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EA, Atari Sue Over Videogame Copying Software
Thanks to the Monterey Herald/AP for its news story regarding EA, Atari, and VU Games' lawsuit against the makers of the Games X Copy backup software. The article explains: "The federal lawsuit [PDF version], filed Tuesday in New York, alleges that Games X Copy software by 321 Studios Inc. of suburban St. Louis violates copyright laws by illegally cracking copy-protection systems used by [PC] game makers." Doug Lowenstein of the ESA trade body, also backing the lawsuits, explains: "I wouldn't get into speculating on dollar losses here. What's at stake here is a rather important legal principle - that products with no purpose other than to circumvent copyright protection are illegal under the DMCA." The piece also notes that "Federal judges in New York and California have barred 321 from marketing... [similar] DVD-cloning software - a victory for movie studios, which contended that such products violate the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
13 torrent will become avialible in the following minutes, and their worst fears will come true.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
I had a game that takes several hours to defeat and spans more than one disc called, ``Lunar 2 Eternal Blue'' for Playstation 2. I was playing through the game very slowly and when I got to the second disc I realized the disc was scratched. Well, it had already passed the 30 day point, so I wrote the company and asked if they would sell me a replacement second disc. The answer, of course, was no. I would have to buy the whole thing over again.
What kind of crap are they pulling. I am legally entitled to backup my games, but they put in measures to prevent me doing so. Would these companies allow me to ask for a copy? No. Could I send in a damaged copy and get another? No.
Okay fine, piracy is a problem for you. You lose tons of money (well I don't actually believe this). Then it is your job to provide me with backups. I have a legal right, and a need as a consumer for legitimate backups.
It is in the best interest of corporations to take away your rights if they can instead sell them to you. The only way our rights stand a chance is if we stand up for them. In fact I will go a step further and say, the only way our rights stand a chance is if we demonstrate common practice what our rights are.
Laws are defined by practice. They are both made and broken by what we do. When we started buying ``copy protected'' materials we set a precedence that copying was not a legitimate activity. Had we wanted to keep our right to copy we would not have bought anything copy protected.
This case is clear. Our right to copy is almost gone. We set the precedence for it by buying things with copy protection and now we have to live with it.
Grr! I want the second disc damnit!
This is the same EA that just made it IMPOSSIBLE to bypass the 15 second startup movies that play every time you start up Ultima Online. There is a way to disable them, but they can ban your account for making unauthorized mods if you use it.
Many children (young and old) treat their game discs with a bit less respect than they should sometimes. Who wants to buy a new copy everytime your copy starts skipping or fails? Won't you please think about the children!?
[UID-HeinzIntel]
If all of the companies (like EA) who sold CDs (movies, music, video games) had the same sort of support that Disney movies have (disc replacement program), would there still be a justification for this sort of program?
Thanks to this article, I know of the existance of "Games X Copy," a product I would never have known about had EA and the others sued.
What will I do with my knew found awareness? Probably nothing right now, but I'm sure I'll let others know about it eventually and there's a slim possibility I might buy a copy before they're gone...
Thanks EA and Atari! Now I know about another great 321 Studios project!!
"What's at stake here is a rather important legal principle - that products with no purpose other than to circumvent copyright protection are illegal under the DMCA."
What's at stake here is a rather important legal principle Mr. Lowenstein, it's fair use. A fair use clause must be added to the DMCA, this is a travesty.
Distributed proteome folding @ WorldCommunityGrid.org
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Doesn't the copyright protection have to be "effective" for the DMCA to apply?
You are aware that the software is useful for allowing people who legitimately own the game to make backup copies, as otherwise it is impossible due to copy protection measures put on the CDs, right? Yes, it could be used by someone who wants to dupe the game for a friend, but this software is hardly going to encourage widespread piracy.
Honestly, I'm sick of CD protection on PC games. It does nothing to curb piracy, but it does impact legitimate owners who now can no longer make legal backups of their software (and thus their game is ruined if the original CD gets scratched) AND it often imposes artifical system requirements as users need to make sure that their CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive is capable of handling the nonstandard code that makes the copy protection work -- and since SafeDisc, SecureROM, etc are constantly updating their software, it is impossible to get a steady list of supported hardware.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
321 Studios should have listed 123 Fake St. as their address. Then the subpeona wouldn't have reached them.
Three makers of video games sued a Missouri company marketing software that enables consumers to make backup copies of computer games.
