I've been getting a lot of email since the announcement of the Gamers Bill of Rights -- quite a bit from game developers who make the argument that it's easy to throw stones at what other people but what solution do we suggest for them?
For example, one of the things I've seen is that Stardock is "anti-DRM" in all cases. This isn't true. WindowBlinds, for example, requires activation. In fact, nearly all our software requires activation. Yet, you rarely if ever see anyone complain about it. Why is that? Because our activation is largely invisible, most people aren't aware of it. The beta of Demigod has activation in it too. Yet, it too is invisible to the user.
So clearly, activation, unto itself, isn't necessarily a problem. Yet clearly with Spore, people had a big problem with it. What's the difference? The difference in my opinion is the arbitrary limitations set ("3 activations" for instance). Or more generally, anything that materially interferes with a legitimate customer's ability to use their game.
So those people who were so unhappy with Spore's activation, I'd be curious to hear what specifically bothered them? What was it about Spore that causes such an uproar versus things done in the past?
Here are things that annoy me about various types of copy protection:
My tolerance may be higher than others, hence why I'd like to try to understand what caused the Spore backlash.
As others know, our games ship with no CD copy protection at all since not all users have Internet access but we require users to download our free updates from us so that we know (to a high degree) that only legitimate customers are getting our free updates. And even with that laid back system, some people still object. So we'd like to get an idea of what invisible threshold you think Spore crossed that made so many people upset.
I declare Oklahoma an independant state! Could someone tell the US government they've invaded?
They know. Please discuss your complaint with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Actually, to the degree it has been enforced, it was enforced by OPEC, with the United States going along rather happily because for some rather obscure economic reasons have the U.S. Dollar and the de facto world currency acts both as a bulwark against inflation (Because so many dollars are removed from our local economy IIRC) and helps both strengthen the dollar for imports without weakening it for exports (Because other countries with weaker economies are still using our dollars behind the scenes, again IIRC). And of course it meant that neither a strong nor a weak U.S. Dollar affected our energy supply in the least, which means one less thing for the Treasury Department and the Fed to worry about, which means they buy less ulcer medication - {G}.
But it's is, sadly, old news - Opec started accepting Euros and Yen in just the last couple years because the dollar was getting so weak internationally that it was no longer to their advantage to keep doing business in it exclusively, which means of course that as the dollar got weaker still, our energy prices got worse.
The recession has 'helped' a bit - energy prices our lower worldwide, so we're paying less at the pump now, but however nice it may feel, I *hope* that doesn't last since it's basically an indication of how bad the world wide economy is doing. If no one else gets to doing better, we got nobody to sell our stuff to yaknowhatImean Vern - {G}.
On the good side, investing in ulcer medication has never done better!
Jonnan
Fortunately, that is not quite correct - as a legitimate owner of that 'physical manifestation' legally, you are buying a copy and under copyright law you are an "Owner of a copy" with specific rights and privileges granted by law regardless of whether or not you have a license - variants of this are mentioned in copyright law under the "Limitations on Exclusive rights" sections.
Unfortunately rather than formally defining it as a "Term of Art" in the definitions, they use slightly different phrasing in different spots - "Owner of a copy" under 109, "Ownership of any copy" under 106 (Closest to a definition they have), "Ownership of a sound recording" under that section, so what rights you have is defined in various subsections, with no one term to search, and it's generally defined as a limitation on the exclusive rights of the copyright owner - but of course, not always - that would be too simple - {G}.
In any case, generally there is no legal requirement of a license as such - as near as I can tell, there's actually no legislative definition of a license as such, only what some court districts do or don't recognize as a contract or something else - like "Owner of Copy" it's used in various spots, but has even less definition than owner of a copy.
It would be a lot better all around if those were both defined, moved to 101: Definitions, and used in a consistent manner. Can we start a Bugtrack server for U.S. code?
Great reply Jonnan.
Yes, you learn from the mistakes of the past, and apply them in the present as to prevent repeating the mistakes in the future.
