Piracy is good

I presented an example of an absolutely concrete example of uncrackable DRM. You can call it vague, but I'm sure as hell not going to pound out a thesis on my DRM. I've got better things to do.

But, what I have provided is UNCRACKABLE. You can sniff all the packets you want, all you would get is the resultant chess move. You CANNOT get to the server side software. Unlike you, I'm not one of those CSI agents who can "enhance" a pixel into a 5 gigabyte image. Technology just does not work this way.

You're extremely good at sounding like you know what you're talking about, but you're knowledge ends when it gets to the nitty gritty.

 

You should tell EA/Ubisoft you have uncrackable DRM. You'll be a millionaire!

 

Stop saying that.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=464679&page=11

 

You should stop talking about uncrackable DRM until you do so. If it was uncrackable you would think EA/Ubisoft would be all over it. You should go and tell them.

 

Though, if you read and understand what Lithus is referring to rather than fixating on the term DRM as it presently is used, you would understand that what Lithus is actually referring to is cloud computing. The modality of which would pose as the best possible digital rights management as the software is not distributed. Only the output from a client's input is distributed back to the client. There's nothing to hack other than the client's authentication and identity protocol.

 

Uh. False. Plagiarism is bad because your own personal credibility (to future employees, to coworkers, other students, etc.) is built up from a false premise. In the extreme cases, it's like a bridge builder being hired despite having no engineering experience, but only because he lied about his experience.

Just because the original author does not lose profit does not mean there is no harm, and I'm not sure why you would isolate the problem solely on his/her wellbeing.

Also, just because there is harm does not mean that there should be laws specifically created to punish the act that causes harm. Plagiarism is not punishable by law.

Also blatantly false. If "we as a society" had decided this, then piracy wouldn't be such a widespread issue.

The vast majority of society says that crimes like murder are wrong, which is why they're enforceable by law: because you're only dealing with a very tiny subsection of the population.

Piracy, however, is committed by millions upon millions of people every day, in wide ranges of the demographics. Copyright infringement happens to an even greater extent (for example, a massive amount of creative works on the internet are unauthorized derivative works).

There is no consensus over IP rights. The majority of society doesn't even fully understand what constitutes violations of IP. Another sizable subsection thinks IP laws are bad, in one form or another.

The only reason why most of these intellectual property violations are overlooked is because they're simply not worth pursuing.

Another fallacy. No one has full control over any of their inventions or creations, or any of their ideas.

You'll find this funny term in US law called "Fair Use". It's deliberately vague, and can't be pinned down to specific actions, solely because it is the overreaching coverage of IP usage. Violations of IP laws are the exceptions to Fair Use.

In other words, IP owners only have control where the law specifically states they have it, and this is constantly changing and reforming.

 

Uncrackable DRM can exist, but it will induce many impractical or downright dumb concepts with it. There's a difference between something possible and some realistic.

 

Requiring an internet connection to play a single player game is realistic. So realistic in fact that Ubisoft and EA are currently implementing it.

WolfintheSheep - IP owners have the right to sell or license their IP. IP owners have the right to set prices for their IP. You bring up consensus and fair use, but I'm pretty sure there's not any question whether or not downloading a game from bittorrent constitutes fair use (it doesn't). Other than that, I'm not sure what you were trying to get at in that long blurb other than to tell me my points are wrong, but let me take a stab at it.

1. Plagiarism is bad. --- I agree.
2. Even though plagiarism is bad, there shouldn't be laws against it. --- I agree.
3. Murder is bad. --- I agree.
4. Piracy is widespread. --- I agree.
5. There is no consensus on specific IP rights, and there are people who disagree with current IP rights. --- I agree.
6. Piracy is not punished in many cases because it's not worth it. --- I agree.
7. No one has, or should have, full control over their IP. --- I agree.
8. Fair use exists. --- I agree.
9. IP owners have control over their IP in areas that the law states. --- I agree.
10. IP law is changing. --- Not really, IP law doesn't change very much.

Hope I didn't miss anything.

 

Well realistic in the sense that it's simply unpractical to do it. I mean, "possible' and "realistic" have very similar meanings if taken at the base, I meant realistic in the sense that it'd be feasible and practical for both company and consumer to implement a certain DRM.

 

@ Lithius:

Umm but just a few posts ago you stated that our society had come to a moral conclusion about piracy being wrong.

 

No, I said:

Then I said:

I didn't say society has come to a conclusion on IP, much less piracy. Don't read what you want to read, read what I actually post.

 

"As a society we have decided" just means we live in a country where our elected officials created regulations regarding the matter. Not that it's perfect or that every individual agrees with it in its current form.

That's what I interpreted was being said, at least.

