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Stardock Evaluates DRM Complaints, Updates Gamer's Bill of Rights
Earlier this year, we discussed the Gamer's Bill of Rights, a document put forth by Stardock CEO Brad Wardell to address what he felt were the unacceptable characteristics of the gaming industry. ShackNews reports that Wardell has taken feedback from gamers, developers, and publishers, and updated the document accordingly. One particular area on which he focused was DRM. Stardock also published a customer report that examines the issue in greater detail (PDF). MTV's Multiplayer Blog fans the flames of the debate by asking if anyone is embarrassed about pirating video games.
When are they going to add another important point to the bill of rights:
11. Gamers shall have the right to play the game on the platform of their choosing.
Obviously, this whole bill of rights deal is for PC's and not consoles.
Embarrassed? No. I know that I will gladly purchase a game that I feel deserves my money, but I have a great appreciation of piracy for allowing me to preview a product freely in advance. Developers are not losing any money on Piracy from me. I truly wish that were the case for everyone, and we probably wouldn't be in this predicament.
But who can honestly say those who pirate rampantly are going to buy the damn games anyway? Most of them I assume are kids who don't even have an income in the first place.
Regardless, though I'm certainly not embarrassed by that, I am increasingly afraid of losing my job, or suffering some other form of corporate backlash. I WORK in the damn game industry. Pretty much everyone I know downloads games, and buys the ones they like. But in the last few years it's gone from something that "everyone does", to something "everyone does unofficially".
Something that still confuses me are the kids nowadays that come in chanting copyright slogans and poo-pooing on people who bit torrent stuff. That grade-school brainwashing really does work wonders...
Wong and Haimoimoi's gamer manifesto. Also, I maintain my position that this is just a pathetic publicity stunt and they're just as much of a bunch of hypocritical bastards as everyone else because of how readily they jumped into bed with GPG, who are barely respected even by their own forum moderators for violating pretty much every single one of these terms.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I don't get this Stephen Totilo guy. The whole "gamer-pride"-post is obviously a huge flamebait, but I can't help but wonder if he honestly feels that software piracy could be stopped if only we had more public service announcements like the "You wouldn't steal..."-ads in beginning of DVDs. Most pirates think peer pressure is when the leechers outnumber the seeders on a torrent... Smokey the Bear going 'Only you can stop burning discs' won't do much good here. (It's Smokey, right? I'm not quite up to date on the latest crying indian-franchise)
But what's keeping all those gamers out there who don't pirate their games from standing up and saying they pay for what they play? From making not being a pirate a point of pride?
I paid for Spore. The DRM crashed my game. The seemingly incomplete game was enjoyable for as much as it accomplished. But I feel like a sucker for having paid money on it. I don't feel pride; I feel a small twinge of something akin to shame. I helped Electronic Arts dumb down a game (so they can piecemeal add-ons to eventually yield a complete game, sometime in the future) and distribute it with DRM (which interfered in my gameplay, which the pirated version would not have done). I helped them because I can't control my addiction to gaming.
That's why the cultural front would be a losing battle. To do the "legal" thing, I have to feel slightly embarrassed and used and out of control.
On the back of games.... this is what the game contains software wise...
and this is what changes the game will make to your system.
Inform the consumer of what kind of crap they are putting in their body/pc. Then the company has the ability to say it's on the box and the consumer can decide do I want more of the same or move on to something with a better ingredients list.
Piracy, unlike throwing garbage doesn't really harm anyone!
Unless you work for a game company whose revenues are down, copies pirated on the main torrent sites are way up, and is a publicly traded company so may legally be required to lay off employees to shore up their balance sheet...
No, people don't pirate to save themselves 60 $us that they could pay, they pirate because they simply wouldn't be able to pay for it, or maybe because the game has been so horribly ruined by DRM that you need to pirate it in order to actually play it.
Categorically untrue. I'm sure many people do pirate a game because they wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise, and I know I've used no-cd patches to make my media last longer, but I'm JUST as sure that people do pirate games just to avoid spending money on them, even if their budgets could easily afford the 30 to 60 dollars it would cost them.
THE COMPANY IS NOT LOSING SALES it is earning players...
The company doesn't want non-paying players - that's just people who incur support costs without paying for them at all. The company wants you to buy the game, if you want it badly enough to play it.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I can see where you're coming from with this, but that isn't a 'right'. It's a 'demand', and a fairly selfish one at that. Nintendo should be forced to license their IPs out to their arch-nemeses? (I mean, aside from Sega ;) Companies should be forced to release ports even for systems that can't handle the load?