Very well then, if I cant make a backup or bypass the copy protection, then they should be legally required to issue refunds for software if that backup protection renders the software defective.
From my own personal experience, I bought KOTOR the first day it came out for PC. For some reason, when doing the cd check when launching, the game would hang about half of the time requiring a hard reset. After a couple weeks I got fed up and downloaded a no CD-crack and havent had a problem since.
My PC met all the requirements on the box, yet when it doesnt work properly because of stupid copy-protection schemes the publisher has no accountability to the consumer, yet *I'm* the one breaking the law (DMCA) when I take steps to make the damn thing usable?
If I bought a toaster and it only toasted half the time, I'd return it to the store and get a new one with an apology. Yet if it's software, why does consumer protection go right out the window?
P.S. I am in no way owner, involved, employed with alcoholsoft. I just use their software and am happy with it.
I bought SimCity 4 and the Rush Hour expansion. After installing the expansion, running it cam back with the error "Please insert the correct disk." Rush Hour is one disk and it was the one that was in there, so just to play the game I legally bought, I had to find a NoCD crack for it.
Copy protection my ass, I had to go and look for a way around it just to play it. I'm glad I did though, damn its fun.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Many places charge as low as 5 dollars to have a disk resurfaced, and unless the disk is cracked it always works. The home-resurfacing kits are mostly jokes, but the professional ones work... ask at a local used CD store where they resurface theirs. Of course, you can always buy it new from EB and return the broken copy... that would be dishonest, but let's just say they lost that protection the day they sold me an unopened copy of FF7 on the release date that was scratched to hell, and didn't have a replacement available for weeks.
e mand position, we should get the rights associated with it.
I agree, with your position though, that if media companies are going to take the we-own-the-media-you-have-to-return-it-to-us-on-d
Lunar 2 was better on the Sega CD anyway. The animation was more charming.
The ______ Agenda
A while back (Oct. 28, 2003), the Librarian of Congress granted certain classes of works a three-year exemption from the DMCA. The classes of interest are:
(2) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
I know these classes apply to old, obsolete console systems, but couldn't they apply to CD-ROM anti-circumvention programs for games that are no longer being manufactured, because in that case the original CD-ROMs themselves are the necessary systems? If so, copy-circumvention programs like this would have a legal, legitimate use.
Of more general concern is the fact that such special exemptions need to be made in the first place, suggesting that the whole DMCA is bogus in the first place.
Just FYI, here are some addresses in case you wish to speak your mind about copy-protection issues in general. I find that writing letters is a better way to create some sort of stir opposed to firing off an email. EA and Atari are bigwigs, some sort of "political" response has to start somewhere.
Electronic Arts Inc.
209 Redwood Shores Parkway
Redwood City, CA 94065-1175
U.S.A.
don't forget to send one to their "report piracy" address:
Electronic Arts Inc.
915 - 118th Avenue SE, Suite 370
Bellevue, WA 98005
Atari:
Head Office
Atari, Inc.
417 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10016
Tel: +1 212-726-6500
Product PR
us.pr@atari.com
Tel: +1 978-921-3700
Could someone please post a copy of DVD-X-Copy and Games-X-Copy. I..er.."lost" my original copy and I need a back-up. Yeah that's it. Honest!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I don't want to have to put a CD in the drive to play a game:
(1) CD drives spinning up and down as I'm playing drives me up the wall. They're noisy fuckers. I had a game (Black & White) kill a CD-drive because it accessed the disk constantly for about 3 hours as I was playing. The drive overheated, the plastic holding a cog in place softened - and the mechanism broke. I've never seen a game that would allow me to play 100% from the CD anyway - so what the hell are those game developers doing?
(2) I have a notebook computer. I'm not going to carry a bundle of CDs with me when I'm travelling. Period.
(3) Copy protection methods don't work. People who copy games were never going to buy them in the first place. It only opens the door to organised criminals, a black market - and limits market penetration. If people copy your game they're going to be more likely to buy a sequel.
Anyway, the game I play the most on my notebook is Quake 2 simply because it doesn't require a CD in the drive. Newer games are such a hassle to start:
(1) find game disk
(2) set DVD movie that was in the drive somewhere on the table
(3) put disk in drive
(4) close drive, wait for drive to spin up
(5) double-click game icon
(6) remove wrong disk from drive (disk 2, oops), insert disk 1 instead, click okay
(7) wait for drive to spin up
(8) sit through annoying uncancellable logo / fanfare. snicker that the logo looks better than the game itself
(9) navigate horrible 3D rendered main menu
Ironically, this ritual has made me appreciate online game much more. They have personalised keys, accounts and passwords. No stupid CD in the drive. It's relatively bliss.