It's not so much the historical context I mind. It's the stereotyping and sweeping generalizations I mind.
If that's the case, then the Philippine and Chinese governments and legal systems should be hunting them down.
I second that!!!!
psychoak:
I know you're trying to be funny and all, but that really would be something important if:
1. US representatives dealth with you and your organization as if it were, in fact, the defacto government in exile of Oklahoma. If so, then you have cause for greivance.
2. If your forces were key pieces - important in the liberation of Oklahoma from Mexico or whatever, you would also have cause for grievance.
Again, please review the facts and circumstances surrounding the established Philippine Declaration of Independence in 1898 - NOT in the 20th century.
Jonnan001:
That is true, of course, but US economists have come to conclude that with many of the strongest economies in the world holding massive reserves of dollars anyway, enforcing the petro-dollar scheme becomes moot. In effect, the US is the world's AIG. You CANNOT be allowed to default on your debts because doing so would hurt world economy greatly - the result is, of course, that the US essentially has free license to print money, with eveyrone else collectively paying the price.
CobraA1:
Stereotyping? Sweeping generalizations?
Regarding legal recourses:
Why would the Philippine government and the Chinese government care about US intellectual property rights when the US itself only recognizes Philippine and East Asian intellectual property rights with barely heard lip service? As far as the US is concerned, the only valid patents are US patents, and any US citizen can make money off of a patented Philippine invention with impunity as long as he patents it in the US himself.
Let's try to keep this thread on topic, guys. If you want to discuss Philipine independence or economics, please do so in a separate thread.
Could we get some references here specifically about copyright? I don't know that much about international patent law, but several posts in this thread have made it sound like the US is systematically disregarding its membership in the Berne Convention, which is a pretty heavy bit of international law, if I'm not mistaken.
Any formal policy along those lines simply makes no sense to me (and remember, I oppose rights of ownership entirely--attribution is what's important). The US economy is *significantly* dependent on international sales of copyrighted stuff. Failing to provide reciprocity would do nothing to help shut down DVD mills in China. I'm used to my government doing a wide range of stupid things, but they rarely include things that might directly affect a short-term bottom line for a major outfit like, say, Viacom.
US authors pretty much ripping off of manga, anime, or foreign authorships is nothing new. Star Wars, for instance, is essentially a retelling of The Hidden Fortress without any formal recognizance and reworked in several ways to become a "different work."
More recently, English torrenting of subtitled and/or dubbed copyrighted material in manga and anime is pretty standard issue sourcing for such material in the US. I don't know that the US government is doing anything to stop this kind of piracy from occuring. It doesn't help that rights to publish in US for those materials have come into the hands of people who don't really care about the quality of the product or, it seems, even if they're released at all. That said, legal shutdowns of subbing sites are few and far between. They operate openly for the most part.
Too, a Philippine author who sought refuge under the WIPO would have to apply for restitution in one of its offices which isn't really common in these parts, and the WIPO itself seems to drag its feet when it comes to cases of this sort. My cousin is a freelance artist so my limited familiarity with how intellecutal property is handled locally comes from him. He doesn't seem to think that he can make any headway against an American copyright thief should any of his works get stolen and sold for money under a publishing house.
I wouldn't say it's shooting yourself in the foot to unilaterally declare copyright laws. Yes, it does sort of erode your moral authority when it comes to foreign protection for your own copyrights, but then again, your businesses can more or less steal ideas, mechanics, stories and such wholesale.
OK, I was hoping for some publications, but your answer leaves me pretty confident that you are not talking about the US *government*, which is what I had thought.
Re Star Wars and The Hidden Fortress, which is a great film IMO (better than 7 out of 9 Star Wars flicks, at least), it is not a violation of copyright to base your work on someone else's in this way. The only problem is if you offer *the same* art and claim it is your own, or appropriate "significant" portions (sample-based music causes real court problems here) into your work without the other creator's permission.
