to get a unique key. Where with a singleplayer game pirated or not you still get the majority of the game experience.

Lets look at the top selling games of 2009 worldwide as an example

Found here


01. The Sims 3 (Singleplayer, but argueably has alot to offer in DLC for legit users)
02. World Of Warcraft: Wrath Of The Lich King (Obviously multiplayer)
03. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe (Really people still play this?)
04. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest (See #2)
05. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Single player campaign is overshadowed by massive multiplayer componant)
06. World Of Warcraft (See #2 again)
07. The Sims 3: World Adventures (Same as #1)
08. Spore (If i recall wasnt there some exclusive DLC for having a legit key?)
09. Dragon Age: Origins (Singleplayer, but loads of DLC for legit users)
10. Empire: Total War (do people play this multi?)

As you can see the strongest winners in total sales are the games with more compelling interests in connecting online and having legit installs. Where the games not mentioned usually are primarily singleplayer and require no internet.

Which really leads me to believe if consistently the best sellers are multiplayer games (Shooters and MMO's especially) it would seem prudent for big devs to put more time and money into those games.

Now if there was some sort of magic DRM that could keep pirates from using it 100% and not cause problems for the legit users. Any and all devs/publishers would be scrambling to purchase that little piece of tech.

 

This is a game... and we are customers. Treating everyone like a criminal for the express purpose of defending income you are never going to get is madness.

Blizzard's approach is fine EXCEPT the part where they don't offer LAN games.

Playing on Battle.net pretty much assures your opponents are using cheats, if only to defend themselves from others' cheats. I really got sick of keeping up with which hacks you needed to have running to make sure you got a reasonably fair game.

 

Um I think its unfair to say that about Battle.net. Especially the new one that is being rolled out for starcraft and the new Diablo 3. And really the only game where cheating was prominent was Diablo 2:LoD. And that battle.net system was designed what 12 years ago now? And honestly lan play has steadily declined over the years to really being a minimal part of a games play. Other then the occasional lan party for 90% of legit users its a wasted feature.

Where on the otherhand games that have lan options can be easily pirated to work online via tunneling systems and virtual networks, completely negating the whole legit system and still receive the same content. As a dev/publisher the risk rewards of "lan ready" or "easy to pirate online via lan" have to be be weighed. And as a dev option #2 wins everytime.

People seem to fail that this is a business first and foremost, these companies dont make games out of the goodness of their hearts. They make them to make profits. And as the cost of producing top notch games go up, so does the efforts to increase sales and reduce piracy.

The gaming industry is very much like the movie industry in regards to High cost high profit margins. Think of it like movies like avatar. That movie had to be a major blockbuster to even make a profit. Games like CoD4:MW had that well done polished single player feel that really set it aside. And bam was one of the top grossing games of the year. And for every blockbuster there is prob twice as many flops.

 

This (in bold red) is contradictory. So, you're going to have to pirate to LAN, so don't offer LAN? That makes not sense. Offer LAN and it elminates a portion of the pirating. Because a LAN bypass WILL happen, so again, legit customers will have to use questionable means in order to LAN.

 

Apologies for the long post, but I didn't think it would be fair to hack up solid posts for quotations.

Installing that second copy offline for LAN play on a second computer is in fact stealing, and probably part of the unadvertised rationale behind removal of LAN play. I don't see the problem in Blizzard requiring you to call home when the game installs, then never again. You're merely verifying the install, and I bet you could play the single player campaign offline without needing to resort to some sort of DRM workaround. If you had to call home every time you started the Single Player campaign, that's a whole different story.

I wholeheartedly agree. You can't stop pirates once they're intent on pirating. Ultimately the worthwhile games with solid content do get purchased. But no matter how cheap the game is, if its easy to get away with pirating and there's no real loss of content, it'll probably get stolen.

I think there's a really simple and easy way to make DRM work effectively - keychain dongles with rolling passcodes, linked to the cd-key. Is it possible to mimic this function? Absolutely. Is it a headache for DRM breakers? Definitely. They'll have to determine the algorithm used to generate the rolling passcode rather simply modifying files (etc etc, don't want to break a forum rule).

Example: Blizzard Store

See above rationale: people illegally install the same copy to another computer to LAN. You can just as easily LAN over battle.net with all the same low-latency benefits (assuming the connections are still made locally and not on the server as in WC3, not Diablo2)

Also, it's not fair to fault Blizzard for the cheaters. Blizzard put up a free system that enables online play. Blaming them for other people's bad actions is wrong. Worse if you stoop to the level of the cheaters and think you need to up your cheating ways to even the playing field.

