Could be that the matter will be resolved for us anyways. I understand there's some sort of agreement (wiki article) in the works which is supposed to "solve" the problem. One rumor that I heard (which I can't back up but I believe it was from the Edmonton Metro paper) said that the plan is to get ISPs to actively watch out for and report any sort of activity that may look like piracy. Being suspected of piracy would basically get your internet turn off, potentially for life. There was also some conjecture that you'll need to be able to prove that any data you posess is yours as you cross international borders. And if you can't, you'd be saying good-bye to your mp3 player.
Not sure to what extent this is true but if there is an international effort to do so I could certainly see the potential for a massive massive crack down on piracy and to finally tame and civilize the wild wild web. It can be done and I wouldn't be suprised if we see something major come into effect in the next 5 years that throws modern day media piracy back to the '70s.
Draconian DRM means you get screwed, pirates don't
3,017
March 10, 2010 01:01 PM
Quote: Original post by kseh
Could be that the matter will be resolved for us anyways. I understand there's some sort of agreement (wiki article) in the works which is supposed to "solve" the problem. One rumor that I heard (which I can't back up but I believe it was from the Edmonton Metro paper) said that the plan is to get ISPs to actively watch out for and report any sort of activity that may look like piracy. Being suspected of piracy would basically get your internet turn off, potentially for life.
I don't know, it sounds like a noble cause, but in reality, how would it be enforced? First of all, are the ISP's gonna spy our every move? I know they can trace our history once there is proof of a serious crime, but now they're gonna do it for everyone and anyone in a daily basis? Sounds a bit scary. Aside from that, they're really gonna cut off everyone that is involved in piracy? That includes games, music, movies, TV series? And porn? Porn? Well, in that case 95% of the internet will go down overnight. Sounds utopic.
1,429
March 10, 2010 01:12 PM
Quote: Original post by mikemanQuote: Original post by kseh
Could be that the matter will be resolved for us anyways. I understand there's some sort of agreement (wiki article) in the works which is supposed to "solve" the problem. One rumor that I heard (which I can't back up but I believe it was from the Edmonton Metro paper) said that the plan is to get ISPs to actively watch out for and report any sort of activity that may look like piracy. Being suspected of piracy would basically get your internet turn off, potentially for life.
I don't know, it sounds like a noble cause, but in reality, how would it be enforced? First of all, are the ISP's gonna spy our every move? I know they can trace our history once there is proof of a serious crime, but now they're gonna do it for everyone and anyone in a daily basis? Sounds a bit scary. Aside from that, they're really gonna cut off everyone that is involved in piracy? That includes games, music, movies, TV series? And porn? Porn? Well, in that case 95% of the internet will go down overnight. Sounds utopic.
I just moved apartments and the cable guy who hooked me up mentioned that I should 'be careful what I upload'. I've also heard previously that they ( Time Warner ) monitor monthly upstream bandwidth.
How they're going to determine the legality of the content being shared is beyond me.
3,998
March 10, 2010 02:31 PM
Quote: Original post by mikemanQuote: Original post by kseh
Could be that the matter will be resolved for us anyways. I understand there's some sort of agreement (wiki article) in the works which is supposed to "solve" the problem. One rumor that I heard (which I can't back up but I believe it was from the Edmonton Metro paper) said that the plan is to get ISPs to actively watch out for and report any sort of activity that may look like piracy. Being suspected of piracy would basically get your internet turn off, potentially for life.
I don't know, it sounds like a noble cause, but in reality, how would it be enforced? First of all, are the ISP's gonna spy our every move? I know they can trace our history once there is proof of a serious crime, but now they're gonna do it for everyone and anyone in a daily basis? Sounds a bit scary. Aside from that, they're really gonna cut off everyone that is involved in piracy? That includes games, music, movies, TV series? And porn? Porn? Well, in that case 95% of the internet will go down overnight. Sounds utopic.
An upgraded version of my VB script, of course.
for each customer in custdatabase for each port in openports if port.name = "BitTorrent" then call CopsToYourHouse(customer.address) endif nextnextOr maybe by upload rate as dgreen02 mentioned. What business does the average internet joe have uploading anything in significant quantity? You want news, email, wikipedia... that's mostly all download. It isn't even so much that they have to have proof, they only have to suspect.