 

if it stops infinity ward from ever releasing MW3 then yes, it is good ^^

 

Actually the term should be more "we as a society have agreed", but yeah I agree. I mean, obviously you can't please EVERYONE with x law or y regulation. There's ALWAYS someone who will complain or disagree for x reason.

"Intellectual property" is an iffy term because indeed it is not so material as it can be calculated in terms of gain/loss, but at the same time it's not totally intangible either nor can it not lead to monetary gains. Anything involving money has to have a law about it according to modern capitalist society so intellectual property has a law passed over it.

I mean, there's a reason patents exist and get companies sued over: not because necessarily one guy cares about his idea being copied but more so because said idea could give the other guy MONEY.

That being said, I don't think that intellectual property is "moot" either and obviously society doesn't either, just that they justify it with monetary implications since every individual(or nearly every) can related to monetary issues.

 

It does in Spain, for sure. A number of recent rulings have explicitly declared that P2P downloading of copyrighted material for personal use is entirely under the Spanish definition of fair use, and all such cases have been dismissed.

A number of other countries have had the legal systems state that they're not going to waste time on individuals downloading, and as such, those cases will never be punishable.

And this is only talking about nations that have had aggressive pursuits on downloaders. All the other countries are still up in the air.

As I said, what consensus?

IP law has changed a remarkable amount in the last couple of decades, especially compared to any other kind of law. Which is understandable, given that changing technology has led to all kinds of implications that were never expected.

And just which "certain rights" has society come to a consensus on?

Certainly not distribution rights, since widespread piracy of IP is so commonplace. Heck, I doubt you'd find many people who wouldn't burn a music CD for a friend or family member.

It's definitely not control over derivative works either, given the prevalence of fan-art, fan-fiction, and its ilk. Just take a look at Japan, which has an entire culture (and sub-industry) built up on unauthorized derivative works.

About the only thing that is agreed upon by almost everyone is that copyright holders should be the only ones to commercially profit from their original creations (except in the case of resales, because that's covered under Right of First-Sale, or other equivalents).

 

You have the point in here. If millions of people are doing something and they think it is their right to do then, in democracy, politicians should listen to them and create appropriate law. Making downloading games legal instead of making millions of citizens criminals. At least that how democracy should work... Instead of this we have some rich companies who paid our elected politicians to create law good only for those companies. Against the will of society.
From the customer point of view piracy is good. Look at the prices of the games. PC games (which are widely pirated) costs half of the price of console games (which are not pirated that much).

The companies using and pursuing DRM onto us are obsolete. They want old way of business in the new times. And they are going to fail if they do not adapt. It may take a while but eventually XX century business model will fail. If not we would still use horse pulled wagons instead of cars. The question is how much we will let them. New games with constant Internet connection required for single player are not going to be success. For now. Until they release a patch removing that requirement I will not buy.
But the cloud computing and gaming will be the future... It will require much less expensive hardware on the client side so in the end it will be cheaper for user. And people will go for that...

But that should be named properly and the prices should be corrected. You will not be BUYING the game but just renting it or buying the service. And the price should be rather low with pay-as-you-play model. I'm OK with that. I'd pay $10 - $15 to play on-line but not $50.

BTW advertising in the game could be OK if it wouldn't be aggressive... But it probably will be... And that will do opposite with cracks that remove adds.

 

What you're proposing is an economic system where the consumer gets to set the price, and where $0 is a valid price.

Do you not at all see a problem with this model?

 

Not to add more fuel to this fire already, but that is, essentially, what happens right now in nearly all capitalistic societies.

 

For real!? Man I must've gotten ripped off for paying 5$CAD for my lunch then >.>

On topic, I don't think paying anything from the consumer p.o.w(point of view) is a good model for the PC gaming industry. It's not like TV.

 

Well I figured that a completely off-topic post wasn't very constructive

*oh darn I did it again >_<

 

That's not at all true. In a capitalistic society, the corporation sets the price. The consumer obviously has influence on the price, but the corporation gets the final say.

The reason a consumer has influence is that the "best" price is the one that the market can bear. For video games, the market can easily bear $50 a game.

This is NOT AT ALL the same as the consumer having the ability to set the price. If that were the case, everything would cost $0. There's a clean distinction between free market, and everything is free.

 

Agreed.

Agreed.

Perhaps. But enough consumers that band together and refuse to pay a certain amount of money for a certain product essentially sets the price for the corporation.

 

That's very true, but not really relevant to the topic of video games and piracy.

Corporations are very content with selling games at $50, and millions of consumers are content with that price point as well. Piracy essentially allows a consumer to set the price to $0.

 

Mmkay. You issued a statment about consumer spending that I felt needed to be clarified more adequately. So yes, I think it is relevant to the discussion.