I agree that the whole idea that piracy is directly sapping sales is in many cases, completely wrong, and is a myth perpetuated by naive companies who are stuck in old school thinking and don't understand the modern world. For one thing, when they claim how much money is lost to piracy, they assume that every download would translate into a sale otherwise. This is just plain wrong. Some people who download games simply want whatever they can get without paying for it, or they are the equivilent of game renters, who have a lot of games they want to play for just a few days. If anything, it is rental companies who are losing out from these groups. Then there are those who want to try out games. If they don't like it, they get rid of it, if they do, they buy it. Then there are people who own the game, but can't get it work without turning to the pirates for help. DRM plans are just infamous for making it difficult or impossible for some people to play. Of course we also have the people who won't buy, or who return games because the DRM. They never calculate that out.

Stardock does have a form of copy protection. No patches unless you have a unique serial code. This does not, however, interfere with the installation or playing of the game in any fashion. I think their sales speak for themselves.

Brad is a staunch defender of copyright and a constructive critic of DRM. I'm a staunch critic of copyright and have 7 TGN tokens in the bank waiting for NotMoM2. I paid for my licenses and made "an investment" because I want the devs to continue working, not because I believe in copyright. The thing doesn't have to be "copyright or piracy," but people are terribly fond of either/or arguments. Oversimplification can be so reassuring.

I hope I live long enough to see us get over all this distracting nonsense and come up with good answers to the very real philosophical and technical problems summarized in John Perry Barlow's Economy of Ideas. The essay is old by web-time standards, but wine is a central metaphor and the words are aging well, IMO.

So, basically, there is no one in this discussion who believes that digital rights should be defended? In fact, everyone here praises Stardock because they just let pirates steal from them if they want? I am confirmed in my initial belief that you are ALL pirates. I have not heard an opinion from anyone who I would assume has not and will not steal ideas.

It is also interesting to have it confirmed that America's internet infrastructure is infinitely superior to the barbarian countries. Although, America does also have its faults. Some people think that anyway. I usually humm free country in my head until the bad thoughts go away.

SlyDrivel, Please if you are going to speak on the behalf of the United States... Please do not act so pumpus, we are not so superior to the rest of the world. and by no means are most of the other countries barbarians! please go visit them, experiance their culture, perhaps take a year to two and actually live with them before you condem them. so as an American, Please step down from your ivry tower i do so have a Marza Dreadnought pointing at its base.

as to the issue of priacy, its all been stated. like anything illegal you have 2 options, Oppression or adapting to the priacy. you can try oppression by banning priates form the internet, you can take their computers away, you can even throw them into jail, all of which burdens the societies more and more as governements are requireing you to have internet access to file taxes do governement work such as online schools or other reasons. let alone throwing them into jail now takes form the tax payers. so again where dose the hole win from the oppression?

or the industry can adapt, it can reduce their prices to a more acceptable lvl, much like legalizing drugs would put the busness into pharmicy hands rather then the gangs and dealers hands on the streets... unless the gangs and dealers can provide it cheaper still then the pharmicy in which case it becomes a battle of capitalizum. with the only winner being who can produce at the lowest cost possible and the best quality possible.

and as for EA's games... After they destoryed C&C with C&C 3 i do not beleive i have a reason to ever buy one of there games again. because i can not play online with LEAGLE copies due to the port forwarding requirements which are MANY.

"no one", "everyone", "confirmed", "ALL", "anyone", "superior", "barbarian", "America", "free"

Is it just me, or was that a pure flame/bait post?




They smuggle products to sell them at lower cost. Thus they offer a cheaper product.

They do sometimes have better quality and convenience, to a particular person(s). Some people consider a product is of better quality and convenience when it don't require a internet connection to authenticate everytime its used, or when it don't look into the computer systems files and fuck up any virtual drives or other programs that the user use, for example.

You can make all the rash assumptions you'd like, but I have no unlicensed software on my machine, and as I mentioned, I actually have *spent but not used* money with Stardock. You're also not reading the thread very carefully b/c several folks made strong anti-piracy statements.

I do not advocate breaking the law, unless perhaps you are conscientiously attempting civil disobedience and are prepared for the possible consequences. I don't actually hold much hope that I'll outlive (c) b/c bad ideas, such as absolute monarchy or social Darwinism, can be very hard to let go.

I guess people just need to waste a great deal more time trying to repair a sinking ship before we can move on to figuring out how things ought to work in a more civilized future. Until then, we just have to accept needless legal fees, excessive administrative salaries, DRM dev costs, etc., all as part of the price we pay for a game.

All a pirate does is leech off the host (Developer)

If it kills the host, it has no more host to leech off of.

You pirates are stupid if you can't figure this out.

Hey, someone finally understands and agrees with me.



