Slashdot Mirror
Federal Trade Commission To Scrutinize DRM
Ars Technica reports that the FTC is getting ready to take a hard look at gaming DRM, setting up a town hall meeting to be held on March 25th. They're currently recruiting panelists, and they say the meeting will, in part, "address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations." The controversy over DRM came to a head in 2008 with the release of Spore and the multiple subsequent class-action lawsuits focusing on the SecuROM software that came with the game. Ars Technica says the town hall meeting will also look at "legal issues surrounding DRM" and "the potential need for government involvement to protect consumers."
These kind of stories swing both ways, and we've had literally dozens of "Finally the pendulum swings the other way moments" that have amounted to nothing more than blips across the radar... But I can't help but optimistically wonder if this is the start of a trend fighting back against corporate abuse of us, the customer? For several years now, I (and probably you) have been inured to new stories about corporation X doing new thing Y to screw customer z, and the news story hasn't even batted an eyelash because we're not surprised. Now the RIAA is backpedaling, and DRM is getting an appropriate scrutinizing. =) Its a good start to 2009!
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/20/178259
Go read it. Seriously. The author has many good point, and this panel only highlights the points he makes.
The /. comments on this article are spot on, in the sense that most of them are knee-jerk reactions predicted all along the article. Sad.
At the very least, the FTC should make it illegal to advertise any product infected with DRM as a "sale" as opposed to a "rental" or "lease". As it's impossible to own them, that's false advertising.
At the very least, the FTC should make it illegal to sell software that hides itself and makes it difficult or impossible to remove when you are done with it.
Uninstalling the game should not leave your PC in a reduced functionality state.
The FTC should also require the game to isolate the game functions from the rest of the computer functions. Playing a game and exiting should never leave your CD burner inop.
The truth shall set you free!
Stop buying them. Last I checked, computer games aren't necessary for living. If it's gotten to the point where it is this painful to buy and play them, then stop. This isn't rocket science. If a retailer has a product that you don't want, then don't purchase it. If you're unsure, do yourself a favor and don't rush out and buy it- wait and see how others react to it.
If it hasn't gotten to that point, then stop complaining.
But for God's sake, stop relying on businesses and the government to protect you from bad purchases. Ultimately, that's your responsibility.
There is very little case law protecting consumer fair use with video games, as compared with audio and video.
I'd have thought that was an argument in favour of starting with video games.
OK, so all DRM is bad, but the real horror stories (malware, limited installs, mandatory internet connections) have been with games.
The Spore case is a particularly clear example of DRM pissing off legitimate consumers while failing to deter (and possibly encouraging) large-scale illicit copying.
Also, whereas issues with Audio/Video DRM are normally to do with caselaw-based "fair use" rights such as format-shifting, the problems with video game DRM have been more fundamental "fitness for purpose" variety. I'm not defending audio/video DRM, but pragmatically speaking, audio DRM seems to be dying off by itself and "your lousy game broke my perfectly standard PC" is going to get more public sympathy than "why can't I watch HD content on Linux?".
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I don't mind product keys. Sure, they are a little silly, easy to bypass, and can be a pain when you loose them, but they aren't very intrusive after you've entered them. Windows XP wasn't bad. Vista is near the edge between good and bad.
(editing and emphasis mine)
Reinstall 98 and you need a key. Sure its easy to bypass, but a legitimate user never experiences a diminishment in functionality from reinstalling and using the product they purchased.
Reinstall XP and you need a key. That key may or may not authorize. To even find out, you either need an internet connection (not too hard in this day and age), or a telephone connection and you have to sit on the phone and wait. If the system doesn't automatically reauthorize (I had this happen the third time I upgraded my system when the motherboard had blown and it meant I had to replace the Motherboard, CPU and memory), then you have to call and explain to them why you should be allowed to use the product you purchased, even though you are installing a legitimate key.
The line that MS crossed was deciding that legitimate keys could only be used "so many times" some where in an algorithm.
