Slashdot Mirror
GTA: San Andreas Leaked
Anonymous Coward cuts-and-pastes: "Less than a week after a pirated version of Halo 2 began appearing on the Web, another of the year's most sought after games has been stolen. Ironically, it also happens to be a game titled after a larcenous act itself. That's right. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has become the latest victim of piracy, with illegal copies of the game, its manual, and its cover appearing on various Web sites." Update: 10/21 13:54 GMT by Z : Rockstar adds some details to what we know about the crime in a press release covered by CVG.
"Downloading, possession and distribution of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including making the game available on the internet, is theft." Then came this warning from the company: "We take the theft of our intellectual property very seriously and we are and will continue to diligently and aggressively pursue this matter."
I take the virtual theft of guns, money, sex with hookers, cars, and other people's lives very seriously and I will continue to diligently and aggressively pursue this matter once I get my hands on the game.
Yet another news article that continues the bombardment of the uninformed public trying to change the definition of words to fit their needs.
I saw this game for download on a certain site popular with Bit Torrent users yesterday nite... didn't download it, as I don't have a mod chip... and if I wait a few months, the game'll probably be like $10 anyways :P
Interesting. I recall that one of the first "Leaked" games was a version of Ms. Pacman for the commodore 64. I think I was in HS, so that would be about 1984.
The funniest thing about this is the bbc article that says that Rockstar will agressively persue the "theives" using all the appropriate measures. I pity the fool who gets in their way..
This is a another example, as the bbc explain in the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3745484.stm
But what Garcia Maruez did finally is he modified the final chapter of the book so the book in the street does not have the same ending than the published book. Quick reaction and probably a very good publicity campaign for boths, the pirate version and the published version
Please post bittorrent links.... thanks!
Meh.
Another dupe.. and a day late also..
But on another note why is this making news.. Every single xbox,pc,gc,ps2 etc etc game is cracked/released, and normally before retail dates.
Just because they big name games does it actually matter.. This has been going on since the days of the zx81 (and prob before).
This will help with the supply shortage on the release date!
Start firing programmers!
Seriously though, Maybe it's time for a security audit of the facilities, as well as the production sites and printing companies. If they can't keep their shit together, someone else will gladly do it for Rockstar.
WHOA WHOA! You mean to tell me there is pirated software on the internet!?!? Next you'll be telling me I can download Music and Pornography.
Don't Tread on Me
This happens with every single game that comes out. Why all of a sudden is this huge news? Back in the days of doom and quake games were pirated days and weeks before their release. Granted, lately it's been sometimes the day of or a day after the game has been released to retail that a game gets pirated, but this isn't news people. It's been happening for 10+ years. One thing that has changed, is how easy it is for people not involved in the "scene" to get these releases. Before you used to have to know the right people, nowadays all you need to do is load up the latest p2p app and anyone can find it.
Stupid consoles.
A game about robbing and stealing and wrackage and mayhem leaks out for everyone to steal. It is beautiful.
However, it is already clear [...] piracy is becoming an increasingly common and serious problem for both gamers and the games industry.
I have never condemmned piracy, but "a problem for gamers" - what kind of tripe is this?
Actually, I see their point. The game publishers try to combat piracy with more draconian copy protection. This *is* a problem for gamers. The gamers who legitimately paid for their game. Not for those who download a cracked version.
My religion forbids the use of sigs.
A thieving opportunist has stolen a van of my latest publication hot off the press! But that SPANKED-up idiot has left the rear doors open and now my, artistically violent, tastefully desctructive video game is being dropped all over the Internet. Persue that trail of illegal copies diligently and aggressively collecting evidence as you go. When you've followed the trail to that thieving SPANK-head, waste him.
Unfortunately, people don't adopt a similar viewpoint with music. "What? So what if they spent 2 years making this album?! It costs $11.99!! Fsck the RIAA!!!" Hypocrisy is so sad sometimes. If you download an album, and you like it, then buy it.
"Nothing to see here, move along", as they say...
There's nothing new here. The warez scene has been doing -1 and 0-day releases forever. I've seen -7 releases before. They're getting a bit better, and I suspect some of the biggest networks are probably paying people to do the leaks, which helps things.
This is news only because the game has been widely publicized. This happens all the time.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Look, I know a guy who's working on it, a really decent man. He has a wife, a child, and another on the way. If you copy this instead of buying it, you're contributing to putting him out of a job just when he needs one the most.
This isn't a theoretical issue. Rockstar aren't some faceless cartel. Please. Do the right thing this time.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
nyud.net, huh? That wouldn't be the GNAA shock site, would it?
Guards! Seize him!
I don't think that downloading music is right. It is theft. However, the RIAA is preventing the true artists from making money. Record the song, and put it on ITunes. The artist gets a huge cut.
The only thing RIAA conceivably does is to promote the musicians. But I'm sure a PR firm can do the same thing independently. This is especially true for established bands that do not need a huge corporation to take a risk on them.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
However, it is already clear that with four of the year's top games--GTA: San Andreas, Halo 2, Doom 3, and Half-Life 2---being posted online before their official releases, piracy is becoming an increasingly common and serious problem for both gamers and the games industry.
I agree that it's a problem with piracy. It definately looks like it's becoming an increasingly problem. But it's not. Just because these four games happen to be on every geek's wishlist they get noticed. Look at how many games are pirated and available for download well before their official release date, and you don't hear about those. If they're so concerned with piracy, restrict access (for employees) to the games so that as few people as possible have the final product in hand. Or register the cd keys (or whatever security system you use) to your employees. If you see a copy appear on the internet with one of those keys (because creating a keygen is a little more work) you know who was the leak.
Very nice.
Mod parent "Correct, but *ever-so-slightly* over the top".
it is not theft, it is copyright infringement.
Dont be dismissive of this, they have two different, and distinct meanings.
Please. Lets come back to this discussion after we see how many copies of Halo 2, Half-life 2, and GTA: San Andreas are sold. I guarantee you they won't be sparing the champagne at the developer's launch parties this year.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I'd like a clarification of your position.
Do you consider this behavior not immoral? Or do you just have a beef with the term 'theft'?
We hate licensing and the such, but how far away are we from USB dongles?
Dongles don't work.
When Robocop 3 came out on the Amiga years ago they used a dongle. The pirates simply hacked the code and told it to ignore the dongle check.
The worst bit was that the hacked version was circulated before the game was even launched.
Summation 2
Alright, whose fault is this???
nyuk nyuk...i kill me...
Not a good idea. USB devices can be easily emulated in software ( c.f. various "virtual cdrom" drives that appear as being on the USB bus ), and there is a well developed and sophisticated toolchain on nearly all platforms of note for debugging and analysing USB information flow.
Unfortunately, there is precious little other in the way of standardised ports to plug into. Some machines are even shipping without Parallel ports now, if the word I'm hearing is correct, which is a bit troublesome if you're trying, for example, to run Compumedics Profusion 2 which uses a parallel dongle.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
VERY lame that once again, another GTA game is being released on PS2 before PC.
The PC San Andreas wont even be out until SPRING 2005.
http://64.92.167.30/download.php?id=369&name=Grand _Theft_Auto_San_Andreas_USA_PS2DVD-PARANOiD.torren t
No, nyud.net would be the site that hosts the Coral cache...
This question is for people who believe that music file trading increases CD sales. Ever consider that maybe releasing your software online, then crying that it has been pirated, is a fantastic and free marketing ploy? The vast majority of game players actually by their games. So when they see news like this posted on Slashdot and other sites, it's simply free advertising, and a powerful message that this game must be damn hot, so I just gotta rush out and buy it as soon as it hits the stores.
And when programs used (still use?) parallel dongles (that sounds wrong) the crackers would either it ignore the dongle check, or create software that emulates the input/output of the dongle.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Prepare for a "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around" question...
So, hypothetically, if Half-Life 2 were to be pirated, I download the game, and I already have it paid for via Steam, is it illegal?
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
If they want to dick around people by only releasing the game for 3 year old platforms instead of modern hardware, they deserve whatever they get.
Summation 2
The only viable copy protection is similar to that used in Quake III, where you're banned from any Internet servers if you use a duplicate key. There's no killer solution for software that doesn't require the Internet to run (even Q3 would always work in single-player mode).
But hey, look at how many people downloaded the warezed copy of Doom 3, and Activision still sold a metric shedload of CDs. I wouldn't cry too much - piracy is going to hurt the publishers of weak games worst, 'cos everyone can find out that it sucks before it goes on sale ;-)
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Who is going to set up the care fund online to help the starving programmers and company eXecs cince this leak and piracy is making them poor.
Piracy steals from the poor creative people...
oh wait.....
Just for a bit of info, there another side of game piracy. I'm sure you guy that for a game to be well sale, you need some guy to pirate the game. Piracy help the game industrie to be well know. There is not one bad side of piracy. For myself I don't think game piracy is cool , but i'm sure it does help game selling. Jim
Why are these things starting to sound like publicity stunts more than anything else?