 

But they are not expensions. Each campaign is a standalone game, with the 3 sharing the same multiplayer. I'm sure once the units are released they will be added to everyone in the multiplayer part. But I may be wrong...

 

You are being naive... that guy who would charge you with a pile of advanced and upgraded protoss flying units 10 seconds into the game was cheating. Some of those cheats were patched, some were not. Battle.net is a cheating haven and the only way you know you are getting a legit game is by playing a LAN game. Blizzard has failed time and time again to remove the cheaters... and frankly the cheaters won.

It doesn't matter what they do, the game WILL be pirated. Let the legit and paying players play the game how they want at the level of quality and support they are used to from a Blizzard product.

There are many businesses in the world, and the number one concern is and should always be MAKING THE PAYING CUSTOMER HAPPY.

 

I didnt say you have to pirate to lan, I said that having a lan option allows people to gain online play easier. And what games that havent had lan support have pirates broken to create a lan environment? That seems more contradictory then anything...

 

Relating this back to the original topic, do you think removing all DRM barriers would mean there's less rampant cheating? You've got a funny idea of how the world works if you think opportunism isn't going to play a factor.

There's absolutely nothing barring you and your friends from each purchasing a copy of the game, all logging onto Battle.net, and playing each other in a private game/closed environment. You can still smack each other upside the head for cheating all you want, and at arm's reach.

 

Oddly enough, there were mods that let people connected to alternative non-Battle.net multiplayer servers for the original Starcraft even though it had LAN play. I forget exactly why. Might've been a DRM workaround, actually. Regardless, I do remember reading that someone had set up that sort of server on their local network to play, effectively creating a "LAN" environment.

 

And what prey tell is this
The Escapist : News : Blizzard Busts 320,000 in Battle.net Ban ?

Expecting perfection from hackers on an extremely popular OUTDATED system such as battle.net 1.0 is naive. I highly doubt the new battle.net 2.0 will have the same issues. Battle.net 1.0= Blizz at its inception. Battle.net2.0= blizz in its prime.

 

You have to define "calling home".

The concept of DRM is very very iffy for single player games that do not have online capacities.

How can Blizzard or any other company know that I'm not "stealing" a single player game(ex: letting all my little grade school friends use my CD key) as opposed to reinstalling it on my machine due to a previous crash? Or what about a new machine?

Tbh, Steam was a decent answer to this, but for standalone companies it's difficult without some form of constant "calling home" that links something to someone.

 

More naivity...

Try "tip of the iceberg"...

 

I don't think DRM, categorically, is an iffy concept for single player games. One-time activation on install is a simple case of "call home" that most people don't mind, even on a single-player offline only game. However, there needs to be the ability to activate offline (phone it in) and no limit on reinstalls (I wipe my machine every so often). The company has every right to put limitations on usage of its product, and in all honesty, a non-thief won't find it much of a burden to punch in a cd-key once.

On the other hand, DRM that requires you to go online when you have no intent of touching the online capability of the game is annoying as hell.

If all Blizzard got was your cd-key, there'd be no way to tell who installed what. But if they got a basic hardware spec (processor, gpu, ram, version of windows), odds are it'd be easy to distinguish users. Even easier if your friend lied and said he uninstalled, when he's really trying to log in from a separate location and blocking you from getting onto multiplayer. Hence Blizzard's new system of locking cd-keys to usernames, so that 1) noone can prevent you from going online by using your key, and 2) they make more $ by selling more copies.

If you think Steam never called home, kept tabs on your usage, and reported your hardware specs to Valve and the developers, you're sorely mistaken.


note on DRM:

DRM is everywhere. Ex: If you sync your iPod, you've encountered DRM. Maybe the files themselves don't have content protection, but your iPod is itself a form of DRM. The "normal" system is to sync to iTunes, which in turn reports to Apple. Sure you can workaround and never use iTunes, but that's a workaround the DRM system that's in place.

 

But then again we come to the issue of ONLINE games. You're using Blizzard games as an example (due to the thread), but what of another game that has no multiplayer aspect? Then there's no "blocking" by your friend as both of you are offline say. CD keys only go so far when single player games are concerned.

You can share WC3 with 50 friends and so long as nobody goes online to Battle.net Blizzard won't know you're 50 people on the game playing single player campaign.

As for spec sheets, that wouldn't work in the case of buying a new computer after a crash or for computer upgrades.