This is a diminution of services, and is about the only major erk with XP I currently have. Fortunately they carried it forward to Vista which made my upgrade path more of a migration issue to another OS.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
A DVD or Bluray player, right out of the box, implements DRM. It doesn't need modification, because it comes pre-crippled. When the user buys a shiny disc and inserts it (and executes code from it, in the case of Bluray) nothing unexpectedly bad can happen. The player device is not damaged.
On personal computers, though, the situation is altogether different. DRM isn't already implemented out-of-the-box; installing malware is the only way to implement it. When you install Spore, your software environment is damaged, even when you're not playing Spore.
FTC shouldn't talk about this as a discussion of DRM itself, because DRM problems will still exist regardless of anything FTC does. They should instead call it a discussion about malware that implements the DRM.
This is ultimately about what labeling conventions imply consent on the part of the victim. If there isn't informed consent, then what Spore's publishers did is a crime, so there should be both criminal and civil sanctions, just like there would be if the author of some spam botnet worm were caught. If there is informed consent, then the victim isn't a victim of crime, they're just a victim of their own stupidity because they bought Spore when they should have known better.
Hopefully the outcome will be that the FTC will say that any software that is sold over state lines, will have to have a label on the outside of the box and in all advertisements: "this contains malware and will damage your operating system if installed" in situations where that happens to be the case.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
This post is really great, how it manages to remain on the edge of trolling, but you're not quite sure.
Well, I might be feeding the trolls today, but if the poster was serious, he also forgot that little thing, you know, what was it? "Totally destroying the resale value and second-hand market"? Yes, that's it!
That and GGP is nothing more than a thinly veiled troll as well. Pretty much all the +5's I remember from that were very simple.. "you, the author of this article, are either a moron or deliberately disingenuous"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Not me.
I'd like to see a new Digital Millineum Copyright Act that actually made sense. My DMCA would state that any work protected by technological means automatically loses its copyright on the grounds that it needs no legal protection.
You have copyright? You don't need DRM. You have DRM? You don't need copyright.
I'd also like to see copyrights expire after 20 years. Jimi Hendrix' music, JRR Tolkein's books, DOS 2.0, Disney's Fantasia, all should be in the public domain. That is, after all, why the US Constutution grants Congress the privelege of making copyright in the first place.
Free Martian Whores!
Allow me to translate:
Ars Technica reports that the FTC is getting ready to take a hard look at gaming DRM, setting up a town hall meeting to be held on March 25th. They're currently recruiting panelists, and they say the meeting will, in part, "address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations."
A longer legal notice will be included with each product (alongside the warnings about not sticking a fork in electric sockets or using the device as a parachute when jumping from an airplane) thus making it less likely to be read by comsumers, less likely to be understood if they do read it, and written in a smaller font so it can still fit on the same amount of paper.
The controversy over DRM came to a head in 2008 with the release of Spore and the multiple subsequent class-action lawsuits focusing on the SecuROM software that came with the game. Ars Technica says the town hall meeting will also look at "legal issues surrounding DRM"
New laws will be written to protect the makers of Spore, SecuROM and other DRM enabled or enabling technology from the evils of class action lawsuits that would otherwise result when consumers find they can't use the products they have paid for.
and "the potential need for government involvement to protect consumers."
Consumers will be protected from the higher prices that result when people are able to use a purchased product more than once. By making sure people can only use a product one time, people will need to keep repurchasing the same item over and over, allowing manufacturers to produce larger numbers of the same item and sell these items at a volume discount.
The phrase government involvement may scare some readers, but don't worry! Those generous manufacturers, who only want to keep our prices low after all, will be watching the FTC, providing donations to the right lawmakers, all to make sure that consumer interests are protected every step of the way.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
FAIL.
I bought Game X. I installed Game X. I consented to Game X I never knew that I was also installing SecureROM. It never tells you on the package nor in the EULA nor in the installer. That's unauthorized computer usage. That's completely criminal.
Consenting to something does not mean I'm consenting to everything.
I find being offended by me offensive.
The pissing people off aspect isn't really even the problem. The market will sort that stuff out eventually as people stop buying products from companies that make using their products a pain in the ass.
Publisher: People are not buying games for PC or they are just pirating due to DRM.