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
ok, so its not the latest and greatest
but Rockstar has made the orig GTA free for dl
Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
The media only covers things that make money. That's right. Video game "piracy" as they like to call it has been going on since there were video games. Now that video games "big business" they cover it. Where was media when people were pirating windows 3.1 and Warcraft 1? Nowhere to be seen. This isn't news people, it's "fake" news fed to you by your "unbiased, no we swear" media. Anybody who releases ANY production on CD-rom is an idiot to think it won't be made public before or soon after its release date. I'm not hear to argue if that is right or wrong that is just a fact of life. The sky is blue, politicians like to lie, and people will rip you off if given the chance. As for my views on this "piracy" I think it only hurts games that suck and weren't going to sell well anyway execpt for maybe some lame theme/licsensing. You wouldn't buy a car without driving it, buy a house without at least walking through it, go to a movie without seeing previews for it, or buy a book without at least reading the back cover. But we are expected to plop down 50$ on faith that this game won't suck ass. And you know what?? Plenty of times(more than not??) it does suck ass. Maybe the game producers could do 2 things to make "piracy" less prevalent. First start making games people think are worth buying. Second bring back the DEMO,before the game is released, not 2 months later(doom 3 anybody, though IMHO they had a good reason to not let us play that pile before release). So yeah I kind of got off on a tangent but it's all pretty relevant :)
It's just Pacman with a bow.
The .torrent
"but how far away are we from USB dongles?"
About this far >________________
Dongles are cracked routinely, so they won't make much of a difference to anyone but the 'security' manufacturers.
As for the leak; I'm still going to buy it and I'm not going to download.
"but these piracies are really hurting."
Who and how much? Bear in mind that Half Life 2 had a release date that was imminent when it was stolen, but it's still quite a way off. Why?
I can see that there's a fairly deplorable amount of games piracy out there, but there _ALWAYS_ was. It's just that the 'seeders' column gives them a way to find out. Incidentally, Eidos' recent profit warning didn't mention piracy...how large is the games industry?
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
If the game was about trying to reform the main character away from robbing and stealing, then it would be irony. Since there is no relative constrast between the game plot and downloading leaked copies, this cannot be irony.
haitians? surely...
What does the article actually say has happened? Has a copy of the game actually been stolen, or has a copy been made and put online? Since its impossible to steal immaterial things it should mean the latter, but with all the deliberate confusion of theft and copyright infringement that goes on its impossible to say.
I guess that's a nice move.. since your "patched" book might not look good. But a patch for the game can also go out... an so.. the happiest after all would be those that downloaded the game illegally because they'll have two endings instead of the one of the legal customers.
Have you ever considered that (although the companies would never, ever admit it) that perhaps these leaks have been done by them on purpose? Look at all the free publicity they're getting, and they will even get free beta version feedback on the rumor boards. That GTA was leaked so soon after Halo almost looks suspicious, like GTA didn't want to be outdone by the extra publicity that Halo was getting. Why didn't GTA go out of their way to beef up their internal security, especially after hearing about the Halo leak?
Almost all serious gamers will want to own the official copy, even if they "preview" the pirated version. If the piracy causes say 10K sales to be lost but the publicity results in an extra 100K sales, that would be a smart business move. Especially since their actual cost incurred for each infringed copy is exactly zero.
This deserves a +69 at least...
Buy a Hyundai. No self respecting car thief will be caught dead in one.
When the RIAA started sueing people left and right the common response from a lot of people was "just lower the price of a CD from $18 and you won't have this problem!" ... I think many people can agree that the music industry has some priorities out of place, but I won't dive into that here.
how realistic is this $50 price tag on games?! I've seen that same price for over 10 years now and I wonder, do gaming companies make a lot of money, or is the profit on a game pretty slim? Would the lowering of prices on games to combat piracy cause a serious profit problem for companies? I recently saw talks about increasing that price up to $60 or more! I'd think this would just drive MORE piracy. CD Protection is obviously not the answer since most games have cracks available within 48 hours of release, so what's the answer to stop piracy? Offer the games at a reasonable price? continue to push copy protection schemes (bring back the old Monkey Island code wheel)??
Best FPS gaming site on the net... ok, well maybe not the best
Wake me up when a game hasn't been leaked, stolen, copied or otherwise made available to the public before it has been released.
bash$
Grand Theft Auto made me do it.
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
Slashdot is going to compete agains warez information sites who is first to announce when new release is out.
When do we get nfo listings around here?
what does that have to do with anything? just because they are going to sell a lot of copies makes it ok that their intellectual property distribution rights were violated? if someone's rich, does it make it actually okay to steal from him/her, instead of, perhaps, less morrally wrong?
The relative contrast is in the attitude of the game producer towards stealing in the virtual and in the real world .....
Instead of wasting money developing protection dongles (which will be cracked). Why not reduce the price of the games?
Sure, they cost a lot to develop and Sony gets a royalty. But focus on the gameplay, lose the rendered intros (which take time and money to produce and get watched once, if that).
Games have been steadily rising in cost for years and the actually quality hasn't been. Sure they look pretty but the actual ideas are stale and the gameplay is weak.
Now there is a wider problem with piracy in the far east for example, but if it concerned games companies that much, perhaps they should start selling games in those countries at prices people can afford. Sell the game for $5. It might not be much of a profit, but it's surely more than $0 they get from the pirate version. Such copies could pose a simple question written in Thai / Mandarin / Malay / Korean / Indonesian at the start of the game to prevent it being sold outside of the regions it was intended for.
Cracking ANY dongle protected program is dead simple if you can get hold of the program itself and the matching dongle.
:)
:)
Depending on the dongle brand, there are even automated programs that can just read the data from the dongle and unwrap the program no problems.
Or emulators that can "emulate" the dongle (again using data read from it)
The sooner games companies (and others) realize that all this "Copy Protection" crap is never going to work for the PC as it is today, the better.
Although if you really wanted pretty much foolproof copy protection, here is how it could be done (certainly for a console):
All games for/code on the console would have all program code encrypted with RSA or something similar. The encryption keys would be the usual secret/public keypair (with only a very few people having the secret part, remember the XBOX RSA signing key is not yet public).
With some kind of RSA chip on the motherboard (containing the public part of the key internally), every instruction passing through to the CPU could be decrypted (I dont know exactly how fesable real-time decoding of RSA or something similar would be, even with a RSA chip on the board. If real-time decryption is not fesable at the processor speeds involved, another option is to have the RSA chip but have each block of code decvrypted all at once into main RAM before it runs.
Modifying the RSA keychip to make it look for another public key is not fesable. And, as long as the private key stays secret, it should quite effectivly prevent the running of illegitimate code.
Combine this with hardware/code to make sure that games can only run from legitimate masters and not from burnt disks (perhaps make the drive unable to read any form of burnt disks whatsoever) and it should be difficult to crack unless someone finds a vulnerability in RSA (and if that happens, things would happen that are a LOT more serious than a few geeks playing pirate copies of some game a few days before it raches stores
Or if encryption is too difficult/slow, you could just do what the current xbox does except move the RSA code into a seperate ASIC so you can sign the BIOS with RSA too (with the signature hash for the BIOS being inside the RSA chip or something)
Oh and also to prevent hacking, make it so that getting at the RSA chip or the BIOS without causing lots of damage is impossible.
The other option is to do what Nintendo did with the GameCube and invent a new media format that nothing except the GameCube can ever read. Seen any ways to copy, download and play GameCube games lately?
Downloading warez from a
- website
? What a quaint, antiquated idea!(That's so 1995.
I'm sure a few communities still do it that way, but I think systems like IRC are the norm; harder to shut them down.
Piracy is attacking ships and killing their tripuliation, stealing the cargo.
Intellectual property is not property. IT is not finite, and _in_principle_ should not have distribution issues. Of course, most governments grant people a _temporary_ monopoly to profit from their "IP" so they release more works. If that scheme ceases to work, we can just go to the other scheme, where noone is granted any monopoly, and IP is not seen as property anymore, so noone can "steal" it.
We are talking about console games here. These are already using the strongest copy protection the industry can come up with.
I don't own a console and never will. But as console software is the very antithesis of software libre I find it hard to sympathize.
What's so bad about USB dongles anyway? Seems to me they would be an improvement over CDs/DVDs that must be in the drive.
Nelson: "Copyright infringement is a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark!"
Also, from the pamphlet, "So You've Decided to Download a Leaked Copy of GTA: San Andreas":
Myth: Unreleased video game piracy is wrong.
Fact: Video game companies are big faceless corporations, which makes it okay.
~Philly
It is unfortunate that game developers cannot reap the maximum profit possible from their works, but I don't think that equates to taking the 'shine' out of their work. Piracy and leaks have been happening for a long time. In fact - I recall pirated versions of Atari 2600 cartridges in my younger years. There was even one guy when I was just a lad who had built his own Pong box (but certainly didn't write the software on the ROM himself). This has been happening for years, and will continue to happen for years to come - regardless of ANY copy protection measures they can implement.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong either, but it certainly does appear to be a part of human nature. Most of us were, after all, taught at a very young age - to share.
And here we have the prime example of the honest users being shackled with burdensome copyright prevention, while dishonest users remain happily unencumbered...
So tactics like these are supposed to promote honesty and goodwill between the game makers and their patrons?
I've said it numerous times here before... I do not promote copyright infringement, but the industry really needs to just look the other way to a certain extent... there's going to be a break even point between how much they spend trying to prevent copyright infringement and how many more people will actually buy the game.
In other words, if you look at all the people who, if they couldn't "steal" the game, would actually buy it , I think you'll find that game companies/RIAA/MPAA are wasting their time and money and promoting illwill.