Yes, it could very well all be a bunch of hot air. But it shouldn't really be a suprise if it happens either. I would suspect that in the lightest application of such a mandate it'd focus on keeping the honest people honest. Sortta like having locks on doors. It keeps the average person from going somewhere he shouldn't but it doesn't necissarily deter the ones that are determined to steal something. Also, consider how many millions of cars are out there on the road. When you think about it, it's amazing that everybody isn't speeding 2 or 10 times over the speed limit. Enforcement doesn't have to be everywhere all the time. Sooner or later, a way will be found.
Personally, my consern isn't so much that the flow of free media will be turned off. I actually find the feeling of entitlement, that everyone has these days to free media, quite troubling. The thought that something should be endlessly available to us with no consequence hasn't really served us well in the past. But it's the potential for invasion of privacy with the application of this agreement (or one like it) that's concerning. Not to mention I find it a bit troubling the degree of secrecy involved in working out this agreement (though I can understand that given how tough it is to get anything done with a thousand loby groups beating on your door).
2,410
March 10, 2010 02:34 PM
Quote: Original post by dgreen02
How they're going to determine the legality of the content being shared is beyond me.
If they own the network, they do deep packet inspection - every packet traveling over their networks is examined for content and tested against blacklist.
In addition, several independent companies monitor all public torrent trackers and log IPs involved. These might be running just clients, or perhaps trackers as well. In the past, similar companies were responsible for poisoning the transfers, but that probably didn't have desired effect.
On at least two occasions (Angels and Demons, I think, as well as the notorious Wolverine leak) these companies sent emails to all the ISPs owning the IPs logged including time and torrent/tracker details worldwide.
Put differently - if you as much as check a public torrent, your IP, time, ISP, torrent name, your downloaded parts and perhaps more will be permanently logged in privately owned databases. The information itself is considered public in nature, so it's not legally problematic, nor is the data retention.
For this reason, majority of heavy torrent traffic goes on via private, invitation and referral-only trackers. Despite that, they can still be tracked by owners of the networks.
Quote: First of all, are the ISP's gonna spy our every move?
They already do. They might be even legally required to do so, or at best required to delete data after 6 months.
In practice, everything is already logged and tracked, in part for improving service quality (load balancing, traffic routing and shaping, ...).
Quote: I know they can trace our history once there is proof of a serious crime, but now they're gonna do it for everyone and anyone in a daily basis?
Have you ever visited a site that contains google analytics? Google knows who you are and what you do on the web.
Not so long ago, I went to youtube from a different, new computer (clean install), different IP (same network, but some 10 computers on it total) and different OS, and youtube showed me recommended videos without knowing my username or me ever logging in on that computer, not youtube, not any other google service.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook, your ISP and many more know who you are, what you like, and where you are going next with 80%+ reliability. They don't need any action from you to determine that, don't require any login or cookies. Just statistical sampling of IP address vs. time of visit and some number crunching is enough. And it works for about 80% of cases. The key here is probability - they cannot use this information in court, but for their purposes, 80% is good enough.
So yea, if you've got something to hide, something you really absolutely don't want others to know, keep it far from PC, X-box, or any other kind of communication device.
5,385
March 10, 2010 03:06 PM
Quote: Original post by Yann LQuote: Original post by ChaosEngine
That said, the "waaahh, I'm not happy with DRM, so I'm going to pirate it"* argument is even more retarded than the "Hey! let's screw over the guys who actually paid for our game" argument.
But you have to consider the "I bought this game, and now I'm going to apply a crack only to be able to actually use the product I paid for" argument, which is quite valid if you ask me. Requiring an online connection every time you want to play a single player game is absolutely unacceptable. To be honest, if I bought a game with such a protection, I would probably crack it.
That wasn't really my point. Someone who owns a game and cracks it is not "pirating" it.
I'm talking about the people who said they would steal the game because they refused to pay for it.
if you think programming is like sex, you probably haven't done much of either.-------------- - capn_midnight
1,098
March 10, 2010 03:18 PM
Quote: Original post by MrMark
Piracy has all but killed the traditional hardcore PC gaming market.
And DRM is killing what's left. I haven't bought a PC game in years because of DRM, with the exception of MMO's which inherently don't need it. Like others, I also seriously question the figures coming out of the industry. The number of pirated copies is nowhere near the number of lost sales.
Quote: Original post by LessBread
I think the idea is that all the formalities at the beginning are there to give you time to pop the popcorn, visit the loo, read the newspaper, pet the dog, and get settled in your comfy chair before the movie begins...
I'm not sure if you're serious or not. But just in case, this argument falls down once you add a loop into all the garbage at the beginning. I'm fairly sure I've seen cases where you *had* to press the menu button to get out of a loop of previews. Although I suppose it may have been that I was so annoyed by that time I just didn't wait long enough (a long wait being bad of itself...)