When did I mention Steam wasn't intrusive? Steam ties your games to an account onto their server rather than to your computer or media, making the issue of multiple computers a moot point that's all I underlined.

 

Wrong, it is making money. Happiness and such are byproducts. The company lives through making money, certainly a good image can help but it is useful only if it boosts the sales, not otherwise.

 

Nope, it would have absolutely no effect at all.
DRM = failure as the pirates are breaking the best they have.

I'd rather play on a sandbox LAN with no outside interference.
And even private games were at one point compromised...
No thanks, I'd rather not touch Battle.net ever due not necessarily to Blizzard, but due to the cesspool of humanity that plays on it.

 

You make money by making happy return customers.
Return customers is how you pay a workforce a living wage and keep yourself and your employees with jobs.

 

QFT! It seems that true and honest customer service has escaped the naivity of the younger crowd these days. Public corporations have ruined customer service because it's all about the short term bottom line. Make the sale now, who cares if they come back in a year, two years, whenever.

Game software makes that easy too. Unable to return games was the first step, then not able to sell your games, now you can't even really let your friends borrow your games.

I guess next step is to literally drop your drawers and bend over to plug in to play a game.

 

My point isn't that DRM isn't annoying, but rather that it's very understandable that a company would want to bar people from using its products without paying for it. When you so casually say "share," I read that as "my friends steal the game." Of course the company has an interest in preventing that. Previously, it was very burdensome to call home just for the sake of DRM (56k days). Today, a persistent connection is fairly typical.

The "what they don't know won't hurt them" argument is easy to rely on, but the fact is that their knowledge doesn't change the nature of the act.

I disagree. Removing all the DRM barriers would allow the cheaters who couldn't be bothered to break the DRM on.

As for that last point, enjoy your closed world. You probably won't be able to enjoy any online game at all. I don't know how your private games got infected, but that usually points to a dishonest opponent, not a broken server. He can say the server broke his client, but it's up to him to acknowledge it and not take advantage of it.
Battle.net may not be the best system, but it was the first to gain wide appeal, and it's probably still probably in the top 10 of multiplayer match-making setups. Fact is, the internet is full of cheaters and trolls, and multiplayer gaming attracts the worst of both.

 

Piracy isn't stealing, it's copyright violation. Please use the right terminology.

 

Wait. What?

What's the material difference?

 

Umm, it's a simple and obvious material difference. If you steal something, the original owner no longer has it. If you pirate it, they do.

 

I see where you are going but you're misunderstanding the legal definition of the concepts involved. You're defining larceny which is a type of theft.

Theft as a legal concept is the wrongful taking of someone else’s property without that person’s willful consent.

A copyright violation is the unauthorized or prohibited use or reproduction of works covered by copyright law.

So if you obtain the copyright holder's work in an unauthorized manner, i.e. against their willful consent, you are in effect taking their property.

How is that not theft?

 

The very term "take" implies depriving the original owner of their property, and quite a lot of legal definitions of theft involve this concept.

For example, in English law "A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it" (from Wikipedia's article on theft).

Besides that, copyright does not grant the author ownership of every single copy of their work. If you make a copy, that copy isn't their property, so it isn't theft. What copyright does do is grant them the exclusive right to copy, distribute and adapt that work. By copying it, you're violating their copyright, but it clearly isn't theft.

The actual property involved in this issue is not any kind of physical property, but their intellectual property - specifically their ownership of the copyright for that work. It is almost impossible for you to steal their copyright, because those rights are directly tied to them, but it's possible for you to infringe on those rights - i.e. copyright infringement.

 

You stated so why in your original statement actually. Technically what pirating is is copyright violation.

Is it stealing? Only if you define property as a physical only or extend it to intellectual as well?

if you do it counts a both. Depends on the states view on it.

 

Intellectual property isn't ownership of data, it's ownership of certain rights pertaining to that data. In other words, the copyright itself is the intellectual property.

However, as I said previously, in pirating media you can't actually take someone else's copyright, only infringe upon it.

 

Interesting conceptualization but there's a mountain of precedent that says otherwise. Is it possible that the law has been misapplied in each of these many cases? Sure. But your conceptualization has been tried before as a defense and hasn't been met with much success.

There reason being is because if you made your own personal copy of what you purchased it would fall under fair use. But when you distribute it or obtain it without compensating the copyright holder, you are in effect depriving them of compensation for their work unless they authorized you to obtain it or distribute it without compensation. To deprive is language used in legally describing theft. The property being compensation.