My assumption was hardly rash. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that people who don't care about protecting ideas might want to steal them.

Current forms of DRM have proven to be ineffective. The cheaters find ways around it, and the people who do not steal are often hurt by it.

I am not saying that we should not attempt to curb the cheaters somehow - just that we need to find a new way of doing so because the current methods are ineffective.

The solution should be two sided:

-It should diminish the value of obtaining and using the stolen product.

AND

-It should increase the value of using a legitimate product.

I have yet to see such a solution from classic forms of DRM. The first part of the solution is usually nullified by the hackers, and the second part almost never receives attention from the developers.


I think the larger issue is that the current methods of attempting to curb it are ineffective and are even backfiring. We need new methods that are actually effective against illegal copying and provide benefits for legitimate users.

New online platforms are a step in that direction. They provide clear benefits, such as being able to a new legitimate copy of the game should the old copy of the game get damaged. Pirates also provide copies of the game, but with a substantial cost in convenience and risk. This is how the war against piracy should be fought: More convenience for legitimate use, less convenience for illegitimate use.

Checking the internet every ten days is not a step in that direction: Now the user is punished for not connecting to the internet for a long time, and the convenience of obtaining a new legitimate copy is lost.

In addition, a 10 day check does not address the problem of piracy at all: Being disconnected from the Internet for 10 days says nothing about whether the copy of the game is legal or not. It only says that the user has poor access to the Internet. It says nothing about whether the disconnection was intentional, and worse yet even if the disconnection is intentional, it does not imply that criminal activity is taking place.

Military members would be unfairly punished by a 10 day rule. The military of the United States - and I'm guessing most other militaries as well - orders its soldiers to move to new locations frequently. During the move, the soldier(s) (and usually the family as well) must disconnect their computers. This means that the Internet is down during the move, and it can be well over ten days before the soldier(s) can reestablish a new connection at the new location. This would be a case where completely legitimate customers can be punished when there is no wrongdoing involved.

I have gone 100% piracy free on my system. All current software is paid for. I would agree that piracy is a problem. My disagreement is not about the legalities or the ethics; it is only about the effectiveness of current solutions.

He's basically just saying that he's letting pirates steal his game because he can't do anything about it without hurting his sales. The problem is that DRM hurts his sales because even the people who buy his games are pirates. I really doubt that his game sold better because it has no copy protection. Some of the people who would ordinarily steal from big mean EA actually bought his game because they liked that he would let them steal. They saw his decision as moral and just. That might have made a difference. But in the end Frogman's games sell better because they are better and cheaper games. If you want to see more competitors entering the market, give them an incentive by giving them a bigger potential market.

Someone pointed out OFP's (Operation Flashpoint's) anti-piracy method. In my opinion this was the least intrusive to legit users, and a beautiful pain in the ass to pirates...  

quoting a wikipedia article on the subject of FADE:

"FADE is a copy protection software feature incorporated into OFP. FADE can make playing OFP extremely annoying or absolutely not worthwhile.

When FADE is activated, it affects gameplay aspects of the game. This may include (but is not limited to) the following:

reduced accuracy of some weapons, reduced weapon performance, increased enemy hit endurance and increased player injuries.

If someone tries using an illegal version in which an attempt was made to remove or disable FADE copy protection, OFP might easily exhibit signs of instability. Removing copy protection includes changing program code in many various areas, which leads to increased application instability. Many illegal versions are known to contain such instabilities, causing the game to crash during various gameplay events.

The solution is to only use the original retail version of OFP as installed from the CD, as well as applying only original upgrades and patches from official OFP web sites."


that's right......let em pirate the game, then make em die faster and not shoot straight.....  

This sounds suspiciously like a troll.


Also, stop the ad hominem arguments. It's annoying and ignorant. If you're going to argue a topic then do so by making supportive points not by claiming your opponents are "bad peoples who stealz mah idees".

Leern comunicashun moar.

Well, I beg to disagree. I am extremely passionate about rights of attribution. Plagiarism is such a bad problem these days that you can hardly go a month without seeing a major scholar or journalist caught with their citation pants down. That is far more harmful for posterity than any amount of software piracy.

The ownership stuff is another matter, and you don't seem to be open to the idea that because (c) as we know it is a product of democratic government, changing or removing it is a perfectly reasonable subject of discussion even amongst people who diligently obey the laws that they believe are wrong.

I see. You are not a pirate. You are a liberal. My mistake. I respect that far more. I just think you are wrong and I want to see thieves burn in hell, if you don't mind. Thank you for clearing that up, though. I am all for giving the people what they want. Unless, of course, the people are stupid thieving diseased bastards. That's what makes me conservative, I guess.

Who in Stardock said that? Can you link to the post?