I know a lot of people claim to download games to try them out before they buy... I don't think it's justifiable for a couple of reasons, but did exactly the opposite; I used to download cracked versions of games (or instructions on how to crack them) I previously bought just to remove the shackles that prevented me from enjoying the game. If you're the game industry, you're claiming that as another lost sale...
Stupid sexy Flanders.
does it make it actually okay to steal from him/her,
I only point this out in the interests of clarity. Say after me:
"COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS NOT STEALING"
(It's illegal and widely believed to be morally wrong, but it's NOT stealing)
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
> someone's rich, does it make it actually okay to steal from him/her, instead of, perhaps, less morrally wrong?
not less morrally wrong, its outright okay
Its okay if they can afford one porsche, they dont need a fucking dozen of them
The definition of irony is that it's created using contrasts between the apparent and intended meaning.
In the grandparent poster, the apparent meaning was that you play a game to steal and intended meaning was that you stole the game, very little constrast. Like I said, it's not irony because there is no difference.
If the apparent meaning was a game to be a good character where you had to not steal but the game was good enough where people wanted to steal it, then that's irony.
Its getting something without paying for it. Regardless of what term you'd like to use, its wrong.
The only effective copy protection I've ever seen is to make a compelling online-only game such as Counter-Strike.
Once you have the gamers online you can weave in connections to a centralized server where you can pull all sorts of tricks to insure that they are using a CDKEY that you issued, only once, with software that matches MD5 checksums/etc.
It's still possible to crack this, but AFAIK there is no effective multiplayer counterstrike crack, and given that the game has been out as long as it has been you would figure someone would have come up with SOMETHING by now. Even if they do, Valve would just issue a systemwide patch to combat it.
Same goes with MMORPGs and XBOX live/etc.
Every other form of copy protection is a plague on gamers. Granted Counter-Strike's cd key system has its own problems, but it's not as harsh as say, disabling the use of daemon tools or requiring a dongle or whatever. I predict that when net access becomes ubiquitous enough you'll see every game/application hit the net for authorization before running, on PC or consoles. Sad but true.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Yes, but it IS in the same ball park. Such a mass distribution is detracting from the total amount of money they would have made.
Isn't this just your everyday garden variety copyright infringement?
I read somewhere that copy protection is put on most games not by the developers but by the publishers of the game. One article from a developer I was reading said that the publisher put copy protection on games to help stop or slow down illegal copies during the first like 3-4 weeks that it is out. That everyone knows that copy protection doesn't stop anyone cold from copying software, it is just suppose to slow them down during the most profitable weeks of a game's launch.
Supposedly most games make their biggest income during the first 4-6 weeks from when they are released, which is why they try and slow down the copies during that period.
the example about stealing was trying to point out if relative harm done to the person would actually make an illegal activity (in the example, stealing, in the case of rockstar, violation of their copyright) into full blown justifiable, as opposed to less wrong.
in any case, stop preaching like you are being "insightful" about theft/copyright infringement. like someone else posted very eloquently in another thread, admitting copyright infringement is wrong but being behement about not calling it stealing is just hair splitting, matter of practical semantics. "he stole my idea!" is a perfectly accepted english sentence though you can't steal an idea under the strictest definition of "steal."
I know this is Slashdot, but these piracies are really hurting. I don't know about the financial aspect of things, but a lot of programmers worked really hard for this, and stealing the program just takes the shine out of all the work they put into it.
Considering the nature of the game, I think they're getting what they deserve.
The same thing goes for those in the music and movie industries.
2500 people are on the suprnova tracker alone...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Before that, a comment - if its posted on internet AFTER the game is released, it might be the "pirates" who are responsible. But if it happens BEFORE the release, most likely, its the "idiots" who are TOTALLY to be blamed. I never heard of the Coca Cola IP getting stolen!
:-P talking about THE GAME. Thats WAY more than my smelly money could have bought! Strikes a note...?!!
Secondly, pre launch publicity is a HUGE requirement when I want to launch a multi million dollar game. I KNOW its gonna be floating on the internet anyway within a week (max!) after its release. What if I provide the bare minimum conditions myself for the same to happen and then after it does, raise a hue and cry! BAM, I get my share of BBC, Slashdot, CNN, newspapers, anti/pro-"piracy" crusaders, conspiracy theorists
It will also hurt the independent game manufacturers who have a slightly smaller profit margin. You know, those small house companies that write really creative games that flop because they can't sell enough to pay back investors. There needs to be some hard nosed tactics to crack down on this by the companies.
People complain up a storm about Microsoft's forced product registration, but I can easily see other software companies using similar tactics (not the same) to try and circumvent this. The end result is everyone now has to deal with a hassle because a bunch of people can justify copying all this software without paying for it because it isn't 'stealing'.
It's not the developer who suffers. IT's the poor producers. they've invested their hard earned money and they expect 80-90% of the proceeds god damn it!
I am excited about GTA: San Andreas coming out, but not enough to steal it. What I want to know is when someone is going to leak the new Gran Turismo, not on the internet, but right into my hand, in the box, with a steering wheel, a case of Mountain Dew, and some adult diapers.
-
In Holland(Netherlands) we still erect statues of pirates who lived in the 16th century, so maybe if you are a pirate today we'll erect one for you too(in a couple of years).
Yes yes, the Dutch are very proud of their slave traders, they "freed" our own workforce of work, just as the current pirates "free" the "work" wich companies keep hidden from the public.
just a thought..
Maybe this can serve as inspiration for a spineoff series.
GTORRENT: INSIDE JOB
You free roam around town looking for DVD-R bargains and pepper-spraying coders and stealing their code.
You can walk into cyber-cafes and upload your stolen goods to one of the popular servers, and then with the money you saved you can buy some Doritos and Pepsi(PRODUCT PLACEMENT, w00t!), and maybe have enough left over to pay the eldery women not to kick your ass on the dangerous trek back to your dorm room on the bus.
A three year old console owned by millions of people. What are they thinking?
You're a jackass.
I hear people have already downloaded the full Half Life 2 game!
(before anyone gets too excited, this is in reference to the Steam distribution model)
*redvsblue*I think it would be ironic, if we were all made of iron */redvsblue*
Seen any ways to copy, download and play GameCube games lately? :)
Yup. Not too hard. It's just a DVD drive under the hood, after all.
But you don't even have to go that far.
This
plus
This
And some freeware software on your PC that I'm not going to even link, because then people will put two and two together and try it.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Rockstar game not wanting to be outdone by the mighty Microsoft marketing machine, clearly followed in their lead by allowing a copy to be leaked.
Next there will be a movie advert with a link to a website www.ilovecriminalorganisations.com, just you watch
CJC (scuse me while I remove my tongue from my cheek)
--
Excuse me, but that is the basis of socialism, aka income redistribution. Many argue that this is in fact the right thing to do. The idea is that when the government robs Peter to pay Paul it is moral and good. When Peter does it as an independent contractor it is wrong. In the story of Robin Hood, he is the good guy.
Of course, they are wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right. Yes, the rich man without compassion to his fellow man is wrong, but stealing from him to "correct the injustice" is not right either.
notice in the sentence regarding rockstar, i said their IP distribution rights were violated. i never said anything about stealing.
I wasn't referring to the rockstar sentence, but to the analogy that followed it. I do understand what you mean now you have explained though.
is just hair splitting
Well I disagree with that. I firmly believe that the term "intellectual property theft" is deliberately designed to make people think that copyright infringement is equivalent to stealing when it is not. Saying it is a matter of semantics doesn't change that.
Stealing neccesarily results in loss for the victim. Copyright infringement only results in loss in those cases where the infringer would otherwise have paid for the product. For example, when 15 or so teenagers have unofficial copies of maya and other expensive software they have without doubt broken the law, but in most cases there has been no resulting loss because had they not used those copies they would have no copy at all. The developers have not lost anything. Of course, they have to pursue every infringement case because there is no way for them to tell the "would have bought" from the "would not have bought" cases.
This is why copyright infringement is (rightly) illegal, but is not the moral or legal equivalent of stealing.
Oh, and I wasn't preaching - just correcting a factual mistake. Whether that mistake mattered or not seems to be where we disagree.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
I completely agree that this wanton piracy is destroying industries left and right. But why stop with software pirates? Libraries cost book publishers billions of dollars each year. If you calculated every book that was ever borrowed from a library and multiplied that by the hard-cover price of the book, libraries have cost this country more jobs than any other institution or industry.
Think of all the money that people would be spending on these books instead of just going to the library to pirate them. This is stealing money from hard working authors and publishers, and eventually, it's going to ruin them. I mean, how are publishers supposed to survive this scourge on their profits? Don't they deserve to get paid? And what about the authors? Why do you think people like Edgar Allan Poe died peniless and in the gutter? Obviously, if he had been paid royalties on all those pirated copies of his books, he would have had enough money to live, maybe even write more books! How many more works would Twain have written if people were't stealing food off his table by going to the library to pirate his books? This "Library thing" is killing book publishers! It's stifling creativity! It's ruining society a we know it. We need to advance society and start dismantling these dens of wanton piracy immediately! I call for the destruction of all libraries now!
