Toilet seat's a stupid argument. Close the fucking LID, not just the seat. Or do you like water containing urine and feces splashing all over the place?
And, ah, if your toilet is splashing "all over the place" you might want to adjust your flap valve.
Toilet seat's a stupid argument. Close the fucking LID, not just the seat. Or do you like water containing urine and feces splashing all over the place?
Oh go ahead and tell me that just about every pirate is of good conscious and is only interested in "try before you buy" and that if they like it they'll buy it. (Because there's no such thing as demos.)
-1 Missed Point. If you're a game publisher (of anything, books, media, video games, whatever) copyright infringement is a fact of life. Wherever you stand on the subject, it's just something that publishers have to deal with as a cost of doing business. So, within that context, what are the risks of alienating legitimate customers with DRM? Fairly high... and as I said in another post in this thread, it's a trade-off.
I've purchased a number of PC games over the years, and if I decided I liked the game enough to keep playing it, I would immediate go out and download a cracked copy. I used to crack them myself back in the eighties but I don't have time or interest in that anymore, and besides, in the pre-Internet days the game producers had no control over that software once I had bought it.
So yes, I download cracked games. I'll tell you why too: it's because I don't trust these people not to screw me over and leave me with a useless plastic disc, that's why. Until they wake up and realize that the people who gave them their hard-earned dollars deserve some respect, their actual customers will still be hitting torrent sites.
To me, the real target is to kill used video games.
In France, 40% of video games sold are used games. For every used game sold, the game editor gets ZERO. But video games recyclers get a important commission and every time a customer gets it their shop to resell his game, it's the occasion to sell him goodies, accessories and useless insurances.
That's definitely an issue... game publishers seem to feel that they should get a cut of every single single transaction involving that original disc. That's just blind greed and goes against, well, a couple hundred years of law and tradition in the U.S., at least. Of course, if everything is online (like Steam) then there's no problem. Nobody owns anything that can be physically transferred from one person to another. The real problem is that they keep charging for their products as if they are actually selling something, when in fact they're just effectively renting it.
Legit purchases have been known to come with malware too, there have been various cases of storage devices being shipped out with malware preinstalled for instance.
Up until the Internet went public, the only major cases of malware release were on commercial software. There was a computer outfit near me back in the early 90's that was selling blank 5 1/4" floppy disks by the hundreds of thousands... all of which were conveniently pre-infected with a boot-sector virus.
Their DRM is very easily circumvented, though: ether and duct tape.
No, you're talking about the security system (i.e. User Access Control.) I'm talking about the built in Digital Restrictions Management that members of the fairer sex often apply to their mates ("don't stop at the bar on the way home", "don't leave the dishes in the sink", "put the toilet seat DOWN! when you're done" "keep your eyes off her tits!", etc. etc.... etc.)
No matter how good it may seem now, it will come back to screw you. It is still DRM, it just has a happy face painted on it.
Yes, I agree with you about Steam, and Valve Corporation in general. What you are describing here is the difference between copy protection (which is the avowed reason that companies employ this crap) and Digital Rights Management. Game publishers that want complete, unquestioned real-time control of purchased content resident on your computer have gone way too far in my opinion, and it's just wrong. That applies to everything, not just games. Remember how Amazon removed access to an e-book on the Kindle, after the customers had paid for it? This is a level of control over the customer that sets the MPAA/RIAA drooling on their respective bibs.
Now, having said that, it would feel differently if I were renting a game product (i.e., software as a service) by paying a small monthly fee. I'm just paying for access. I get thoroughly torqued off, however, when I spend fifty or a hundred bucks on a disc, and then get told that a. I have to have an Internet connection to activate or use it and b. find that my use of the product can be revoked or modified at any time, and for that matter that the content can be swapped out at their whim. That's just ridiculous, but that's what they want. I say don't give it to them.
Sure, local server is probably trivial to make given enough time. But if the game streams content, code or other data from the server when it needs to in the game
Well, you're kinda blurring the line between legitimate online activities (this is an Internet game after all) and DRM. If the game is dependent upon remote content because it's an online game, well, that's one thing. But if I have a product that is capable of being played offline, but requires an active Internet connection solely for the purposes of Digital Restriction and Monitoring... screw that.
There are lots of DRM-free sources of entertainment
You know, this being Slashdot and continuing with the "nerd in his parent's basement" theme, I would say that finding a girlfriend would qualify, but I've discovered that only very rarely do girlfriends come without some form of DRM.
This sucks. The only way I was gonna play this game was warezed!
Hardly flamebait. If the warez scene offers a substantially more friendly product than the publisher, that publisher should consider rethinking its position.
Considering that DRM never works yet always pisses off some consumers, wouldn't the sweet spot then be no DRM?
