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DRM Circumvention Now Lawful For More Devices
BUL2294 writes: The U.S. Library of Congress' Copyright Office has published their newest rules regarding DRM circumvention. Much to the chagrin of car makers and agricultural vehicle manufacturers, DRM circumvention, with the exception of telmatics ("black box") and entertainment systems, and anything that would run afoul of DOT or EPA regulations, is now allowed for "diagnosis, repair or lawful modification of a vehicle function." In addition, jailbreaking is now extended to tablets, wearables, and smart TVs, but not to single-purpose devices like e-readers. An exemption has been carved out for security researchers to hack cars, voting machines, and medical devices — as long as that device is not being used for its purpose and is in an isolated environment. Finally, owners of abandoned video games that require server authentication (where such authentication is no longer available) may also circumvent DRM. DRM circumvention is NOT allowed for jailbreaking gaming systems and e-readers, and does not allow for "format-shifting" (e.g. moving e-books from one platform to another).
The full text of the new rules is available online (PDF), and will be published in the Federal Register on October 28, 2015.
The full text of the new rules is available online (PDF), and will be published in the Federal Register on October 28, 2015.
I will time shift and format shift if I damn well please. The more you engage this unethical behavior, the less money I give you. Thank you. No, I mean thank you. For encouraging me to do other things.
If I can circumvent it, I will. I paid for it and it's mine. If you think you can stop me with your silly laws then you can go suck on a tailpipe.
TL;DR: Fuck you.
highlights.
If you think you can stop me with your silly laws then you can go suck on a tailpipe.
I hear VW is hiring software engineers for their diesel engine control units... You should apply....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yeah and what constitutes "dead"?
What if a game manufacturer keeps authentication servers up (because the authentication system is part of a larger auth system) but the actual game servers are down?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
As much as I hate the DMCA and DRM in general, I have to concede that at least some of what the Copyright office has proposed here are reasonable exemptions to DRM. Game authentication, unlocking tablets, etc. Kudos to them for that. I do understand it is a small victory, however, and easily reversible. But still, at least they are putting some thought into it and not just giving all DRM producers carte blanche.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
License to Private Server... but just for dead games?
Well, games with dead activation servers - not sure if it extends to server-centric games. It's good to know that if Steam ever goes under, the inevitable patches to remove all the Steam DRM will actually be legal (not that it would have mattered - I'm sure such patches are already floating around somewhere).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Nevermind, here is an excerpt:
Proposed Class 23: Abandoned Software – Video Games Requiring Server
Communication
Many modern video games—which may be played on a personal computer or a
dedicated gaming console—require a network connection to a remote server operated by
the game’s developer to enable core functionalities. Before some games can be played at
all, including in single-player mode, the game must connect to an “authentication server”
to verify that the game is a legitimate copy. Other games require a connection to a
“matchmaking server” to enable users to play the game with other people over the
internet in multiplayer mode. In the case of a game that relies on an authentication server,
the game may be rendered entirely unplayable if the server connection is lost. When a
matchmaking server is taken offline, the game may still be playable, though with online
multiplayer play disabled.
...
The Copyright Office set forth the following proposed exemption in the NPRM:
Proposed Class 23:
This proposed class would allow circumvention of
TPMs on lawfully acquired video games consisting of communication
with a developer-operated server for the purpose of either authentication
or to enable multiplayer matchmaking, where developer support for those
server communications has ended. This exception would not apply to
video games whose audiovisual content is primarily stored on the
developer’s server, such as massive multiplayer online role-playing games.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I'm not sure I understand the use case here. Is this a multi-player game that they host? If they turn off their game servers, and the game is a multi-player game, then it is essentially dead. (At least for multiplayer). Are you thinking of bnetd here, where you can recreate a multiplayer experience on a local server?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
... you mean in a year?
Alton Brown once said there's only one single-purpose tool in the kitchen—the fire extinguisher. There are NO single-purpose devices in the hands of makers (yeah, I'd still say "hackers"). E-readers have been converted for all sorts of other uses. That's a rather absurd exception to the exception. For that matter, XBMC started as a re-purpose of the XBox, did it not?
You can bet that if the DMCA were being created today, in perfect hindsight, no way would the lobbyists allow that kind of power to be given to a librarian.
Basically it applies to games where the "developer" part consists of an authentication server (to verify you have a legitimate copy of the game) and/or a matchmaking server (to find opponents), and other than that, no content is required of the server. The exemption is that if the developer stops providing either, you're allowed to hack the game to use your own.
This only applies to games where the developer involvement is limited to authentication and/or matchmaking. If the server part includes content (e.g., MMOs), then it does not apply
So a game that's pretty much self-contained is OK, but not one that requires external content.
To take a real life example - Microsoft killed multiplayer on Halo 2 for the original Xbox and Windows years ago. Under this exemption, it is legal to hack the game (but not the xbox!) to use your own server for authentication and matchmaking. But only for those versions, since the Xbone version is still operational..
Yeah and what constitutes "dead"?
It's a parrot that even Dr. McCoy can't revive.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For my riding inkjet printer. You plug in a dongle, and it prints out a one-time code you hold up to the scanner, which starts the engine. After all, we have to make sure the car won't strand anyone unexpectedly.
So basically, hacking old Command and Conquer games to enable multiplayer is ok, but not hacking Star Wars Galaxies (assuming it's not around anymore) to set up your own servers.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
TPP will take away.
Will that always be possible though. The games as installed are probably easy to crack, but the games before installation may be encrypted and thus vastly more difficult to deal with. Of course, you could torrent the whole thing, but that's likely to still remain illegal.