I would definitely buy their products If you want, I can make you a copy. ;)
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
I have alway felt that all of the copy protection schemes only hurt those suckers (like me) who actually pay for the software. CDs won't last forever, and with no way to backup the games to another media (when CDs go the way of the floppy disk), the money I spend on copy protected software ends up being wasted.
The funny thing is, all of these copy protection schemes never stop the real pirates. You can find a cracked version of any popular piece of software. All that the software companies do when they attack a company that enables users to backup their software is stop a few amateurs from giving the games to their friends. Maybe they even drive a few to try to find another way to get the game for free, and suddenly the user who used to buy software finds out that they can get it all for free.
I have been burned by DRM in the past. I probably have paid about $1000 for games for my Amiga (a long time ago). I occasionally have a bout of nostalgia, and want to play some of my old games (that I paid for) through emulation. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to make image files of the copy protected games, and in order to play the games that I paid for, I had to find pirated versions of those games.
Now imagine it is 5 years from now and suddenly Microsoft somehow manages to push through "trusted computing" or some such, and the only way to play your older games is through emulation. Or more likely, one of the CDs for your favorite old game that you break out every once in a while starts having read errors. The game companies just tell you "too bad, sucker" because some people (or maybe even most people) out there might use the software to break a law and give the game to their buddy down the street.
I buy all of my software, or find a free alternative, and I actually have a legitimate use for backup software in order to protect the investment I have made in my software. It really annoys me that the software industry just assumes that all of us users are criminals.
Contrary to FSF beliefs and other moral pundits, I actually think copy protection should be totally legal, protected, and respected. A company should have the right to say "you have rights to ONE instance of this software and rights to use this ONE instance for every $40 you pay". You want it on two computers, you pay for running it on two computers (or you take the CD and bring it to the other CD.)
Here's the problem and why the game companies and other media companies are full of "stuff". Their argument is that the $40 for the game is due to the effort and IP contained on the CD. Totally true, and since that thought pays my salary, I love it. The problem is, if I scratch my CD or DVD, shouldn't I be able to replace it for the price of the media (like $1)? I still have rights to the value I paid $40 to own, right? The crappy media scratched or whatever, so the company should make it POSSIBLE for me to replace that media so I can continue to get my $40 value.
Companies need this policy: "send us your scratched CD and we'll replace it for shipping costs and $1" or "bring the CD to your game store and they will replace it for you for $1." The software company I work for sells software for up to millions of dollars - the last thing we would do if a customer's CD died is tell them "tough luck". Why do game companies think "tough luck" is an ok answer for a scratched $40 CD? And when someone tries to protect that $40 investment with a backup they want to stop it? Maybe they do think the CD itself is the value?
If they had this replacement policy, then this legal argument that these backup tools serve no purpose but piracy would be legit. As it stands right now, if I am paying $40 for "rights" to the contents of the CD, I should be able to back up those contents. Some people could use those for piracy, but until the industry comes up with a way to know the difference, then backup tools DO serve a legitimate purpose.
When I had to buy a replacement copy of an XBox game a year ago I sure wish I had a LEGAL backup DVD...
~Tim
Tim T.
Anyone remember Skeleton Keys? Back around 1979 or so, we used it to copy all the Apple ][ floppies we were selling AT AN AUTHORIZED APPLE RETAILER so we could have a backup. Customers could easily wipe the media they went home with, and they expected us to replace it. G #600 (boots a floppy? something? well, you see...)
This was innadaze of badly mimeographed manuals and a couple disks in a ziploc bag. BTW, that was the first ziploc bag usage I recall. Sue Glad, eh?
I still have an s.keyed "Wizard and the Princess" floppy here somewhere. How the HELL do you get past the snake???
The latest Slashdot meme.
Um, they're very aware that copy protection and copyright protection are two different things. But they use the words interchangeably on purpose, because that way consumers begin to associate the two. It's like that whole Al Gore invented the internet versus helped create the internet thing. He said the latter, but the former, which is only subtly different, sounds much worse. So people always use the former. Not that the second one is much better, mind you, but the point is that as it has less punch people avoid it.