OK, now how is that argument substantively different from the argument that file sharing hurts music/software/movie sales? Just because file sharing is more convenient? Just because you don't have to "return" the software/book/movie after a few weeks? There have been libraries for thousands of years, and yet people still purcahse books, and authors can still write books and make money. Every time the BSA says that they are losing billions due to file sharing, just think of this argument.
Information wants to be free!
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Humm .... This look more like a trick from RockStar. They are creating a need.
... They are creating a need, and they want people to know that the game is comming out soon
Some dude - I heard that GTA new game has been stolen.
Other dudy - I heard that too. This game must be hot , and my PS2 is not chipped, so lets wait and buy it in 5 day.
This is sh*t
Y'all have no problem raping words of their definitions when it suits your personal principles, do you?
Firing programmers is the dumbest thing i'v read so far in this thread. Generally programmers are very carefull because they put their sweat and blood in the development process...
Usually, software is leaked by executives, marketting guys, press,... Very often, those people receive "free" or "evaluation" samples, and very often, they can't help but showing their friends/family, making copies for them... untill someone releases it on the web.
And the thing is that you know the guys at Rockstar are some sick guys. I have a feeling that once the thief is found, he'll have his tires shot out. As the Rockstar guys catch up to him, they'll probably fire an uzi out the driver side window until his car catches on fire. Since, once the car is on fire, it's explosion is imminent, the occupant will jump out and run down the street, fleeing in terror. A Rockstar employee will knock him down with a shotgun blast, then beat him to death with a baseball bat. Of course, once he's dead, they'll steal his money. Then, I'm betting, they'll steal a sweet Jamaican gang car with hydraulics, and use said car and cash to pick up a prostitute.
I don't respond to AC's.
I don't know wtf I'm saying this morning but that one was pretty bad. heh.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Wouldn't the best way to continue to see "more of the same" be to support the creator of the content?
I mean if GTA is so popular [and personally I love the series] and you want to see more GTA wouldn't it make sense to buy a 50$ copy?
By pirating it all you're doing is hindering their ability to make new games. This isn't like the RIAA/MPAA situation. While I'm sure there are six figure execs at Rockstar I'm also sure that the bulk of the revenue goes straight back into employee salary.
I'm going to buy a copy because I think it's worth it and I want to support their endeavours. If I thought GTA was a waste of time/money I would...shock...gasp... NOT GET A COPY BY ANY MEANS!
So little kiddies who "must pirate" the game... grow the fuck up. Get a job and pay the 50$ for a copy of the game. What sickens me more is that even some of my friends [who are older than I am] still pirate games... lame lame lame lame lame.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
good to know that now i dont need to search for warez anymore. I can find the latest info right here on /.
I wasn't attempting to take a moral stance on the actual theft itself, simply because the parent was indicating the piracy of GTA a week before a highly anticipated launch (seen any counts on the number of preorders?) would cut heavily into profits. THAT's what I'm disputing. Personally speaking, I purchase the games that I play.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Good, relevant, insightful quote.
Rights are only a social convention, a clause in the fuzzy social contract. There is nothing inherently valid about them.
The explanation is quite straight forward. It's lawyer-speak, and you can expect to see it standardised. Not always quite this similar, but it is no coincidence (or theft of MS' threats).
*snort* Yeah, and various software algorithms are standardised and the most obvious and simple answer to a question. It doesn't keep corporations from copywriting those. Free speech is becoming less free-like-beer these days.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
No one's saying it's not wrong. Murder and assault are both wrong too, but they're different things and deserve to be treated differently under the law. Equating the physical theft of property to the unlawful duplication of property only serves to confuse the issue.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Worse true fans now need to get the pirate version because they want to know the alternative ending. Similar to how movie fans want the directors cut and removed scenes.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I don't approve of piracy in and of itself - people put a lot of time and hard work into this software, and the long hours they put in are no picnic, make no mistake. If their work has produced a result that is enjoyable, I think people should pay for it. A friend of mine has Neverwinter Nights and the two expansions, but I spent $50 on the Platinum instead of $0.50 on a blank DVD, because it's worth it.
That all being said, I am glad in a way that games are getting pirated, though it's not having the effect I'd like. My roommate downloaded Doom 3 before it was released, as (according to suprnova) did several hundred thousand other people. As a direct result, we wasted at least 20 minutes playing the game (waste is right) before we decided that it was hopeless - the graphics were phenominal - not realistic, but phenominal anyway. The physics was well-done as well, and the environment felt real.
The game, however, was terrible.
If I had bought the game for anything more than $5, I would have kicked myself, and even if I had paid $5, I could have gotten a pork roast for that and had a good dinner instead. It was a complete waste of time, and as much as we tried to justify playing it, eventually we got sick and gave up.
Doom 3 lost a lot of sales to piracy, not because people weren't forced to buy it, but because people realized they didn't WANT to buy it. If I download GTA:SA and I like it, I'll get it. If I don't, I'll delete it (well, I'll burn it off then lose the DVD, which is the same thing).
Thanks to the proliferation of broadband and bittorrent, piracy has become the way we test our content first. ISOs are the new game demos, Telesyncs are the new trailers, and media, for a good portion of those so-inclined in North America, purchases have moved into the honor system - every 'ware is shareware now, and people are starting to realize that it's easier to download and try it out than to haggle with the clerk at EB when they find out the much-hyped 'game of the century' is both uninspired and pointless.
So yes, I'm glad this is released - not necessarily before the game is out, but I don't honestly think that matters, except for the 'first-day sales' figures, and those are largely unaffected anyway.
--Dan
Yes, but everytime any copyright issue comes up 70% of the discussion is about whether or not its stealing.
What if I don't recognize that right? Who gave you that right?
I think you mean, that it's the usual practice to profit from your work. But guess what, that's your problem not mine.
I think with Flash it's only writing that's finite, you can read as much as you want.
Not that software dongles need to be writted to in the first place, the poster is refering to things like DESkey, not a USB flash drive.
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
In order to steal the game, you have to beat up enough cops and hookers in your town, and run over a few pedestrians on your way to work, and then you will be approached by a mysterious stranger who will send you on a mission that will result in your getting a bootleg copy of GTA:SA.
Yes I couldn't decide to "steal" it or not either, so I figured out what's going to make up my mind:
If you can swim in this one, I'll buy it. If every time you touch the water, you bite the big one, and have to start a mission over where 50% of it is DRIVING ACROSS THE F-ING island to get to a bank where during the holdup, a glitch means my hostage won't follow me, and then I have to restart the game and watch every splash screen through a painfully slow load; then I'll steal it.
Problem solved.
Troublesome? The vast majority of people don't need legacy ports. You can still buy adapter cards if you need a parallel port.
You can't show that at all.
I, like a previous poster, often do wind up getting cracked version of games I already bought.
Sometimes it's because I don't want to futz with a stupid physical CD, my computer is under my desk and it's hard to get to the cdrom.
Sometimes it's because someone else in my family wants to play the same game. Should I have to buy 3 copies of the same game so my wife and son can play? Knowing full well we'll probably get sick of it in a week or two, and never play it again?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I mean the game is Grand Theft Auto.... it's a game where you're a thief and your stealing things in a modern world.
Hell, one could argue they taught us to do this
And BTW: I thought the term was "Copyright Infringement" which is different from theft.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
What part of "Seriously though" did you not understand?
Everyone seems to have played it. It certainly is mentioned enough whenever RPG's are discussed and is regarded by many as one of finest PC RPG's ever.
The sales however for it were piss poor. So poor that a sequel is not planned to one of the best RPG's ever according to many fansites.
So if noone bought it how can everyone have played it? Piracy.
I myself used to buy far more games. I still play them but most are downloaded not bought. (I do own all my Black Isle games legally) I justify it to myselve by only downloading games from companies that I have grown fedup with them screwing me.
There was a recent article about someone from lucasarts talking about the cost of 2D adventures. He talked about the cost of the box etc and how the cost would go up if they included some gifts like they used to in the olden days. Yeah, no fucking kidding mate. I remember Battle of Britain and Secret weapons of Luftwaffe coming with thick binder manuals complete with a history of the war. Compare this with x-wing and later black and white sheet. Geez, value for money.
Things like online manuals, gigantic bugs, incredibly short gameplay, european releases months later, no patches for the dutch-release despite the fact I don't want or need a dutch translated version, total lack of progress in AI, every other game being a boring FPS have made me loose hope. It must be said that I still buy games but the game market has fewer games I like.
But that doesn't make it any different that by downloading the game I am not putting money into the pocket of the developers to pay them for their time and effort.
Games cost a lot of money to put on the market and by piracy their is less chance of recovering the costs through sales.
Personally I think it is at least partly the fault of the games industry. Lets face it. GTA is not exactly aimed at the adult player with money to spend. It is aimed at kids with very limited income and lots of things to spend on (more so then in the past, mobile phones are huge extra cost as are games wich previous generations did not have).
Make the box you buy something to have. If the entire game can be played without a manual then yeah you have made a very accisable game. You just also increased the ease of piracy a thousand fold.
One of the worst examples must be Microsofts Flight Simulator. If ever there was a game crying out for a good paper manual to have besides you on the desk it is this one. But no, MS in its infinite wisdom put all the documentation on the CD (in a horrible unreadble manner) and upped the retail price. Smart move MS. Might as well put a sticker on the box saying "SUCKER".
Your right about copy protection. It doesn't work. Never has never will. It only affects the legitamete buyers.
