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A History of Copy Protection
GamerGirll1138 writes to tell us Next-gen has an amusing walk down memory lane with their history of copy protection. There have been some crazy schemes over the years to ensure that you paid for your software, everything from super-secret decoder rings to ridiculous document checks. "With bandwidth expanding and more and more games publishers exploring digital distribution, there's little doubt that we're entering a new phase in the history of copy protection and those who would defeat it. What's more, the demand for games as a chosen form of entertainment has never been higher. All this considered, it's impossible to believe that the cat-and-mouse game of piracy and copy protection will not reach new levels of intensity, with new technologies deployed on each side, and that some of them will surely create new hurdles for even those who simply wish to purchase and play the newest games. Ah, for the heady days of the code wheel."
it doesn't treat me like some criminal. I don't want my software to stop working because I had no internet access, and I now have to go out of my way and call technical support. I don't want my software to install root-kits on my PC because it thinks I might be a pirate. I don't want copy protection to be less useful than the pirated version. And so on and so forth.
Quality product at a reasonable price.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
On the other hand I think this will eventually reach a breaking point and these normal people (who are the paying customers) will stop putting up with said crap. That will be an interesting development for sure.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
We should call it what it is - copy restricton. It doesn't protect your copy nor your ability to copy. I could understand if it were called copyright protection, but that's just not the case.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Many of these schemes can't prevent copying data, like CSS, online authentication or dongles, so they try to prevent execution.
Even when used legitimately, a computer is going to make at least one copy of the program/data, first into main memory, then into the various levels of caches.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I remember copy protection from the days of 5 1/4 inch floppy disks, back when I'd have to boot off the game disk to play. The drive would start grinding like crazy before the game finally started. I never experienced problems but I recall hearing that the copy protection was taxing on the drive and could damage it.
This prevented someone from just copying the files on the disk directly. But there was an application that just copied the image and got around that nonsense.
Things haven't really changed. I don't understand why they just don't give up. This has been repeated many times, but it's true. All they're doing is inconveniencing consumers who actually paid for the product.
E-Books *should* have been the first victims of internet piracy, simply because they were the smallest, and all the content was just good ol' plain text. Ever wonder why it's a hell of a lot easier to get a pirate copy of a whole DVD than it is to get one of a non-Guttenberged E-Book?
.pdb e-book format, and I just haven't run across it despite having found dozens of ways of cracking movies and software.
One reason may be the incredibly elegant system of copy protection they used. You unlock the book with 2 pieces of information - the name and credit card number you used to buy the book. Now... someone might not think twice about throwing up a bunch of serialz out to the general public; but publishing their name and credit card number to a site that caters to thieves? Kinda loses it's appeal.
Maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe people don't mind that e-books cost just the same as their paper counterparts. Maybe computer geeks would rather lug around paper versions of Cryptonomicon than read it off their PDA's, or iPhones. Maybe someone's already cracked the
If so - let me know. I'd love to transfer my existing e-book collection into plain text, or possibly loan copies of some titles to people I wouldn't necessarily trust my credit card number with. I can give copies to my mum, and she could give the same copy to someone else - but she'd have to give them all my credit card info for them to read it which makes her much more discerning.
There are other little aspects to it as well - take a look at how e-books are sold to see why they aren't pirated and see if you think it could be applied to larger software offerings.
> You're fine as long as you buy the game from the region you say you're in.
That's exactly the same stupid reasoning that's used for the #$^%&£! DVD region codes. If I buy a DVD on my vacation in the states, I can't watch it on my player at home, without going through some extra hassles.
Vendors should have no right to put ANY export restrictions on stuff they sell. If they want to play in globally, they should accept their customers may want too...
Completely off topic, but it is just another example of pseudo globalization - basically where the corporation gets to use the rest of the world to suit its motives, while not allowing the consumer the same opportunities. You can be damn sure that Valve has used cheap developers, manufacturing, and other benefits of the third world - all at the expense of Western workers. But when it comes time for the consumer to take advantage of the cheaper products in those same third world countries - forget it, our license forbids that...