PS2 Games to Require Online Authentication

M Bison (ha-ha) sent in this news-bit about Sony adding new copy control measures to PS2 games. Sigh. CT: For starters, the future DVDs and CDs will be imprinted with unique serial numbers, and the PS2 will authenticate over a network connection before allowing playing. This is apparently connected to the upcoming PS2 hard drive, and network connection.

Comments

This means no rentals and no used game shops.

[joshsisk]

I don't care anyway, I pay for my games.

So do I, but I care if they plan to make me hook my console up to an outside line to validate my games. This had better be only for those online-only games, or else they will suffer a rude awakening. And what's up with the locking the game so you can't take it to a friends house, or sell it to a used game shop... Hey, this also means that these games CAN'T BE RENTED.

Josh Sisk

Planned Obsolecence

[rampant_gerbil]

This would be enough to keep me from buying one. And what happens when the PS2 becomes obsolete? Is Sony going to keep running their authentication servers forever, or will there come a day when no one can play the games they purchased for this console? "Sorry, why don't you go drop $500 on a PS4?" No thank you.

Which must include the right to backups.

[Convergence]

And one right that we must have is the right of backups. So one of these 'enumerated' fair-use rights must be to make full backups of your expensive media.

No, it is not acceptable for them to offer a service that will send me extra copies. I have no assurance that they will be in business in 2 years, 10 years, or 50 years.

That's the issue. You cannot, in TECHNICAL TERMS distinguish between fair use and infringment. The only thing that can make that determination is a LEGAL COURT OF LAW.

So, even if you could construct, and keep up to date, such a hypothetical list, there still would be no way for a technical measure to determine whether or not the use it is put is on the list.

Oh yeah, this model worked real well for Divx.

[Ronin X]

People just love having to maintain a connection to the outside world for the express purpose of validation... and payment... can pay-per-play ps2 games be far behind?

Of course Quake 3 authenticates your unique key and nobody's bitching about that (much)...

Re:Oh yeah, this model worked real well for Divx.

[tuffy]

Of course Quake 3 authenticates your unique key and nobody's bitching about that (much)...

The key difference is that a pure multiplayer game (like Quake3 or Phantasy Star Online) will always have the network connection active and so the validation is no big deal. (As long as you don't want to go online, one can pirate Q3A all day long) But if Sony actually thinks people will go online solely to validate a purely offline game, they're in for a rude shock.

I thought Sony was finished with botching up the PS2, but they've proven me wrong yet again.

Hacking Things

[Smitty825]

Why is everyone so excited that someone else can hack something to get them the service they want? Each time we hack something, the big companies learn something new about how things were hacked, and it makes it much more difficult to hack things in the future.

What we need to do is identify what rights we have as consumers (and, no, not the right to pirate), then pressure our governments to create a law that forces RIAA, MPAA, M$, and other Copyright-based companies to protect our fair-use rights!

I've written my Representative in Congress, have you? (...assuming you live in the US...write your government leaders in your own countries)