Game industry keep it up. Remove any "extra" bonus from owning the legal version, make the legal version harder and harder to use, reduce the game time, up the price and make your website register only. We will all reward you with lots and lots of our cash. Oh and please, remember to include lots and lots of bugs. We need them, nothing like paying to beta test your games. Especially when we know everyone else is doing it for free.
Steam and MMO games seem to be imune to piracy, Steam is about to face its trial but MMO games seem to be near death. Yes World of Warcraft is coming out but is it just small vocal minority that is exited? Like Planescape Torment, it doesn't matter how many people like a game, what matters is how many buy it. The game industry is reducing the incentive to buy and piracy is making it easy not to buy. Something has to change.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I will concede the point that being able to play a game on two different systems in the same household is fine. But yes, there are polls that show that piracy is detracting from companies profits. They spend a lot of time and money making this stuff. http://www.xboxsolution.com/article1511.html But downloading software off the internet and never giving the manufacturer any money to compensate them for their effort is wrong.
Thieving from work is pretty normal but has a new twist with cd's. If I steal a car then all I have is 1 car. If I steal a cd I can run off an infinite amount of copies. Noone would risk their job by stealing 1 monopoly game. But 1 game cd is a different story.
Sure they could increase security at the pressing plant but that would involve spending money. Hiring motivated employees for who this job is a keeper and not just another minimum wager.
Easier to cry foul and put up rewards then to make sure your employees are satisfied enough with their jobs not to steal.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Almost EVERY game/app/cd appears in the newsgroups before it's release. It has been that way for some time. Not every release is in English, but it is usually out before the published release date.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
iso news was dead, slashdot picks up the slack and announces the new releases for us!
and stop modding down anything that goes against your own personal politics. MODERATORS, read the bl00dy MODERATOR GUIDELINES, your supposed to be modding things up and only smack down obvious trolls and GNAA dreck, I do.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Lets not forget that a console is also 1 piece of hardware exactly the same for everyone. The PC will at least have to work with both Nvidia and Ati cards. Coding for one causes the other to throw a hissy fit.
At least it is better then Lucasarts. A PC company that has totally neglected the PC recently despite the fact that it was on the PC they grew big.
I rather wait a bit for the PC version of a game then have to get a console (other then my gba) in my house. Perhaps the version will be better. In any case, at least we can have our bugs patched. Feel better now?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But artists want to get paid. There are obviously no copy protection schemes that can not be circumvented, short of letting Palladium pwn the box, so what do we do to fix it?
The reality of the situation is simple - if the practice of creating and providing new art (software, music, whatever) is not profitable, there will be a great deal less content being made available to the masses.
Lots of people here are calling each other thieves and whining about infringement vs. theft and generally bickering, but I haven't seen anyone trying to fix the situation. How can we provide content that is freely shareable to the public, and yet ensure that content creators are appropriately (perhaps itself a matter for debate) remunerated?
I propose this - government sponsored artists who get paid based on the number of unique users of their product. Everytime I fire up my "free" version of Photoshop (or GTA, or Celine Dion's whatever) it shoots an informational 'bullet' at a government server where my IP, my unique machine ID and the content ID is recorded. The government tracks the number of unique users (but NOT! the identity of those users!!) of a given product and directly pays the content provider an agreed upon sum per use. The source of the funds could be an entertainment tax that is levied specifically for this purpose, and which you pay voluntarily. Those who pay get their unique ID issued, those who do not, don't. There may (and almost certainly would be) continued piracy, but I think the vast majority of people would willingly participate in such a scheme, because it simplifies the situation for them and it ensures that people who create content continue to get paid.
There would of course be losers in this scheme, and they would be those who currently occupy the position of 'middle man'. They would still be able to represent and promote artists, but artists would also be able to choose to forego that representation and promotion in favor of payments made directly to them.
Whaddya think?
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
I've spent the last two days solid in French language immersion on my XBox.
Aaahh!! but they seem to spend a lot more time and money trying to prove they are losing money by piracy (by the way they loose maybe 3-4% of sales due to piracy). Does this not seem a little suspicious that they spend maybe 10x the amount they loose on trying to prevent it? I definately agree with the posters that are saying this is probably a deliberate leak by Rockstar for publicity reasons. It makes the most sense in this case.
Where are my mod points when I need them? Finally, someone who gets it!
Theft can only apply to physical things. If I steal your CD, I have stolen your CD. If I copy your CD, I have (potentially) violated copyright law, but that is not Theft.
Come on Slashdot, you're supposed to be the "smart", "enlightened" crowd. Stop embracing ignorance!
Squash
This could actually be a good thing. If sales of San Anderas are still fantastic, it could serve as yet more evidence that copyright infringement doesn't necessarily affect sales in a negative way.
People who pirate the game and don't end up buying a retail copy would probably not have bought the game anyway, thus no lost sale. I'm guessing that most people that download the version from the P2P networks just want to play it early and will buy their own retail copy when it's released.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think we need an addition to the lameness filter. It should restrict people from using words "steal", "theft" or "thief/thieves" in discussions where the writeup mentions "piracy" or "copyright".
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I like the satire...
I'm a pirate: I have tens of thousands of mp3s on assorted computers, I haven't bought a M$ OS since '94, I don't peer with those who don't share at least 1000 files; I'm a consumer: I've spent over 50K on computer hardware and software in the last 3 years, I bought FarCry and Doom3 out of respect, I've paid to go to more concerts than I can possibly count.
The generation will decide the value of a dollar, and the expensive obstacles put in place to deter this natural leveling will be taken out of their end.
--c'est la vie--
Pretty much every big budget game that gets released or is about to be released is pirated. So why do we need to have a Front Page story everytime some analyst wants to rant about piracy.
Right, because the alien genocide, property damage, and xenophobia of Doom is much more righteous!
Mod chip?
hd loader, a hd, and a ps2 network adapter is all the rage now.
It's hard to call it stealing because no one actually loses anything except potential sales. Copyright infringement is more akin to counterfeiting whereby the original's value is affected by lots of new unauthorized copies appearing in the marketplace for free.
It's a semantic thing, but I'd prefer the word "steal" (and harsher legal penalties) to be reserved for the people who remove physical copies from store shelves and "infringement" be applied to those making new copies when they shouldn't.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I just love that we have these great news for PC gaming. It turns out that XBox and PlayStation 2 games are not immune to piracy. Hopefully these well-publicised reports will make some publishers wary of this tired "no piracy" argument for console platforms.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Is that the RIAA/MPAA branded version of the classic Trivial Pursuit?
A game that encourages theft and hurting others. And yet, when someone actually steals their game and hurts their profit, they cry for better morals.
"We take the theft of our intellectual property very seriously and we are and will continue to diligently and aggressively pursue this matter."
Since when has GTA ever been intellectual?!??
Well, I'll have to disagree here. While you can "hire" hookers for a romp in a car, I have yet to do so. The only interaction I really enjoy with the hookers, is killing them -- preferably with a single shot from the sawed-off shotgun at close range.
Now, before you go on about sexism, realize that I do not discriminate and really, I shoot anything in the game that moves -- be it hookers or businessmen or cops. I spent a half hour shooting out the windows of a skyscraper once, with a sniper rifle.
My sister is even more addicted to the game than I am. My mom is also known to enjoy playing.
Does the unauthorized distribution of an unreleased video game bump the meter up to two stars, three stars, or what?
I... er, my friend needs to know if he should expect regular police, the FBI, or the Army.
(Where's the nearest police bribe pick up, anyway?)
I'm aware of Cubase and Lightwave that use dongles. Cubase and related software can be quite tricky about it... Hypersonic, for example is a virtual instrument, and if it detects that the dongle driver has been cracked, it doesn't give out an error, it simply adds bugs and makes some of the presets sound crap. The Lightwave dongle actually contains some of the program's code, so that some operations are performed on the dongle. If you try to do these operations with the cracked version, you get weird and cryptic errors.
A one sided agreement dictated by one party and backed up with the use of force is not morally binding, whether it is technically legal or not. I never agreed to the distribution system and am indifferent to the legal code. If you want my money you have to come up with a system that I am comfortable with.
Well, we've already seen it start happening, but I think that piracy will be one of the reasons most companies will move to a subscription model. Basically, the software that you get (whether legit or not) will be useless without a paid subscription. This will pretty much move all games towards a MMO model, even if they are small grouped like Diablo.
I could even see where a single player game may be subscription based where you have to be online and connected to a server and paying a subscription in order to play at all.
I guess as much as folks hate a software rental model, piracy may just be the thing to give the companies enough of a reason to switch to this model.
Folks will not like the model but they will have brought it on themselves.
with both games and CDs.
When I hear a band I like has a new CD out, unless I'm *really* sure they are musical Gods who could never put a foot wrong, I will download a couple of tracks to see if I actually like the album and it's not just that catchy single drawing me in. If a friend suggests a band to me, I'll download 2 or 3 tracks to see if I like them before I'll spend money on an album - I consider this fair to me and to the record companies. Ditto with games - I'll download it and if I like it I'll buy it.
