Mass Hysteria over Mass Effect PC DRM
If you are a PC gamer and a RPG fan you are likely very excited about the upcoming release of Bioware’s Mass Effect. I was thrilled that it was being released a mere 6 months after coming out as an XBOX360 ‘exclusive’, and have had it on my ‘buy on day of release’ list ever since. However, if you take a look on Bioware’s forums or Amazon’s product page or pretty well anywhere PC games are discussed, you will find massive threads calling for a boycott of the game and a general tar-and-feathering of everyone at EA and Bioware. Why? What is the cause for all this hysteria about the game? DRM, or Digital Rights Management.
There have been billions of words written about the impact of piracy on PC gaming. There have also been countless words written against DRM in pretty much every media from music to movies to video games. They all seem to boil down to two things: the rights and needs of companies to protect against theft, and the principle that a customer should be able to enjoy a product they purchase without unnecessary encumbrance and without being treated like an assumed criminal.
So what is the DRM that comes along with Mass Effect that is getting everyone so upset?
- SecuROM: this system installs files and hidden registry keys that actively monitor how you use your computer. The goal is to be sure you aren’t trying to use a DVD-copy of the game disk.
- Online Activation: you need to be online and some form of information ‘hash code’ regarding your license and system configuration is stored somewhere.
- Limited installs / activations: you can only activate three times, and it is possible to alter your system in a way that requires a new activation. So you might try to play the game, learn you need a new video card, then use up a second activation to get it running.
- No DVD required in the drive to play.
- Initially they were going to require ‘periodic activation checks’. This would have happened every 10 days, and if you weren’t online at that point you couldn’t play, plain and simple. Based on the initial uproar, Bioware backed off and removed the ‘phone home’ requirement.
Does anyone at EA or Bioware recall all of the furor over Bioshock’s DRM? I mean, it was only nine months ago – is their short-term memory that bad? Or do they just look at the sales of that game and figure that the end justifies the means?
There are still some things I’m not clear of in the wake of that mess, such as whether they ever resolved how activations would be handled during uninstalling a game – does it phone home again to update the count? It was supposed to do that, but numerous reports of issues complained it didn’t work.
I am a huge anti-piracy person, and have been very vocal in pretty much every community about my basic contention that piracy is theft. I am using only Sony firmware on my PSP despite the fact that ‘custom firmware’ would open up loads of cool software to me – such as the ability to grab screens in games – because I fundamentally believe that ‘custom firmware’ is used more than 99% of the time to pirate PSP games and is the reason that the system has atrocious sales and has had a hard time attracting developers.
But I also bristle when I put in a DVD and have to watch a video lecture chastise me about pirating movies. There is a line somewhere between asking for you to show identification and cuffing you and taking you downtown until you and your family can come up with seven forms of positive ID.
And I feel that with Bioshock and Mass Effect (and Spore pretty soon), video games have crossed that line. Why do I say that? Not for some esoteric reason of treating customers like criminals, though that is true. Here are three thoughts that went through my mind this week as I contemplated my pre-order for the game:
- I listened to a 33-year old record album of music that has been out of print for 30 years. I know I do not own ‘the music’ but rather the physical copy as pressed on disc. Yet despite the obsolete technology and long defunct companies involved, I could listen to the music just fine.
- I played not one, not two, not three, not four, but *five* games that were made by companies that no longer exist. One of the games is over twenty years old, and one is only three and a half years old! There were some CD-keys involved, but nothing more. Had any of those games required an internet connection, I would have been out of luck.
- Microsoft declared that they would no longer issue keys for music bought on the ‘Play for Sure’ DRM-based MSN Music store. This means that the music you paid to listen to will no longer work if you want to get a new PC – or even upgrade to Vista!
That last one is the thing that gets me – everyone makes the ‘Troika Point’, that companies can go out of business and then you would be left with no means of activation. But what about when the company simply changes its’ mind about supporting the product they sell? I mean, this is Microsoft, one of the most massive companies in the world with tremendous resources – and they simply say “too effing bad”. EA and Bioware have stated in their ‘official responses’ that we should ‘trust them’ to do the right thing. Sorry guys – EA has repeatedly earned their image as the ‘Darth Vader of the game industry’, and while I hold Bioware in high regard I am not willing to just ‘trust them’ to make sure that I could have the same experience in 2028 with Mass Effect as I did with that old record this week.
