Pirates Crack Microsoft’s UWP Protection, Five Layers of DRM Defeated

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

The way I see it, I only look at what are objective facts. There is next to no evidence that DRM actually does anything, while there are several examples I have given in this thread where it is harmful to consumers, and studies I have linked (plus many more) suggests that piracy is not an issue at all and can in many cases actually be helpful for sales.

 

Since the only arguments for DRM are based on assumptions, while the arguments against DRM are based on facts, I can't help but lean towards the anti-DRM side.

The specific evidence of the games industry not negatively impacted is flawed for the reason I pointed out, it's also gauged on illegal streaming of games so without the publishers of the study reassessing their findings by removing that factor then I'm not going to hold much weight to it, and that factor is a larger set of data than illegal downloads of games in the study but not by much.

 

Your assumptions are no better, you're assuming that a few actually popular and widely selling DRM free games is enough evidence and that studies of other industries is accurate enough to represent the games industry which is another assumption.

 

It's not like I support things like Denuvo or other intrusive or potentially performance impacting DRM but I just do not see the largest and most popular game titles not be massively impacted by piracy if they were DRM free.

 

And just like the music industry the games industry is adapting how they deliver games to customers to counter piracy, namely the rise of account required online experiences being put in to games. This is find FAR more impactful to me than say Denuvo as it's actually creating games I do not wish to play because of those game elements.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I think that's the wrong way of looking at things, because the burden of proof should be on the ones claiming that DRM is necessary, not the ones questioning its.

Look I'm just not going to get in to that, the burden of proof is on the people making the statement DRM is not necessary and that I will not budge on. You're the one challenging the status quo and asking for change so prove it's required or not harmful.

[JoostinOnline]

24 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Whether it's 1 time or 100 times, the end result is that it's restricting access to material you paid for until you prove you are who you say you are.  Whether you notice it or not doesn't make any of what I said false.  My analogy was simply to present an example of when it fails to work properly and interferes with the legitimate customer's experience.

 

I'm not one who rails against all forms of DRM.  I'm fine with Steam and some others, because they're virtually invisible to me.

 

Would I prefer they were unnecessary and/or went away?  Yes.  Do I demand they go away?  No, because I'm not in any position to make such demands.

Do you get mad when they ask for your movie ticket when entering the theater?

[Jito463]

Just now, JoostinOnline said:

Do you get mad when they ask for your movie ticket when entering the theater?

Again, you seem to be interpreting my post as if I'm saying that all DRM is evil and bad.  If you look at my analogy closely, I was trying to explain how it can negatively effect the end users experience.

 

Having said that, I make a point of not going to the theater.  I don't particularly like paying exorbitant fees to watch a movie surrounded by loud people in a crowded room, regardless of the screen size.  And don't even get me started on how loud they play the audio.  I've gone a few times, but it's most assuredly not my preferred method of watching.

[jagdtigger]

2 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

Do you get mad when they ask for your movie ticket when entering the theater?

And would you get mad if a streaming service suddenly cuts all content because you have admin access on your own stuff? Or doing the same thing just because you have AMD and not intel in your PC? DRM is a cancer and it should die....

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

-snip-

Look, you can say "DRM isn't the issue, the implementations are" all you want and I agree with you. Some implementations are better, or worse, than others. I am not trying to say that all DRM are the same, despite the strawman arguments people in this thread makes against me.

But what I am saying is that there is not a single DRM that has made a product better for the consumer, and at the same time there is no content where removing the DRM wouldn't have a neutral or positive effect.

So there are only benefit for consumers to removing DRM.

 

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

No, it's definitely apples to apples.   We are not using terms like "might" or "future"  Only looking at current and past facts.

OK let's look at current and past facts.

DRM has caused countless of issues and there is next to no evidence that it has done anything good.

Those are the facts.

 

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

You don't know if it is going to be a future problem.  You are making assumptions about the future of current games and using that as an argument to break or remove DRM while a game isn't even hindered by it.  Most games today are digital downloads, we are not going to have the cd issue again.

Can you please point me to the post where I said we should break or remove DRM that are not causing any issues today?

Yes, most games are digital downloads today. We got rid of the CD issue but we have caused a much larger one with online authorization. And yes, we are already seeing the effects of that, with game servers shutting down rendering games useless without cracks (even offline games).

 

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

The problem here is circumventing DRM on new software is predominately for piracy,  if you support that you are by extension supporting piracy.

No I am not "by extension supporting piracy". That is a strawman argument and I want you to stop that immediately. I have not even said said we should remove DRM on products that are currently causing no issues.

The closest thing you will be able to find is me saying that I think it's good if we can solve future problems today. What I meant by that is that if we already have ways of circumventing the store DRM today, then the risk of being stuck with a DRM issue in the future is lower.

I see it as finding a cure for an illness I have not yet gotten affected by. I find it calming to know that if something happens there is a way around it.

 

 

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

Even giving reasons to justify it (not very good ones, but reasons all the same).

You mean the links I have posted that support the theory that piracy is not harmful to the industry? Yeah, because linking 7 different independent research papers and studies which all more or less comes to the same conclusion is not "very good reasons".

It's a very bad habit of dismissing evidence. Maybe you're not as unbiased and rational as you think regarding this issue?

Or are you talking about the examples I gave where DRM is an issue? Like not being able to watch 4K Netflix on my desktop because I have an AMD processor, or not being able to watch anime because they are region locked. Needing to launch several launchers because Ubisoft wants you to have an account for their store even though you bought the game from another store. Stuff like that?

 

 

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

If you said "I support the removal of DRM from all software that can be shown to prevent a legitimate game from being played" you would have no argument from me. But when you try to claim that all DRM is the issue and must go from everything including current games and software, then you have to try a little harder than talking about broken hard drives and making assumptions about the future.

Well, the only reason we are having this conversation is because you claimed that the only people who would ever need to circumvent DRM are pirates. When I gave you some examples of instances where legitimate customers were blocked from enjoying the content they had paid for you dismissed it as not being an issue, and that people should stop playing "obsolete" games.

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Your assumptions are no better, you're assuming that a few actually popular and widely selling DRM free games is enough evidence and that studies of other industries is accurate enough to represent the games industry which is another assumption.

My "assumptions" are better actually, because even though there is little data which supports my stance on DRM specifically related to games (there is a lot of data about it regarding music, movies and books) it is at least something.

Right now we are in a position where it's little evidence vs no evidence.

 

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

It's not like I support things like Denuvo or other intrusive or potentially performance impacting DRM but I just do not see the largest and most popular game titles not be massively impacted by piracy if they were DRM free.

What you have to keep in mind is that your assumption here, that popular titles would be massively impacted by piracy without DRM, is not based on any evidence.

It's easy to assume that it's true, but the reason why that's easy to do is because, as the MIT study I linked earlier showed, the piracy issues is widely overestimated.

 

 

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Look I'm just not going to get in to that, the burden of proof is on the people making the statement DRM is not necessary and that I will not budge on. You're the one challenging the status quo and asking for change so prove it's required or not harmful.

To me that's completely illogical.

If the developers add something which makes the product worse then the rational thing would be to ask why they are deliberately making their product worse.

"To reduce piracy" would be their answer, but if they don't have any evidence to support that answer I think it should be dismissed.

You should not think of having DRM as the natural state of software. The natural state is to not have DRM since it is not needed for the program to work, and adding it should be questioned.

 

The question shouldn't be "show us proof that not having DRM is safe" (to which there is evidence, but very little). The question should be "show us proof that DRM is actually necessary".

DRM is something that costs the developers time and money, and it can cause issues for the customers. So we are sure that it is doing something bad, but we are not sure if it does anything good. The logical thing to do in such a situation is not to just keep carry on like normal. Especially not when it has time and time again been proven that people can just circumvent DRM if they want to.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What you have to keep in mind is that your assumption here, that popular titles would be massively impacted by piracy without DRM, is not based on any evidence.

It's easy to assume that it's true, but the reason why that's easy to do is because, as the MIT study I linked earlier showed, the piracy issues is widely overestimated.

 

Quote

This analysis reveals that it is a few titles, typically major commercial titles, that are the most heavily distributed on BitTorrent (Table 1). The ten most pirated titles encompass 41.8% of the total dataset. It also reveals that there is a positive correlation between aggregate review scores, such as those obtained from Metacritic.com, and BitTorrent popularity (p<0.05). This means that games with good review scores are more likely to be heavily distributed on BitTorrent. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20140724230727/http://www.mit.edu/~ke23793/papers/Drahchenetal_paperID16.pdf

 

I think my assessment of the major titles having a much larger risk is accurate and confirmed by your own source. Sure the sample was 170 titles in total but only a small number of games made up the large number of peers seen to have accessed one or more games.

 

Lets look at Fallout: New Vegas for an example. Total of 962793 peers seen downloaded the torrent, roughly 5 mil units sold so potential 1/5 of game sales were pirated.

 

So yes as a whole piracy is not largely effecting the games industry but if all you do is look at the larger picture you're not going to see actual issues, real ones.

[JoostinOnline]

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

And would you get mad if a streaming service suddenly cuts all content because you have admin access on your own stuff? Or doing the same thing just because you have AMD and not intel in your PC? DRM is a cancer and it should die....

I honestly don't understand the relation.  Or even what the first point means.

 

I've coded, and (attempted to) protect my apps from being decompiled and redistributed as another version.  It was quite similar to a lot of DRM.  It doesn't hurt any legitimate users, and it prevented my code from being stolen.  For the life of me, I can't understand why you find entering a license key so horrible.

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Look, you can say "DRM isn't the issue, the implementations are" all you want and I agree with you. Some implementations are better, or worse, than others. I am not trying to say that all DRM are the same, despite the strawman arguments people in this thread makes against me.

But what I am saying is that there is not a single DRM that has made a product better for the consumer, and at the same time there is no content where removing the DRM wouldn't have a neutral or positive effect.

So there are only benefit for consumers to removing DRM.