Not a bad idea, but needs a rethink.
Their games require you to run "Impulse", and the "Impulse Dock", which is a browser-like client that only talks to Stardock. It has blogs, downloads, and such, and is required for updates to their games. It's like one of those background services required to run many games, only it's in your face.
This is progress?
Check out parent post's post history. It's all spam. I'm sure he'll get modded down to -1, but does slashdot ever completely ban these sorts of posters?
It's be fucking nice if they did release source code. What's the harm? Carmack did it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Unless you work for a game company whose revenues are down, copies pirated on the main torrent sites are way up, and is a publicly traded company so may legally be required to lay off employees to shore up their balance sheet...
There will always be a baseline level of copyright infringers (I hate to use the term "pirate"). but if the number of people sharing a particular title is "way up" above the average (Spore) you have to ask what is so special about that title - could it be the cruel and unusual limitations placed upon it?
If the publishers were being honest, they would admit that this kind of DRM has nothing to do with stopping sharing, and everything to do with controlling customers.
Customers are just getting wise to the scam... in the case of Spore-type DRM I really believe that the publishers create "pirates" out of totally honest customers that just want a fair deal.
Another comparison could be:
If you go to a restaurant, you don't have to tip your waiter anything. Yet many people would feel bad if the waiter was decent and they left nothing.
Neither the waiter nor the game company work for free, they really you to tip them or pay for their games, and they can't really make any money if you don't.
THE COMPANY IS NOT LOSING SALES it is earning players...
I'll admit that I've personally pirated games I would've bought otherwise, and I'm sure there are plenty of other people who have done the same. Game companies are certainly losing sales to piracy, maybe not as many in reality as they claim, but it happens.
I love it when Americans make the tipping analogy, because it's so apt. You are aware that the American system of tipping is insane, right? The rest of the world think you're all fuckin' nuts when you go on about this stuff. There's nothing normal about refusing to pay your staff a reasonable rate and then demanding the customer get involved in compensating them.
How we know is more important than what we know.
12. Gamers shall have the right to a pony.
Actually, I'm really looking forward to an Atari Lynx port of Bioshock.
Chip's Challenge is starting to lose it's appeal.
If I purchase a copy of the game, I *DO* own it. Otherwise, I have the right to get a replacement and or refund if my CD or DVD gets scratched. Does that really happen? I don't think so.
If we gave money and got a CD, it's not a license. It's a sale. Especially when you go to the website and see the words "purchase", "order" and "buy". See Vernor v. Autodesk. A good review of the decision is available at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080523-court-smacks-autodesk-affirms-right-to-sell-used-software.html
So what DRM is really about, is an attempt at circumventing the first sale doctrine. Therefore, it should be declared illegal.
The parent is correct. Their games do require you to run their Impulse client to download game updates.
A recent update to Impulse did actually install background services without asking the user's permission. This was their solution to slow app launch times, by invisibly launching the service at boot time, rather than actually fixing the problem.
GameRanger - multiplayer gaming service for PC and Mac games
The game crashed, what makes you assume it was the DRM?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Go read up on copyright, as part of the 'deal' that is copyright, the rights to the item are supposed to become public after copyright runs out (which is getting longer and longer, but that aint the point).
With DRM, how exactly is the public going to get their free access that has been bought and paid for by supplying (through the state..) the protection of the product during its copyright life?
Any copyright holder who uses DRM that does not time out at the end of copyright is reneging on their half of the contract that is copyright, so why should they get any protection through it?
State Copyright OR Private DRM, I say. No state protection for DRM!
Mmmm... you've mad that assertion a few times in this discussion. Just out of interest, do you have any specific examples of good, well publicised games that sold poorly, but for which the torrenting counts were high?
The general impression I get, (and this is utterly uninformed I admit), is that good games sell if they have enough marketing behind them. If you can offer some evidence to the contrary, it would add a lot of weight to your argument.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
I like the tipping system here.
I've been at restaurants where waitresses invade my personal space by touching me or rubbing on me while handing other diners their food, and I just refuse to tip them because of that. Usually they do it because they think it gets them more tips if they make me want to have sex with them. That kind of manipulation really pisses me off. Remember that this is an example of why I like the tipping system.
Another reason why I like the system here is that if I really like the service someone gave me, I can say so by giving them a larger than average tip.
