StarDestroyer.Net BBS

bilateralrope wrote:

Purple wrote:Only until an inside job leaks said part of the game and someone sets up a pirate server.

The pirate server will cost money to run, discouraging people from running them unless they can profit. And I don't see how the person running it could convince a court that they didn't know the server was infringing copyright. Making any prosecution much more likely.

Running servers is a tiny cost in several countries and pirating is not illegal in all countries, or the justice system makes prosecution an impossibility.

Second they won't need to run a server, it's not exactly hard to fake a server in Windows, if you have the software in hand (Which you have to) sooner or later you can crack the authentication software and then you take your exe to point to a new location. For obvious reasons you have to leave an ability to specify locations to authenticate from. Which is FYI how the ubisoft cracks work, not to go into deta but Ubisofts DRM calls to an outside source and by changing what that source is you break the DRM.

Purple wrote:Only until an inside job leaks said part of the game and someone sets up a pirate server.

To be fair you don't even need to steal code from the original developers. Eventually hackers will gain enough knowledge to replicate the server end code. They have done so before with some MMO games like Runescape.

I think what is likely going to happen is that singleplayer games are going to gain a multiplayer component. It could be as mundane as a highscore system or social features or as complicated as coop campaigns. In particular I remember EA talking about how this is the direction they are taking - they will not produce any pure singleplayer games with no online content. The worse case scenario of draconian developers running the games on their server still seems far fetched at the moment.

Faqa wrote:

Andrew_Fireborn wrote:Before the DMCA, I don't think the courts would have cared.

But, the DMCA makes bypassing DRM illegal.

Uh... no:

I see, good to know that Anti-Circumvention portions of the law were effectively struck down. Amazed I hadn't heard of that before now, considering that dates back to late 2010...

Skgoa wrote:

someone_else wrote: after a couple months at most

Did you mean: on launch day?

(also for Tolya)
Dunno, some games I knew were cracked fast but were unstable as fuck until the teams did another couple tries. (crashes, random graphic glitches, you know)

someone_else wrote:Dunno, some games I knew were cracked fast but were unstable as fuck until the teams did another couple tries. (crashes, random graphic glitches, you know)

Most of the time that was the fact that the game itself was buggy. It's always amusing when the cracked copy has actual bugfixes to make the game playable, or a lists several game breaking bugs which are in the game itself and the crackers refusing to fix the buggy mess.

Andrew_Fireborn wrote:

Faqa wrote:

Andrew_Fireborn wrote:Before the DMCA, I don't think the courts would have cared.

But, the DMCA makes bypassing DRM illegal.

Uh... no:

I see, good to know that Anti-Circumvention portions of the law were effectively struck down. Amazed I hadn't heard of that before now, considering that dates back to late 2010...

The anti-circumvention portions were not struck down. The court found that the DMCA circumvention claim was invalid, in this case. From the decision:

Moreover, the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision does not apply to the use of copyrighted works after the technological measure has been circumvented, targeting instead the circumvention itself. Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429, 443 (2d Cir.2001)… Without proving GE/PMI actually circumvented the technology (as opposed to using technology already circumvented), MGE does not present a valid DMCA claim. See id. ([T]he DMCA targets the circumvention of digital walls guarding copyrighted material (and trafficking in circumvention tools), but does not concern itself with the use of those materials after circumvention has occurred.)

So, the plaintiffs did not show that GE actually circumvented anything themselves. Use of circumvented software is not an offense under the DMCA, circumvention is.

Secondly:

The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners. See Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Skylink Techs., Inc., 381 F.3d 1178, 1202 (Fed.Cir.2004). The Federal Circuit, in analyzing the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision, concluded that it “convey no additional property rights in and of themselves; [it] simply provide property owners with new ways to secure their property.” Id. at 1193-94. Indeed, “virtually every clause of § 1201 that mentions ‘access’ links ‘access’ to ‘protection.’ ” Id. at 1197. Without showing a link between “access” and “protection” of the copyrighted work, the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision does not apply. The owner’s technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing.

The DMCA only works to protect rights under copyright (duplication, etc.). Use of the circumvented key did not violate any of these rights, so the DMCA does not apply, in this case.

The act of circumventing (ie, the cracker teams who actually bypass the DRM) is an offense under the DMCA, and since it allows copying and use of copies unlicensed by the copyright holder, the DMCA would apply there as well.

Xon wrote:

someone_else wrote:Dunno, some games I knew were cracked fast but were unstable as fuck until the teams did another couple tries. (crashes, random graphic glitches, you know)

Most of the time that was the fact that the game itself was buggy. It's always amusing when the cracked copy has actual bugfixes to make the game playable, or a lists several game breaking bugs which are in the game itself and the crackers refusing to fix the buggy mess.

It happens legitimately also. The Morrowind Code Patch comes to mind, there were lots of bugs in Elder Scrolls 3 that could only be fixed by rebuilding the game from source. Though technically modders are not allowed to touch the executable they just went ahead and did it because Betheseda was never going to do it.

What does that have to do with removing intrusive DRM and (coincidentally) fixing crashes? I mean pretty much nothing with early starforce works anymore because Win7 treats it as malware.

Sarevok wrote:
It happens legitimately also. The Morrowind Code Patch comes to mind, there were lots of bugs in Elder Scrolls 3 that could only be fixed by rebuilding the game from source. Though technically modders are not allowed to touch the executable they just went ahead and did it because Betheseda was never going to do it.

And Bethesda knows that they can count on the modding community to fix what was fucked up. They still do very small scale open worlds where they spend more time on the dungeons than they do the "cities" (More like hamlets). They have playtesters but not the required amount for the game size they make. According to a friend of mine who worked as a play tester, the NHL 2010 play testing team had more members than the Skyrim play-testing team.

So when modders mod, they don't care because they know their PC audience better.

Faqa wrote:In other words, intent matters. If you are circumventing DRM to access a work you already own, then you are not committing copyright infringement and therefore do not fall under the purview of the DMCA.

But distributing the tools necessary to break the DRM is illegal.

So the DMCA has a legal exception to crack DRM for non-infringement purposes, but the very tools to do this are made illegal by the DMCA.

Sarevok wrote: It happens legitimately also. The Morrowind Code Patch comes to mind, there were lots of bugs in Elder Scrolls 3 that could only be fixed by rebuilding the game from source. Though technically modders are not allowed to touch the executable they just went ahead and did it because Betheseda was never going to do it.

Yeah but Bethesda has always been pretty sound about that sort of modding. Ubisoft on the other hand isn't, at all.

I'm not surprised about this. The Ubisoft DRM made it impossible for me to play Conviction on PC. Now I just don't buy Ubisoft games for the PC. Which is a bitch if they are Xbox exclusives but meh, fuck it.