Here are some thoughts:
- I remember entering code keys and information from specific pages to play old games. That was a hassle, and put the onus on the owner to prove his ownership. I think that is unfair, yet it works – when I went to play PGA Tour Golf on an ancient Mac I took out the manual, found the yardage for the 8th hole at Sawgrass, and moved along.
- The CD requirement is a double-edged sword. On the one hand I have no problem doing that, but on the other hand I have gotten damaged CD’s due to drive malfunctions through the years. I’ve not lost a game disk yet, but with more and more slot-loading systems it is only a matter of time.
- I am fine entering a CD-key to register a game, and even the combination of a CD key and having a disk in place. Is it a hassle? Sure, but again, I can always reinstall the game whenever I want.
- Requiring you to *ever* be online for a single-player only game is just wrong. It is one thing if you are downloading it on Steam or Direct2Drive, as you are then inherently connected. But when I buy a DVD game that will never see the Internet as part of the game, I should never have to be concerned with making a connection. I use laptops exclusively and have a wireless network – there were poor coverage spots in our old <2000 square foot house, and I haven’t begun to test what it is like in our new house that is more than twice as large.
But that is all from one side of the coin – the one where the customer is getting treated like a criminal and likely getting a short-lived ability to play a game. All of this is happening because of the other side of the coin – that the company who produces the product and owns the intellectual property (IP) has the right to protect that IP and to stave off illegal use of their product.
I am not disputing that EA / Bioware deserves money paid for every person who installs the game on their PC. I fully support them in that regard and that is why I won’t join any boycott. However, what do they think is more likely: that having a draconian RPM scheme will cause everyone to cower and say ‘oh, please, take my money’ … or that when the DRM is broken and the game is cracked and up on P2P / torrent sites within a week of release that people who would otherwise have bought the game will be saying ‘F U EA/Bioware’ and downloading and playing the game with no concern over online activation?
Yeah, me too. Yet there I will be, with my DVD install, hoping that nothing crashes so that I go beyond my three installs and find myself without the ability to play until I prove myself worthy to EA/Bioware once again … which could be difficult since I tend to recycle receipts and boxes quickly.
I do not agree with those who regularly pirate games and claim that either (a) I only use it for demos and buy what I like or (b) I only download games I wouldn’t have bought anyway so there is no harm. I believe that they are simply rationalizing their behavior and should just accept that they are petty thieves and get on with their lives. Of course, I don’t agree with the industry types who would have you believe that these folks are major felons who belong alongside rapists and murderers either!
Yet despite my anti-piracy stance, despite my dislike for the rationalizing so many pirates do, when it comes to things like Sony’s CD rootkit fiasco and when it comes to things like Bioshock and now Mass Effect, I have a hard time chastising those who choose to take a stand and not pay for this abuse in one way or another. While I don’t think anyone has a ‘right’ to something like a game, I don’t dispute their claims that EA / Bioware don’t deserve to be rewarded for treating their customers so poorly.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:43 am
The problem with this stuff is that it’s not even a case of “well everybody has to suffer to punish the pirates” because this doesn’t affects pirates. At all. It’s as dumb as seeing “hey don’t watch copied movies!” when you stick a DVD in. It’s not like the XviD you download from the internet has that warning, the only people who see it are people who actually bought it.
I know they want to prevent “casual copying” between friends, but doing this in a PC game is nuts. I mean, the only people who play PC games anymore are hardcore nerds, they have no friends 😉
May 17th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Simon is right!
The real reason for this is for stockholders. EA gets to say: “Piracy is the reason for our loses! But we’re doing this thing here, so it’s all good!”
May 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
“Affects pirates”. Heh. I was channeling Skwisgaar Skwigelf apparently.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
What would really be interesting is if a quantitative study could be done that shows the REAL cost of piracy on a game without DRM. My guess would be it’s less than what it costs to license and deploy the DRM.
Stupid corporations.