I like that graphic. It needs to add a section where you finally get to the menu section, but have to sit through the completely useless 30s long animation before you're allowed to press play.
Quote: Original post by kseh
Being suspected of piracy would basically get your internet turn off, potentially for life.
The usual problem with this approach is false positives. Although hurting innocents hasn't ever really stopped this sort of thinking in the past. Being able to lie to stockholders about the bold new approaches to stopping piracy is after all much more important than not screwing over a few random nobodies.
-Mike
7,644
March 10, 2010 06:27 PM
Quote: Original post by Erik RufeltQuote: Original post by SimonForsman
The point is that even with DRM everyone can download a fully functioning version of the game almost at day one without any drawbacks
There are different groups of people, willing to do different things to pirate the game. I'm just guessing, but I think there is a significant group that would copy their friends' CDs, but that won't download a cracked version. For one thing, people that download the cracked versions (unless they really know their computers), usually have their PCs full of viruses and spyware. Even if there are 10% paying customers, 89% downloaders, and 1% that would copy the CD but not download it, it's probably worth it.
Indeed, but people who would copy a friends CD (what usually refered to as casual piracy) is easy to stop, you don't need to go very far to deter that behaviour, basic copyprotection isn't a huge problem for legitimate users and doesn't cost alot to develop and maintain so its definitly a good idea, the step from that to what ubisoft is doing is fairly huge though.
The hard part is large scale online piracy, this is what most DRM these days seem to try to prevent, and fail badly at while becoming more and more of a hassle for legitimate customers.
The best successes here have been through the legal system, allthough i'm not personally a big fan of the massive damages awarded by US courts i think the courts is the only place where large scale piracy can realistically be fought, if you nail the unauthorized distributors it will be alot harder for pirates to get your software without paying for it. (Yes there are private trackers and darknets, but the general public don't have access to those, if the distribution is out in the open where anyone can access it you can quite easily obtain the distributors IP and take things from there. (If distribution is limited to a smaller group of people its not really a huge problem)
Edit:
Found another nice link, its an interview with Gabe Newell that touches on drm and piracy quite alot
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[Edited by - SimonForsman on March 10, 2010 7:27:09 PM]
[size="1"]I don't suffer from insanity, I'm enjoying every minute of it.
The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!
The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!
479
March 11, 2010 11:43 AM
Quote: Original post by kseh
Could be that the matter will be resolved for us anyways. I understand there's some sort of agreement (wiki article) in the works which is supposed to "solve" the problem. One rumor that I heard (which I can't back up but I believe it was from the Edmonton Metro paper) said that the plan is to get ISPs to actively watch out for and report any sort of activity that may look like piracy. Being suspected of piracy would basically get your internet turn off, potentially for life. There was also some conjecture that you'll need to be able to prove that any data you posess is yours as you cross international borders. And if you can't, you'd be saying good-bye to your mp3 player.
Not sure to what extent this is true but if there is an international effort to do so I could certainly see the potential for a massive massive crack down on piracy and to finally tame and civilize the wild wild web. It can be done and I wouldn't be suprised if we see something major come into effect in the next 5 years that throws modern day media piracy back to the '70s.
Except ACTA has been voted to hell by 95% of EU MEPs: votewatch.eu.
3,998
March 11, 2010 12:30 PM
Quote: Original post by isschQuote: Original post by kseh
Could be that the matter will be resolved for us anyways. I understand there's some sort of agreement (wiki article) in the works which is supposed to "solve" the problem. One rumor that I heard (which I can't back up but I believe it was from the Edmonton Metro paper) said that the plan is to get ISPs to actively watch out for and report any sort of activity that may look like piracy. Being suspected of piracy would basically get your internet turn off, potentially for life. There was also some conjecture that you'll need to be able to prove that any data you posess is yours as you cross international borders. And if you can't, you'd be saying good-bye to your mp3 player.
Not sure to what extent this is true but if there is an international effort to do so I could certainly see the potential for a massive massive crack down on piracy and to finally tame and civilize the wild wild web. It can be done and I wouldn't be suprised if we see something major come into effect in the next 5 years that throws modern day media piracy back to the '70s.
Except ACTA has been voted to hell by 95% of EU MEPs: votewatch.eu.
You mean, voted to hell, this time. What exactly ACTA is today and what it will be when approved I'm sure will be quite different. As we live and play more and more on the internet, the law and law enforcement methods will come too. And the days of easily obtained pirated media will come to pass into history.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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