I paid for Spore, not Securom. I can't even find and uninstall Securom easily.

the only copy protection that can FUNCTION would be trusted computing with severe penalties to anyone circumventing it and complete exclusion of all hardware and software without TCPM chips. Which would split the internet into trusted computing and non trusted computing hardware, have built in big brother for all people of all countries of the world, complete eliminate all personal freedoms, and will most likely result a civil war.

Anything short of it will be completely ineffective as the copy protection will be reversed engineered and bypass, as has happened again, and again, and again.

There is one cavet, you can have practical limitation on copying rather then DRM type. Things like making an MMO, which, by its very nature, is not copyable (well, you can make a private server but it will be severely lacking in data, and easy to take down as it is a single entity, not to mention costs would be high to manage such a server).

ah, a TCPM does NOT qualify as a touring machine. TCPM will be a disaster that will completely destroy the computer market.

Also TCPM does not send you a locked box with a key, it sends you a locked box and instructs you to request a person of authority to come over and use HIS key every time you want to do something.

A better example would be a bank safe deposit box.

I'll throw in my two cents...

First, I believe that software really should be "owned" and not "licensed".  Licensing is a concept that software companies have created to exploit the intellectual property laws (mostly copyright) that benefit them, but try to avoid other parts of copyright (such as fair use, first sale, etc) that do not benefit them.  Its easy to throw together a legalese document and bundle it in a box or setup program, but that doesn't mean that the courts will buy it.  IANAL but not all courts accept the licensing model (i.e. ProCD).  Remember that all other forms of intellectual property, such as books and music CDs, are "owned" and not "licensed".  Why should software be the exception?

As far as the customer is concerned, no license is really needed to run his/her legally purchased software.  Any copying (installation or RAM copies) for normal use of the software product falls under either specially allowed by the law or can fall under fair use.  Copyright doesn't reserve all rights to the copyright holder, but only a limited set of rights such as public performance, display, reproduction, and distribution.  Notably, the user still has the "use" rights to legally purchased software.  Its called "copy-right" and not "use-right" for a reason.

To close the legal loophole that publishers use for contracting away rights, I think copyright law must be amended with a clause such as "No person may voluntarily surrender his/her rights to use (in a normal manner) a lawfully obtained copy of a copyrighted work, or accept any restrictions on use.  No person may voluntarily surrender his/her statutory rights under copyright law, including the doctrine of first sale, fair use, or fair dealing."

More pertinent to DRM, I feel that any form of software activation is going over the line.  Any software publisher is not going to be around forever.  What happens when the publisher goes out of business or decides that the activation servers are not worth keeping around, or wants to 'force' users to upgrade?  All of the users who bought the software can no longer activate their copies.  This is not necessarily illegal (depending on contract wording) but it is certainly bad public policy.  People accept that they might not use their software forever, but also that the software won't have an artificially short lifespan.

If software activation is used, I think that any overall limitation on the total number of activations is going over the line.  These limits are not to stop piracy, but rather to kill off the re-sale/second-hand market.  I think a "de-licensing" utility is fine, but a even better idea is to limit the number of installs over a given time.  For example, instead of saying that the software can only be installed 3 times before a call to tech support is needed, a better idea is to say that the software can only be activated 3 times in a month, and that each activation lasts 1 month.  This means that an occasional Internet access is needed, but not for every time the software is started, and no need for the CD to be in the drive either.  If the user loses one license due to a hard drive failure or re-format, then that license automatically becomes available after a month's time.  The user can re-sell the software at any time.  The publisher saves money because no tech support calls are needed for activation reasons.  And of course, limiting a particular copy to 3 installs per month is useless for mass piracy.  The pirates will defeat the DRM scheme in time anyhow... but this activation scheme doesn't really hurt the honest end user.

Cheers!

