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Pirates Finding It Harder To Crack New PC Games (engadget.com)
schnell writes: Engadget reports that a few recent top-tier video game releases using updated DRM technology have gone uncracked for more than a month and left DRM hackers stymied thus far. The games FIFA 16 and Just Cause 3, using an updated DRM system called Denuvo, have thus far frustrated experienced Chinese crackers' best efforts far longer than the usual 1-2 weeks it takes for most games to be cracked. Although the article is light on technical details about what makes the new DRM system harder to defeat, it does note that "Based on the current pace of encryption tech, 'in two years time I'm afraid there will be no free games to play in the world,' said one forlorn pirate."
They are only gaining some critical time at launch
My other signature is a car
Don't know why parent was modded down so much. He/she should be modded up.
I don't agree with DRM, but the proper response to DRM'd games (if you don't believe in DRM) is simply not to buy them. It's not to steal them.
Probably because he sounds like a "tough on crime" advocate. Putting marijuana users in jail was bad enough. If you put every pirate in jail, then half of the US would be in jail right now. I'm not sure how you'd fund that.
"OMG, The Horror of expecting to be able to run a game I've paid for, but the DRM mess up so I can't and have to rely on third party cracks to get it to run"
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
I think the problem the mods are having with GP isn't so much about the sentiment, but the semantics. For right or wrong, there are people that don't see this form of piracy as stealing as it's generally thought that a software pirate wouldn't have been a lost sale since the software pirate wouldn't have bought the game to begin with. The people modding him down are probably the same ones that held the mantra "Copyright Infringement is NOT Theft" and shouted it across the lands of /. until their fingers fell off. Now they no longer have the fingers to type out yet another argument, so they just mouse click the down-mod on those who refused to listen to them.
Probably because he sounds like a "tough on crime" advocate. Putting marijuana users in jail was bad enough. If you put every pirate in jail, then half of the US would be in jail right now. I'm not sure how you'd fund that.
The problem is how you define "pirate".
Personally, I believe that everyone should pay for the content that is consumed be it a game, video, music, digital book, etc. Where I disagree over DRM is a combination of fair use and public rights. The DRM laws, as they stand today, are in direct conflict with the fair use doctrine and they prevent creations from becoming part of the public domain when abandoned. Under the current law, anyone bypassing DRM for these otherwise legal uses would still be branded a "pirate".
So, while I agree with the stance that crime should not pay, I can't, in good conscience, agree with the "tough on crime" stance given the current bad laws.
Except that most pirates are nothing like Jessie James. In fact, most evidence i have seen, both from studies and from my own experience is that the same teen and 20something pirating games 20 years ago is paying top dollar today now that he has a job and less time to play games.
In fact, the only people I have seen continueing to pirate much past that point have been both poor and physicaly disabled. Leaving them no extra money but plenty of time to consume volumes and volumes of media.
So basically.... as far as I can tell very little money is lost to piracy because anyone who can afford the game and wants to play it buys it. The only people who pirate it are the ones who wouldn't have otherwise bought it, generally because they couldn't afford to anyway.
So I can't imagine this issue actually matters at all, since the net result of it being different is almost 0.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
No, stealing stuff is leftist, unless you're stealing land out West to graze your cattle for free. Then it's divinely inspired patriotism.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Just wait for the sales and you can get that $60 game for $14 (or less). Unless you play on a console, in which case you don't care because your parents are paying for the games anyway.
Steam, GOG and others have made gaming reasonable enough for anyone.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not only that, but there are so many -cheap- games out there as well. And regular Steam sales--I spent about $20 and got 9 games during the winter sale. Stuff that was highly acclaimed when it came out, too.
You just have to be willing to pass on new releases and get them when they go on sale. By that point you can generally get the GOTY edition with all DLC as well.
I look forward to playing Fallout 4 for $15.
Copyright infringement is NOT theft. Read the legal definition of theft:
"n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale)."
To be the legal definition of theft, you must remove the item from the person's possession. That is why legally, it is called copyright infringement instead of "petty theft" or "grand theft" which would be the charges if it met that legal definition. So, for the hard of understanding, if I come and take your physical copy of your software without your permission, depriving you of its use, then it is theft; if I make a copy of your software, with or without your permission, but, do not deprive you of its use, then it is copyright infringement. Many companies have tried to make a case that copyright infringement is theft to the courts and they have failed to convince even one court that it is theft. Which is why they cannot use the term theft when talking about pirates because that is libel or slander (depending on the medium) as they would be accusing them of a crime they did not commit.
As far as the lost sales, the RIAA and MPAA's own studies showed that piracy does not typically hurt profits. Often the most pirated titles are also the highest grossing titles and the most prolific pirates are also their highest paying customers. There are exceptions such as bad movies, music and software. Once people realize how horrible something is, they're not going to pay money for it. Thanks to the internet, it is much harder to pedal garbage and make a profit. Between the internet and Germany changing their tax laws, it broke Ewe Bowl's business model. He couldn't make a profit on crap movies anymore so he went into the lawsuit business (extortion) instead.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -