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US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

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Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#191

Post by aylons »

rednukleus wrote: post #187
beloch wrote: post #99

What qualities do people look for when buying movies and music? 1. The content they want. 2. Quality (i.e. resolution, bitrate, etc.) 3. Reliability (it actually plays) 4. Low annoyance (no ads, warnings, etc.) 5. Safety (guaranteed freedom from malware, etc.) The movie and music industries haven't done a perfect job of delivering #1-4. Region coding means the content users want is frequently only available through p…

You left out one important point: 6. Convenience. I believe that the content industry is relying on a sufficient number of people still finding it easier to buy a DVD/Bluray rather than pirate. For technical people, pirating is already sometimes more convenient for reasons that you stated. There is also a 7. Ethics Some people do not find pirating ethical under any circumstances, and will inconvenience themselves to…

Ethics is really important for me, but rootkits makes the official distribution as ethical as the pirated content.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#192

Post by uptown »

I haven't knowingly bought anything from Sony since their last rootkit debacle. I'm sure there's been media from them that I've consumed - but I've definitely avoided hardware purchases from them.

"Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/110110-sonybmg-rootkit...

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#193

Post by hendrik-xdest »

This sounds like a Hollywood magic trick. Tarantino filmed a gruesome headshot to distract censors to get his desired version of Pulp Fiction into cinemas. This might very well be the same thing.

Before we blow-up this topic we probably should collect all the nasty parts hidden in the document and fight-off all of them at once.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#194

Post by Swizec »

rednukleus wrote: post #187
beloch wrote: post #99

What qualities do people look for when buying movies and music? 1. The content they want. 2. Quality (i.e. resolution, bitrate, etc.) 3. Reliability (it actually plays) 4. Low annoyance (no ads, warnings, etc.) 5. Safety (guaranteed freedom from malware, etc.) The movie and music industries haven't done a perfect job of delivering #1-4. Region coding means the content users want is frequently only available through p…

You left out one important point: 6. Convenience. I believe that the content industry is relying on a sufficient number of people still finding it easier to buy a DVD/Bluray rather than pirate. For technical people, pirating is already sometimes more convenient for reasons that you stated. There is also a 7. Ethics Some people do not find pirating ethical under any circumstances, and will inconvenience themselves to…

Some people also think using animal products isn't ethical and inconvenience themselves to avoid it. But you probably don't want to build a mass market business on that.

For the record, I don't pirate music anymore. Spotify has made pirating too inconvenient.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#195

Post by alan_cx »

pestaa wrote: post #157
mtgx wrote: post #132

Next up: HTML5/browser-based rootkit? You never know with W3C these days.

This was really unwarranted and unnecessarily provocative.

DRM in HTML5 makes the comment not just warranted, but a statement of the obvious. If that is provocative, then I say provoke.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#197

Post by alan_cx »

I know this is not really about games and Im not sure this is actually related, but I'll offer it up in case.

Last night I went looking for info on the game Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon. I ended up on several forums and discovered something I found interesting. Turns out that the official legal version is plagued with various problems. But oddly, it seems that people who downloaded the leaked version are having no reported problems. I had a look at comments on various download sites, and yes there were some problems, but not many and they were normally about getting the cracked version to run, and these problems were quickly solved.

Now, while I accept that there would be an obvious difference between feedback from downloaders and customers, I do wonder if this happens a lot. And if the "pirates" are actually releasing versions of games, that actually work, while the likes of UbiSoft and Steam are angering paying customers with reportedly terrible support and poor product, why would any one in their right mind pay up? On top of that, it would seem that people who used "illegal" copies actually got quicker support that solved the problem from the users on the download site its self. Again, I can see the arguments and flaws there, but on the face of it, its madness.

What completely amazed me was the number of people saying they bought the game, it didn't work, they got no useful support, so they downloaded and played the pirate version.

If paying customers end up having problems, (say the root kit fails to install because for example it doesn't like your NIC, so you cant play the disk,) using other media, TV, Movies, etc, then they too would surely end up having to get their media in other ways. Then, experience would teach them to continue with other sources.

If this becomes any sort of trend, such businesses don't deserve to survive.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#198

Post by ericcumbee »

fatjokes wrote: post #91
ericcumbee wrote: post #2

Because every country strives to be more like Syria. "MPAA told Congress that they wanted SOPA and knew it would work because it was the same tactic used by governments in "China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam."

So what's worse? When it's driven by people thirsty for power, or people thirsty for money?

Equally for both you open the door for this one thing, it's hard not to open it for everything else.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#199

Post by TeMPOraL »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #188
TeMPOraL wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not stupid. This isn't a mistake. It's Dark Arts. They're trying (quite successfully) to attach the word "theft" to copyright infringement, so that people discuss it in terms of moral intuitions about stealing. 'cause if it is called "stealing" then it must be evil, right?

And they've been doing so for a long time. "You wouldn't steal a car" etc. were all about equating piracy with stealing from a shop or whatever.

Exactly. Funny though, now the obvious answer to "you wouldn't download a car" is "of course I would, just give me a big enough 3D printer!".

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#200

Post by rst »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #153
shmerl wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#5 Safety (guaranteed freedom from malware, etc.)... was the one thing that legally purchased media had an undeniable edge in over pirated media. Disagreed. Sony rootkit was on the legally purchased media. DRM on streaming services can do all kind of stuff without users consent. DRM built into hardware with cameras can do even weirder stuff (just note the crazy DRM idea patented by Microsoft regarding detecting the p…

I think OP was talking about average-Joe's understanding of safety. The "if I buy original version, it won't have viruses on it that break my computer". This is true so far, DRMs or not, and people trust legal media. But the moment this trust gets broken, there will be little reason to go to shop instead of Pirate Bay.

Actually, there's been at least one instance of legally purchased media installing spyware, the Sony rootkit scandal that's already come up in this discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...

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