 

Well, it's obvious that my statements could not act as a defense against charges of copyright infringement, and I would think that copyright infringement would be the charge in any piracy trial, not theft.

Although you might be depriving the copyright holder of compensation for their work, that compensation isn't their property, nor does copyright give them a legal right to receive such compensation.

 

Have a look at a DOJ opinion involving a music piracy case;

"Recorded music is protected from misappropriation and unauthorized use under federal law" said United States Attorney Jim Vines. "Recording artists and the labels they record for have an enforceable right to control what happens to the works they have expended time, effort and money in creating. Misappropriation and unauthorized distribution of those works, even if no money changes hands, is no different than the theft of a tangible object, like a car, which the true owner has a right to possess and control. People who knowingly engage in criminal copyright violations with regard to music, film or other federally protected intellectual property need to know that they are subject to federal prosecution. Federal law enforcement agencies in the Middle District of Tennessee are paying attention, and we will pursue these cases fairly, but aggressively."

Source: Two Men Plead Guilty To Music Piracy Charges

Trying to propose a material difference between copyright infringement and theft is an academic exercise in semantics.

Section 504 of the copyright law does state that the compensation deprived is the property of the copyright holder. If it were not so, they could not seek redress for the loss incurred because of a copyright infringement.

Section 506 goes on further to define the criminality of the act of piracy because it is theft of work being prepared for commercial distribution. Not merely "infringement." The violator is clearly depriving the copyright holder of compensation to which they are due. It's no different than intercepting a check not belonging to you and cashing it.

US Copyright Law: U.S. Copyright Office - Copyright Law of the United States

 

Bottom line is that the government needs to reassess the whole software industry because "The Man" tends to 100% side with the people with "the money" (the devs and publishers) and nothing for the customers. That is how we get hosed. Just because it's written as law doesn't make it right, it just makes it "legal".

 

That's not true. They can seek redress because the law gives them a right to do so; that isn't the same thing as property.

That section doesn't mention theft at all. In particular, that specific section on commercial distribution refers to the distribution of a work (i.e. making it available to others), not just copying it.

In any case, there is an obvious legal distinction between copyright infringement and theft, and that's why there are separate laws for the two.

As for the material difference between the two, that's a more interesting matter than the legal distinction, and worth discussing further.

 

See what I mean. Everyone is always so busy debating law that's written instead of debating what's written should really be law. Sigh...

 

The law gives them the right to seek redress for loss. Lost wages, lost profits, loss of value, lost proceeds... you name it. But it is something of value which is being lost. And what is property but a tangible or intangible entity that is owned by a person or group of persons that has value?

By infringing on a copyright, you are depriving the holder of compensation. And that is what the law allows them to recover.

That is what piracy is. Both the unauthorized obtainment (reproduction) and the unauthorized distribution deprive the holder of their due compensation. This has been born out in the courts many times.

It's not exactly obvious because there is no material difference between the two. Copyright infringement is a type of theft. As burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, and fraud are. Theft is technically defined as a crime against property and/or property rights. A copyright holder owns the intellectual property (intangible property/asset).

To reiterate the definition of theft; theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.

If you use a car without the owner's consent, what is it but theft?

Similiarly, if you use copyrighted material without the holder's consent, what is it? To you, you might think, "copyright infringement." And the funny thing is, that's correct. Just as if someone broke into someone's home yet considered themself a looter instead of a burglar. There's a difference, but in the end they are just finding a different way to describe the deprivation of the owners use of their own property.

It is but usually ends up justifying piracy. There's an argument that says that piracy doesn't deny the copyright holder of compensation because you can't claim that every act of piracy is a lost sale. Some would never buy the game, but since it is free via certain outlets, they obtained it. And so they feel indemnified. In their mind, they aren't stealing because it was free where they got it from.

 

I concede that you are right about that. So that was my last post in that regard.

As for what the law should be, the law is fine, per se. The problem is lack of enforcement. And because of it, we, the legitimate consumers, have to suffer such things as intrusive and sometimes Draconian DRM measures. But on the same token, enforcement entails more government intrusion into our lives. Namely, loss of privacy. All or most of your internet transactions would have to be scrutinized in order for enforcement to work.

 

You misunderstood my post. In no way did I advocate piracy nor the freeloading of games.

I was presenting a scenario where DRM would basically be useless without basically being intrusive in some way or form. There's a reason Ubisoft tried their luck with that internet connection DRM with AC2: it's because there aren't 50 ways to check up on a single player game.