So, unless you can point me to some evidence, I really can't accept that "unilaterally declare copyright laws" line. If anything, more US federal effort has gone into *enacting* copyright laws abroad than it has towards undermining them. The recent rise of (c) in the People's Republic of China was one of the clearest signs to date of their retreat from Maoism, and US "diplomacy" had a great deal to do with that happening. What goes on with torrent sites is pretty much beyond any current government's ability to stifle, with the possible exception of the aforementioned PRC.
Your objection to the need to get to a WIPO office does make sense to me, though. The US was fussy about joining the Berne Convention, in part because our copyright folks did not like the idea that anyone could copyright anything without going through a formal registration process. If your foreign (c) is unregistered, it will be harder to win significant compensation in a US lawsuit. I've always thought that the attitude there was about laying groundwork for the kind of "thievery" you describe, but it seems pale in comparison to the larger thefts from posterity that our current IP regimes perpetrate.
Plaigiarism isn't the only way to violate copyright. Making information publicly available for consumption is, too. I could direct you to torrent sites for the downloading of manga and anime straight off the net without paying Tokyopop or any Japanese publisher or mangaka anything at all, but I would rather not be responsible for direct closure actions against them, and they're easy to search out anyways.
Look for torrents for the downloading for Death Note manga or anime or the acquisition of Cowboy Bebop, the latter of which is already for legal sale under a proper publisher in the US.
Activity in torrent sites is NOT beyond government ability to stifle. Governments can and do shut down sites and servers if they wish to. It might be a little heavy-handed to do so, but it's not without cause, if you're into IP protection seriously.
Of particular note, is the Shaolin brand. Shaolin is not a generic name. Shaolin is the name and branding of the Shaolin Temple in China. They own the Shaolin IP and all things associated with it, by copyright convention. Until recently, Americans used and barnded "Shaolin" products indiscriminately. There have been some efforts to clamp down on this brand name incursion, but the Temple is still having difficulties with it, I believe, since Americans like to think that Shaolin is a name that's public domain.
That said, the current IP conglomerates do tend to behave in tight money-fisted merchant-house like machavellian cash sucking. I would have to agree that nobody grabs and takes money like an multinational IP company (like Sony).
I've seen the argument, and calling Starwars a 'rip off' of "The Hidden Fortress" is about like calling "West Side Story" a rip-off of "Romeo and Juliet" or "Roxanne" a ripoff of "Cyrano de Bergerac".
You can make an argument for any of those three, but that makes copyright protection of an idea, not the protection of the implentation of an idea.
...
Of particular note, is the Shaolin brand ...
The Star Wars-Hidden Fortress thing is neither plagiarism nor copyright violation, and plagiarism is wrong whether or not copyright is involved. If George Lucas really did rely heavily on Hidden Fortress (I don't know what he's said on the subject, just other folks' gossip), it's an example of the ancient practice of using art that you know as a place to start creating your own. Sophocles did not make up his plots from whole cloth, nor did Shakespeare. Kurosawa "ripped off" Shakespeare with Throne of Blood in just the way you complain about George Lucas and Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. For all I know, there's a classic Japanese myth behind Kurosawa's film.
The notion of branding is increasingly fascinating to me, but seems a bit off-topic for this thread. That said, thanks for tipping me to this story. I had no idea that the modern Shaolin might be starting to go Disney, but it looks possible. If I were a practitioner, I'd be pretty darn ticked off to find my temple treating itself as a mere brand.
Considering Shaolin predates copyright adoption, it's by definition public domain to start with, as something has to start out protected to avoid that status.
Not sure if this thread is being honestly followed now that other issues seem to have hijcked it but I will list me thoughts very briefly:
1. cd keys = bad. I lost mine to Dominions after playing for well over a year. now I have to repurchase
2. DRM = not bad if implemented correctly. Limit to how many times I load the software sucks but other than that, people are making a bigger issue out of it just to hear themselves bloviate on the subject.
3. secondary programs needed to run software - i.e. needed to validate software everytime = bad.How many times do I have to prove i purchased the game?