Oh, and I won’t be buying ME; but, that’s because my PC is too old and I can’t afford to upgrade. Thanks Bioware. 🙁
May 18th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I think Mike hit it on the head! Piracy is BAD (and not just in the Straits of Malacca!), but ‘Black’ DRM is bad, too. Once I buy something, it’s up to me how I use it as long as I’m using it for me. I’ve installed a few games (mostly Sid Meier’s) on every computer I’ve owned since they came out! That comes to probably 15-20 installations of Civ2 O:-). Every time it’s been for me to play… and I’ve even earned a few new players who had never seen it before and are now on the 2nd expansion of Civ4 because they saw it on my computer the 6th or 7th time I’d installed it. Obviously that wouldn’t be the case with the new DRM.
Simon got it right too, that this won’t affects Pirates… just like ‘Gun Control’ doesn’t affects the criminals. Both need controls, but controls that could actually impact the illegal use rather than heavily impact the legitimate users.
I love Bioware and Mass Effect looks like a very cool game, but I won’t be buying it (even after it hits the bargain rack). I’ve been bitten by the limited # of installs pain before.
Thanks, Mike, for a great article and a timely warning!
May 18th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
“do not agree with those who regularly pirate games and claim that either (a) I only use it for demos and buy what I like or”
You took that straight from me didn’t you? I do plan to stop pirating though, and I’ve at least slowed down on it as of late. Once I have a job and can afford to buy the games I will. But what is your opinion on buying games used? Game companies don’t get any money out of this and neither do stores. I often buy used (on ebay) to save 10 or 20 bucks. I mean is it really a step up if someone who pirates games stops and then buys their games used?
May 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
No DJ, I didn’t take it from you – that is an extremely common justification/rationalization for piracy, and as I said there I take you at your word, but the other 99.9% are fully playing games they enjoy and want without paying.
I use Goozex loads, which means that the devs get nothing. I also physically trade games with friends. And buy on eBay … but I have actually never paid the extortionary rates GameStop wants for used games … anyway, that is all part of the legit cycle. Just as with music and other media.
May 18th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Well yeah, but the only difference between me pirating a game and me buying a used game is in the latter I’m out 30 bucks and the person that sold it gets my money. Sure it’s legit and all, but I don’t see a real difference. When I buy games I do buy used, but if I can find a good deal I pay another 5 dollars if it means the devs get my money. I agree about GS used prices btw. Why spend 55 dollars used and give GS 20 bucks when I can spend 5 more and support the people that actually made the game? Also this might add to discussion. I have stopped getting movies in particular (because my parents told me not to so I stopped) so my dad wants to join netfilx and burn DVD’s from them. So what would you consider this? I mean it counts as piracy, but we are giving a company money for a DVD and we can’t be tracked with that method. I mean what is your opinion on this? Also this sort of thing is also going on at my dad’s work. One guys rents movies via netflix and makes a coupla copies for everyone.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:15 am
PapaGamer, the problem with a “quantitative” study of piracy is that it’s logically impossible to tell how many people would have bought the game if they were unable to pirate it. Even if you made a hypothetically unpirateable game, you have no control to judge against. That’s why the “losses to piracy” always look so ridiculously inflated — the warez kiddy who downloaded 10 PC games in a night and deleted 9 of them the next morning counts the same as 10 people who actually buy games, according to the statistics used.
RE: used games, remember that every used game you buy keeps a copy of the game off the market. People who would have bought used but can’t find one (or can’t find a decent deal on used) might buy a new one (giving money to the developer) instead.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:50 am
PapaGamer – when you look at Stardock Games, they use no DRM and have had very good success – and earned tremendous customer goodwill. But there is no way to turn that into hard numbers, as James says, as there are too many variables.
But I just look at the fact that DRM will not stop pirates from cracking the game, only inconvenience them – as has been said, for many, breaking DRM is a ‘race’ against other hackers – they might not care in the least about the game, just breaking it and getting it out as quickly as possible.
And I guess that is what bugs me – within a week, pirates will be playing Mass Effect with no hassles, but I will have to worry about my install limit, reg code stealing, and who knows what else …
DJ – I have a fairly black & white view on piracy, but also have a hard stance supporting ‘fair use’ based on when I grew up. When I was in high school things were shifting to cassette from 8-track, and it was common to tape songs off the radio, to make tapes of records so you wouldn’t wear out your albums. And of course you would trade those with friends, or make ‘mix tapes’ with radio songs as well as stuff from your friends.