DRM is not supposed to make the product better for the consumer, if it does that it isn't DRM.  It is only supposed to allow software developers to retain control over who can use their product.  DRM should be invisible to all consumers.

 

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

OK let's look at current and past facts.

DRM has caused countless of issues and there is next to no evidence that it has done anything good.

Those are the facts.

Poor DRM implementation has caused countless issues.

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Can you please point me to the post where I said we should break or remove DRM that are not causing any issues today?

Here:

 

19 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The ones I mentioned did not necessarily rely on online servers to validate the game (although in some instances SecureROM did).

It's just that Microsoft though it was too "deeply embedded in the system" and "supporting SecuROM could have been a possible loophole for computer viruses".

 

So even if you design a DRM like you suggested, a company like Microsoft might decide to block it in the future.

 

DRM will always introduce the possibility that you may one day not be able to use the product you legally bought.

 

 

 

No.

You are clearly suggesting we should not have it today because something might happen in the future.

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

Yes, most games are digital downloads today. We got rid of the CD issue but we have caused a much larger one with online authorization. And yes, we are already seeing the effects of that, with game servers shutting down rendering games useless without cracks (even offline games).

Then that is an issue with product support, and on another level IP laws.  As companies can't make their IP Public while retaining the rights. So when a game becomes a liability rather than an earner they have little choice but to can it.  At any rate, If they wanted they could release the keys or sell private server software, Even aspeecially license some GNU organization to run said servers royalty free. 

 

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

No I am not "by extension supporting piracy". That is a strawman argument and I want you to stop that immediately. I have not even said said we should remove DRM on products that are currently causing no issues.

 

See the above quote where you said:

Quote

 

So even if you design a DRM like you suggested, a company like Microsoft might decide to block it in the future.

 

DRM will always introduce the possibility that you may one day not be able to use the product you legally bought.

 

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The closest thing you will be able to find is me saying that I think it's good if we can solve future problems today. What I meant by that is that if we already have ways of circumventing the store DRM today, then the risk of being stuck with a DRM issue in the future is lower.

You just said " I have not even said said we should remove DRM on products that are currently causing no issues."   So which one is it?  Should we circumvent it to day to prevent possibilities in the future, or wait till they are a problem of obsolescence in the past?

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I see it as finding a cure for an illness I have not yet gotten affected by. I find it calming to know that if something happens there is a way around it.

A cure for an illness you don't have. Then it is unnecessary for now and has no guarantees it is the correct cure for a future problem that hasn't occurred yet. .

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

You mean the links I have posted that support the theory that piracy is not harmful to the industry? Yeah, because linking 7 different independent research papers and studies which all more or less comes to the same conclusion is not "very good reasons".

I don't even know what you are talking about there. They weren't directed at me if they were in a post in this thread.

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It's a very bad habit of dismissing evidence. Maybe you're not as unbiased and rational as you think regarding this issue?

Or are you talking about the examples I gave where DRM is an issue? Like not being able to watch 4K Netflix on my desktop because I have an AMD processor, or not being able to watch anime because they are region locked. Needing to launch several launchers because Ubisoft wants you to have an account for their store even though you bought the game from another store. Stuff like that?

No body is dismissing evidence.  You keep raising the actions of companies that implement shitty launchers and DRM programs and then try to blanket blame DRM as the issue. 

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

Well, the only reason we are having this conversation is because you claimed that the only people who would ever need to circumvent DRM are pirates.

No, I claimed most of the DRM circumvention for today's games are by pirates:

 

Quote

but I highly doubt any of the guys breaking DRM for today's software are doing it for the 0.5% of users who might have a legitimate issue that the DEV's won't address.

You see, I did qualify my opinions.  I usually do. 

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

When I gave you some examples of instances where legitimate customers were blocked from enjoying the content they had paid for you dismissed it as not being an issue, and that people should stop playing "obsolete" games.

For one,  I did not dismiss it,  I did not say people should stop playing obsolete games, I said that was a problem with obsolescence as much as it was with DRM and the issues with DRM were implementation issues.    So you are the one trying to argue against DRM on today's software by digging up poor implementations from the past.

 

If you are going to accuse me of saying things at least have the decency to quote exactly what I said rather than misrepresent one or two words out of context. 

 

 

 

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

I honestly don't understand the relation.  Or even what the first point means.

 

I've coded, and (attempted to) protect my apps from being decompiled and redistributed as another version.  It was quite similar to a lot of DRM.  It doesn't hurt any legitimate users, and it prevented my code from being stolen.  For the life of me, I can't understand why you find entering a license key so horrible.

Some people just hate.  People hate DRM, they won't stop and think about the legitimate side or the moral side, they only see their side.

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Lets look at Fallout: New Vegas for an example. Total of 962793 peers seen downloaded the torrent, roughly 5 mil units sold so potential 1/5 of game sales were pirated.

I think you misread the sales numbers of New Vegas.

It sold 5 million copies in the US, but the estimated overall sales were over 12 million. So at most they lost ~8% of their sales.

However, that is just the potentially lost sales number. The real number for lost sales is most likely far lower.