And even that annoying DRM got broken in less than a week.

Like Kernel said. You can't stop piracy, however by providing a product that's worthwhile to have in the genuine state, you discourage people from bothering with piracy.

Let's take Blizzard games for example. They have a small form of DRM(registrations with CD keys for Battle.net) yet this is a lot more effective than most DRMs simply because of the value of the multiplayer aspect of their games. By providing a reason for people to have the genuine software(in this case Battle.net), you give them incentive to purchase the game rather than pirate it.

 

No, it's more complicated than that. Not all piracy is necessarily a criminal offence according to Section 506 - only
1) Piracy for financial gain (i.e. selling pirated media)
2) Piracy of more than $1000 (in retail value) worth of works in a period of 180 days
and
3) Distribution (no mention of reproduction) of works intended for commercial distribution.
So there is a clear legal distinction between theft and piracy.

In many cases, piracy is a civil offense only and not a criminal one, and in some countries copyright infringement is never a criminal offense. As such, the legal distinction between the two is very important, and using the two interchangeably in a legal discussion would be misleading.

You can't own profits from something unless you've actually made them. "Lost profits" as a form of property simply do not exist.

What they own is the copyright, and as a consequence the right to seek redress for copyright infringement. However, this property is not taken by piracy. In addition, if copyright law did not exist, then piracy would not infringe on any rights whatsoever, so once again there is an important distinction.

 

I was trying to avoid pointing accusatory fingers, but discussing the matter using non-specific objects like "one could say" or "such a person" gets a little rough.

There's a big difference between being intrusive and useless, and they're not polar opposites, but rather two different considerations. Useless DRM would be having to register freeware or activate it online - it's not really freeware anymore. DRM in the intellectual property landscape serves nearly always serves a purpose where the right holder is trying to control distribution or limit reproduction of the copyrighted work. No matter how poorly one might think of big studios imposing DRM on their games, replace them with a starving author adding DRM on an e-book. DRM serves a purpose, no matter how much one might dislike it.

As for intrusive, well, just about any Ubisoft DRM is as intrusive as it can get (well no, the Sony rootkits are probably the worst). The least intrusive are usually linked to hardware - DVD/Blu-Ray Discs to the players and cartridge-based gaming consoles would be decent examples. Unfortunately, with the way software needs to handle near-infinite OS/hardware/user combinations, patching is a necessity that makes fixed media near impossible.

To address the last point, even with solid desirable content, an incentive to pirate will continue to exist, even if the pirating population becomes considerably smaller. The contingent that maybe wants the software but isn't ready to buy it just yet, the contingent that refuses to pay even a penny for the best of software, and of course the contingent that simply wants to stick it to the man will continue to pirate.

 

Pirating won't stop, I've yet to see a post in this forum advocating that piracy will somehow stop and most have agreed it won't. The question is how best to deal with it.

The point is that DRM isn't combating piracy all that well. If anything, with the increasing popularity of torrents and the like, pirating has become more popular now than ever(as opposed to the old burning a CD/DVD).

Regardless of DRM, a guy who doesn't want to buy a game won't buy it. However, that guy who isn't sure he wants to pay 50$ for a game but likes the game might be swayed if you give him a reason to spend that 50$ for a genuine product rather than a cheap knockoff copy.

Why is the iPhone still selling when you can get a 1$ Chinese knockoff? Because the genuine product offers a lot more than the knockoff no matter the price difference. Sure some smuck will always buy the knockoff, but you can sway the majority of people that having the genuine thing is better(if not at least worth it), then you've mini zed the figures.

It's not as if minimal DRM will somehow IGNORE the problem of piracy, but it will take another approach to it.

 

And on that I agree. I think the laws as they are fit well the purpose of backing the companies in regards to their rights of their products. By sadly on the consumer side the laws give us basically no rights, besides a few efforts to recognize that buying software means the acquisition of a product, and so the buyer has some rights over it (like the right to sell their product to someone else).

I am no lawyer, but this is my impression in a very practical sense.

 

and that is quickly being negated with all the DRM. You have to register and it ties it with the person, plus limited activations, etc. You almost have no rights other than to buy it and have no recourse even if it's a piece of crap game, very buggy, etc. They're so busy trying to stop the inevitable instead of trying to give the customers what they want. Treat the customer kindly, listen to them, and give them what they want, that's how you get business and return business. In a way, pirates are really giving customers what they want, and they don't have to pay for it. This is what bugs me, and why can the publishers and devs see this?