Why it is legal to implement it in these cases to start with?
No kidding. If I own a device (and I do own the device under the Doctrine of First Sale, regardless of what some bullshit unenforceable EULA allegedly says!), then its purpose is whatever I want it to be. If I decide my PS3 (not that I'd ever own a Sony product) is a supercomputer node, then it's a supercomputer node. If I decide my Kindle is a smartphone, then it's a smartphone.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hopefully this means Microsoft will need to clean up the mess after their Windows Live debacle. Lots of PC games were screwed by them pulling the plug.
If steam ever goes under and you don't have your full library downloaded, you're fucked anyway ya dingus.
Was this troll piece "written" by Racter?
I wonder what MMO they are referencing there that has audiovisual content primarily stored on the game servers. Every MMO I've ever played has kept all of that on your computer and the game server just tells your computer where your character is on the map. All of the 3d models, textures, sounds, and maps are stored on your computer. All the rendering is done on your computer, the only things the game server typically provides is coordinate data for characters and mobs, spews out numbers from the random number generator, and signals events for scripted things, and of course tracks all the stats for your character.
I played one called "A Tale in the Desert" that stored a lot on the server. Players could custom-build houses, build sculptures, etc, so the base map (stored on the players' computers) just had the terrain. Second Life stores everything on the company's servers and streams it to players as they move through the game world.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
... but you circumvent for genuinely personal and private use, how the heck would anyone else even know you ever did it, let alone prosecute you?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Wow. That's.... reasonable. What's the catch?
Part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop -- something like "but this only applies to licensed security developers, the license for which costs $100K and takes three years to get".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Well, you'd have to post to some public forum talking about... it... uh oh.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Browser-based MMOs at least.
With online-only games like Call of Duty, SW Battlefront and MMOs galore being the norm now, I don't think there's much fear that players will be able to run zombie game servers after the dev company has called it quits.
If steam ever goes under and you don't have your full library downloaded, you're fucked anyway ya dingus.
Well, yeah, but that true with every online service ever. Or for that matter, all the game CDs I've lost or damaged over the years. Hardly a knock against Steam (or GoG for that matter, which doesn't have DRM in the first place).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"In addition, jailbreaking is now extended to tablets, wearables, and smart TVs, but not to single-purpose devices like e-readers."
Given that my Kindle Paperwhite has a web browser built-in, by what measure is it a single-purpose device?
I knew I needed to stop reading Slashdot and finish my PhD when I started to miss articles by Bennett Haselton.
Of course... but if they don't actually talk about it with anyone else, or share the results of their work with anyone, then any laws prohibiting circumvention are unenforceable in that context.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Vanilla WoW is an example of a game "that require server authentication (where such authentication is no longer available)". I don't want to upgrade to your shitty new version, Blizzard. Thank goodness for Mangos and Trinity.
Even with the quashing of bnetd there is a thriving community of people who develop and promote WoW servers that are non-blizzard. If you want to play an older version of WoW at a Lan party, or WoW as a single player game (it's a pretty decent single-player RPG, an aspect of the game that actually only has gotten worse as new Expansions came out) it's fairly trivial to download and set up a MySQL based server.
Maybe it's weird, but some of us have zero interest in WoW endgame and end up just rolling a new toon at level cap. Blizzard spends considerable effort making sure the paying 'player base' think of private server operators as 'the scum of the earth' and it makes sense in a way, because I for one wouldn't connect to a private server run by someone I didn't know personally with Blizzard's shitty binaries. But I'm also done connecting to Blizzard, and I love playing in Azeroth the way it is before they ruined it with Cataclysm.
There are lots of WoW private servers. The only problem with them, from a player's point of view, is that you're running Blizzard's shitty old binaries when you connect to them. This new law could make it more legal for people to dig into the old WoW binaries (it would probably mainly be patchlevels 1.12.1 and 3.3.5a) and plug holes and vulnerabilities. Releasing a new security patchlevel cap for 1.12.1 and 3.3.5a would make it less dangerous to connect to a private server, and this law should make said reverse engineering legal.
A whole lot of the games on Steam are already available DRM-free if you buy them at gog.com. I now ALWAYS check there first to buy an unlocked copy before even considering buying the game at Steam.
There is the added bonus that you don't wander into the numerous 'pre-release' ripoffs if you browse around on gog instead of Steam.
The beauty of buying games at GoG instead of Steam is that you download the installers from them. Archive away all the installers and you're good for the rest of your life (and beyond).
if the game servers are down then the game servers are down and you can hack that part of it.
more interesting is what they mean with game system.
there is essentially no difference in functionality in regards of games and apps with ps4 or xbox one and ipad. neither of them is purely a gaming device. basically the kindle is the only thing that would with the cant circumvent...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Remember ALL these exemptions only last 3 years, and must be explicitly renewed by the Library of Congress. And so far, I believe they renew less than half of the exemptions from the previous 3 year period.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
FireFall is one. Supposedly to keep the patch downloads small they stream the high-res textures to you dynamically. There is a community hack for this where some folks were building a high-res texture pack, but it usually has to be rebuilt with every patch, and it's pretty large (think it was around 30GB, but has been a while since I played it).
So basically this means that you can crack your games so they keep on working if any of these services go under within the next 3 years and the individual game developers don't alter or strip the DRM out?
A whole lot of the games on Steam are already available DRM-free if you buy them at gog.com. I now ALWAYS check there first to buy an unlocked copy before even considering buying the game at Steam.
humblebundle.com will often give you drm free downloads and a steam key, though less so for the aaa games where i've noticed a lot of key only sales
snake