4. internet connection needed to validate program = bad (unless purchased as a download). Assumes an internet connection is always available.
IMO, the best way to validate the software is the simplest way - don't! The DRM cry babies will not have an issue to scream about, money will be saved on failed DRM initiatives and pirates, who already crack DRM programs anyway, will continue on their way. There will always be the scurge of software pirates but are losses caused by their actions any greater than the lost customer base, due to DRM software, and wasted DRM R&D investments?
Okay - you've got a stalemate. Both sides refuse to work with each other and points to the other side, accusing the other side for all of the problems.
This helps us fix piracy . . . how?
Yeah, I would agree international law is quite messy right now.
In addition, I have to agree with the people who say copying ideas is not violating copyright. Copyright just protects the words on the paper; it doesn't protect the ideas those words represent.
This has lead to some interesting cases of "stealing" that may not be illegal under some laws.
Before I go further - I'm not claiming I agree with this, I'm just describing it.
And before I go even further - I'm not a lawyer. I do not know whether or not it is really legal.
As I understand it, there was (and perhaps still is?) a practice called "clean room design." Basically, it's copying the functionality without actually copying the code.
You have one team take a look at the code and/or how it interacts with the other componenets of the system, and write up some specifications. Then, you turn around and give the specifications to somebody else, and they write their own code to fit the specifications. This means the actual code itself is not copied, even though the new code acts like the old code.
So that pretty much demonstrates what copyright does: It covers the actual code itself, but it does not cover the behavior of the code.
Keep in mind, this "clean room design" approach does not work with patents, as you do not have to do any type of copying in order to violate a patent.
And again, I am not a lawyer. I am not making any claims about the actual legality of this practice. I am also not claiming I agree with the practice.
Ideas are not as rigidly protected as pure copying, as far as I know. While it's certainly despised by a lot of people here, it's not really illegal to "copy" an idea unless it has been covered by a patent.
Sure, you can possibly do a decent job at hiding it and making it "user friendy."
But it just doesn't work as intended. All forms of DRM that I know of have been cracked.
That's the billion dollar question. How much pirating is DRM really preventing? Frankly, it just doesn't sound like it's effective enough to justify the heavy R&D costs of creating it, not to mention how many people get angry about it and how much it puts a system at risk, considering the low level (often kernel level!) they generally run at and how poorly they are designed.
Hmmm.
After reading and re-reading the original posts both here and in the "Should Stardock provide..." thread, the question big developers seem to propose to you is thus:
We see that Impulse works for you. We too would like to operate this way, without the emphasis on DRM. Can you please offer us a means to include DRM in a non-DRM Impulse platform?
You want to provide options to other companies in regards to their property as represented & offered upon Impulse.
1. Offering intrusive DRM code is unacceptable (i.e. StarForce). 2. Requiring online authentication everytime you play is unacceptable. 3. Requiring online authentication everytime you simply fire up the program is unacceptable. 4. Constant reporting of activity to a remote server (i.e. tracking user activity) is unacceptable. 5. Inability to play without Internet access is unacceptable. 6. Dynamically updated in-game ad system is unacceptable. 7. Background processes required for running program is unacceptable. 8. Hardcoding some arbitrary limit on installs that require affirmative action upon the part of the user to change or update or port over as PC configurations & hardware & underlying software change is unacceptable.
Possible compromise on Stardock`s end seems to comprise the following, my own opinions based upon severity of inconvenience and accepted norms in PC computing to date.
1. CD in the drive anytime you play, offline or online. 2. Registration necessary for online acquisition of patches & updates. 3. CD key entry upon initial install. 4. Even the old 'keyword lookup from the manual' trick (think Microprose DarkLands days). 5. A floating multi-system installation activation, such that you may run 'X' copies of the game you own on any system configuration you own, up to that 'X' number at a time. Similar to the original WarCraft 2 multiplayer scheme (up to 3 off a single disc). Based upon household location, not internet IP # (some fortunates have multiple IPs available for their homes; identity must be by system *prior* to venturing forth onto the internet). 6. Pursuant to #6, a field during registration declaring how many systems exist in the household, and therefore how many installs will be perpetrated beyond the original.