Rob
Not at all. It's a tradeoff. I won't buy copy-protected software on principle: if I can't make copies for my own use then it's of no use to me. I'll find a more reasonable vendor. If there isn't one, then I'll do without. For example, I would never buy a copy-protected or DRM'ed accounting program: too risky. Remember the Product Activation debacle that Intuit Corporation suffered some years ago? On the other hand, for many people (most people, I'd say, particularly in the gaming industry and music-download business) DRM that doesn't cause too many obvious problems is acceptable. The market will decide very quickly whether games with this sort of over-the-top protection will survive. Personally, I think this just shows that corporation to be owned and operated by dicks, and I find it's best not to buy from dicks if you can avoid it.
It's all about finding the sweet spot. DRM is invariably going to piss of a certain number of paying users but if you piss off too many you lose revenue, or worse yet, if your product gets a rep for being unreliable... you're throwing away potential customers. DRM is a risky game to play, and if you're gonna do it you better make damn sure it works.
That is not as easy as you make it sound. It's a very difficult and expensive procedure, and you still end up with a lot of weapons grade fissionable material, which is a lot easier to steal when it's not part of a weapon.
Regardless, the reason that we have been able to implement significant force reductions since the Cold War days is because of our nuclear arsenal. If we give that away (and I hope we don't) then conventional forces become the deciding factor once again. That's not necessarily a good thing, in fact it can put even more of us at risk, and might even make a war more likely. Conventional weapons can kill a lot of people too, it just takes a little longer.
Besides which, it's not just the terrorists, it's the people. If Iran were really a nation of terrorists -- if every single person in Iran was a terrorist -- we'd all be dead b
Or Iran would be glowing in the dark. But that's irrelevant. The problem with terrorism (with destruction in general) is that it's so much easier and less expensive than it's antithesis, creation. It takes an entire people to build a civilization, to build something lasting... but only a fraction of that number to bring it all crashing down.
That's the problem with terrorists. It really doesn't take that many.
Not to mention, if Google pulls out, China would have a more difficult time to steal their IP to build
a comparable search engine.
I'm only half-kidding
I don't think China would have a hard time making their own Google. The basics are in the public patent Google has on their page rank algorithm.
Even if China blocked Google it wouldn't mean that a state backed effort to emulate Google couldn't be given access.
Oh, I think it would be more difficult than you think. Give Google credit for developing some pretty sophisticated stuff, and they're a damn tight-lipped outfit... that patent is probably not that relevant anymore. The basics mean nothing when deploying Web applications on the scale that Google does every day. Sure, China could eventually duplicate Google's technology, but it wouldn't happen overnight, and they'd have to make a similar investment. Which is fine: they've been availing themselves of Google's services for free, and if they're not going to provide an environment in which Google's management wishes to operate, they'll just have to deal with the consequences.
No, it was put in place because large employers(like MS) used the contracting umbrella to hire employees and dodge taxes and health care.
If you get a contract, and are actually a contractor, then you wont' have any problems.
It was put in place as a favor to IBM. The Congressman who originally submitted the bill tried to have it rescinded a year later, but failed. Seventy Congresspeople since (including Ted Kennedy) have since tried to repeal it, but haven't been able to muster the votes.
they would still be around today, and they would probably be doing at least as well as China is.
Unlikely. The U.S.S.R never developed anywhere near the commercial economy that is required to truly support a major high-technology military. They were not (and still are not) willing to allow their people enough elbow room to actually create something for themselves. Matter of fact, I would venture to say that China is doing so well because they learned from the negative example offered by the Soviet Empire, and are not making the same mistakes. Good for them, not so good for us (or the Russians, for that matter.)
No we need an "American party". This partisan crap is getting as bad as all the nut-bag religions.
Not exactly. Like Lewis Black said, "The only thing stupider than a Republican, or a Democrat, is when these little pricks work together." That's why bipartisanship is good for the country. See, we already have more bad law than we could ever possibly use, so I prefer it when they waste time and energy arguing over some stupid bill rather than actually passing it.
Slashdot Mirror
and if you find a girfriend without DRM on her sweet spot, she will likely have a virus problem
In which case, you whip out your trojan SDK (STD Defense Kit) and using the supplied API (Apply Properly, Idiot) and continue with the operation.
Seat and lid is the rule in our house, and it applies to both genders.
Well, regardless of your particular gender, you've pretty much confirmed my hypothesis about feminine DRM.
Toilet seat's a stupid argument. Close the fucking LID, not just the seat. Or do you like water containing urine and feces splashing all over the place?
And, ah, if your toilet is splashing "all over the place" you might want to adjust your flap valve.
Weird. My girlfriends always come with a big guy who'll beat me up if I don't pay.
Ah ... I hate to break it to you, but those might not be actual girlfriends.