So one of the most pirated games lost maybe 5% of their sales because of piracy. Still quite high, but not anywhere near 20%.

 

This is exactly what I mean by the pro-DRM side basing their entire stance on false narratives. You did not find a 20% piracy rate strange, even though it was in actuality ~8% (rough numbers). This is exactly what I mean when I say piracy is an overblown issue.

[LAwLz]

58 minutes ago, mr moose said:

DRM is not supposed to make the product better for the consumer, if it does that it isn't DRM.  It is only supposed to allow software developers to retain control over who can use their product.  DRM should be invisible to all consumers.

It should be invisible, but this is rarely, if ever, the case.

 

58 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You are clearly suggesting we should not have it today because something might happen in the future.

Hold on there.

I suggested that software today should not have it. That is to say, I believe developers should stop adding DRM to their products that they are releasing.

I did not, as you claim I did, suggest that consumers should take things into their own hands and remove it.

Those two are very different things.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Then that is an issue with product support, and on another level IP laws.  As companies can't make their IP Public while retaining the rights. So when a game becomes a liability rather than an earner they have little choice but to can it.  At any rate, If they wanted they could release the keys or sell private server software, Even aspeecially license some GNU organization to run said servers royalty free. 

Again, you keep saying DRM isn't the issue and shifting the blame to support.

It is the DRM that is causing the issue. DRM is the issue. Support for the product would be a fix.

 

My computer won't boot because my CPU is not working as intended.

What would you say the problem with my computer is? Would you say the problem is my CPU, or would you say the problem is with me, for not having swapped the CPU out?

 

Same thing here with DRM.

The DRM is not working as intended by blocking legitimate users from accessing the software they have paid for.

Would you say the problem is with the DRM not doing what it was intended to do (block unauthorized access while allowing authorized access) or would you say the problem is purely with the support?

 

To me these two situations are exactly the same, and in both cases I blame the piece of technology preventing the system from working.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

You just said " I have not even said said we should remove DRM on products that are currently causing no issues."   So which one is it?  Should we circumvent it to day to prevent possibilities in the future, or wait till they are a problem of obsolescence in the past?

See, this is once again a misinterpretation of what I was saying. There is a very big difference between saying it's good we know how to do something, and saying it is good and we should do it.

 

Think of it as finding a security vulnerability. There is a very big difference between "oh wow good thing we found this security hole before it could become a problem" and "oh wow good thing we found this security hole. Now we can exploit it for personal gains".

I further elaborated what I meant by saying I looked at it as cures for illnesses. It is good that we know how to circumvent things if they were to become issues in the future.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

A cure for an illness you don't have. Then it is unnecessary for now and has no guarantees it is the correct cure for a future problem that hasn't occurred yet.

One that I do not have, yet. The DRM the store uses has a fairly low risk of ever affecting me since I have been avoiding it like the plague, but that does not mean it won't potentially cause issues for anyone else.

Sure they might change the DRM in future versions but if they do I'll hope that someone finds ways to circumvent that too.

Please note that I said I hope they "find ways to circumvent it", not "I hope people pirate a bunch of games!". Those are two very different things.

 

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

No, I claimed most of the DRM circumvention for today's games are by pirates:

You did claim that no legitimate customers has problems with DRM when you posted this:

On 2/18/2018 at 2:08 AM, mr moose said:

if you bought it legitimately you don't need to remove the cd copy protection to get it working. 

That was the sentence which caused me to post in this thread.

When I replied to you in a very calm and nice manner, pointing out several instances where legitimate customers were no longer able to play the games they had bought you dismissed it as not being a DRM issue.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

For one,  I did not dismiss it,  I did not say people should stop playing obsolete games, I said that was a problem with obsolescence as much as it was with DRM and the issues with DRM were implementation issues.

You literally said:

22 hours ago, mr moose said:

So some is a problem because it's obsolete software and some is a problem because sony won't support their own products. 

I don't see how you can interpret this as anything else but "the problem is that you're trying to run obsolete games"

Hence why I replied saying that games never get obsolete, just like books don't become obsolete just because a movie comes out.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

So you are the one trying to argue against DRM on today's software by digging up poor implementations from the past.

Yes. Since neither one of us has a time machine we have to judge actions which will affect the future by looking at past and present scenarios.

It does not make any sense to go "well, we don't know how things will play out in the future so let's keep doing the same things we did in the past which resulted in issues".

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Some people just hate.  People hate DRM, they won't stop and think about the legitimate side or the moral side, they only see their side.

What's funny is that's exactly how I see you.

Won't stop and think about the legitimate issues or moral side of things, and only listens to the pro-DRM arguments.

 

By the way, I am not saying piracy is morally right. What I am saying is adding DRM to your product is morally wrong, because it will only ever punish legitimate customers and pirates won't be affected by it. DRM is made with the intention of limiting the abilities of paying customers, and the only people not affected by it are the pirates. That's why I think it is immoral.

 

Don't you agree that it seems immoral when you look at it that way?

[jagdtigger]

7 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

I honestly don't understand the relation.  Or even what the first point means.

