Tag: Piracy
Microsoft on Games for Windows updates: It's not DRM, honest
Microsoft’s got an uphill battle going on with Games for Windows. It’s got to try and take Steam’s market share by battling Microsoft’s poor reputation among many gamers, while still keeping the major publishers happy, who’ve been working with Microsoft for years.
At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Ars Technica had a chat with Microsoft to try to find out what the company is planning – both in the looming update and also in the future.
First of all, the company wants to ditch the “DRM” tag. Claiming that DRM is designed to stop copying, not piracy, Microsoft is calling their new service “IP protection” instead. It all operates in the cloud – with games only working if you’re logged in and the account you’re logging in with has a license.
One potential consequence that Microsoft brings up is that game publishers could then happily publish their software for free download anywhere – even Bittorrent – so long as there was a central place for users to apply licenses to their account.
Of course this won’t work for offline titles. Gamers hate having to log in to an online service to play games that have no online components – just look at the reaction to GTA IV. Even so, there are few games released these days that don’t have some sort of multiplayer component, and many that are multiplayer-only.
Other benefits of this approach could be to put settings and savegames in the cloud, too. Gamers needn’t worry about adjusting mouse sensitivity, controls or other info in on several PCs – they just do it once and the game will adjust on any computer. Similarly, with save games you could theoretically go to a friends house and continue exactly where you left off.
All this raises the spectre of Steam, which is a competing distribution and gaming social network created by Valve. Its DRM is mostly accepted as a kind of ‘benevolent dictator’ system by gamers – they trust Valve not to screw them over, and Valve hasn’t. So far.
It seems unlikely that gamers will offer the same trust to Microsoft, due to the company’s reputation. It’ll be difficult for Microsoft to make things any easier, either – a suggestion that it could be tied into Windows 7 was met with a quick “Say hello to my friend, the Department of Justice.” response from the company, referring to the much-publicised spats with US government regulators.
What I’d like most from Games for Windows is interoperability with Steam. I want to be able to do everything I can do in Steam, including all the games I’ve bought on the platform, via Windows. That way, my choice of platform relies solely on the quality of the interface, not which publishers have done deals with which provider.
But I suspect that’s an idyllic goal. In reality, the chances of Steam jumping into bed with Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter, are near zero. They have the goodwill of the users and the big-name publishers. They don’t need anyone else. I’d argue that Games for Windows is simply a waste of Microsoft’s time.
What do you think? Are there any redeeming features to Games for Windows that Steam doesn’t offer? Perhaps the Xbox 360 matchup, but I’m not convinced that’s enough. Let us know what you think on Twitter by messaging @techdigest.
Pirate Bay to offer improved annonymity to bit torrent users
As the Pirate Bay trial comes to its conclusion, bit torrent has once again been dragged, kicking and screaming into the light. The defendants of the case could spend their time worrying about the outcome, but instead they’ve channeled their efforts into adding more protection to keep the long arm of the law away from those who use the service for nefarious purposes. They’ve developed a new service called IPREDATOR, which promises to be better at keeping users’ details a secret than current VPN services.
The service is currently in private beta, and will be gradually rolled out to all users some time around April 1st. The significance of the date isn’t thanks to April Fool’s Day, but because that’s the date when Sweden’s contraversial new Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) come into effect, which grant copyright holders more rights to get their hands on file sharers’ details. You’ve got to hand it to the Pirate Bay – they’ve got a lot of chutspa.
Oscars screeners appear online in six days, on average
Six days. That’s all it takes for most Oscar screeners to make it onto the internet after they’re sent out to Academy members. Andy Baio at Waxy.org has compiled a massive spreadsheet of the dates at which different films appear online.
This year, on nomination day, 23 out of 26 films were already available in DVD quality. Australia and Changeling leaked shortly after. Only one film – Rachel Getting Married – still remains unavailable at the time of writing. I suspect that the pirates are only going to see that as a challenge. Definitely check out the full list, because it’s shocking how quickly some of these movies leak.
Waxy.org (via Crunchgear)
Related posts: Virgin’s P2P music service scrapped amidst labels’ anti-piracy concerns | Digital Copy arrives in the UK with hopes of ending piracy. Pah!
