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SimCity UI Code + DRM

gist.github.com

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Re: SimCity UI Code + DRM

#61

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

SchizoDuckie wrote: post #9

3.5 mb of Javascript. Glug. Looks like just the game ui. I cannot really find references to DRM like the title says. Lots of nice references to cheats though! They all rely on simcity.DEBUG being true, if (simcity.DEBUG) switch (a) { case scrui.kKeyCodeDigit1: c && (e && !d) && scrui.RunCheat("scgameui -unlockalltools"); break; case scrui.kKeyCodeLetterW: c && (e && !d) && simcity.CreateUnit("T_RCI_AddHourlyIncomeChe…

The "DRM" that has upset most people is the (allegedly unnecessary) requirement to have a constant connection to the EA servers in order to play. The argument is that the minimal interaction with other cities on the server could easily be done client side, if EA wanted to allow an offline "single player" mode.

Re: SimCity UI Code + DRM

#62

Post by MartinZhel »

I'm wondering if they are going to do the same with other games. I'm really happy EA decided to use JS to build the UI for the new Sim City game.

At the moment my team is working on a solution that allows other game dev companies to do the same thing and I'm glad to see big players taking a step in that direction.

Re: SimCity UI Code + DRM

#63

Post by asveikau »

belorn wrote: post #52
asveikau wrote: post #45

How is it cool to put someone else's non-free copyrighted work on github? I'm not a fan of DRM or what they did to Sim City... I've also got nothing against reverse engineering, excerpting code snippets, and that sort of thing. But violating the terms of GitHub, in addition to someone's copyright? Not cool.

The uploader has a decent argument of fair use. Its uploaded in a nonprofit way, for educational purposes. It is a very small portion of the complete work. The effect of the use upon the potential market is either small or non-existant. That is three out of the four-factor balancing test regarding fair use. If we guess that this is about 0.3% of the complete work (3MB of a very very large final product), that would b…

Do you feel confident enough in this assessment that you'd feel comfortable slapping a GPL license on this thing and using it in a project? (Nevermind for a moment that this code isn't at all re-usable.) I feel like that's more or less the standard that should apply to github. It's kind of a disservice to people who are using github for open source but are making effort to avoid this kind of taint. Maybe it's hyperbole but it makes it one step closer to github being "that place where I pirate simcity".

Re: SimCity UI Code + DRM

#64

Post by mike503 »

Curious. Decided to explore.

http://telemetry.simcity.com/simcity/rest/user/1 - user ID 1

http://telemetry.simcity.com/simcity/rest/user/1/friends - their friends

but I thought friends can only seem to see each other on their respective server region. this seems to be storing centralized data?

playing around with other nouns...

http://telemetry.simcity.com/simcity/rest/region/1 - even includes some of their S3 URLs.

http://telemetry.simcity.com/simcity/rest/box/2 - seems list CITY and REGION

i'm trying to think of other nouns to throw in there.

http://telemetry.simcity.com/simcity/rest/user/1027/regions - a list of user ID 1027's regions

http://telemetry.simcity.com/simcity/rest/user/10278/regions - this guy has 4 regions!

(I love RESTful services)

Re: SimCity UI Code + DRM

#65

Post by belorn »

asveikau wrote: post #63
belorn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The uploader has a decent argument of fair use. Its uploaded in a nonprofit way, for educational purposes. It is a very small portion of the complete work. The effect of the use upon the potential market is either small or non-existant. That is three out of the four-factor balancing test regarding fair use. If we guess that this is about 0.3% of the complete work (3MB of a very very large final product), that would b…

Do you feel confident enough in this assessment that you'd feel comfortable slapping a GPL license on this thing and using it in a project? (Nevermind for a moment that this code isn't at all re-usable.) I feel like that's more or less the standard that should apply to github. It's kind of a disservice to people who are using github for open source but are making effort to avoid this kind of taint. Maybe it's hyperbo…

I would feel the same confidence regarding a 30s clip of a movie. That is to say, I would not feel confident at all, but that has nothing to do with the law and all to do how it is interpreted. I do however think that 30s clip of a 3hr movie, or 0.3% of the source code for a game should be small enough that fair use arguments can be made.

While github is often used as a publishing tool, it is also commonly used as a place where work-in-progress is placed. Thus, if someone wanted to create a commentary about a piece of copyrighted material (say, the DRM part of a game), I would personally consider copying the related code into a github repository for refinement to be fair use. So long the four-factor balancing test is fulfilled, why limit the available tools? Should the workplace where such refinement is taking place be limited only as private repositories where each party has a copyright license?

I would also like to note that nowhere in the law does it say that fair use must minimize their usage of the copyrighted work. The law says under its four-factor balancing test:

  the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to
  the copyrighted work as a whole.
How it is interpreted has changed widely in the last 15 years. Some talk about the minimal necessary amount for his or her intended use. Other talks about "the heart of the work". For a time, De minimis was considered, through was later reversed in 2005.
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