As the great Jerry Seinfeld once said, "But there's nothing wrong with that!"
Toilet seat's a stupid argument. Close the fucking LID, not just the seat. Or do you like water containing urine and feces splashing all over the place?
[-1 Missed Point & -1 Pedantic]
Free of charge sure is friendly.
Oh go ahead and tell me that just about every pirate is of good conscious and is only interested in "try before you buy" and that if they like it they'll buy it. (Because there's no such thing as demos.)
-1 Missed Point. If you're a game publisher (of anything, books, media, video games, whatever) copyright infringement is a fact of life. Wherever you stand on the subject, it's just something that publishers have to deal with as a cost of doing business. So, within that context, what are the risks of alienating legitimate customers with DRM? Fairly high ... and as I said in another post in this thread, it's a trade-off.
I've purchased a number of PC games over the years, and if I decided I liked the game enough to keep playing it, I would immediate go out and download a cracked copy. I used to crack them myself back in the eighties but I don't have time or interest in that anymore, and besides, in the pre-Internet days the game producers had no control over that software once I had bought it.
So yes, I download cracked games. I'll tell you why too: it's because I don't trust these people not to screw me over and leave me with a useless plastic disc, that's why. Until they wake up and realize that the people who gave them their hard-earned dollars deserve some respect, their actual customers will still be hitting torrent sites.
Just a fact of life.
Dude, his subject is -1 flamebait, he wasn't modded as flamebait. I thought the same thing you did at first.
Yeah, he got me with that one. Dammit. I clicked Submit and said, "shit!"
To me, the real target is to kill used video games. In France, 40% of video games sold are used games. For every used game sold, the game editor gets ZERO. But video games recyclers get a important commission and every time a customer gets it their shop to resell his game, it's the occasion to sell him goodies, accessories and useless insurances.
That's definitely an issue ... game publishers seem to feel that they should get a cut of every single single transaction involving that original disc. That's just blind greed and goes against, well, a couple hundred years of law and tradition in the U.S., at least. Of course, if everything is online (like Steam) then there's no problem. Nobody owns anything that can be physically transferred from one person to another. The real problem is that they keep charging for their products as if they are actually selling something, when in fact they're just effectively renting it.
Bloodsuckers, all of them.
Legit purchases have been known to come with malware too, there have been various cases of storage devices being shipped out with malware preinstalled for instance.
Up until the Internet went public, the only major cases of malware release were on commercial software. There was a computer outfit near me back in the early 90's that was selling blank 5 1/4" floppy disks by the hundreds of thousands ... all of which were conveniently pre-infected with a boot-sector virus.
Their DRM is very easily circumvented, though: ether and duct tape.
No, you're talking about the security system (i.e. User Access Control.) I'm talking about the built in Digital Restrictions Management that members of the fairer sex often apply to their mates ("don't stop at the bar on the way home", "don't leave the dishes in the sink", "put the toilet seat DOWN! when you're done" "keep your eyes off her tits!", etc. etc. ... etc.)
No matter how good it may seem now, it will come back to screw you. It is still DRM, it just has a happy face painted on it.
Yes, I agree with you about Steam, and Valve Corporation in general. What you are describing here is the difference between copy protection (which is the avowed reason that companies employ this crap) and Digital Rights Management. Game publishers that want complete, unquestioned real-time control of purchased content resident on your computer have gone way too far in my opinion, and it's just wrong. That applies to everything, not just games. Remember how Amazon removed access to an e-book on the Kindle, after the customers had paid for it? This is a level of control over the customer that sets the MPAA/RIAA drooling on their respective bibs.
Now, having said that, it would feel differently if I were renting a game product (i.e., software as a service) by paying a small monthly fee. I'm just paying for access. I get thoroughly torqued off, however, when I spend fifty or a hundred bucks on a disc, and then get told that a. I have to have an Internet connection to activate or use it and b. find that my use of the product can be revoked or modified at any time, and for that matter that the content can be swapped out at their whim. That's just ridiculous, but that's what they want. I say don't give it to them.
I'll go a step further. I'm not buying this game. I'm not pirating this game. This game is not getting my money, my time, or my tactic approval.
Screwmaster says: A++
I can tell you're a gamer because you misspelled "tacit" as "tactic", but other than that your post is dead-on.
Sure, local server is probably trivial to make given enough time. But if the game streams content, code or other data from the server when it needs to in the game
Well, you're kinda blurring the line between legitimate online activities (this is an Internet game after all) and DRM. If the game is dependent upon remote content because it's an online game, well, that's one thing. But if I have a product that is capable of being played offline, but requires an active Internet connection solely for the purposes of Digital Restriction and Monitoring ... screw that.