That all seemed to work fine under ‘fair use’ consideration, or was at least innocuous enough that the industry didn’t cry too much after they failed to get the cassette tape blocked in the first place. To me, the difference between myself and a friend trading Half-Life and Unreal Tournament to play for a few weeks and then trading back (we each owned our copies), and of the father of one of my son’s friends making a CD-R copy of a Harry Potter game and giving it as a birthday present is pretty clear.
One is ‘fair’ by just about any definition, and the other is not. Getting a new CD and letting a friend who shares your tastes borrow it and make a copy – fair use. Downloading it from some site where no one you know has a physical copy – not fair use. Ripping DVD’s and downconverting to work on your iPod or PSP? Fair use. Downloading those movies for your player … not.
I think that my opinion on what your father suggests doing with Netflix should be fairly obvious by now. My ‘moral compass’ on this involves use of a purchased piece of material by someone with whom you have physical contact. I think the model of taping stuff off TV / radio or borrowing a record and making a take is a good guideline.
With games, I take the ‘console model’, even with PC games – if you and your friend can play simultaneously from the same copy, and this isn’t intended by the developers, it isn’t fair use.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I was going to do a separate article on piracy but we’re already having some good discussion here. I think Mike’s guidelines are good to live by, but the “taping” idea blurs the otherwise distinct lines considerably. I mean, you’re still getting something (the ability to listen/watch something) without explicitly paying for it, aren’t you? The old way of thinking says this is okay because you’re getting an inferior copy anyway, so is that the only difference? If that’s acceptable, are other forms of piracy acceptable as long as the person is getting an inferior experience to the guy who paid for it? How inferior should it be?
May 19th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Mike wrote “Getting a new CD and letting a friend who shares your tastes borrow it and make a copy – fair use”.
My take on fair use is that your friend should delete/destroy the copy once the CD is returned for you to use; otherwise you and your friend have conspired to violate the CD’s copyright. If you assume that a copy wasn’t made (or your friend tells you one wasn’t, but one actually was) presumably you might be able to argue that you aren’t at fault, but I’m not too sure that you might well still be in violation unintentionally.
I’ve no problem with lending media to friends for them to listen to/watch, but if they’ve found they’d like to keep it (or a copy) they need to buy their own, or buy/trade for it from me. And, in the latter case, I need to be sure that I’ve deleted/destroyed any copies I made (ripped to PC or on MP3 player or …).
I’ve justified for my own use getting MP3 copies of some of the songs included in the GTA: Vice City “radio stations”, since I own a copy (PC) of that game, even though the song’s themselves aren’t directly available as such on the game disks (as far as I could see). I’m sure that some–music publishers?–would argue that doing so is copyright violation even though I don’t see how it isn’t “fair use”. If I were to sell/trade that game, I’d need to delete those MP3 files.
As an aside, that music’s pretty much the only thing I ended up liking from GTA:VC. I never could get very far into playing the game, and the controls for the PC–the driving in particular–were pretty poor. To keep from hitting people or other objects while driving required repeated little nudges forward and steering correction. The same was pretty much true for Mafia as I recall, but it didn’t even have the music to enjoy. Maybe they’d play better using some console-ish USB controller, but a good PC port of a game shouldn’t require a “controller” in my opinion.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I definitely agree with where you are coming from, Simon & croaker. I think much of my thoughts around ‘fair use’ come from the time when I was a teen. To me it is about the spirit of things rather than the ‘letter of the law’, but the fact that you can make non-degrading copies messes with the self-limiting nature of ‘taping’.
Of course, since I have little interaction with anyone who shares my nutty taste in music the discussion is theoretical anyway, and now with the ability to buy single songs on iTunes it has eliminated that “I’m just grabbing this one song” sort of thing. For example, my older son liked ‘Highway to Hell’ on some emo band CD, and a guy at work had the AC/DC CD so I ripped that song. Now, when he found a bunch of songs he liked, we just went to iTunes and paid ~$10 to grab the lot of them.
I guess also from my era is the fact that I don’t support downloading songs of CD’s or tapes or records that have broken / become unreadable. Our older son had a short-lived habit of going through our CD’s when he was ~2 .. and we lost a few there. Oh well, nobody’s fault but ours, so we re-bought. And when a game soundtrack is available, I buy that as well. Only on rare things – like KotOR, where it wasn’t available – would I download it … and when it went up it looked legit so I felt good until it was pulled!
