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Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

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Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#41

Post by rhino369 »

ddingus wrote: post #29
phpnode wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not being logical, you're just parroting anti-anti-copying propaganda. > If the 12 yr old pirates $17,000 (retail price) of music, this does not mean the record companies are out $17,000... 12 yr olds don't have $17,000 to spend even if they are prevented from pirating. Right, but it does not mean that the record companies are out $0 either. They are probably missing out on at least several hundred dollars wor…

Actually, it's more subtle than that. For the vast majority of ordinary people, entertainment dollars are fixed. People have what they have to spend on entertainment, and when it's gone that month, it's gone. What happens is the various content producers compete for their share of those dollars. There just aren't billions out there for entertainment purposes. Wages being flat in the US speaks right to that. People do…

I don't think it's accurate to say that the vast majority have a fixed entertainment budget.

But even assuming it's true, piracy would still hurt individual companies or even entire industries. Industries you can't pirate so easily would see a disproportionate share of the spending.

DRM would still be very important. People would pirate the stuff that is easy to pirate, and buy the DRM stuff.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#42

Post by emodendroket »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #28
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #10

I've often heard people say that piracy isn't harmful, but looking at what it does to video game developers, I'm not sure it always isn't. Day 1 cracks are obviously a serious concern if developers like this one would go to so much effort to prevent them. And I remember Nintendo saying piracy had hurt DS software sales in Europe (understandably: instead of buying several full titles, people would buy a cheap "R4" or…

It's a bit puzzling to hear this coming from Nintendo since it's pretty clear that piracy hurts the Windows platform infinitely more than the console industry. Very, very few console owners run unlocked consoles, so they don't even have the option of running cracked games. On the other hand, every PC owner can run cracked copies, and it only takes a few minutes of reading for even the most non tech savvy Windows user…

On the other hand, if you download a console game and play it on your console you don't have to worry that it's bundled with keyloggers or enrolling you in a botnet or whatever.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#43

Post by exDM69 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #37
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #10

I've often heard people say that piracy isn't harmful, but looking at what it does to video game developers, I'm not sure it always isn't. Day 1 cracks are obviously a serious concern if developers like this one would go to so much effort to prevent them. And I remember Nintendo saying piracy had hurt DS software sales in Europe (understandably: instead of buying several full titles, people would buy a cheap "R4" or…

I'm not going to argue that piracy isn't harmful, but does fighting it really help? People claim that just preventing cracks for a few weeks is enough to make a difference. Sure, the majority of sales happen in this timespan, but that doesn't mean someone intent on pirating the game will give up and pay just because it isn't available now. That's why I don't like statements like these, from the article >those two to…

This is a very valid point and I would like to see it backed or refuted by sales data. Of course, it's very difficult to speculate how much sales were lost due to piracy or how much was gained due to the countermeasures. But comparing several games with roughly similar total sales over a long period vs. the sales by the time a crack to come out could give a nice data point to start with. If there's a strong decline in sales per day when the crack comes out, that should be a clear indicator that piracy is hurting sales (but I find that hard to believe).

Judging by the article, there was a lot of serious software engineering resources put to this crack protection system. It takes thousands or tens of thousands of sales to pay back the time spent. This money and effort could have been spent on making the product better in a way that is directly visible to the customer. How many sales could have that bought?

But things have changed since the days this game (and article) came out. Ubiquitous Internet connectivity is now on consoles too. Games get (more) patches after they are released (well they are also more buggy on release day). The downside is not being able to play when your connection goes down (or the servers go down) but this has become somewhat acceptable (albeit it's a nuisance).

It has become a lot easier to buy games online and a lot more difficult to pirate them. This is what ultimately made me stop pirating games.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#44

Post by emodendroket »

joosters wrote: post #33
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit puzzling to hear this coming from Nintendo since it's pretty clear that piracy hurts the Windows platform infinitely more than the console industry. Very, very few console owners run unlocked consoles, so they don't even have the option of running cracked games. On the other hand, every PC owner can run cracked copies, and it only takes a few minutes of reading for even the most non tech savvy Windows user…

Very, very few console owners run unlocked consoles If that were true, these console developers wouldn't need to worry about their games being cracked. And yet, as the article discusses, there really is a piracy problem.

