At the end of the day, the people who "do stuff" will always have the advantage over the people who "don't do stuff". Pirates are slowly motivating ever increasing levels of DRM and in time, I hate to say it, DRM is going to win. That's because the people motivated to make the DRM work (the people who do stuff) greatly outnumber the motivation of the people who don't do stuff.
One can easily picture a future in 5 years in which the telecoms, the PC makers, the OS makers, and the software makers have teamed up (and you only need any two of them to do so) to eliminate unauthorized usage of a given piece of IP. If you don't think it can be done, then you probably don't have much experience in writing software. The DRM and copy protection of today is piddly 1-party solutions.
The DRM of tomorrow will involve DRM parternships where one piece of protect IP can key itself off another. Thus, if even one item on your system is pirated (whether it be cracked or not) it will get foiled as long as there is one item in the system that you use that isn't cracked (whether it be the OS or something in your hardware or whatever). It will, as a practical matter, make piracy virtually impossible.
Computer games and video will likely be the first two targets because piracy of them is so rampant. A pirated copy of something doesn't mean it's a lost sale. But piracy does cause lost sales. Moreover, it's just incredibly frustrating to see people using the fruits of your labor as if they were somehow entitled to it.
I have long been and continue to be a big proponent of alternative ways to increase sales. I don't like piracy being blamed for the failure of a game because it tends to obscure more relevant issues which prevent us, as an industry, from improving what we do. But at the same time, I don't like pirates trying to rationalize away their behavior because they do cost sales. I've seen people in our forums over the years boldly admit they're pirating our game but that they are willing to buy it if we add X or Y to it -- as if it's a negotiation.
I don't like DRM. But the pirates are ensuring that our future is going to be full of it because at the end of the day, the people who make stuff are going to protect themselves. It's only a question of when and how intensive the DRM will get. And that's something only the pirates can change -- if you're using a pirated piece of software, either stop using it or buy it.
I don't think you understand the type of future DRM I am describing. Individualized DRM can be cracked in a few days.
But the scenario I discuss is where every program in the eco system checks every other program in the ecosystem whenever it's run and if a program doesn't respond, it disables it. So you would end up having to crack every single thing on your system to bypass it. And while some people would still do that, it's unlikely most would. I don't want to run around looking for cracked versions of Instant Messenger, IE, etc. just so that I could run my cracked version of Game X.
What I'm describing could be labeled PEER DRM. As opposed to what we have today. And to legitimate owners, it would be absolutely invisible. No monkeying with system files. No messing around with CDs in the drive.
That's actually not true. First, Stardock IS a corporation. The games involve lots of immensely talented people working together. Secondly, whether it's a doctor giving you medical advice (intangible value) or someone making a video game, society assigns value to it in an open market, not any group of elites.
As long as their is demand for IP, it will be supplied. But in the long run, the people making the IP will have the upper hand over the pirates because they're more motivated OR the people making the IP will withold their talent from the groups most likely to steal from them -- action games on the PC are dying off being replaced by MMOs and casual games.
Sins of a Solar Empire is the #1 selling game right now because a) It's a good game but also It doesn't inconvenience legitimate owners with DVD copy protection and c) it was made for the PC demographic least likely to pirate games.
You won't see Stardock making action games any time soon for instance. Where DRM fails, the market responds. The groups who pirate simply lose out on games on their platform.
It wouldn't create any problems for legitimate buyers. It would be invisible.
Piracy isn't the big factor in low sales that people make it out to be. But it does cost sales.
The fact that peer DRM hasn't been seriously implemented already implies that at some level, publishers don't consider piracy THAT big of an issue. Because if it were, then you'd have peer DRM already.
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