The reason is threefold:
a) I don't like stealing. If I like something, I will pay for it - I just like to know if I'm going to like something before I hand over the cash.
b) I like owning the official media. I'm a collector at heart, and CDs are like collector's items - I like the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with owning every DVD of my favourite TV series, or every album by my favourite band - Burned copies just don't cut it, and that brings me on to
c) CD-Rs tend to be fairly fragile - I've had the important layer come off in chunks from even the most well-protected CDs after even the most minimal of handling - how do the real warez freaks do it? What are you using that ultra-1337 warezed copy of 3D Studio MAX! (Which every warez kiddie seems to have, but none know how to use) for once that all-important layer's gone? bragging rights?
Personally, I buy far more CDs since I had access to P2P and other filesharing methods - the only CDs I've downloaded and not paid for have been ones I *genuinely* couldn't find availible *anywhere* (US bands' demo-releases rarely make it to these shores), and the same with games - I've been introduced to so many games via the medium of P2P or borrowing copies from friends, for instance Medal of Honour - I copied one game in the series off a mate and guess what? I've now bought every one since - sure I didn't pay for the first one initially, but I wouldn't have paid for any of the others if I hadn't experienced it first with a (technically illegal) 'borrowed' copy.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
The reason people are not worried about libraries is because libraries are not a guaranteed source. There are limited copies and you take your chances in finding the book when you go to the library. Thus you trade off the immediate availability for the free access. If you want immediate availability you buy the book. Same should go for software/music/movies... Its easy to trivialize the theft by pointing to "free" sources. But keep in mind that free sources are paid for... by taxes, by advertising dollars, etc. Pirated material is flat out stolen and the pirates are all too eager to have the benefits of OWNERSHIP vs the tradeoffs of waiting for the product through "free" sources.
It is rare to see someone post something as intelligent as this on slashdot. I've read the other emotionally charged responses to this, and they seem to be along the lines of:
"What?! No one has a right to profit!?" and "If people can get something for free, they will!"
Both of these statements are true, if in the right context:
The first one is true if you do not provide a product or a service that people want. If I start a company that sells only rusty nails, I can't complain when all my hard work and investment gets me nothing. However, should I create something that millions of people want, say a sequel to a popular game, I have a right to profit when people obtain copies of it, because - shock - I'm not giving it away for free.
The second one is true as well, if you accept that the people who do so are morally bankrupt. Of course free is better than not free, but - and here's the point again - they aren't giving it away for free. They worked on it, it's theirs, and if you want one, you have to pay for it. If it costs too much, don't buy it! It's luxury item, you don't need it!
Justify all you want, it's still wrong. And despite all the lovely semantics people like to use to make themselves feel better, I personally still consider it theft.
Actually it's a bit like another sales channel. And your sales person hardly needs to spend any time at all.
People copy the software, install it (without support), use it. Get dependent on it. Then all you need to do is get them to hand over money for some itsy bits of paper or even just itsy bits.
In fact apparently the Microsoft Boss in my country scolded his staff for taking the hardline against infringers. He said something to the effect of "These are happy users of our software, they have done all the work of installing, configuring it themselves, now all we have to do is get them to hand over the money, why are you taking them to court?".
And the sales-proposition is pretty simple: coz over here if they don't license it is about 10x to 100x the cost in fines per infringing copy, plus the bosses risk _jail_time_. Yep jail time for managers and bosses.
Jail-time really gets management's attention. Fines come out of the Company's coffers, jail-time comes out of _your_own_ life.
Which would you rather happen - people buy your competitors stuff and get used to its idiosyncracies? Or you let everyone copy your stuff, and you just go up to those with money and ask them to hand some over?
It works really well if there are network-effects. e.g. multiplayer games, proprietary protocols/document formats, communications software.
iLok works pretty damn well. People figured out a way to reset some of the stuff a while ago, but the newest version is pretty tight so far.
iLok is used for several TDM and RTAS plugins mainly for Logic, Protools, and DP. I think Max/MSP and Pluggo also use it.
If someone knows a stable hack for this... please tell me, but I think they have fixed all of the holes so far.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
You know he ain't like that! And yo boy Kant is a bitch.
daaamn. snap. *dances around, waving hands*
How true it is that Slashdot has become so lame that in order to get all sides of an issue one MUST rely on trolls.
Game development is a *business*.
You got it wrong pal. Notice these people specifically don't mention anymore "the game business," it's "the game industry," just like "music industry" and "movie industry." That's because "business" implies some form of customer service, or at least an attempt to customer satisfaction, as in making long-term plans based on a growing customer base etc. But these people aren't interested in that, they're interested in making money from the manufacture and sale of goods, which is what industry is all about. You make something, sell it to as many people as you can, and move on. Of course, there are still (mostly small) shops that are interested in the business, but not RIAA, MPAA, and G(ame)IAA members.
A "business" would try to keep a balance between profits and customer satisfaction. An "industry" tries to make as much as possible on each product, regardless of customer satisfaction.
The problem is that when you steal something, company x loses one product. When this stuff is copied over the net, they lose numerous potential sales and the copiers have little or now realized cost. And I've heard the arguement that they are only potential sales and people wouldn't have bought it anyway, etc. But the monetary loss is still very real.
I remember a few years ago you would have NEVER heard of a pirated game make the news. And really, for all those in the know, games were routinely released in warez form weeks, sometimes months, before the actual release.
I think this is all a bunch of scare tactics by the media. Game companies know these sort of activities only have a marginal effect on their bottom lines. It's always been a constant. Hell, sometimes it's like free marketing.
Besides, most of the people who are into trading these leaked games are kids who can't afford to buy them anyways.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a good thing that games get pirated, but it's been happening since software was invented. Don't beleive the media hype, because sooner or later there's going to be a story about "The pandemic of software piracy".
Agreed. Dongles do not work. Even the really expensive ones they use for CAD type tools.
Bottom line: software has to be decrypted on your own system in order to run or play. Your system cannot be trusted. There is the fundamental vulnerability. There is no way to fix this, you can simply rely on time/reward investment to discourage people from doing it. However for mass market commercial products, once a single person cracks it, it's open for everyone. All that money you blew on the dongles, sw licenses etc. is out the window.
In actuality, there are enough people cracking CAD tool licenses such that as a student I never had problems learning how to use the ultra expensive chip synthesis tools etc. My school couldn't afford them, but some school in China funded their kids to go break the license, and shared the results. Fortunately we had a few chinese ex-patriots willing to share the wealth. Not trying to justify this, just showing how even a small niche market can bypass even more complicated dongle systems profitably. (No American corporation could get away with this, there are too many hostile eyes involved even in a "secret" design).
The bottom line is if you make excellent software, you will make money on it, even with piracy. How do I know this? The software industry went from almost non-existant, around the time of my birth, to the huge, hopeless gargantuan that we know today. Piracy has been there all along, for all the same reasons. Before the internet there were pirate BBSs, before that there was the corner SW shop with the cash only business in the back room.
Depends on the license, but usually no it is not illegal to resell software, provided you remove all copies from your hard drive and erase backups that you have made of the software.
You can sell the medium that you bought the content on.
You bought the medium, and in doing so were provided with the licensed content.
If while buying a DVD you happen to ask the clerk,
"Can I sell this DVD on eBay when I'm done watching it?"
They will most certainly reply, "Of course you can."
But if you never agreed to the license to begin with (IE never installed it, or in some cases, never broke the seal), then you really can do whatever you want - it's physical medium you own and have the right to sell, but the licensed content is not yours to sell.
http://www.fsckin.com/
One thing I haven't seen here yet is a link to any screenshots of the leaked game -- anyone care to step up and deliver?
No, no, no, you got that wrong. Haven't you figured out that we have new names and sentences for many kinds of acts of evil:
-
expressing your middle finger to an another person: a serious battery; 5 years in prison
-
sending an unautohorized fly kiss to a member of opposite sex: a sexual assault; 5 years in prison and after that you have register as a sex offender
-
slapping another person's fingers: a murder of first degree; hanging
-
killing a person who's committing a copyright theft: a heroic deed; you'll be awarded with a corporate state's thought criminal whacker's award
anonymous thought criminalMaybe I'm too old, but I seem to remember a time when most PCs didn't come with parallel ports or serial ports, either. It was a common purchase to get a serial or parallel card for your mobo.
And go figure, serial and parallel port cards are still available. It's not the end of the world if you haven't got a port.
Yeah, because companies that produce high quality games never make any money from them at all. Ever.
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong - but if that does happen, it's due to corporate greed and not because of an inability to fund development through standard sales.
Whether the market stands for it is an interesting question.. I haven't played Rome Total War for a week - I'd be very resentful if I'd had to pay for a week's subscription to be unable to play it - especially since I am playing Battlefield Vietnam instead. Seeing as 'per use' payments are definitely not accepted by the mass market (notice all the MMORPGs charging flat rates) the average gamer can not and will not pay for multiple subscriptions just because he has several games that he hasn't finished playing yet. So it may well be that such a subscription model wont fly anyway..
MMORPGs are an interesting counter to my argument - they are indeed charging per-month subscriptions and making a lot of money (collectively) by doing so. However, they are all also continually evolving and adding new content, and also providing a compelling social experience - that social experience is fundamental to their product, and not present in a single-player game.
~Cederic
People who steal from stores steal how many copies at a time? Ok, they steal a truck on the way to your local store, how many copies are stolen?
A copy gets posted on Suprnova - how many copies are downloaded and how many "potential" sales are lost?
I can guess which one affects Rockstar and the publisher the most.....