Software is already treated differently by copyright law. No other class of material allows making copies for backup purposes (archival purposes, yes, but not individual consumers copying for personal use) or a damn-near unlimited right of reverse engineering. If software were sold instead of licensed, it would be permissable for owners to reverse engineer their software and remove all copy protection in the guise of reworking the software for "compatability purposes." Operating private servers for online subscription games would also be permissable. Sale of used programs would be mandated, instead of being at the publisher's disgression as it is now.

Licensing is not publishers exploiting copyright law; it is publishers avoiding being exploited under copyright law.

That I could get behind... With neverwinter nights bioware had a patch remove the the securom DRM later on. Ofcourse, now they have been bought by EA... "changes will not be made"... except mass effect has a 3 activation limit and it took them months to bring the "bring down the sky" content pack that was supposed to be available on release day. (bioware used to make lots of patches)

Not so much of a guise, considering older DRM is no longer compatible with newer operating system, the only way to play those older games you bought is to use a crack, which was made via reverse engineering.

By the way, back in the DOS days, limited activation was already being used, just not over the internet. Some games had a system whereby a token was copied from the disk and had to be in place before the game could be run. The token had to be copied back to the disc before the game could be installed and used some where else. Thanks to disc crashed etc I still have several expensive games that no longer work. This is the main reason I wont buy any Stardock game that uses activation, or any other software for that matter. Having recently heard from another user that also suggested removal of DRM from Stardock games by a patch after the support life of the product had ended and was told he wasn't the sort of customer that Stardock wanted, I'm more set against ever buying anything from Stardock again. This is the sort of treatment that encourages piracy and drives away loyal customers, such as I once was.

The answer to the original question is no, there is no viable copy protection.  Look at Blu-ray and the now defunct HD-DVD.  Both used AACS, which has been cracked.  The only thing accomplished by this "anti-piracy" measure was increased cost to the manufacturers and consumers.  The hardware required to decode the encryption in real-time is considerably greater than if it was not present.  The biggest deterrent for their piracy was the size of the medium itself.  No one wants to download 20+ gigs of data when they could just go with a lower quality DVD rip.  This only hurt their sales because of the high cost of the players.  Player performance also took a hit because of the required decryption.  DVD decryption was defeated long ago, yet DVD sales are great, as are CD sales - both of which are easily pirated. 

If I want to get my hands on pirated entertainment, it isn't difficult.  Looking at piracy as lost potential sales assumes much, and yet companies that employ these "anti-piracy" measures do so at the expense of paying customers.  The fact that these companies continue these actions in the face of increasing negative publicity, while losing sales to customers that prefer to actually own what they purchase, proves that the leadership of these companies is ill-equipped to deal with the distribution of entertainment in today's society.  Without their customers, these same companies couldn't exist, yet they seem unaware that they are biting the hand that feeds them.

Companies that take the correct approach will continue to try to gain more customers by giving them what they want - great support, ease of use, and high quality products that are updated for FREE on a regular basis.  Any company that continues to waste time, money, and effort on "anti-piracy" measures will continue to alienate customers, to their own detriment.

Stardock has the perfect DRM in my opinion. Be good to  your customers, treat them like customers instead of thieves and the customers will reward you with their loyalty. Stardock does not release something and just leave it your lap. They coninuely offer updates for their titles for years. In other words, they dont leave you hanging with a disfunctional title. They offer nice pricing, they offer quality goods, this all equals to people coming to buy instead of pirate. You will always have piracy, but those people will pirate anything including their mothers purses just for the rush. I think Stardock has the overall perfect solution to piracy. DRMs of any kind have had no effect at all on piracy, seems like it only gets worse as the DRM gets worse. Stardock games give you soo much for your money, great  product, well supported, moddable, and great community. Your sense of guilt would get to you I would hope if you had to lower yourself to pirating Stardock games. They are every solution a pirate uses as an excuse to pirate. Game is too expensive, the publishers are jerks, the games been left unifinished, the games buggy and no patches ever were released. Stardock has and continue to address all those concerns not by words, but by example.

Regarding EA's of %0.4 install over three times.