I assume he means in comparison to PCs, where 100% of users already have a "jailbroken" platform.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#45

Post by sosborn »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #39
sosborn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're probably missing out on several tens of dollars." * "The large number of people pirating songs" Yes, they went too far, but for fucks sake, it is really hard to imagine that these acts hurt a company?

I sell doodads. You've never bought one from me. Can I claim that you've hurt me? After all, you've never bought any. (I can show you my bank account balance, I really am hurting). The sticking point, the part that will make it feel to you as if my statement above is non-sensical, is somehow you've managed to attach the idea that they're selling something to the idea that other people have a (very) similar something…

If I really want or need to acquire your doodad then I am a potential customer and I have three choices. 1) buy your doodad. 2) acquire it without paying money. 3) go without using your doodad.

As a business owner, which would you prefer I do? Would option 2 not result in a loss of potential revenue? Would it not be super-harmful if everyone who wanted to use your product chose option 2?

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#46

Post by rhino369 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #37
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #10

I've often heard people say that piracy isn't harmful, but looking at what it does to video game developers, I'm not sure it always isn't. Day 1 cracks are obviously a serious concern if developers like this one would go to so much effort to prevent them. And I remember Nintendo saying piracy had hurt DS software sales in Europe (understandably: instead of buying several full titles, people would buy a cheap "R4" or…

I'm not going to argue that piracy isn't harmful, but does fighting it really help? People claim that just preventing cracks for a few weeks is enough to make a difference. Sure, the majority of sales happen in this timespan, but that doesn't mean someone intent on pirating the game will give up and pay just because it isn't available now. That's why I don't like statements like these, from the article >those two to…

>Sure, the majority of sales happen in this timespan, but that doesn't mean someone intent on pirating the game will give up and pay just because it isn't available now.

Sure not all will, but a lot of pirates aren't intent on pirating. They just do it when they can. For example, I want to see American Sniper at the theater. But if a DVD quality rip is out on launch day, fuck it, I'll take it free.

Most PC games go on sale a few weeks after launch and yet people are still paying a premium at launch.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#47

Post by logfromblammo »

sosborn wrote: post #30
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit puzzling to hear this coming from Nintendo since it's pretty clear that piracy hurts the Windows platform infinitely more than the console industry. Very, very few console owners run unlocked consoles, so they don't even have the option of running cracked games. On the other hand, every PC owner can run cracked copies, and it only takes a few minutes of reading for even the most non tech savvy Windows user…

> It's a bit puzzling to hear this coming from Nintendo Those R4 carts were all over the place. I was living in Japan at the time and everyone and their mother had one. There is no doubt it cost them a lot of money.

I had an Evo, and I must admit that it had more ROMs loaded onto it than those matching the cartridges I actually owned. But about 20% of those dozens of cartridges that I did still buy were for games that I might not have even tried otherwise. There were plenty that were played 0 or 1 times, then deleted forever.

I bought the device primarily so that I would have full access to my complete library without having to tote around physical security tokens everywhere.

And that is the same reason I have hard drives and alternative loaders for my PS2 and Wii. I can play any game that I buy without getting off the couch to switch discs. And with the Wii, there is the added benefit that I probably won't have to open it up and replace the optical disc drive for a third time. This has the unfortunate (for them) side effect that it is dead simple for me to pirate games on those platforms if I had the inclination.

So in my particular case, it would seem that the most effective anti-piracy measure would be to remove the requirement that paying customers have to continually juggle physical tokens to enjoy the content that they paid for.

If I have to break the security features in order to add the convenience features that I want most, the psychological barrier for piracy is lowered. If everything that I want is already on this side of the fence, I am far less inclined to jump over it.

It just so happens that Steam provides the feature I like, which is easy access to a whole library. As a result, I have on a few occasions preferred to re-license a game I already own on disc through Steam, just so I won't have to dig up the physical disc, configure a DOSBox or WinXP VM, install drivers, make tweaks, download the official and unofficial patches, and such.

I already have more games than I have time to play games. If I go to pirate something, it won't be because I don't want to pay, but because I don't want to be hassled every time I want to play.