" Aaahh!! but they seem to spend a lot more time and money"
How the fuck would you know how much is spent on preventing piracy or how much is lost by piracy itself?
Steal this Game was part of an ad campaign that was run for one of the early GTA games:
Reference: here!
Ironic really (isn't it?) how things come back round.
Well done. If there were such a lameness filter, it would have blocked you from posting that.
"So what's the difference between Pacman and Ms. Pacman?"
"Well you see, Ms. Pacman has a bow on her head, and that's basically it."
Or emulators that can "emulate" the dongle (again using data read from it)
Unless, as in the case of a few high-end audio editing programs, the program does significant processing on the dongle.
Seen any ways to copy, download and play GameCube games lately?
Yes. Thanks to Game Boy Player, almost every Game Boy Advance game (except tilt sensor, photo sensor, and Majesco video titles) is now a GameCube game.
USB devices can be easily emulated in software
Really? What if a High Speed USB device incorporates a DSP that does most of the program's dirty work? Then you'd need a Beowulf cluster to emulate it properly.
Senator Joe Lieberman has continuously pushed for violent video games to be banned from the United States. He believes that they cause our children to commit murder, vandalism, and robbery. In fact, this could be a conspiracy plot to begin legal action against Rockstar before the game even gets out. Senator Lieberman. Do we want him in office? Do not vote Lieberman. It's your last chance.
I am a slashdot reader, and I support this annoucement.
I'm f#$king magic!
At the end of the day the company wants to make money, why should they release it just for the PC when they can sell it in much larger volumes on the consoles?
This doesn't apply to Rockstar, but what about new game development firms? Incumbent console makers and incumbent licensed publishers won't even talk to a firm that doesn't yet have a decent selling PC game in its portfolio.
Instead of wasting money developing protection dongles (which will be cracked).
In the era of Super NES, did anybody ever crack the Super FX coprocessor used in games such as Star Fox (called Starwing in Europe), Stunt Race FX, and Doom? Not only did it act as a copy protection measure for the Super NES games that used it, but it also offloaded much of the game's processing for the CPU. Likewise, some high-end audio editing programs for the PC run their effects on a DSP inside a dongle.
There was even one guy when I was just a lad who had built his own Pong box (but certainly didn't write the software on the ROM himself).
Pong didn't have a ROM per se, as it was built out of discrete logic parts soldered to a PCB.
The only effective copy protection I've ever seen is to make a compelling online-only game such as Counter-Strike.
I don't know about CS: Source, but Counter-Strike is not an online-only game, as it allows for LAN parties disconnected from the public Internet. Currently, only the MMORPGs are online-only.
I want it! I want it! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
With games increasingly becoming multiplayer and internet based, why have a price on the game at all? Is it not a viable business model to give the games for free (if played in a single player mode) and have a per session cost (99c like iPod music store) to logon to a central server and play the game with others? There would be no necessity for pirating the game then.
I recall seeing cracked Apple II/IIc games around then too, although I guess it would have been at the earliest in '84. The only one I recall clearly though was choplifter, but there were others as well. I didn't know how my older cousins got them, but I think that's the first time I ever saw "cracked by" (it's amazing that little kids like me learned what 'brun' means)
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
As a devolper myself, not good enough to design a full fledged video game though, this really bothers me. I have never downloaded an illegal copy of software, game, or "warez". For every copy of pirated software that is downloaded illegally a company is loosing money. If you download it, share it than buy it, you still contributed to the lose income by being in possesion of stolen goods.
You'd THINK they would have serious security measures in place but in this case they didn't. Do it once (Doom 3 beta leak/Half-Life 2 source code hack), I hope you learned your lesson. Do it twice (Halo 2) or three times (GTA:San Andreas), wtf is going on? What next? A Quake 4 beta leak? Half-Life 2 version of Counter-Strike source code hacked? Final Fantasy XII English translation version leaked a week after the Japanese version is released?
*obvious*
This just illustrates the difference between the real sense of irony we all have and the bogus definition created by the literary establishment. Real irony is like real humor; it's impossible to define exactly (other than as whatever happens to provoke the appropriate response in humans). But the English profs. had to come up with something to grade people on, so they made up this stupid definition.
We are talking about a game that is centered around theft. Maybe there should be a mission about stealing mp3s and software written into the game. You could run from the RIAA instead of the Police or the FBI..
But then if it already existed there would be no reason to propose it. :)
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
that's cute. i guess i should go make a game about owning a ferrari so someone will give me that f360 modena i've been drooling at (red, of course).
Scenario: You belong to a l33t group of pirates releasing 0-Day gamez, with the next big game due to be released in 30 days your crew is working hard to get a pre-release copy onto bittorrent before it hit's retail shelves, get extra points if your release is in English...
A game being pirated doesn't really seem newsworthy to me, but if you're going to report it, then how about telling us which version was pirated? X-Box? PC?
-Rich
After the Doom3 E3 demo leak, they moved to dongles. It really only prevents leaks of alpha/beta versions of the game, as the final, naturally, has the dongle check disabled.
where you're banned from any Internet servers if you use a duplicate ke
:)
I downloaded Doom 3 and Far Cry, and have had no problems playing them online. I simply walked into our local Asda store (a UK supermarket chain) and copied the valid keys from the manuals they thankfully leave in the display boxes
Hate to be the sucker who bought them!
Besides, after finishing them both, I didn't think either was good enough to warrant parting with my cash, so the developers haven't actually lost anything.
I have never condemmned piracy, but "a problem for gamers" - what kind of tripe is this?
One word, spoilers. Even when you are not actively seeking them, they are hard to avoid. There are people like the trolls here who would go out of their way to spoil the game for other people.
Plus with releases being pirated weeks/days in advance, it gives people a big head start and plenty of time to play through the whole game.
So why give them even more incentive by posting in the media like this? This give the "0-day warez elite" even more incentive to do it, since now they also get fame in the MAINSTREAM press!
Or are you just spreading FUD to justify this?
I don't agree so much with your rolex on the street example. If you download a game from someone, you aren't doing them a service. You are costing them some bandwidth and they aren't getting anything in return.
Take for example the Steam service goes down (and presumably you purchased HL2 over Steam) You have no way to get your game until Steam goes back online. How is it wrong for you to obtain a copy of a game you bought through a working distribution channel? I think you are granting companies too much power with regards to distribution rights.
I mean, if you get points by beating up a hooker and taking back your money, the ultimate score must be stealing the game itself, and giving it away on the Internet!
Just one more reason to aim higher when creating video games... Karma is a bitch.
The Constitution is a piece of parchment and ink. A right is simply a standard. Standards are a convenience. No one is bound to them in any sort of intrinsic way.
While I don't pirate stuff or cruse those sites, on one GTA related site's forum someone claimed that the pirates found dummy files on the PS2 DVD and cut them to make GTA:SA fit on a regular DVD. So while for now it seems the pirates have won, it might turn out that Rockstar did what you suggested.
Under US copyright law, it's not illegal for you to download this game. It is illegal for you to upload or transfer it to someone else. That's when you're infringing on copyrights. Yes, the publisher will lose money. Yes, their lawyers will be hopping mad. As long as you don't transfer the game to someone else, there's no crime committed. So, don't do it.
(Now, let's see if I can break my personal best for up and down mod points in the same post.)
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
mbonig is a known troll.. the racial undertones of his nickname should clue you in, he's been posting lots of garbage lately now he's trying to get karma.
just a heads up!
To answer my own question, I did a little searching of warez sources, and it looks like it was the PS2 version that was pirated.
-Rich
It couldn't have happened to a more deserving company.
(I'm not talking about the content of their games, just the company)
I dunno, offloading program functionality to custom per-application hardware like this is a very interesting idea, but in my experience, protection coders seem to be quite conservative ( and halfhearted ), and this is a big step and a big conceptual adjustment.
Still, I wouldn't mind seeing it come along - the more core program function you offload into hardware, the easier it is to port ( provided the target has USB ports, of course ).
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
not meant to be a flamebait, but some time, the sense of entitlement amazes me. "it's inconvenient for me to reach a bit to my CD drive, so i'm gonna find a way around it, as i cannot be inconvenienced whatsoever since i've paid for the software." you may not have done anything "wrong" because you paid for your cracked game. but there are plenty of others who haven't paid and did something "wrong." yet you are indirectly defending those people, so to speak, because you believe you are entitled to whatever means to reduce inconveniences you experience - be damned, those inconveniences aren't software company's problem to begin with. amazing.
GNAA freedom fighters attack mbonig into submission
Cakedrink KillsPics - Sinclair Broadcasting Correspondent
In the GNAA's continued effort to combat mindless idiocy, blogging, and bigoted oppression of gay nigger rights, GNAA member Penisbird has announced victory over mindless slashbot and blogger mbonig.
In true Hitlerian fashion, mbonig wanted to deny freedom speech to gay black men under the guise of his own nazi-esque values of censorship. "Gasgaynigs", mbonig was quoted as saying to a swooning crowd of neo-nazis ready for a golden shower of his drivel.
GNAA member Penisbird, who is considered of one of the most gifted and intelligent members, according to the GNAT or Gay Nigger Aptitude Test, excellently crafted his arguments against the nazi, as shown here, and was able to counter every point with concise and irrefutable facts. In the usual Slashdot hypocrisy, anyone who fights for the legitimate rights of the unpopular is considered a troll and this thread was no different.