SRSLY.
There's nothing normal about refusing to pay your staff a reasonable rate and then demanding the customer get involved in compensating them.
I can only quote you in the name of truth. The moment the UK government found out that was happening here they started taking steps to make it illegal, as it damn well should be.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
I think he's basing that conclusion on some early reports (later disproven, IIRC) that the pirate version of the game did not suffer from the egregious crashing problem that plagued the game.
Santa's suicide mission go!
No, being a decent waiter is the waiter's job, and they don't deserve any extra for doing what they're supposed to do. If they don't earn enough then they should go and demand more from their employer.
A tip is not a tip if it's mandatory. A tip is used to reward exceptional service. Simply serving food or mechanically pouring a beer or cup of coffee is not exceptional service. Now, when a taxi driver spent a while figuring out how to fit the large CRT I had bought into the car and helped me carry it up, that was very exceptional service and appropiately rewarded.
I feel the same ; I bought Mass Effect (only when it came down to half it's published price, but still, I didn't like myself).
It's a great game, but I felt ashamed to be supporting EA. I also felt uncomfortable with the activation scheme - it's definitely dampening my ardour for a new GPU, because that will require me to burn an activation.
Games are the only things keeping a "real" Windows install on my disk now. I need Windows for work, but I'm prepared to run it in a virtual machine if necessary. The software I write is cross-platform (and runs much faster on Linux, given the same hardware). I'm much less interested in gaming in general. The few games that actually get Linux ports would probably be enough to satisfy me (and be something to look forward to, instead of the almost limitless choice on Windows).
Maybe I should just grow up and kick the gaming habit ; the big publishers seem to want that, they are taking all the joy out of it.
When I was in school, I didn't feel bad about it because I didn't have the money anyways. 50 bucks for a computer game? I would've had to save 2-3 months to afford that, and very, very few games lasted that long before I was done with them, so it wouldn't have been a sustainable model.
Later on, when I could afford games, I bought most of the ones I played. And that was ok. I was occasionally unhappy because it sucked, which is a lot worse if you paid for it, but it was mostly ok.
But ever since the game industry started treating me, the honest customer, as a criminal, my feelings (and actions) have changed again. Today, I still insist on buying the game if it is from a small, indy publisher. EA and Co? No more money for you. Stop treating me like a criminal and I'll stop behaving like one.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You realise if they were getting paid a reasonable wage they wouldn't feel the need to demean themselves like that, right?
1) Right of Free Use: If you limit number of installations, the publisher MUST provide a "revoke" tool.
What it entails for the publisher:
The Publisher is allowed to limit the software's installation to one or more computers based on their hardware configuration and registered online ("Activation"). They must provide a free stand-alone tool, preferably on the same distribution medium, that the User can use to de-authorize previously activated computers. The total number of Activations and De-activations must be unlimited in number, but can be limited as to number of uses in a particular time period.
How It Would Work:
When you install a game, the software must be activated online as is the standard practice today. However, what this Right provides is a method for the User to de-activate an installation so the software can be transferred to another computer, either due to hardware failure, upgrade or resale. This tool needs to be provided free to the user, preferably on the CD/DVD with the game (or downloaded if the game is purchased through digital distribution) and must be stand-alone. De-activation would require proof of ownership (the CD in the drive and the CD-key should be enough), and would display a list of all computers authorized to run that software. The User could then select the computers to be de-activated. Note that this tool does NOT have to be run on the Authorized computer, or require the Authorized software to be installed. In order to prevent misuse of this tool, the Publisher can allow only a certain amount of Authorizations/DeAuthorizations per day/week/month, but cannot limit the TOTAL amount of de-Authorizations.
2) Right of Activation: If the publisher requires Activation, they must provide some assurance of method to bypass this should the method of Activation no longer be available.
What it entails for the Publisher:
The Publisher is allowed to require the User to Activate their software through the method of their choice. But if that method should no longer be available (be it due to technical or financial reasons), they must ensure that the user can continue to use the software they paid for even though the Activation service is no longer running. This assurance can take many forms; a legal promise to release a patch should the Activation Servers be taken down and a waiving of rights to take legal action of any third-party who rights software to allow the same, or a universal "key" that is held in escrow, to be released only should the Activation servers go down, that allows installation and use of the Software without Activation.