These sorts of word games are one of the most basic concepts in propaganda. It's like the whole apocryphal story about Bush bringing up 9/11 everytime Iraq was mentioned, and although he never specifically stated that the two were related, the end result was that most Americans thought the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. This may actually be true but I'll be skeptical since I don't have a link to back it up, but anecdotally it demonstrates the point well.
RMS has similar problems with the terms "Intellectual Property", "Content Providers", and "Software Piracy", because these terms are designed to make people interpret a situation one way when it actually probably oughtn't to be.
I used to think that RMS was a hippie zealot tin-foil hat wearer, but I'm beginning to see what he's been going on about all these years. Free Software (using his definition of the word) is the only way to circumvent this kind of nonsense. When you have no corporate backing and the code is copied freely, it's very hard to sue anyone for it. When I first read his "Right to Read" I laughed my ass off. What a twat! But go reread it now. It's scary. Just imagine for a minute if he really is right about all that stuff he yammers on about.
Makes you think.
That basically boils down to the fact that when you spend your hard earned 50 bucks, all you are getting is a CD / DVD disc (and hopefully a box and a manual), as you have no rights to do anything to the data contained on it.
That's one damn expensive disc.
Don't get me wrong, its their work and they should keep ownership rights, but for the money consumers pay for the product, they should at least have some freedom to copy the data providing it is for personal use. Whatever happend to "fair usage"? I can understand their concern over piracy, but from a business point of view, is screwing over your customers in an attempt to stop a few people getting the product for free really a wise move? Seems like the path most corporations and companies are travelling recently.
Also, by preventing your customers from copying the data, you are implying guilt before innocence, ie: people are more likely to be pirating than making legimate backups, so treat them as criminals by limiting their experience.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
The opinion of the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft upheld the Bono Act, but it also upheld that the fair use exemption implements the First Amendment, and without a fair use exemption, the constitutionality of copyright law as we know it would be even more in question:
Some analysts have pointed out that this holding in Eldred could be used to argue against the constitutionality of the DMCA, which bans possession of circumvention devices even for purposes of fair use.
If all you care about in your life is have a bigger car than your neighbour, that's exactly what you'll get.
In the meantime, your wife will be open-sourcing her vagina because your penis doesn't meet her system requirements.
I keep on hearing complaints from everywhere as to why people are still playing counter-strike.
... go ahead. You won't see a further dime from me.
you want to know why i still play it? i don't have to have that damn CD in my hard drive. The last game I bought was battlefield 1942 and it's sitting here collecting dust. I was sick and tired of it spending all of its time seeking and searching for the CD. It already takes up some 1.4 gigs of space on my HD so it obviously doesn't need to retrieve any gameplay information.
Battlefield 1942 will be the last game I buy from EA. If you want to treat me like a criminal for paying 50$ for a game, then fine
Go ahead game companies. Use macrovisions latest "security" feature that end up pissing off all your paying customers (thousands and millions) so that you can delay crackers for an extra 5 minutes.
If you're going to force me to go through the troubles of using no-cd cracks, etc, why should i even bother paying for your product when i could go ahead and download a fixed (pirated) version of your broken software? It seems like I would have less problems by going the pirated route.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
You can't return software once it's been opened.
It's hard to vote with your dollar once they already have your money.
Who the hell are these guys? I'm glad the game publishing industry is so clued up on these things that nobody uses. If they were really serious they'd go after Alcohol Software or Elaborate Bytes, both of whom offer CD/DVD copying software with options to "break" copy protection. Of course they don't "break" the copy protection at all, they simply copy the copy protection.
As Macrovision (creators of SafeDisc) have said in the past, their products are not so much copy protection as copy dissuasion: making it more of a pain in the ass to copy stuff. And it sure is. Copying a SafeDisced game takes hours in raw mode, as exactly duplicating the ECC/EDC data on the disc is a painfully slow process (probably because ECC/EDC checking has to be done in software for every block when it's disabled on the drive).
Anyway, all the above is besides the point. 321Studios have made a critical error which I see as remarkably foolish: Marketing their product as "HAY GUYS, SOFTWAREZ TO KOPY UR GAMEZ!" Who in their right mind would do this and not expect their ass to be kicked severely by some legal body? You don't get any more obvious than calling it "GameXCopy" which is a name that doesn't even make sense anyway. What the hell is the X about? Other software remains legal because it sells itself on the fact you can create exact clones of any CD for back up purposes: not just games.