The tragic defeat on Slashdot forced mbonig to retreat to his blog and admit that the GNAA's posts are free speech (unlike what he said earlier) while at the same time slandering Penisbird's impeccable character. Penisbird does not tolerate such insolence and proceeded to attack his wretched blog.
In the most skilled fashion, Penisbird proceeded to flood his blog as a form of legitimate protest. Like an relentless flood of nigger cocks, Mbonig (which is an intentional slur against niggers) tried to squelch the massive flood of protest posts by deleting hundreds of comments but could not keep up. His next step was to disable commenting for a couple of days. The very morning he restored comments and declared that by requiring logins, the attacks would cease. Wrong. Penisbird was on the attack and continued the assault.
After the morning offensive, mbonig quickly and embarrassingly disabled comments, declaring that "script kiddies" (the scripts in question consist of Microsoft Internet Explorer and the refresh button) do not deserve the same free speech rights he enjoys. However, Penisbird was victorious in that he caused mbonig to permanently disable comments. Penisbird vows to keep up the assault on his Slashdot posts and anywhere else he tries to oppress free speech rights online.
mbonig claims that he is not hiding who he is. Really? What is your last name? Where do you live? Oh, it seems that you are hiding who you are. Hypocrite.
About mbonig:
mbonig is a mindless Slashbot and blogger who constantly tries to oppress free speech online. He is a known neo-Nazi and supports the gassing of Gay Men of African Descent.
Mbonig is currently offering gmail invites, You may partake his invitation below:
https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b0ab39f1a8-51723
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which
gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the
I wouldn't cry too much - piracy is going to hurt the publishers of weak games worst, 'cos everyone can find out that it sucks before it goes on sale ;-)
The problem is that this also hurts legitimate small, independent game developers as well. In non-game terms, every time someone gets the warez version of Photoshop, that's one less person buying the significantly cheaper yet high quality Paint Shop Pro.
There are a lot of great independent games out there that are really fun. (I highly recommend watching for the game "Zap" to come out soon, it was a real blast to play at the Indie Games Conference.) This is just one site out of many with quality indie games at a good price. Instead of spending time warezing a big-name commercial game, people should try looking into the alternatives. If people start supporting independent game developers, you'll start seeing a wider variety of games being developed independent of the restrictions imposed by publishers. It always boggles me how people can justify pirating games because "games suck these days" without putting any real effort into finding alternatives to play.
Have fun,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
I sould start a breathing air company and sell air to people like you, because as you know, if you get it without paying it's stealing. Mr. Burns and his sunshield must be your best pals.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Have to deal with? Weren't all the draconical copyright advocates advocating not using what you don't like?!
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
offloading program functionality to custom per-application hardware like this is a very interesting idea, but in my experience, protection coders seem to be quite conservative ( and halfhearted )
Then why was the practice so common on the Super NES? Pilotwings, Mario Kart, and several other games used the DSP-1; Star Fox, Stunt Race FX, and Doom used the Super FX; Kirby Super Star and Super Mario RPG used the SA-1; Mega Man X2 and Mega Man X3 used the C4; and Star Ocean and Street Fighter Alpha 2 used the S-DD1.
We get it. You post the same damned thing every time there's a story related to copyright violation. All of us have heard you by now. We either agree with you or don't, but hammering away monotonously on the topic isn't convincing anyone.
You can play semantic games all you want, but copyright violation is what it is - illegally taking something that doesn't belong to you. If you don't like the word thief, call it what you will, but it amounts to the same thing. Aside from that, what exactly is your point?
Euphemisms, in this case as is often so, are just a means of rationalization for *thieves* (there, I said it!) to justify their illegal behavior.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
As I said, I can only speak from my experience, and I've only analysed copy protection schemes on Windows, Linux & Mac. If you don't mind me asking some questions, were these moves to DSP actualy copy protection methods, or ways to work around system limitations? And also, how much did they end up adding to cartridge fabbing costs?
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Has anybody thought to ask wether this whole structure/process for making and releasing games is out of date?
With the interest of having advertising in games, maybe companies will sponsor a game to include their advertising and the have the game released for free?
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
I work in the manufacturing industry and I can tell you right now that a lot of expensive programs designed for CNC work and the like are protected by some very advanced dongles.
Dongles serve as very good protecton on software that may only have 2000 customers worldwide. If implemented correctly they can throughly protect a peice of software from most in house programmers.
That said the wider the distribution of the software the more likely it will be cracked. I believe whilst dongles are a more powerful security measure they only work when the distribution of the software is low.
that's what it all about man.
i'll put lines in my coloring book if I want... and take em out if I want.
In fact, i'll even do the opposite of what I want! that'll show em.
the title was serious though.
-pyrrho
were these moves to DSP actualy copy protection methods, or ways to work around system limitations?
Both. If PCs had an external PCI slot, the beginning of 3D accelerated video would have been different, with combination video accelerators and copyright enforcement dongles sitting in the slot.
this is George W. Bush's fault.
First of all, while I'm not quite a professional in copyright, I have studied it pretty extensively in my business program at school, and basically every other class I have taken has dealt with the legal aspects of it. These classes were all taught by practicing lawyers and other professonals who have worked in the field.
As I said in another post, if people think the idea of IP is such bullshit, write to their congressmen and tell them to burn the copyright and all IP laws. If enough people do this, and everyone feels it's for the good of all, then i'm sure they will do it soon enough.
But also, most people have NO idea what the copyright law actually entails and have never really read into what Fair Use actually means and is for. Read some copyright case studies and figure it out. I can't believe how many people try to tell me that since they aren't publically performing or profiting from MP3s, or that they are 'learning' from them, that they are legal and covered under fair use.
Copyright can and have been made to the US Copyright law over the years, and even major rehauls. If you think that's what it needs, then be my guest, and get it changed!
And i'm still shocked at the fact that you'd like to see no more major movies or music made, simply because it shouldn't be invested in with your theory. And people aren't going to make Multi Million dollar movies that you all love so dearly (cough cough, Star Wars, LoTR, The Matrix, etc...) if they can't make some money off of them. Yes, people in the past made things without IP laws protecting them, but perhaps now the protection is needed and then it wasn't?
Tibbon
tibbon.com
That's my opinion on it. Whine about piracy? Make a game that doesn't suck. If you're game does suck, make it a budget title. Tons of games out there would have pissed me off at $50 but didn't bother me at $20. You ever bought a game that promised the world and delivered a bag of dog $hit? Ever trid to return said game?
"Do you really think the general public wants a new word for copyright infringing when most will look at it as Hey Why Don't They Just Say Theft Or Piracy, Because Thats What It Is. Other than the morons that take 1984 to heart and want to shape public perception by forcing the use of word choice to promote their lifestyles:"
Giving new meaning to new words is all well and good except that piracy (of the maritime variety) is still quite prevalent in many parts of the world.
And quite frankly I believe it is extremely disrespectful to the victims of piracy (rape, murder, theft of property, kidnapping) to say that copyright infringement (reduction in potential income) is the same thing.
So where can I find one of these sites giving out free GTA:SA?
Just kidding yo.
I wouldn't cry too much - piracy is going to hurt the publishers of weak games worst, 'cos everyone can find out that it sucks before it goes on sale
Which leads to the further polarization of the games industry, with the top 10% of games making up 90% of sales (or some disproportion like that).
Which means fewer games will return a profit. Which means the risk is greater. Which means that the investors, e.g. the game producers, will be less and less willing to take risks on games which differ from the existing top 10%.
So if you think that's an OK rationale, the don't bitch about how games are getting less and less innovative.
Funny that all those games which are published these days are mainly made by people who come from a generation who copied everything back in the old commodore and atari home computer days - Yes, my dear holders of morality, even in bright daylight, on the schoolyard or at home juggling massive amounts of 3.5 inch floppy's - i was there, and i know, there are now working at rockstar.. :) Go catch 'em! :D
the sense of entitlement amazes me. "it's inconvenient for me to reach a bit to my CD drive, so i'm gonna find a way around it, as i cannot be inconvenienced whatsoever since i've paid for the software."
Well, hell yeah I have a sense of entitlement!
If I bought a car, and the turn signal was in an inconvienent place, I'd feel very entitled to install a new switch somewhere else on the car. It's my car.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
yet [a CD32 custom blitter] was emulated on the Amiga A1200/4000 in software.
Amiga A1200/4000 was not a CD32, just as my PC running ZSNES is not a Super NES. Granted, I had never followed Amiga history, but when did the Amiga A1200/4000 come out relative to the CD32? Did it make an impact on CD32 software sales the way Nintendo alleges that GBA emulators make an negative impact on GBA Game Pak sales? Or was CD32 commercially extinct by the time newer Amiga models came out?
There's quite a difference between a dongle which is purely something that is a key to unlock some software, compared with actual hardware that is required to use the software.
The point of the suggestion is to stop making keys and start making accelerators. Shift from a purely copyright business model to a copyright plus hardware patent plus fabrication business model, which makes it easier to sue copycats.
I wouldn't pay 500 euro for Photoshop either. I downloaded it a few months ago and have been using since. Hah! And no, since this isn't naziusa, nobody can "check" its legality.
A leaked high-profile game, OS, utility, film screener, anything is always good news, no matter what platform it's for. Aroo-gah!