1. This is a pretty unfair number since it was based on Spore Creature Creature which hasnt been out there very long. Why not numbers from their other games? Say released 6 months to a year ago? I bet those numbers dont hold well. EA has been on a huge disinformation campaign as of late so I have a few questions about their numbers vs an independent study.

2. How well did Spore Creature creator sell? What are the numbers we are basing this on? 20,000 units? How old was this study or how up to date is it?

3. Why does EA not take a more detailed study over a larger group of their PC games rather than one title that wasnt really even a title but a tool for a game that would eventually include it anyway?

Jim

Accidental double post.

Still excusing licensing for something that doesn't exist?

How can I adversely affect another user by reverse engineering Gal Civ?  Windows?  What can I do, that isn't already illegal, that can harm anyone in any software that isn't a multiplayer game?  Try in no form at all.  Only in a small portion of software, that didn't even exist when the bans started, do they actually protect other users from any potential problems.

The kicker?  Any such multiplayer usage can be covered by terms of use.  Your argument against reverse engineering sucks, find a new one.

You're right, most of the harm that can be done is a criminal offense anyway, but including it in copyright allows the company thus victimized to pursue damages, in addition to whatever criminal penalties may apply. Nothing brings the lols like someone doing millions of dollars in damage to your buisiness and making money off of it, then getting a slap on the wrist while you can't recover damages.

And a sucessful RE of a security system could entirely bypass any such ToU. Not to mention that setting up a private server would necessarily bypass the ToU of the authorized server.

Your comments are imply a value judgement (good writers analyze stories, but somehow only evil pirates crack security protocols.)  If a security feature of a program makes my computer more unstable, or causes undue wear to the hardware, or otherwise impedes the efficient or normal operation of my computer, then I should have the right to remove the said security features.  Remember that its stil MY computer, regardless of the status of the software (which is, of course, under debate.)  I should be able to reverse engineer the security features to ensure tha the software itself isn't doing anything illegal or violating my privacy.  (For example, if a publisher uses a product activation scheme as a innocuous looking backdoor to distribute child porn, and they find that stuff on my computer, guess who is going to jail?  At the very least, I would need to reverse engineer the activation scheme to prove my innocence.)  I should have the right to reverse engineer a security protocol to make fair use copies of the work.  Fair use copies are not prohibited by law.

Copyright law stays clear from value judgements anyhow, with the exception of the fair use clause.  Copyright law focuses on specific acts: Public performance, display, and reproduction are reserved to the copyright holder.  But private normal use of a work is implicitly reserved to the owner of a copy.  I firmly believe that any attempt to limit my use of a software product infringes on my rights, as much the same way as any copies I make and give away infringes the publisher's rights.  Copyright law does NOT allow a publisher to control private use, or limit use under any criteria, including the intended purpose of use.  And IMHO since private use is not something that the publisher gets to reserve by copyright, then such use is out of bounds of being controlled by any EULA, regardless of whether you believe the software is licensed or sold.

The authentication issue that you noted with a private server is a recent thing, thanks to the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA.  The section on anti-circumvention does not make any exception to intended use or purpose, so liability is incurred even for lawful uses (hence, why this section is so controversial.)

Ultimately, the supreme court will have to decide whether software is sold or licensed, because there is a long string of court cases that support both sides.  However, I believe the court is likely to be conservative and treat software like all other copyrighted works--i.e. sold, not licensed.  With competent lawyering, a licensing scheme will be seen as a loophole to unfairly remove fair use and other statutory rights from the user.  Furthermore, many states have specifically amended their uniform commercial codes (remember the whole UCITA debacle?) to specifically state that a mass-market software product is a good that is sold.

My point is that a software publisher has NO right to control resale at all.  And this is a principle that's been reinforced time and time again-- you can bet that book publishers and music publishers have tried to shut down used book stores and used CD stores, but they have always failed.  The same principle should apply to software-- notwithstanding any attempts to call the transaction as a "license" as opposed to a "sale".  A software publisher should not have the right to fundamentally alter the nature of a transaction that is essentially a sale, simply by drafting a document in the box and suddenly calling it a "license".