So the number one anti-piracy measure from my perspective is DON'T WASTE YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS' TIME. That applies equally to unskippable DVD scenes, physical disc checks, and connection-always-required schemes. Don't waste my time, and I won't go looking for ways to stop you from wasting my time. It is impossible for you to irritate me into giving you more of my money.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#48

Post by mikeash »

ddingus wrote: post #29
phpnode wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not being logical, you're just parroting anti-anti-copying propaganda. > If the 12 yr old pirates $17,000 (retail price) of music, this does not mean the record companies are out $17,000... 12 yr olds don't have $17,000 to spend even if they are prevented from pirating. Right, but it does not mean that the record companies are out $0 either. They are probably missing out on at least several hundred dollars wor…

Actually, it's more subtle than that. For the vast majority of ordinary people, entertainment dollars are fixed. People have what they have to spend on entertainment, and when it's gone that month, it's gone. What happens is the various content producers compete for their share of those dollars. There just aren't billions out there for entertainment purposes. Wages being flat in the US speaks right to that. People do…

I doubt there's a fixed entertainment budget. I could see a fixed maximum, but past a certain threshold of being able to obtain things for free, people will spend less.

Even if it was a completely fixed budget, "entertainment" is a diverse category. Movies aren't just competing with other movies, or even just with TV and books and music, but also with things like cake and vodka. Even if the pie is fixed, is it unreasonable for a movie company to try to take some of vodka's pie?

The idea that piracy causes zero lost sales as is ridiculous as the idea that every act of piracy is a lost sale. At best you could make the argument that piracy is a net zero (or gain) because the advertising aspects of piracy match (or outweigh) the losses. But to just declare that piracy does nothing at all is crazy. It may be small, it may be negligible, but it's not zero unless your product is so unpopular that nobody was going to buy it anyway.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#49

Post by mikeash »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #39
sosborn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're probably missing out on several tens of dollars." * "The large number of people pirating songs" Yes, they went too far, but for fucks sake, it is really hard to imagine that these acts hurt a company?

I sell doodads. You've never bought one from me. Can I claim that you've hurt me? After all, you've never bought any. (I can show you my bank account balance, I really am hurting). The sticking point, the part that will make it feel to you as if my statement above is non-sensical, is somehow you've managed to attach the idea that they're selling something to the idea that other people have a (very) similar something…

Let's say I stand in front of your doodad store (imagining you only sell it in a store, for whatever reason) with a megaphone, repeatedly giving an extremely convincing speech about why people shouldn't buy your doodads. Can you claim that I've hurt you then?

Many of the people I talk to would never buy a doodad anyway. Those result in zero harm. Some of them were going to buy a doodad, were non convinced, and bought anyway. Those also result in zero harm. But some were going to buy a doodad and then decided not to. That's harm.

Piracy is the same. Many pirates were never going to buy the thing anyway. Many people purchase anyway. But some non-zero number of people would have purchased but now don't.

Re: Keeping the Pirates at Bay – Copy and Crack Protection (2001)

#50

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

sosborn wrote: post #45
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sell doodads. You've never bought one from me. Can I claim that you've hurt me? After all, you've never bought any. (I can show you my bank account balance, I really am hurting). The sticking point, the part that will make it feel to you as if my statement above is non-sensical, is somehow you've managed to attach the idea that they're selling something to the idea that other people have a (very) similar something…

If I really want or need to acquire your doodad then I am a potential customer and I have three choices. 1) buy your doodad. 2) acquire it without paying money. 3) go without using your doodad. As a business owner, which would you prefer I do? Would option 2 not result in a loss of potential revenue? Would it not be super-harmful if everyone who wanted to use your product chose option 2?

> If I really want or need to acquire your doodad then I am a potential customer

But are you a promised customer, one that I own as some sort of cow to be milked when I see fit?

Certainly if I repair cars, you don't claim that I get to do all your car work and be paid for it, nor could I sue if you did it yourself. But this is what you're claiming with entertainment...

Think about it. I might make the claim that if you know about how to fix an engine, it was only because I discovered those ideas first. Therefor, even if you fix the engine (or arrange little magnetic islands on a hard drive in a particular sequence), you're still stealing from me.

If you fix the engine the same way I'd fix it, you're just copying my motions and actions.

These are highly comparable, but most people now balk at the idea (even though such absurd restrictions have existed in various times and places throughout history).

Copyright isn't some fundamental human right (time for the weenies to point out that the UN thinks it is). Its formulation was originally a practical matter, so now that it's become impractical it should be abolished or once more limited to reasonable terms.

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