 

I've coded, and (attempted to) protect my apps from being decompiled and redistributed as another version.  It was quite similar to a lot of DRM.  It doesn't hurt any legitimate users, and it prevented my code from being stolen.  For the life of me, I can't understand why you find entering a license key so horrible.

The problem isnt a licence key. Its the arbitrary limitations that many DRM poses needlessly on users. Like Netflix requires the newest intel CPU for 4k and you have to use the IGP, plus they flat out banned rooted phones... Now this is the problem, even if i want to pay for the content i wont get it even though my PC could play it and i have a 4k monitor, but my CPU doesnt support their newest cancer... Or in case of games the dreaded you can x times activate this game, and so on.

[JoostinOnline]

4 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

The problem isnt a licence key. Its the arbitrary limitations that many DRM poses needlessly on users. Like Netflix requires the newest intel CPU for 4k and you have to use the IGP, plus they flat out banned rooted phones... Now this is the problem, even if i want to pay for the content i wont get it even though my PC could play it and i have a 4k monitor, but my CPU doesnt support their newest cancer... Or in case of games the dreaded you can x times activate this game, and so on.

You're talking about specific uses that actually hindered functionality.  That's not the overall purpose of DRM, and it usually doesn't have any negative effect.

 

The Intel/Netflix/Edge thing isn't DRM though.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It should be invisible, but this is rarely, if ever, the case.

 

Hold on there.

I suggested that software today should not have it. That is to say, I believe developers should stop adding DRM to their products that they are releasing.

I did not, as you claim I did, suggest that consumers should take things into their own hands and remove it.

Those two are very different things.

Then I apologise for the confusion.

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Again, you keep saying DRM isn't the issue and shifting the blame to support.

It is the DRM that is causing the issue. DRM is the issue. Support for the product would be a fix.

Supporting a product does not have to be post sale.  Proper product support comes from other metrics as well, like contingencies in place for when servers are decomiisioned or the original OS it is written for becomes obsolete.

 

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Same thing here with DRM.

The DRM is not working as intended by blocking legitimate users from accessing the software they have paid for.

Would you say the problem is with the DRM not doing what it was intended to do (block unauthorized access while allowing authorized access) or would you say the problem is purely with the support?

No, the problem is the company that implemented it because it is doing exactly what they programed it to do. 

 

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

To me these two situations are exactly the same, and in both cases I blame the piece of technology preventing the system from working.

Would you also blame encryption as the technology that prevent authorities from cracking child trafficking rings? Or the criminals that use it?

 

After all it is the same thing.  DRM is a broad term that encompasses technology done right and technology that is extremely shit to old users.  The only people who can change that are the companies that program it.

 

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

See, this is once again a misinterpretation of what I was saying. There is a very big difference between saying it's good we know how to do something, and saying it is good and we should do it.

To what end? you say it's good to know how to crack DRM, but...

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

Think of it as finding a security vulnerability. There is a very big difference between "oh wow good thing we found this security hole before it could become a problem" and "oh wow good thing we found this security hole. Now we can exploit it for personal gains".

I further elaborated what I meant by saying I looked at it as cures for illnesses. It is good that we know how to circumvent things if they were to become issues in the future.

And?

 

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

One that I do not have, yet. The DRM the store uses has a fairly low risk of ever affecting me since I have been avoiding it like the plague, but that does not mean it won't potentially cause issues for anyone else.

Sure they might change the DRM in future versions but if they do I'll hope that someone finds ways to circumvent that too.

Please note that I said I hope they "find ways to circumvent it", not "I hope people pirate a bunch of games!". Those are two very different things.

And you think the people looking to circumvent DRM are doing it for the small percentage of people with genuine issues?

 

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

You did claim that no legitimate customers has problems with DRM when you posted this:

That was the sentence which caused me to post in this thread.

When I replied to you in a very calm and nice manner, pointing out several instances where legitimate customers were no longer able to play the games they had bought you dismissed it as not being a DRM issue.

I literally said:

 

Quote

So some is a problem because it's obsolete software and some is a problem because sony won't support their own products. 

The bit in bold is admission that there is a problem, this is not dismissal, in fact quite the opposite.

The bit in Italics is an explanation of why it is a problem and:

The bit underlined is the real reason that particular DRM is causing grief.

 

Not dismissal, just qualification and addressing of the issue.

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

You literally said:

I don't see how you can interpret this as anything else but "the problem is that you're trying to run obsolete games"

Hence why I replied saying that games never get obsolete, just like books don't become obsolete just because a movie comes out.

 

Obsolescence is one problem and that isn't necessarily intrinsic to DRM,   Do you also get shitty because you can't run windows 95 on new hardware?  I paid for win 95, I should be allowed to use it today, MS should have to write a sata driver for win 95.  Sometimes you have to learn to let go of old shit, sometimes a third party can legitimately get around it.  But at the end of the the day it isn't old OS kernals and device drivers that are the issue, it's the fact MS won't release the code or release drives to make it work.

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes. Since neither one of us has a time machine we have to judge actions which will affect the future by looking at past and present scenarios.