May 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
James & Mike: I understand no quantitative study can be made that’s why I specifically phrased it “interesting” if such “could” be done. And, I also understand the piracy loss numbers are extraordinarily inflated, which is why my “guess” would be less money actually lost to piracy than is spent on anti-piracy methods.
I am fairly liberal on the entire philosophy of intellectual property and any kind of “rampant” piracy (which, IMO, is not nearly as bad as it’s made out to be–pirating ain’t exactly easy) is mainly a result of the law of supply and demand. In this digital age, the supply of media is, literally, infinite, so how can it have any real value? Copyright merely enforces artificial scarcity on a product that has no scarcity at all.
I, too, in high school/college would record LPs on cassette and share with friends. To me, there’s no philosophical difference between doing that and “sharing” with millions of “friends” via the Internet. The physical blocks of my teens years (cost of cassettes, time to make the recording, physical nature of distribution) have been removed by technology. Are we really surprised today’s teens are willing to share just as we did? Are we really surprised that adults who grew up sharing are still willing to share? Are we really surprised, when anyone can create media (books, music, video) that’s at least equal to if not superior to much of the junk that propagates through the retail system and distribute it freely, that “professional” work is devalued?
There’s still room for high-quality commercial work to make money. Just look at Iron Man’s quarter-of-a-billion gross so far–and you could download the movie before it hit theaters on the east coast. Or GTA:IV’s record-setting opening week. People will pay if they perceive they are getting their money’s worth. It’s when they don’t value the product as much as the developer/publisher/retailer does that piracy begins.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Ooooh, PapaGamer firing the controversy! 😉
I mostly agree with you, but pirating is easy for anyone who has enough knowledge to use a search engine. The only current platform that you can’t run pirated retail games on is the PS3. For some platforms it’s just a matter of downloading the files and burning them to disk. For others, it might take a $50 modchip and a soldering iron (or a quick look on craigslist for a guy in your area willing to do it for you)
So clearly there are no real technical barriers to piracy. That’s why I think it’s our job as parents to steer our children (and maybe other adults!) towards doing the right thing. We should demand fair treatment from the publishers, and in return we should play it fair.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I’m not sure I understand, PapaGamer, so let me try to reiterate what I’m hearing:
– Things that are of high quality will be pirated less than things of poor quality.
– People are only entitled to compensation if their work passes some arbitrary mark of ‘quality’ as determined by the person who has to choose between downloading it for free and paying $10 – 60 for it?
– There is no philosophical difference between, say, using a pen bought by your employer but carried in your pocket to write notes at home and embezzling millions from your employer?
– Are you also saying that the value of a work is solely contained in the physical medium, not the ideas / content?
You say that piracy isn’t rampant, I just plain disagree – there has been study after survey after report showing that the overwhelming majority of teens, students and young adults actively pirate. And don’t forget the one a couple of years ago that showed nearly a quarter of console owners were playing pirated games and that most would have paid for the games if they couldn’t have downloaded them for free.
But I do agree that the overall impact is not what the industry reps would tell you. I think there is a conflict of interest – the industry would like to send you to jail for letting your kids put a CD you bought on their iPod when it is already on your MP3 player. The ‘consumer’, on the other hand, is pre-disposed to pay as little as possible – and if ‘free’ is an option, then why pay?
It seems to me, PapaGamer, that you are advocating the sort of morality that says that finding a $20 bill on the ground makes it yours whether it had been laying there for hours / days or you had just watched it fall from someone’s pocket / purse as they were carrying a baby and getting their keys. Certainly in both cases the money is there, no longer in someone else’s possession, and there is nothing stopping you from taking it – and in both cases the person who dropped it would likely realize much later what happened and be out of luck. So factually there is little difference, but in terms of philosophy and morality I believe there is a huge difference. Do you see no difference?
As for the analogy of Iron Man, that works about as well as the typical ‘you wouldn’t steal a car’ analogy – which is to say, it doesn’t. Much of what pulls people to theaters is about going out and seeing things in theaters. Taking it further – your analogy should support that the top selling movies and games and music are inherently the best product available, because if they weren’t, their sales would fall precipitously due to piracy – which is driven by product quality according to you. I disagree.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
As someone who is responsible for enforcing rules from the trivial or stupid to the critical for National Security, and also someone who reads User Friendly and so believes that the RIAA is inherently evil () I thought I should stick in my 2 cents.