Perhaps a manual keyword lookup could be combined with unbridled multi-system home use, such that the installation of the game on any system requires nothing but the CD key, whereas simultaneous usage of 1 or more *copies* of the game requires a manual keyword check. That enforces the "I purchased this" physicality of the product, gives owners the flexibility they/we want in regards to our purchase, and is not threatening in any way to our OS`s and hardware. It enables a good LAN sampling for those who might partake of an evening`s entertainment in person, helping advertise & demo the game, but preserves online play for registered base copies only. In my example of WarCraft 2 for example, a limit of 3 multiplayer LAN systems running off a single registered disc would be good. You could also in this special circumstance require the user to retrieve his/her official game disc and simply allow for a CD check once to enable the other 2 LAN copies up to the moment the original install is turned off for the session (i.e. exitted, rebooted).
I apologize for not having more substantial concrete suggestions. DRM doesn`t work. Trying to find a compromise between that and the system we know works is a dilemmic challenge (!). I hope this is of some value to you folks; perhaps others in the forum can build upon these ideas.
It seems to me that other companies must sacrifice some of their allegiance to DRM if they wish to find a home on Impulse - some measure of compromise of their own inflexibilities rather than simply looking to Stardock to make a change. If Stardock is the only side to offer such change, then the competing purveyors are not changing at all. They would only be succeeding at saturating the digital download marketscape with their DRM-borne product. And that is not what consumers want.
These people can`t possibly be serious if they elect to change nothing on their part. If they cannot convince their companies to be more reasonable, that is not Stardock`s problem. It must remain their problem, to work out or not to work out... to whatever end that brings them. In the meantime you continue to validate your business model and philosophies, growing, whilst they continue to be hated by a broader and broader audience that can see there is a better way.
Don`t let industry Old Boys sully your approach with doubt & naysaying. Continue to lead by example. Eventually more and more will come around.
Well put. Although DRM is intrusive - you are trying to "manage" my fair use... get the Hell out of my business (!).
@WarlokLord - great post (reply 293) - karma given.
The real question is, does the DRM suppress the used market enough to justify its existance? We've already established it doesn't address outright piracy very well, but forcing people who want legit copies to buy new rather than used is an entirely different matter.
If you accept that software is licensed instead of sold, depending on the terms of the EULA buying a used game is effectively piracy anyway.
WIlly, I don't remember if you've stated a position on the used-copy question. I agree that it is a different question entirely than DRM vs. piracy. I still think we all need to get over (c) eventually, but the user-centered license seems much better than the per-machine model in the mean time. I want to support the used copy market, but it's pretty hard when I both oppose (c) in general and want a practical short-term approach that keeps devs decently paid and bothers end users as little as possible.
I don't think it stuck--I still see 0 karma for WarlokLord as of this post.
Edit: I just gave karma to WL and it seems to have kicked a clot through the pipe--both Spartan and I show on his list now. And on a completely unrelated note, something about stacking a selected quote with a full-post quote seemed to bury my @WIlly chunk inside a messy quote block. Hopefully stripping the full-quote tags will clean it up.
Hmmm..... Tried it again. I hope it works this time.
Interesting. I see just a +2 in the thread, but when I click his karma link, I see two entries from Spartan, apparently one before and one after the one I gave. I wonder if this should get a mention in the Forum Issues area (I know they're short-handed on web dev now, but maybe just a record there could be helpful?).
Edit: OK, there's definitely some kind of "first point" delay going on, at least at the moment. This stuff made me finally notice that no one had thrown a point Spartan's way, so I did, and I still see 0 even after several page refreshes. I got no error in the karma pop-up and follwoing Spartan's karma link says he has no karma.
An interesting read from someone who dealt with Spore's activation limit and EA's support.
http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/6800.page
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