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Macrovision Adopts Fade Anti-Game Piracy Technology

Posted by simoniker on from the my-CD-has-disappeared dept.

Thanks to the New Scientist for their report that Macrovision are adding Fade anti-copy protection, which "makes unauthorized copies of games slowly degrade", to their SafeDisc copy protection scheme for games. The technology, devised by UK publishers Codemasters, first debuted in Operation Flashpoint for PC back in 2001, and "affects gameplay aspects" in that title if it believes the game has been altered, including "reduced accuracy of some weapons, reduced weapon performance, increased enemy hit endurance and increased player injuries." The piece also claims that Fade works by "...exploiting the systems for error correction that computers use to cope with CD-ROMs or DVDs that have become scratched."

13 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. So what happens... by DJayC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great... but what happens when my legit CD gets scratched and the pattern mentioned in the article is altered, or no longer recognizable? This seems like a really great attempt, but I think this is going to start causing problems with people who own the legit CD. Also, I would assume the check happens at startup, so I think something similar to a no-CD patch may still be a workaround, so maybe they are playing this up a little too much. I'm interested to see how this holds up.

    1. Re:So what happens... by Sancho · · Score: 2, Interesting

      While this isn't directly addressed in the article, their attitude towards it is certainly shown:

      The idea intrigues Alistair Kelman, an independent lawyer who specialises in copyright: "Fade is entirely in keeping with the spirit and great traditions of copyright." He points out that books tend to deteriorate with use and this prevents the secondhand market from competing with the market for new books. Why not the same for software?

      Ok, that may not be Macrovision's ideas, but it's a good explanation. Other industries learned long ago that you can't build a product that's going to last--if you do, you'll go out of business.

  2. So basically.. by OutRigged · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If one of my CD's becomes damaged, the game will start to screw up. If I try using a backup of said game CD to prevent this, the game still becomes screwed up.

    Of course they're going to replace damaged CD's for free right?

    --
    RaGe
    We're all just noise on the wires..
  3. Re:Pointless attempts? by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "What's going to stop someone then cracking the main executable to bypass the degradation?"

    Time. By the time they get all of it cracked, the game will have been on shelves a while.

    Spyro the Dragon had protection sort of like this in the late 90's. If it detected one of the protection schemes was broken, it'd make something in the later level disappear. The cracker had to play through the entire game to check that the crack worked. They kept a fully cracked copy off the streets for roughly a month, after that, it wasn't so important that it be protected anymore.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  4. Re:Pointless attempts? by ceejayoz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I saw Homeworld2's copy protection cracked the day before the official release date... there seems to be a pretty good network of people working on cracking the latest games.

    I doubt this kind of protection will last much longer.

  5. What if it "believes" wrong? by Andy+Smith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you want to check my posting history then you'll see that I'm strongly anti-piracy and supportive of pretty much *anything* that copyright holders do to defend their livelihood.

    But I disapprove of this technology.

    What if it believes a genuine installation of the game is in fact a pirated copy? What if it then sets about slowly punishing the person who has done nothing worse than purchase a game?

    This technology, a piece of software and therefore objective by definition, is attempting to make subjective, semi-human judgements. The only way such technology would be acceptable is if it was 100% reliable and fault proof.

    Do you want them testing it on your system?

    And you just *know* the next step will be punitive file deletions, hard drive formatting, etc.

    1. Re:What if it "believes" wrong? by lightspawn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What if it believes a genuine installation of the game is in fact a pirated copy? What if it then sets about slowly punishing the person who has done nothing worse than purchase a game?

      This is even worse because some gamers may not even realize what's happening.

      "The game became really difficult after level 8, so I quit playing. I sold it back to ebgames at the mall for $12".

      Of course, ebgames sell this to somebody else for $33. What's the game's next owner supposed to do? How can he even tell something's wrong when he's never even played the game the 'right' way?

      This sux.

  6. Re:Pointless attempts? by Inda · · Score: 2

    OK. Great protection as the evidence shows...

    16/06/01: Deviance release cracked Operation Flashpoint (I couldn't find the nfo)

    21/06/01: Free Trade FXP realease a CloneCD image. They report no FADE errors after playing for 5 days (30 hours). http://www.nforce.nl/index.php?do=nfo&id=1699

    Another great CD protection that only hurts honest users.

    --
    This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  7. Read the article again... by DoctorRad · · Score: 4, Insightful
    New scratches won't affect gameplay. The point is that the 'fake scratch data' won't be copied verbatim by disc copying software[1], so the code knows the disc is a copy.

    Read errors caused by new scratches on an original disc will just get corrected as per normal. The 'fake' scratches will still be there, so the game will play fine.

    Matt...

    [1] Yet...
    --
    A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.

    --

    Save the Bottom Line
  8. Re:Pointless attempts? by BrookHarty · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What pisses me off, is I use no-cd cracks on games I buy. Then I dont have to change CD's, the games run faster, all the game is already installed, no reason to have the CD in except to make the game company happy.

    So now, theres a chance, if I use a no-cd crack, the game will play funny? What about if I want to use a virtual CDROM instead for speed? Copy protection like this is just an annoyance. Problem thou, only online games have CD keys that work well for copy protection, single player games have the most physical cd protections. Blah.

  9. Is Fade Legal? by LightForce3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If memory (and legal knowledge) serves correctly, if I buy a piece of software (or, technically the disc and the right to use the software), I am legally entitled by US law to make a working backup of the software. It would seem that this anti-piracy technology interferes with this right.

    Also, what happens if the original disc gets physically scratched so that the "fragments of 'subversive' code designed to seem like scratches" can't be read but the rest of the disc is fine?

    As another poster stated, any company that uses Fade should offer free replacement discs to legitimate purchasers.

  10. Re:Pointless attempts? by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 3, Informative

    FADE does nothing of any use. Pro Race Drive/Toca Race Driver was released with this. The first two cracks weren't complete, but within a few days there was a 100% crack that works just fine. The patch came out shortly, and there were no issues with cracking that at all.

    The system can be entirely subverted by using the likes of Alcohol 120%.

    Marcovision are the biggest peddlers of silicon snake oil around. They're products DO NOT STOP COPYING. MOST DVD players can easily bypass it, you can bypass their VHS protection by cleaning up the signal, or as I do, merely pass it through an ancient betamax VCR (works with satellite PPV too), and their software copy protection is a joke.

    I mean honestly, have the jackasses at Macrovision released ANY copy protection system that wasn't circumvented within hours?

    Oh, sorry, it's "Quality Protection" isn't. Yeah, protecting the quality of their bank accounts.

    Codemasters are wankers. ANY company that rattles it's sabre and threatens sites with legal action for hosting copies of their 8-bit titles from the 80's needs to be bankrupted NOW. (Of course, preventing people from playing the godawful Dizzy series is actual a public service I think.)

  11. I think this is a bad idea by JazFresh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think the best copy protection mechanism is one that turns a pirate copy into a game demo. You can play enough to get hooked, then the copy protection system kicks in and waggles its finger at you like that fat guy in Jurassic Park.

    If you really like the game by then, you'll go out and buy a copy. If you don't like it by then, or if you're a penniless thief, the developer never lost a sale to you anyway.

    But this system makes a game slowly degrade over time. If it introduces bugs or other flakiness, the pirates who might be prepared to buy the game would think that the game is buggy, and forego buying the original because they think it'll be just as bad. There are people out there who will play pirate versions and then buy the original if they really like the game. Why would the developer want to ruin their reputation for quality with these people by using such a system?