Ireland gets 'three-strikes' policy for music downloads
Meanwhile, over the Irish Sea, the four major music labels have just come to an agreement with Eircom (Ireland’s equivalent of BT) to cut off persistent downloaders after two warnings – the famous “three strikes” approach to music piracy.
Ireland joins France in being the only countries in the world to implement the system, which alienates ISP customers, especially as people get accused of things they’ve not done on a regular basis. The labels say that they’re going to take “all necessary steps” to get other ISPs to follow suit, though I anticipate there’ll be a considerable amount of resistance, especially when they see customers deserting Eircom in their droves.
(via Irish Times)
Related posts: MEPs vote in favour of new telecoms law, could lead to universal “three strikes” | Digital Britain
That 'friend' of yours who never buys music is safe – UK will not disconnect web access of music pirates
Hooray! The tedious and long-running saga of the UK possibly adopting the ‘three strikes’ system for disconnecting the internet access of music pirates has been dumped, with David Lammy, the Intellectual Property Minister, today saying there are “no plans” to introduce such a scheme.
Last year, everyone thought the French Technique of ordering ISPs to disconnect the harder-core of music pirates was the way to go, with the UK apparently considering adopting the idea.
However, Lammy has just told The Times that the government..
95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal, says IFPI
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, is basically an international version of the RIAA and BPI, who claim to act as a trade body for record labels, but seem to only exist in reality to head up the music industry’s anti-piracy campaign. True to that role, last night it released a statement claiming that 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal.
However, there’s some bright news for the labels hidden in there too – download sales are up 25% on last year, and now make up a fifth of all recorded music sales. The IFPI reckons that it’s worth £2.5 billion.
RIAA to drop failed lawsuits strategy
It’s official – the RIAA is giving up on its strategy of suing thousands of individuals for file-sharing. The campaign, which began in 2003, has hit 35,000 people. At no point have the record labels ever won a contested court case, instead gaining masses of default judgements against defendants who never turned up.
It’s failed to stop file-sharing, too. Album sales have gone nowhere but down, even when taking into account digital sales increases. Not to mention the PR disaster it’s caused for the labels – who’ve sued pensioners, 13-year-old girls, and penniless single mothers.
Spore becomes most pirated game ever
Largely thanks to the draconian DRM bundled with Will Wright’s ‘Spore’, the life-simulation game has been downloaded an epic 1.7 million times since its release at the start of September. If my maths is right, that means that one copy is downloaded every five seconds or so. If that rate had been maintained over the whole year, then people would have snagged 6.5 million copies.
Interestingly, second place in this year’s top ten most pirated games, published by Torrentfreak, was the Sims 2, showing that piracy isn’t limited to hardcore gamers (who generally hate the Sims), it’s become a perfectly mainstream pastime among ordinary people. It’s impressive that despite being released in 2004, it’s still right up at the top of the list, though it’s unclear how The Sims 2’s multiple add-on packs are counted.
(via MCVUK)
Related posts: SPORESUIT: EA sued over Spore DRM | Spore fans threatened with game ban over DRM discussion
"Pirates of the Amazon" gets sunk by Amazon
The art project/mass piracy enabler that was the ‘Pirates of the Amazon’ extension from Firefox has been hit by a broadside from Amazon, who boarded the boat with their lawyers and sent the group of students a take-down notice.
The students, for their part, say the extension was intended as an artistic parody. They study media design at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool in Holland, and claim “It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access, and currently debated issues in media culture”.
'Pirates of the Amazon' Firefox extension will worry online retailers
An enterprising group of young coders have developed a Firefox add-on which does something rather worrying – adds ‘Download 4 Free’ buttons to Amazon pages. When you click the button, it’ll work out what product you’re looking for, and take you to a page on the Pirate Bay that’ll let you download it for free.
It works for CDs, DVDs, games, books and any other product that can be converted to a digital format. The team behind it claim they want the extension to “be a counterpart to the current models of media distribution”, and to “redistribute the wealth”. I’m not sure that’ll wash before a judge, to be honest.