It's not this kind of software they should be going after anyway. People don't copy games onto another CD anymore. People create images of a game and distribute it over the internet. It's considerably easier to create an image file, and from what I can tell GameXCopy doesn't let you do this. Furthermore, software such as Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120% and Virtual CloneDVD will let you mount ripped protected images in Windows as if they were a CD-ROM drive. Just download and mount. No burning. Surely this should be what they're worried about?
Hmmm, you're other posts don't seem to be trolls, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Before you whine about getting modded down for "opposing slashdot groupthink", I'd say you were probably modded down for your rediculous and troll-looking arguments.
if you're gonna pirate a game
Who the hell it talking about pirating games? Making a copy of a game is not piracy (it is not copyright infringment either, blah blah blah).
There's being an 3733t haxxor group the takes pride in cracking stuff (whether that's good or bad - I have no comment)
Too late, I'd say your pejorative "3733t haxxor group" is already commenting.
If some dumb-ass company sells me crippled printer cartidges that actively try to prohibit refilling, or a crippled DVD designed to oxidize and self destruct after 24 hours, or a DVD player that refuses to fast forward during the commercials, or a music CD that attempts to autoinstall undesired software on my computer, or a computer game crippled to prevent me from making a perfectly legal and legitimate backup copy, then yeah, I'm gonna "take pride" in reparing that crippled and defective product.
I will melt open that ink cartidge and refill it and reseal it if I damn well please. I will spray that self destructing DVD with hairspray or other sealant to prevent it from oxidizing if I damn well please. I will enter the secret manufacture code or reflash the damn firmware on a DVD player to enable the fast-forward butting if I damn well please. As for the stupid DRM-installing music CD's I disabled autoinsert/autorun ages ago, and if I hadn't, I'll hold down the shift key any time I damn well please. And if I own a crippled game, I'll dig around in my copy with a hex editor any time I damn well please, and if I fix the problem working from the raw executable then I'll be damn proud of myself.
If that makes me an 3733t haxxor, well fine, I'm an 3733t haxxor.
a company who's hypocritical enough to say "games aren't worth paying money for
Here you REALLY sound like a troll. 321 Studios have never said any such thing.
I have a question - do you support the DMCRA? The DMCRA leaves "piracy" just as illegal as before. The DMCRA only decriminalizes NON-infringing activities, it only stops innocent non-infringing people from going to prison.
So, do you support the DMCRA? Or do you advocate imprisoning innocent non-infringing people?
You're assuming everyone who violates the DMCA is some evil pirate. When we attack the DMCA we're not talking about pirates. We're talking about the innocent non-infringing people it says are felons.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
There's a setting in the UO.CFG file ShowIntroAnim=on/off which controls whether the intro movies are played or not. It also happens to be the FIRST setting in the ingame options, under Misc. "Show the intro movie on launch". It controls both the spinning EA Logo, and the Intro Story Movie to Ultima Online. You cannot be banned for changing this setting.
I think this is a really good point. Take DOOM, for example. Now, that game boasts sales numbering in the millions, which I guess was pretty insane for its time, but for all those millions of people buying DOOM with cash money, my friends nor myself had ever paid a dime. Yet DOOM still remains one of the most popular games ever release for the PC, not to mention several other interesting ports...
Anyway, my point is that even though DOOM raked in enough cash to buy Carmack a shiny new Ferrari, it's "ownership" wasn't based completely on legitimate paying customers. However, the game was HUGE, and it still has a pretty strong loyalist following. Source ports, internet deathmatch clients, you name it. Bottom line is, a greater majority of the 14 year old pirates of today become the 23 year olds of tomorrow with a great deal of disposable income that goes to buying videogames.
The publishers really need to stop having kittens about the fact that people can copy their games. The widespread bootleggers and pirate organizations are the ones they need to go after, not the consumer-base. Strategies like suing a CD-copying software company just displays that the publishers have no faith in the value and merit of their product, and I feel it is essentially an admittance that they are trying to shill the customer with half-assed releases. Why else would anyone get so concerned about a few individuals having the ability to copy a game disc? People spend money on the things they want, and chances are if something is getting stolen or copied it's because that person wasn't interested in buying it anyway. I'm not suggesting that it's justified to take something you weren't going to pay for, but people take things because they can, not because they "don't want to pay for it". Closing off channels people use to take things is only a means of preventing the publisher from being the victim, not a method of increasing sales like the suing companies apparently claim.
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?