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TransGaming Tagging Downloads to Combat Piracy
SeanTobin writes "It seems that TransGaming is implementing a new watermarking system to combat piracy. For now it seems that every tgz of Cedega 4.0.1 is individually tagged, and this has been frustrating Gentoo users who (like many others) like to be sure their archives are unmodified. Is this the future of software downloads? Is this tiny loss of personal privacy worth the increase in TransGaming's security?" Update: 08/16 17:42 GMT by S : There's an official response on the TransGaming forums indicating: "We can confirm that Cedega 4.0.1 included some basic watermarking... The objective behind the watermarking was to deal with some peer-to-peer piracy issues that we've been seeing over the past several months... We have suspended the watermarking feature for now and Gentoo users no longer need to be concerned with work-arounds."
If Microsoft or any other big company did something remotely similar to this I imagine that there would be a HUGE uproar but just because they're open source and support Linux do they get special treatment? It seems rather pointless to me considering if you really wanted the build you could just build it from CVS so if anything this is just giving them bad MSlike publicity.
good for you... Linux doesn't need another group working on solutions for gaming. In fact fuck them, they don't worship at the work-for-free altar of Stallman & co... And they could easily be giving you binaries with something BAD, because if they weren't binaries we could all inspect the source before using the app.
:)
You *DO* parrot a lot of slashbot bullshit, don't you!!! hmmmm???
It didn't occur to you that it might be Gentoo's fault for not anticipating the possibility of unique package signatures and/or working around this? After all, serial numbers in software are nothing new; and people here have been trumpeting the success of Linux for years, so it was inevitable some big name (or smaller name, as the case may be) would eventually be distributing non-identical files.
But of course when one party is offering something in exchange for money and the other isn't asking for money we know which one must be wrong - after all this is Slashdot. So we all accept that people who make money are always just somehow wicked, even if they seem nice on the surface. So this is definitely Transgaming's fault, because nobody has any right to try and protect their work against copying. Work must be free, and information must be free, and magic pixies just flew out of my arse and coded up Half Life 3 for me to play - what, isn't that where your software comes from?
Wow... I just looked at that Doom bloopers page and I've never seen such a lame idea. Seriously, who's going to play it? Could you be a little more derivative? Are you watching lots of sitcoms to get really good ideas?
Prediction: this project will die a sad, lonely and neglected death on Sourceforge. If people play Doom3 mods they will play the genuinely fun ones.
I am fucking sick of people using their sigs to advertise their stock scams, their pyramid schemes and any other pathetic hobby horse they want to show off.
I love raping your children. Especially your 4 year old daughter. I've made her so loose, but she still gives in! Is she 5 now? Time passes by so quickly. Yesterday I got your boy to fuck me in the ass with his little prick!
To all developers and software "manufacturers": get your heads out of your behinds and smell the fresh air to get some oxygen in your brains.
The model of selling software for mass market consumption is dead. Finito, Kaputt. Only a handful of companies are making money selling software to the masses (there are many companies ut ther making money of selling niche software, but popular software is different).
Popular software will be pirated. Period. I don't like it, I don't condone it but it is like if I was a zebra complaining abut lions having a meal on my cousing or brother. It sucks but it is the way it is.
Your options? Services. Yeah, I know, the S word shows its ugly head again. Your software is just the honey to attract consumers to your real business: merchandise, community servers, new or extended features (that may your product niche or multiniche).
Or media hype (which most companies can't afford) so you generate high expectations and do your sale in the first week after release of your product. Pretty much like blockbuster moves.
Stop trying to commercialize thoughts (software is just that) and ideas. Those are too fluid to be albe ever to pin them down to commercial interests.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.