It does not make any sense to go "well, we don't know how things will play out in the future so let's keep doing the same things we did in the past which resulted in issues".

So when they go bad in the future then deal with them, Crack the DRM on old games that aren't being sold anymore.  Whatever,  I just don't think it's a fair or robust argument that obsolete and unsupported software from the past is justification to Can DRM altogether or to circumvent it for today's software. 

[jagdtigger]

6 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

You're talking about specific uses that actually hindered functionality.  That's not the overall purpose of DRM, and it usually doesn't have any negative effect.

 

The Intel/Netflix/Edge thing isn't DRM though.

Yes it is a DRM and a bad one at that. BTW those are just the few examples off the top of my head, there are a lot more of them.....

[mr moose]

23 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Don't you agree that it seems immoral when you look at it that way?

I think I have qualified my comments enough times:

On 2/18/2018 at 12:45 PM, mr moose said:

Your talking about lack of product support, not an intrinsic failure of DRM.  You can't blame DRM because you bought a computer without a cd drive and you have a game on cd.

 

The bit in bold I think we can agree on, but I highly doubt any of the guys breaking DRM for today's software are doing it for the 0.5% of users who might have a legitimate issue that the DEV's won't address.

 

 

On 2/18/2018 at 1:09 PM, mr moose said:

 

So you are talking specifically about really old games while these guys are cracking DRM on the latest releases.    Don't try to justify cracking DRM on currently available and working digital content by talking about wanting to buy games that aren't in publication anymore.

 

 

 

23 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

So some is a problem because it's obsolete software and some is a problem because sony won't support their own products.   Either way companies supporting their products would change that.  

 

Given DRM doesn't stop anyone playing the latest games there is no need to crack it. 

 

And when leadeater said:

22 hours ago, leadeater said:

Or design DRM that doesn't rely on or die with company support, like requiring server check-in. Or make it so companies are legally required to update the final supported version of the game so it will always work after servers and support have been discontinued.

I responded with:

22 hours ago, mr moose said:

That would be, by my definition, companies providing adequate support for their products.  

 

 

22 hours ago, mr moose said:

"Might", that sounds like a concrete reason to promote piracy, they "might" block it in the future.

 

 

So does many facets of technology, like discs becoming obsolete and OS's becoming so far removed from the originals that software was written for, not too mention hardware dropping legacy features needed for older programs. But DRM itself doesn't have to, it can be written in order to not be the issue. It can even be totally made redundant by a company if they wanted by simply releasing the serial keys.   Again it is the way it is implemented, not what it is.

 

 

IF that doesn't tell you that my issues predominately lie with people busting DRM on new software that isn't a problem,  and whilst I recgonise obsolete software has issues that could be resolved with DRM, it is not the DRM that is the problem but the fact the company won't remove it or support such software.  

If you can't accept that I have made these qualifications (since the first page) then this discussion is just going to go round in circles.

[JoostinOnline]

9 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Yes it is a DRM and a bad one at that.

That's not DRM.  That's called a business arrangement.

 

Every time you've ever played a game on a console, you've been subject to DRM.  Every time you played a movie, it's the same.  It didn't hinder your ability to use it at all.  I guaranty you that 90% of the time DRM is in effect, you didn't even know it.  Usually it's not obvious unless you're trying to do something illegal.

[jagdtigger]

20 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

That's not DRM.  That's called a business arrangement.

 

Every time you've ever played a game on a console, you've been subject to DRM.  Every time you played a movie, it's the same.  It didn't hinder your ability to use it at all.  I guaranty you that 90% of the time DRM is in effect, you didn't even know it.  Usually it's not obvious unless you're trying to do something illegal.

Like when i want to put my films on phone so i can watch them on it? Or you want to put it onto your NAS so you dont have to fiddle around with discs? Or you just want to preserve them so you make an iso out of them?(<- this one is actually true for games too) All of these are legal uses labeled as illegal by some corps so they can generate more profit. BTW lets just say all of my films are DRM free.... And so far the only non-intrusive DRM i seen is steam* and origin*(but im starting to shift over to GoG in case of buying games).

 

/EDIT

* But these are a gamble too, if the company goes down or gets bought and the new owner's only intention is to eliminate competition you will loose all you games. And then you will have only 2 choice. Either buy it again or download it... And even then if you download you would be labeled as a pirate. And this is why is why i say DRM should die.

Edited February 21, 2018 by jagdtigger

[asus killer]

the best analogy for the DRM is your house:

 

You can either leave the door open and trust people not to steal you (GOG).

Most people don't want to enter anyway, those that want to enter will enter.

 

You can lock it and trust people don't have a way to unlock it (Steam).

Anyone that wants to steal something will enter with almost no effort. You are basically just prevent those that didn't wanted to robe you in the 1st place from entering. Still it's a dissuasion in turning honest people into robbers i guess.

 

You can go the nuclear option, ravenous dogs and a moat with crocodiles. 

People can drug the dog and the crocodiles and will if they want to enter to steal you. But every time you want to enter your house you have to give food to the crocodiles and sedate the dogs or vice versa, it's costly on the family budget and you loose a lot of time to enter your house every day.