There are lots of DRM-free sources of entertainment
You know, this being Slashdot and continuing with the "nerd in his parent's basement" theme, I would say that finding a girlfriend would qualify, but I've discovered that only very rarely do girlfriends come without some form of DRM.
This sucks. The only way I was gonna play this game was warezed!
Hardly flamebait. If the warez scene offers a substantially more friendly product than the publisher, that publisher should consider rethinking its position.
Considering that DRM never works yet always pisses off some consumers, wouldn't the sweet spot then be no DRM?
Rob
Not at all. It's a tradeoff. I won't buy copy-protected software on principle: if I can't make copies for my own use then it's of no use to me. I'll find a more reasonable vendor. If there isn't one, then I'll do without. For example, I would never buy a copy-protected or DRM'ed accounting program: too risky. Remember the Product Activation debacle that Intuit Corporation suffered some years ago? On the other hand, for many people (most people, I'd say, particularly in the gaming industry and music-download business) DRM that doesn't cause too many obvious problems is acceptable. The market will decide very quickly whether games with this sort of over-the-top protection will survive. Personally, I think this just shows that corporation to be owned and operated by dicks, and I find it's best not to buy from dicks if you can avoid it.
It's all about finding the sweet spot. DRM is invariably going to piss of a certain number of paying users but if you piss off too many you lose revenue, or worse yet, if your product gets a rep for being unreliable ... you're throwing away potential customers. DRM is a risky game to play, and if you're gonna do it you better make damn sure it works.
nd the obvious response is, dismantle the nukes.
That is not as easy as you make it sound. It's a very difficult and expensive procedure, and you still end up with a lot of weapons grade fissionable material, which is a lot easier to steal when it's not part of a weapon.
Regardless, the reason that we have been able to implement significant force reductions since the Cold War days is because of our nuclear arsenal. If we give that away (and I hope we don't) then conventional forces become the deciding factor once again. That's not necessarily a good thing, in fact it can put even more of us at risk, and might even make a war more likely. Conventional weapons can kill a lot of people too, it just takes a little longer.
Besides which, it's not just the terrorists, it's the people. If Iran were really a nation of terrorists -- if every single person in Iran was a terrorist -- we'd all be dead b
Or Iran would be glowing in the dark. But that's irrelevant. The problem with terrorism (with destruction in general) is that it's so much easier and less expensive than it's antithesis, creation. It takes an entire people to build a civilization, to build something lasting ... but only a fraction of that number to bring it all crashing down.
That's the problem with terrorists. It really doesn't take that many.
Not to mention, if Google pulls out, China would have a more difficult time to steal their IP to build a comparable search engine.
I'm only half-kidding
I don't think China would have a hard time making their own Google. The basics are in the public patent Google has on their page rank algorithm.
Even if China blocked Google it wouldn't mean that a state backed effort to emulate Google couldn't be given access.
Oh, I think it would be more difficult than you think. Give Google credit for developing some pretty sophisticated stuff, and they're a damn tight-lipped outfit ... that patent is probably not that relevant anymore. The basics mean nothing when deploying Web applications on the scale that Google does every day. Sure, China could eventually duplicate Google's technology, but it wouldn't happen overnight, and they'd have to make a similar investment. Which is fine: they've been availing themselves of Google's services for free, and if they're not going to provide an environment in which Google's management wishes to operate, they'll just have to deal with the consequences.
In other news, Google has decided to pull out of China. A frustrated China could not be reached for comment.
No, it was put in place because large employers(like MS) used the contracting umbrella to hire employees and dodge taxes and health care.
If you get a contract, and are actually a contractor, then you wont' have any problems.
It was put in place as a favor to IBM. The Congressman who originally submitted the bill tried to have it rescinded a year later, but failed. Seventy Congresspeople since (including Ted Kennedy) have since tried to repeal it, but haven't been able to muster the votes.
they would still be around today, and they would probably be doing at least as well as China is.
Unlikely. The U.S.S.R never developed anywhere near the commercial economy that is required to truly support a major high-technology military. They were not (and still are not) willing to allow their people enough elbow room to actually create something for themselves. Matter of fact, I would venture to say that China is doing so well because they learned from the negative example offered by the Soviet Empire, and are not making the same mistakes. Good for them, not so good for us (or the Russians, for that matter.)
No we need an "American party". This partisan crap is getting as bad as all the nut-bag religions.
Not exactly. Like Lewis Black said, "The only thing stupider than a Republican, or a Democrat, is when these little pricks work together." That's why bipartisanship is good for the country. See, we already have more bad law than we could ever possibly use, so I prefer it when they waste time and energy arguing over some stupid bill rather than actually passing it.
If you're not firing up the furnace and making ready to beat your plowshares into swords, you're not doing enough.
Swords? What good are swords. I'm beating my plowshares into cruise missiles. When they come for me, I'm taking them all out!