Pan Macmillan: DRM Is Not Evil

[Icarusbop]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What did the game's publisher say when you contacted their technical support department to ask for assistance with the issue?

It is common for applications that are closely tied to the machine's hardware, such as games, to have issues with new operating systems. Generally the publisher will issue a patch to sort out the problem.

At first they said 'HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO' (number unobtainable) as they had been bought out and the support number was disconnected.

When I hunted them down they said ' Sorry, that product is no longer supported.' (i.e, weve had your money, now we don't care.)

Even if they had supplied me with a patch, It is beside the point, it should not be this difficult for me to use something I legally paid for. Phoneing, chasing, and waiting in a support queue for 25 minutes (which probably would have been priced at 20p a minute if I had not called from work), are all a massive invonvenience which, I as a legal paying customer should not have to endure.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

DVD DRM satisfies producers and customers. We can take a DVD with DRM and put it in any DVD player (as long as it matches the region) and it will play fine.

DVD's DRM is evil too. It makes people jump in hoops to play DVDs from other regions (Remember Barak Obama giving giving DVDs to Gordon Brown?), and it prevents people copying DVDs onto their portable video players like you can currently do for CDs and portable music players.

And then there's the compulsory viewing on startup.... Forcing me to wait for a minute or two while an anti-piracy advert is played is insane.

DVD DRM is evil too. And also works no better in preventing the content from getting on torrent sites than any other form of DRM.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I don't mind if the new bestsellers are prices the same as the hardcover.

I mind. I don't mind a new book coming out at a high price, and then reducing in price after a year, but I do object to paper books and ebooks having the same price.

I also object to Amazon (& other retailers) taking the same cut on ebooks as they do on paper books.

When your costs are a lot lower, the prices should be lower.

The cost of ebooks to publishers and retailers is lower than for pbooks.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

That clearly marks DRM as an impediment from doing things the way we always did... but if that was what we wanted, why are we reading e-books?

Because there are things that people like better about eBooks vs pBooks that have nothing to do with changing what legal rights we have? Was that a trick question?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Other industries have ably demonstrated that DRM can be part of a middle ground solution.

I'm still waiting for somebody to list one.

Only in e-books have customers remained mule-stubborn in accepting those solutions, and as a result, e-books are presently behind every other electronic media product.

Are you kidding? Every media industry that has tried to push DRM has run into mule-stubborn customers that refuse to accept it.

Even the music industry found a way to work DRM into their system

Yeah, by removing it.

[zelda_pinwheel]

breaking news : the RIAA agrees : "DRM is dead."

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What is worse and I have seen it on some Disney DVDs is that they force you to have to play all of the trailers. No way to get past them. That is even more annoying.

The best part is, Disney calls that feature "Fast Play".

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Acting like the only existent forms of DRM in the world are akin to fixing a watch with a mallet is only being obtuse about the issue. It is simply not true. There are plenty of examples of screwdrivers out there that could do the job to everyone's satisfaction... they just have to be developed for this one industry (about the only one left that hasn't managed to do so).

No, the only examples of "screwdrivers" are ones where the industry dropped it completely, or else it is so broken that it is effectively meaningless. What the industry needs to learn is that there is no such thing as working DRM. It is fundamentally impossible to have a DRM system which prevents copying. There's simply no such thing. As far as DRM that also annoys consumers or prevents them from doing things that the law otherwise allows, that is where the "no such thing as preventing copying" will come into play. The industry needs to learn that DRM is a waste of time, and will only hurt them and their innocent customers.

I'm not saying publishers don't have to change their expectations of the realities of the market... they do. But so do customers. It's a new day, it's a new product... and we all have to learn a new way to buy it, to use it, and what we can't do with it.

Wronge. What we can and can't do with the new product is based on law and consumer rights, which have not changed. The industry is hoping that consumers will be willing to relearn what they can't do, but they are being naive. Consumers have the exact same rights for what they are allowed to do with the new product as they had with the old product. If the industry won't accept that, then they will fail. Most other industries have already learned this, publishing hasn't yet.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Icarusbop

I bought a PC game some years ago for £45 ish. It was great, however, now I have windows XP the protection on the game thinks it is a copy and won't run, telling me to insert the original disc - which it is. Something to do with XP I suspect, but that does not make me feel any better not being able to use something I legally bought.
So here I am with a legal copy of the game, and downloading a crack for it so I can use it!
Just an exampe of innocent poeple, being burnt by DRM (And this is not the only example I have) - then 'They' wonder why we (consumers) are resistant to it... (DRM)

I've run into the exact same situation. When I contacted tech support for the company, they're the ones that actually told me to download a crack.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What did the game's publisher say when you contacted their technical support department to ask for assistance with the issue?

It is common for applications that are closely tied to the machine's hardware, such as games, to have issues with new operating systems. Generally the publisher will issue a patch to sort out the problem.

In most of these examples, it's not the OS. There was a form of DRM used on games for a while that would rely on certain features in the CD-ROM drive in your computer to identify the difference between an original disk and a copy. Some brands of CD/DVD-ROM drives don't do this though, so that game will never run on your hardware. It's not an OS problem that a patch can solve, it's a hardware issue with your drive. The only way the company can "fix" the issue is to remove the DRM. There's a specific name for this type of DRM, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.

The standard solution for it (even proposed by some companies) is to go on the "darknet" and find a cracked version of the game that has had that part of the DRM stripped.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The difference for digital items is that the copy is 100% the same as the original.

Doesn't matter, copyright infringement still has nothing to do with theft.

That is why the definition of theft had to be adjusted.

No, the definition has not been adjusted. The only people who refer to copyright infringement as theft either do not understand the difference because they are confused, or else they understand the difference perfectly well, but choose to use the wrong word on purpose because the negative images behind the word "theft" suit their agenda better than saying "infringement".

Copying any physical product (garments, shoes, electronics, furniture, etc) would not be a crime since you are only taking away sales.

Nobody said copyright infringement wasn't a crime. However, it is not theft. Copying physical products isn't theft either.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by ahi

Except the notion that it isn't theft originates with individuals (i.e.: "the people", if you will) whereas the notion that it is theft originates with corporations.

The fact that it isn't theft originates with law makers.

Non-commercial copyright infringement by an individual is theft the way drinking alcohol is drug-abuse. Yes it is...

Actually, no. Copyright infringement is not theft at all. It's not just a matter of degree. They are completely different crimes, and have nothing to do with each other.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Copyright infringement is not theft at all. It's not just a matter of degree. They are completely different crimes, and have nothing to do with each other.

Yes. But saying this and being done with it is as misleading as the opposite position.

- Ahi

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by ahi

Yes. But saying this and being done with it is as misleading as the opposite position.

I'm not sure what you find to be misleading.

Copyright infringement is a crime, but it is not theft.

What's misleading about that?

[igorsk]

In most(?) cases it's a civil offence, not criminal.