How It Would Work:
Basically, the Publisher needs to provide the User with a "back-door" that can bypass the Activation requirement should they chose to no longer allow Activations, either because it is costing them too much money or they are no longer in business. The best way for the User is if the Publisher has a patch or some sort of universal serial number that allows the User to bypass Activation; this patch/key is held in escrow until the Activation Servers go down and is then released to the general public. Of course, this may dramatically compromise the usefulness of the DRM, so other methods can be used, for example: providing source-code and funds that can be released to pay a programming team to successfully develop a patch after the fact. Alternately (but least palatable to the User) the Publisher can simply promise to release code and not prosecute should a third-party (e.g., a "cracker") want to develop some method to bypass the Activation (but, note, they must provide enough code to make this a possibility)
3) Right to P
After purchasing Mass Effect I used a crack to circumvent the activation. I felt...unclean for paying a company to treat me like that. I decided that I would take a moral stand on the issue and so I will not buy any more games with crazy DRM on them (I did the same with Starforce). Now however I am in something of a quandary, should I:
a) Be strong! Not only will I not purchase these products, I will not use them in any way. A total boycott.
b) Be pragmatic! The publisher will label me a lost sale due to piracy anyway so why not see for myself what everyone is talking about?
I intially chose A so as to lend weight to my statement, but my voice goes unheard. Drowned in a sea of corporate propaganda. B appears ever more attractive (and self-serving, admittedly.)
The seriousness of the above post is not guaranteed.
It's funny. Because here tipping is not considered mandatory, there is no *expectation* of a tip, and thus, if I really like the service I got, I can give an average tip.
The tipping system in the US is insane. Waitresses should be paid normal wages, and should get tips only as reward for good service (or physical contact, for those so inclined).
In my county (in Indiana) you have to pay for recycling even if you do not recycle. So in this analogy. I have to buy EA games even if I don't play them.
That's a rather good argument I think. Anyone that uses DRM should lose their copyright automatically since they've accepted the burden of defending it themselves.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The game crashed, what makes you assume it was the DRM?
The game was stable up until the space stage, then it started crashing on me and caused me to lose many hours of progress. Buried in the crash logs was mention of a particular dll. I went searching for an explanation of what that file was for. Turns out, there was already an article written that explained that dll, SecureROM, and its relation to Spore. http://www.arsgeek.com/2008/09/09/how-to-remove-securom-spore-dasmx86dll-issues-and-some-great-drm-free-alternatives/
Be warned people - there's a lot of lying astroturfers on stories like these. They've flooded movie theatres with their propaganda, and they're doing the same on popular online forums like slashdot. Usually mysteriously mod'ed up, probably by sock puppets.
They're trying to manipulate you with their content-free paid propaganda by fraudulently pretending to be a citizen "just like you" so you don't discount the completely bigoted, one-sided view they represent.
They usually have some token point of agreement (e.g. "I certainly understand that not every copy is a lost sale"), usually immediately negated (e.g. "but piracy does hurt real people") because if they didn't their propaganda would be completely unbelievable. They like to do the "ignore the messenger, look at the message" line because they pretend that the messenger isn't an important part of the message (if it wasn't important why do they feel the need to engage in fraud?). They've gotten more sophisticated recently but it's still the same nonsense endlessly repeated with no actual facts.
Lying scum the lot of them.
A lot of people on slashdot, particularly the young and the naive, don't realize just how much astroturf is going on these days on many different sites, both in the "stories" (which are often just content free marketing drivel - they spam the editors until one gets through) and in the comments (where frauds pretend to be ordinary people rather than the paid scum they are).
---
Paid marketers are the worst zealots.
Sigh. I'm not an astroturfer. I'd tell you who I was if I wasn't worried about this thread coming up in a googling of my name when I apply at a company, and upper management not looking well upon my candidness.
I get it - it's a horrible idea to make a for-pay product with more drawbacks than a free (pirated) product. But you can look at my comment history and see that I participate in plenty of discussions here on Slashdot and am, in fact, a real person.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Also, do you work in the game industry? Do you know people who do? Do you have experience with publishers not greenlighting PC titles due to piracy concerns?
If you do, I'll eat my crow, but pre-emptively - I thought not.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
With DRM, how exactly is the public going to get their free access that has been bought and paid for by supplying (through the state..) the protection of the product during its copyright life?
If a work is never published but only performed in theatres, what happens to that work when the copyright runs out?
Titan Quest and its expansion come to mind most immediately. Anything else I know I can't tell you because of NDA.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
He sounds like a troll. A troll against companies, so you know he's getting 5 modded, but that's it. Just a troll.