You are robbed on a daily basis the same way, it just takes the robbers longer, sometimes they have to go back and get pet food and when they finally robe you the pie is no longer fresh

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Then I apologise for the confusion.

No problem. I can see how my post could be interpreted the way you interpreted it and I could have made a better job expressing myself.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Supporting a product does not have to be post sale.  Proper product support comes from other metrics as well, like contingencies in place for when servers are decomiisioned or the original OS it is written for becomes obsolete.

I would be OK with that.

It does not benefit the developers though so they give consumers the middle finger. So what you are suggesting will most likely never happen on a wide scale unless a law gets passed.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

No, the problem is the company that implemented it because it is doing exactly what they programed it to do. 

The company is the one causing the problem, but the DRM is the problem.

There is an important difference.

And I am not sure if you understand the implications of this sentence. What you are saying is the DRM was purposely designed to prevent paying customers from accessing the content they are entitled to. if that's what you believe (that the purpose of DRM is to block the content from paying customers) then I find it even harder to understand why you hold the position you do.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Would you also blame encryption as the technology that prevent authorities from cracking child trafficking rings? Or the criminals that use it?

It entirely depends on what you define the problem as. You can define this issue in two ways.

1) As you defined it, the problem is that authorities are unable to locate child trafficking rings because of encryption, then I would say encryption is the problem.

2) If you define the problem as "child trafficking rings exist" then I would not blame encryption for it.

 

Since I don't believe there is a solution to number 2 we have to focus on number 1. How would I solve that? I would solve it by tying to work around the encryption, just like I would feel no problem working around a DRM if it was giving me issues.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

After all it is the same thing.  DRM is a broad term that encompasses technology done right and technology that is extremely shit to old users.  The only people who can change that are the companies that program it.

Well, personally I believe there is no such thing as "DRM done right", as it is always, to some degree, detrimental to the product, and there is a severe lack of empirical evidence that it has any benefits at all.

So right now all we know for sure is that DRM costs developers time and money to implement and that in the best case scenario most customers won't notice it, but in most cases it has at least a small (sometimes large) negative impact on the experience for the customer. it could be a simple thing like needing to put in a CD key when you install the game (no CD key would be a better experience for the customer) to things like Assassings creed where it apparently has a noticeable impact on performance.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

To what end? you say it's good to know how to crack DRM, but...

It is good because if issues arise in the future, we might already have the solution to it.

Again, it's like finding a cure for a disease you not have yet. I don't have cancer but I would feel calmer knowing that if I ever got it, there was an effective cure for it. I would also be happy for the people who are affected by it since they can now get help.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

And you think the people looking to circumvent DRM are doing it for the small percentage of people with genuine issues?

I don't, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Just because something can, and probably will, be used for bad purposes doesn't mean it has good applications too.

 

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Obsolescence is one problem and that isn't necessarily intrinsic to DRM,   Do you also get shitty because you can't run windows 95 on new hardware?  I paid for win 95, I should be allowed to use it today, MS should have to write a sata driver for win 95.  Sometimes you have to learn to let go of old shit, sometimes a third party can legitimately get around it.  But at the end of the the day it isn't old OS kernals and device drivers that are the issue, it's the fact MS won't release the code or release drives to make it work.

I wouldn't get mad at it because it doesn't affect me, but if someone was affected and found a way to make it work then I would think it was morally acceptable for them to do so.

But the big difference here is, like I said before, compatibility breaking is a side effect while the purpose of DRM is to restrict users.

Both may have the same effects on the users, but the intentions behind them are completely different and the reason why I think one is more acceptable than the other.

 

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

So when they go bad in the future then deal with them, Crack the DRM on old games that aren't being sold anymore.  Whatever,  I just don't think it's a fair or robust argument that obsolete and unsupported software from the past is justification to Can DRM altogether or to circumvent it for today's software. 

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on that.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I think you misread the sales numbers of New Vegas.

It sold 5 million copies in the US, but the estimated overall sales were over 12 million. So at most they lost ~8% of their sales.

However, that is just the potentially lost sales number. The real number for lost sales is most likely far lower.

So one of the most pirated games lost maybe 5% of their sales because of piracy. Still quite high, but not anywhere near 20%.

 

This is exactly what I mean by the pro-DRM side basing their entire stance on false narratives. You did not find a 20% piracy rate strange, even though it was in actuality ~8% (rough numbers). This is exactly what I mean when I say piracy is an overblown issue.

No Fallout 4 sold 12 million copies, New Vegas sold 5.

 

Quote

Bethesda Softworks is calling Fallout: New Vegas' launch a success, with more than five mission copies shipped since the game's release, with retailers calling for more. Now all they have to do is fix it.

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/11/fallout-new-vegas-makes-millions/

 

Now that is of course not a complete unit sales because that's how many at that point in time so if we use SteamDB to check total owners then that is 5,089,036 right now today, so the only people not on Steam is people that have cracked the game and also never purchased it. Edit: Game requires Steam even if you buy it from a retail store for PC.