While I think Mike may have come down just a little bit heavy on PG in defense of his point, his point is more logical and supportable. Of course, some of it is purely based on personal philosophies so it’s a little hard to argue whether it’s right or wrong. Making a pirated, ripped, copied, or even legally bought and paid for song, game, movie, or other medium generally available to the public is illegal AND immoral. Justifying it with “well the technology is better now, so it’s ok” doesn’t make sense. I do, however, think that it’s true that the internet can definitely expand your circle of friends. To wit, providing that ‘mix tape’ CD to your roommate is the same as providing a ‘mix tape’ of MP3s to the person you’ve never met, but has acted as your wingman for 2 years when flying combat missions online. But sending that same group of MP3s to everyone who plays whatever your game of choice is, or posting it on a message board, fileshare, or other public space where you aren’t actively ‘screening’ who gets it is back to the illegal copyright infringement. And, of course, we get back to the law which says that even providing said copy to your buddy is illegal (thus the definition of the RIAA as ‘evil’).
PapaGamer, I think the key line we’re discussing is volume. One song or even a CD to your girlfriend (er… wife ;-)) is innocent. But copying your entire 200 CD collection for her would not be. Nor is making that first CD available to anyone who thinks about it. (We’ve all agreed that selling them for any kind of money is purely wrong, haven’t we?) Rather than saying one pen is ok but embezzling millions isn’t, how about we say 1 pen is probably ok, but taking an entire box of them and handing them out at a party is not.
I also don’t think quality is a fair justification, though I would certainly agree that people are more willing to plunk down their money for a good product than a bad one. That’s why good products make more money in the long run ;-). But that doesn’t make it more ok to steal a bad product than a good one.
I haven’t touched on the used games/giving away games that I’ve played out piece because I’m still trying to figure out how that one fits in. Very good topic!!
Disclaimer: I was one of the millions of people who downloaded songs (even those that I didn’t already have on CD) off the original (free) Napster. I also recorded songs off of the radio on my casette deck. My justification at the time for both is that I didn’t know any better. What would I do now? Pay for the downloaded songs, and have to think twice about recording off the radio. Still a tough line to find… kind of like whether speeding is ok or not ;-).
May 21st, 2008 at 8:00 am
I’m sorry if I came down too hard on PapaGamer – that wasn’t my intent at all. This has turned into a nice lively debate, and I wanted to keep it going. By doing so, I hope to learn from someone I have respected since before he joined GamerDad and who has a different viewpoint.
It is also interesting that we are both ‘older gamers’ entering the market when most of these rules were fuzzy and limited mainly by technology. I know my thoughts are shaped by the choices I made in the 70’s and early 80’s regarding copyrights.
I think that everyone can – or at least should – agree that the moment you are profiting in any way from ‘sharing’ that it has become ‘selling’ and has therefore crossed the line. Does anyone actually disagree with that?
Oh, and I really think that taping off the radio is fine, just like taping TV shows is fine, and now Tivo confirms.
The used game side of things makes you take a stand on the whole ‘ownership’ thing. I guess I believe that the rights ownership for the game code belongs to the creator / publisher, but I own the physical media I purchased. Therefore when I trade a game on Goozex, I am relinquishing the rights to play that game as part of the EULA.
However, things like digital activations and Steam games really mess this up – while I can certainly understand that digital downloads are non-transferable, why is it that I couldn’t sell a box-copy of Half-Life 2? It just worsens the situation for PC gamers – as it is, there are limited trade options, and it is so bad that a year or two ago I got a duplicate game for a birthday and was treated like a criminal at the game store despite a sealed box and receipt …
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
First, I’m not defending, nor even condoning piracy. I merely have a different philosophical viewpoint. Current copyright law deems piracy theft, and such it is. But it’s theft that is only going to grow because publishers charge too much for their content and lots of people don’t see the inherent problem with “stealing” a copy. The law defines it as such, but cultural mores are changing.
Second, let’s cut the pen analogies. They’re as bad as the car analogies. Making copies of digital media is, in no way, like stealing physical goods. It’s more like taking a pen from my employer, making copies, and then passing out the duplicates. That’s why any attempt at using physical theft to describe digital “theft” is misguided.