Developer: Well how about we turn all our focus for game development to consoles and fuck everyone over who enjoys PC gaming. If there is a big enough demand maybe we can give the PC gamers a terrible watered down console port that barely works with even more DRM. This way they will just go buy the console version.
Publisher: Great idea!!! We'll get right on that start making the squeal to "Epic FPS PC game" for the consoles. Make sure to dumb the game play and storyline down to the average console gamers attention span and IQ. If the PC gamers don't like it, fuck em we'll give them the shitty port a year later with SecuROM, CD-Keys, Online account creations and require six logins to different web services before they can play.
The problem is that you have to ask at all.
You are a perfect example of the industry wearing down the consumer. XP is NEAR the point of bad?!?!?!? XP is over the top bad! The fact that anyone would have to call the manufacturer to get permission to install something they bought is absolution wrong. The fact that when MS eventually decides to stop supporting the authentication servers, the product you bought will stop working is simply criminal. I expect that before shutting down their servers, they will just start racheting up the number of "false positives". We will continue to hear about how lots of people don't have a problem, but enough will that it will be less effort to just buy a new version of Windows than spend your time waiting on hold.
I'm not trying to insult you here. Just point out that scumbags have tricked you into accepting abuse. You are a victim.
That's a nice idea, but the only reason DRM exists is because law enforcement isn't perfect
DRM does not and cannot work. It only tends to inconvience the paying customer while doing nothing whatever to slow copyright infringement. DRM is a padlock with the key hanging from a chain attached to the padlock. As limited as law enforcent may be, DRM does not help a single whit.
Sony's ill-fated XCP had the price of having every single customer whose equipment was ruined by it swear to never ever buy another Sony product again. I'm a good example - I paid $1000 for a Sony Trinitron; I'd bought a Sony boom box, walkman, diskman, and God knows what other Sony products.
Then my daughter, who worked in a record store, brought a CD home, and the only CD player was the PC's CDROM. As I'd shut off autoplay and she trusted the record label, she actually ran one of the programs on the disk. Fixing it cost me hardware replacemet, software replacement, and God knows how many hours of my time.
As a rusult, I will never EVER buy another Sony product of any kind again. They have shown themselves to be a company run by sociopaths who install a rootkit on their paying customers' computers. I would be an idiot to buy anything from them.
The sad part is, the dumbasses probably didn't realize how evil that particular brand of DRM (which ironically and hypocritically included FOSS software, itself being a copyright infringement) was malware.
If your company uses DRM, you are putting your company in danger of making enemies of your faithful customers.
Before the digital age, there was no DRM but there was copyright infringement. Law enforcement handled it well enough that no company ever went broke as a result of not having it.
DRM is brain dead stupid. If you buy a product using DRM, you are giving your money to morons.
Free Martian Whores!
That is because you have been desensitized to the abuse your received.
About a week after my son's second birthday, I formatted his hard drive and gave him a copy of Ubuntu Linux. He sat down and installed his OS with no help and no problems. You, presumably a full grown adult, had to call the manufacturer to get help installing your OS. You were reduced to a lower level of competency than a two year old child.
The reason that you could not accomplish the same task as a 2 year old must be attributed one of the two factors that was different. 1) The person doing the install. Or 2) The OS being installed.
Now, while I like to think that my kid is exceptionally smart, I don't for a second believe that your intelligence is less than a 2 year old. That leaves the fact that you did have a problem with the software, and just didn't realize it.
You're trying to apply proven business logic to the media industry. Your logic is sound but the media industry is not logical, any industry that entirely relies on comoditising something that is not tangible and has no intrinsic value is not logical.
a) DRM is not being perceived as a cost by the major publishers. The DRM peddlers keep dragging out these horrifying statistics about infringement from their arses in order to prove that a A$20 per disk license is actually saving them money. This will not change, even when Executive Directors become penniless.
b) You're assuming that publishers listen to their customers. The only people they have to listen to are the legion of uninformed stockholders. These stockholders are shown the same statistics, don't know anything about the subject at hand, have a knee jerk reaction and demand something be done. Private corporations like Stardock don't have this problem and actually listen to their customers.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.