 

Quote

5,089,036 ± 68,227 owners
4,461,330 ± 63,921 players total87.67%
145,394 ± 11,588 players in last 2 weeks2.86%

https://steamdb.info/app/22380/graphs/

 

Be a bit more careful when checking numbers and make sure you you are looking at the correct ones, I almost made the same mistake when looking for New Vegas sales.

 

Remember that study was conducted over only 3 months so a heck of a lot more people could have downloaded the game after the study or used private closed trackers and not a public open one, which is very common for the long term persistent pirates to use and that community isn't small (FYI I've used a few private trackers over the years).

[Jito463]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

And you think the people looking to circumvent DRM are doing it for the small percentage of people with genuine issues?

Actually, I think they do it for fun and for fame (within the pirating community).  I don't believe they even do it to release, that's secondary.

5 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

That's not DRM.  That's called a business arrangement.

Surely you're not that dense.  It's DRM implemented because of a business arrangement.  If Playready isn't DRM, then that term has no meaning.

5 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

Usually it's not obvious unless you're trying to do something illegal.

Really?  How many times have we seen draconian DRM that limited the number of times people could reinstall (on the same machine, no less)?  Or times where the DRM failed to perform properly and cause legitimate customers to have issues?  Illegal?  How about the developers just screwed up the implementation.

[mr moose]

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

No problem. I can see how my post could be interpreted the way you interpreted it and I could have made a better job expressing myself.

 

I would be OK with that.

It does not benefit the developers though so they give consumers the middle finger. So what you are suggesting will most likely never happen on a wide scale unless a law gets passed.

I would not presume to try and understand why any developer does what they do.  

 

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The company is the one causing the problem, but the DRM is the problem.

There is an important difference.

And I am not sure if you understand the implications of this sentence. What you are saying is the DRM was purposely designed to prevent paying customers from accessing the content they are entitled to. if that's what you believe (that the purpose of DRM is to block the content from paying customers) then I find it even harder to understand why you hold the position you do.

 

It entirely depends on what you define the problem as. You can define this issue in two ways.

1) As you defined it, the problem is that authorities are unable to locate child trafficking rings because of encryption, then I would say encryption is the problem.

2) If you define the problem as "child trafficking rings exist" then I would not blame encryption for it.

 

I understand the implications, I just hate the companies not the concept of DRM, just like I hate child traffickers and not the concept of encryption.  But if in my analogy, working around DRM has the same implications as working around encryption, then no one is safe to use it.

 

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Well, personally I believe there is no such thing as "DRM done right", as it is always, to some degree, detrimental to the product, and there is a severe lack of empirical evidence that it has any benefits at all.

So right now all we know for sure is that DRM costs developers time and money to implement and that in the best case scenario most customers won't notice it, but in most cases it has at least a small (sometimes large) negative impact on the experience for the customer. it could be a simple thing like needing to put in a CD key when you install the game (no CD key would be a better experience for the customer) to things like Assassings creed where it apparently has a noticeable impact on performance.

There is a midfield of information on DRM out there, It's easy to find articles that support the perception it is only negative,  but the thing is that doesn't stand to reason. Companies are only concerned with money, if DRM was only a sink and not, at the bare minimum, a protection of income, they wouldn't be hell bent on using it every time.  If it plays no role in revue stream and only costs, then why is it part of the business model?  

 

I am very much a proponent of if you build it, you get to decide what it is and how it is used.  If that cost you money so be it.   Anything that dictates to a company (or person for that matter) that they can't make their products their way is abhorrent to me.  As a consumer I do not buy products I don't like.  I do not own any Ubisoft titles since HOMM7 was an unsupported failure.  

 

 

Also an interesting side note, many of the studies into game revenue/profits and DRM/piracy, don't take into consideration the changing economics of the average gamer and the growth of the industry.   Which are very important considerations I'd like to know more about.   I have previously linked to pretty damning proof that the music industry suffered greatly due to piracy and the internet.  There is no reason to assume there will not be some similar effects in software.

 

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It is good because if issues arise in the future, we might already have the solution to it.

Again, it's like finding a cure for a disease you not have yet. I don't have cancer but I would feel calmer knowing that if I ever got it, there was an effective cure for it. I would also be happy for the people who are affected by it since they can now get help.

So because some DRM is not implemented right you think all DRM should be compromised?

 

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Just because something can, and probably will, be used for bad purposes doesn't mean it has good applications too.

You can't argue that someone using something for bad purposes is evidence it lacks good implementation and use.

 

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I wouldn't get mad at it because it doesn't affect me, but if someone was affected and found a way to make it work then I would think it was morally acceptable for them to do so.

But the big difference here is, like I said before, compatibility breaking is a side effect while the purpose of DRM is to restrict users.

Both may have the same effects on the users, but the intentions behind them are completely different and the reason why I think one is more acceptable than the other.

 

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on that.

Of course DRM is designed to restrict users, But you are still confusing legitimate use of DRM to restrict users who don't pay for it, and the side effects of poorly implemented DRM.    There is a difference between the two.