Third, my “Iron Man analogy” is not an analogy. It’s direct, anecdotal evidence that–when the perceived value is high enough–people will pay. In this case, it’s the extra value of seeing the movie in the theater rather than a grainy, muddy-sound version at home. The movie is widely available on the Internet, yet it rakes in money at the box office. People will pay, even if pirated versions are available, if they think it’s worth the money.
Fourth, I make no claims about what anyone is “entitled” to. If you want to discuss it philosophically, no one is “entitled” to anything, we have to earn what we have. If that means finding a different way of earning, then so be it. The traditional methods of earning money in artistic fields is dying. Industries die all the time. Artists will adapt, the market will adapt and piracy will be less of a concern because creators/publishers will find other ways to add value. DRM is just the death rattle of the industry as it vainly seeks to combat the fact it has grown lazy and fallen behind new technology.
We can talk until we’re blue in the face about how it’s morally wrong; but, I don’t think our children are going to buy it. The old media companies have about one generation (maybe two) to figure out how to leverage new media, then they’re going to be put out of business. It’s awfully hard to convince all our children that making copies is “theft”, especially when we all did the same thing (just with less far-reaching consequences) when we were kids.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:31 am
I’ll leave ‘Iron Man’ for another discussion … because I think the ‘quality = sales’ thing is interesting, but don’t want to get too far afield 😉
I used the pen analogy because I believe it worked not as an analogy to theft, but rather to the orders of magnitude involved. But you didn’t actually answer the question, just dismissed it – yet I think it is important. I think that there is a distinct difference between your next door neighbor allowing you to tape a few songs from a record and distributing thousands of CD’s worth of music to hundreds of thousands of people who you will not ever meet.
The reason I press that is because of what you said: “We can talk until we’re blue in the face about how it’s morally wrong; but, I don’t think our children are going to buy it.”.
I believe that is one of the things that will define this generation of parents. That is, whether or not we talk to them about it at all, and if we do, what we say about it.
Personally, amongst the values I try to instill with my kids is that of property rights – stuff that belongs to someone else doesn’t belong to them. They are ‘iTunes kids’, meaning that unlike their cousins (who just finished their 1st and 2nd year in college) they have grown up with the thought that when they want a song they hit iTunes, not LimeWire. They know how I feel about property and piracy and so on, and while I am sure that they will do their own share of screwy stuff, I am confident that when they are looking for a RPG strategy guide their first choice will *not* be to see if they can get a copy of one of PapaGamer’s excellent guides without paying.
…..
Another thought – my pre-order is with Direct2Drive – I know they use a form of SecuROM, but don’t know how it compares. It will be interesting to see …
May 29th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
It’s been clarified that apparently the DRM won’t be as harmful as they thought.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
The only difference is that they have dropped the ‘phone home every 10 days’ requirement. The rest is still the same, and just as bad.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
That’s the only thing I really cared about. Everything else would have to be stretched to be construed as bad. Sure, it’s sad for people without internet access, but I have internet access and by definition so does everyone else reading this.
May 30th, 2008 at 7:35 am
I just don’t think that DRM is a good idea because it is 100% ineffective – Mass Effect is apparently already cracked, so pirates are playing without worrying about serial numbers and activations and other stuff that we paying customers need to deal with. It is inherently anti-consumer.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
“I am confident that when they are looking for a RPG strategy guide their first choice will *not* be to see if they can get a copy of one of PapaGamer’s excellent guides without paying.”
Err…but they can. They’re right there, free of charge (and licensed via Creative Commons) on my Web site (as well as GameFAQs, IGN, Neoseeker, etc.) True, the “premium” guides aren’t widely published, but you can get those, too, from torrents. And I don’t care and don’t try to DRM the guides to stop the pirates. I’m actually kind of pleased the warez kiddies think my guides worthy of pirating. 🙂
As for orders of magnitude, I did address it. Digital media can be copied without (or with very little) cost in infinite quantity. This is as opposed to physical media, which has a cost associated even with simple duplication. And, as I said, if you go back to the basics of capitalist economics (i.e. The Law of Supply and Demand), when there is an infinite supply of something, how much is it actually worth to consumers?
Anyway, as you noted, DRM doesn’t actually deter pirates, it merely frustrates legitimate users. That’s why I don’t mess with it myself and don’t think software publishers should either.