The one thing nice is that you can protest really bad service. In general, I'm a really good tipper and almost always leave more than the average. Still, there are times when I've deliberately left nothing (or worse: a penny or two, showing that I didn't just forget). I only do this for especially horrible service, like when:
I'm really thick-skinned and get irritated at the management, not the waiters, when a restaurant is understaffed and overworked. However, I'm glad I have at least some way to tell them that they did a bad job, and that it's in their best interest to provide decent service.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
As has been previously mentioned in these comments, no one is really sure of the percentage of people who "could pay" but pirate instead. One thing is certain, however: it's not 0%. If you think that every single person who pirates a game is unable to pay for it, you are flat out wrong.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
It's easy, if not trivial, from a technical point of view for a company to release a game that does not cut into your enjoyment by making you jump through hoops of asinine DRM. You actually even don't have to add something. You just have to leave the DRM junk out of it.
It's anything but easy to make the game run on so many different platforms, often with completely different hardware.
What that "gamers bill of rights" asks for is easy to accomplish for game companies. It's anything but unreasonable to ask for what this bill asks for. Your request, sorry to be so blunt, is anything but reasonable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
this could be me to the T. I myself choose A, but it burns my ass that the game publishers will attribute their loss of a sale to me to piracy, and not to their shitty DRM scheme.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
In theory, I agree. I don't feel inclined to tip for average service. However, the reality of being a waiter/waitress in the US is that they tax them as if they received 8% tippage on all their sales. I know, it's insane. The good news is, if other people are tipping 15%, and you top 0%, it comes close to balancing out. ;) Still, I tend to give at least some tip for decent service.
You're right, though ... I wish I'd not been conditioned by our crazy American tipping ways. :)
Release the source code. Keep the game data proprietary. Where's the harm in that?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'm not in the least afraid to "try" a game that uses securom - but I certainly will not buy such a game. I was fooled into buying Bioshock, and after I lost an "install credit" because I forgot to uninstall before *REFORMATTING* my drive after a major upgrade....hell no.
I've been buying games constantly for 20 years now! With over $5000 worth of stuff that *STILL WORKS* - I think that qualifies me as a collector. I plan on my own kids to be able to go through and enjoy these, and I still try some out from time to time. So if someone wants to charge me $40-60 for a game that has strings attached, and could *possibly* self-destruct without any wrong doing on my part - or spout some crap about 99.8% don't mind - you deserve exactly nothing from me because I'm part of that 0.2%. There are multiple websites out there who offer a superior experience for far less effort. It's easier to deal w/torrents/cracks than to be forced to maintain cracks and receive inferior treatment/service for software I PURCHASED.
(I was going to click the "coward" box - but I wanna know who responds to this.)
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
I've known people who pirated a game they spent no less than 2000 hours playing. I do not kid you! To me that's just disgusting. At 3 cents an hour you could have enough money for it. That's repented stealing, and there is no justification for it what so ever.
If you wish to know what magical game I speak of, while it's Civilization 4 + expansion packs (But not Colonization, that one is terrible).
The American tipping system is simply a clever tax-evasion system for restaurant owners.
Think of it this way: In a system without tips, and where the food price on the menu is given a 'service' markup of... say... 20%, the extra money passes through the hands of the restaurant owner on the way to the employees, and thus is taxed. However, in a tipping system where the customer pays for the food and then pays the 20% service markup directly to the waiter/waitress, the additional money is never 'seen' by the owner, thus reducing his taxes and making his life easier.
At least, that's the way that it has been explained to me by those in the restaurant business, anyone wish to clarify?
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Ditto. So, since the local garbage collection is CHARGING me for me to do extra labor to separate out my recycleables, I refuse to do so.
If you want me to do extra work, pay me what my labor is worth. If recycling was such a wonderful deal, I wouldn't have to pay EXTRA for the privilege.... of doing more work. Screw that. I can't refuse to pay the recycling tax on my garbage bill, but I can and do refuse to work for negative pay.
My issued recycle bin is somewhere in the house serving as a storage bin. Works nicely for that.
---dragoness
I really could care less what DRM, mandated online activation, limited installs, etc. the game companies what to use. What really irks me is, unless you follow the industry closely, you don't know what you are getting until after purchase.
Food is required to list the ingredients and nutrition information.
Drugs are required to list side effects.
Why not come up with a list of "protection" methods and force the game companies to list them on the box.
Example:
Contains SecuROM DRM software
Limit to 5 installations
Requires online connectivity to operate
Requires DVD to play
Authentication servers only guaranteed online till 01/01/12 [Note: companies using this method should also be required to post a bond/pick up insurance in order to pay for a 3rd party to maintain the authentication server in the event of a company collapse)
Then see if %99.8 of people still don't care...
Sorry, if I'm the only person using the game I bought from you, I have the right to install it on as many PCs as I own (the same goes for MS Office). I don't agree with installing it on a bunch of machines to let several friends come over so we can all play, but if I have a warehouse stuffed with 1358 PCs that only I use to play my games, I absolutely have the right to install it on every single one.
Forcing a customer to purchase multiple copies of a game/software for their own singular use is just wrong and greedy.
True, at its core, it is not the function of DRM to alter the ability to resell the game or not. Although, it most certainly does have this effect, and if Stardock believes other developers/publishers are not using DRM in this manner, they are horribly naive. Everyone has the right of First Sale.
DRM is just wrong on principle, and I don't care what Stardock, EA, God, or anyone else says - once I purchase your product, regardless of what that product is (in this case, games/software), I OWN it. As long as I'm not making copies to redistribute it or anything else illegal (the DMCA doesn't count - another discussion), I have the right to do whatever the bloody hell I want with it.
I'll say it again another way... when I purchase your game, I do not have distribution rights, but I absolutely OWN that copy to do with whatever my imagination can dream up for personal use.
Anyone who tries to tell me otherwise can eat my ass.
Anyone can use it.
Copyright doesn't require publication.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
At least you can take the defective game back to the store to get you money back~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I did a bit of googling on that. The game seems linked to piracy mainly on account of this post from Micheal Fitch following the close of Iron Lore Entertainment.
Now it's a terrible thing that he company went under, but I'm not sure how objective he was being. I mean he not only estimates piracy rates at 90% (which seems a little high to me) but he also goes on to also blame the architecture of the PC, hardware manufactures, device drivers, biased reviewers and an ungrateful public for Iron Lore's failure. It's an interesting perspective on the problem, but on its own, it falls short of a compelling argument.
And if Fitch's figures are right, how come games like Assassin's Creed and Bioshock manage to turn a profit?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Anyone can use it.
Copyright doesn't require publication.
Copyright doesn't, but copying does. As I understand it, the reuse of a public domain work requires access to a copy. If the copyright owner never provided the public with access to a copy during the life of the copyright, how is the public supposed to make use of the work after the copyright expires?
I think copyright only applies to recordings (i.e. something must be on paper, tape, film, etc)
You're right that copyright starts when a work is fixed in a copy.* But the copyright owner doesn't have to distribute any copies of this work to the public to "enjoy" copyright. If no members of the public own a copy, how can they exercise the right under public domain to make more copies?
*Or phonorecord.
While that may be how it *should* be, the reality is rather different. Waiters are paid significantly less than workers that don't get tips. If they were actually paid wages equivalent to the work they're doing the up-front cost of getting food at a restaurant would be significantly higher.
Not tipping under these circumstances unless you receive absolutely terrible service is an asshole thing to do.
Re: His exaggeration - it's quite possible, I didn't know anyone there personally, but I did hear it more like fifthhand and not just from his press release. Even if the piracy rate was much lower than 90%, that they cited it as the reason for shuttering the whole company after making a pretty decent game (the best diablo clone since diablo 2) sort of is indicative of a problem, in my opinion.
Re: AC and Bioshock - because they were console games as well (primarily), and it's much more expensive and difficult to pirate console games than it is to pirate PC games.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Well, yes. There's always going to be some software piracy, and any software company that goes bust is always going to think "if only a few of those guys had actually paid for the product, we might still be in business".
But we also need to recognise that companies go bust all the time, even ones with good products. Not just in the software industry either. So the question becomes how much of a problem is piracy? If we accept that were never going to get rid of it entirely, where to do we draw the line and accept losses due to unlicenced distribution as part of the overhead? How far can we go on with measures like DRM and the DMCA before they start to become self defeating?
I have to say, I always feel somewhat in two minds on this subject. On the one hand, I'm a developer by trade, and I would hate to see people just help themseleves to the fruits of my labours. On the other hand ... I don't think this is an argument that we're going to win.
I don't think that trying to control software distribution is going to remain viable
as a way of recouping development costs for very much longer.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!