Ubisoft's New DRM Cracked In Under 25-Hours

[craptakular]

Do remember that most of the damages awarded are not for downloading, but for distributing (by making the file available to others to download) which is slightly different, and that most of the high damages have been in the US, not the UK.

However, I would be quite happy to see punishments equivalent to theft for simple personal infringement (ranges from community service to a maximum penalty of 7 years imprisonment), and handling stolen goods for distribution or enabling others to infringe (maximum penalty 14 years in prison). I would expect (as is the case with theft) that most offences would get nowhere near those sentences.

Maximum of 7 years The Bludger killers walked free after 8 years.

 

[Dolph]

You could but piracy is a lot more... frequent than theft. And besides, there are so many different levels of it. Technically downloading an episode of House when its shown in the USA is piracy though i'll be damned if i think of it like that. Downloading a game before you buy it because the developer didn't bother giving a demo? And so many other reasons. As said the main thing is the distribution, and what are you gonna do? You can set upload speed to 0 or you can be a good seeder. Either way, what are the people you send it to using it for? There really is no black or white, its just 1 big grey area.

In the end, ignorance is bliss. If you nicked someones Ferarri to try it out before you bought 1 yourself they might be a bit ****ed. If you returned it without them ever finding out nothing would happen. Same goes for piracy, unless you go looking for it it'll never trouble you.

The main reason why it is so much more common is because it is not handled correctly by the state. If the law said you could take anyone's property as long as you didn't cause them physical injury in the process, and that it was a civil matter, we'd have much more property taking in that manner.

Taking the property of others without their consent, and redistributing it, again without their consent, should not be a grey area, any more than picking the lock of someone's house and taking their TV is considered a grey area.

 

[Dolph]

Maximum of 7 years The Bludger killers walked free after 8 years.

How often do you hear of theft being given the maximum sentence though? (and with current rules, you'd be likely for release in 4 years even if given the maximum).

 

[Amnesia]

Surely the same logic applies to theft then, or indeed most crimes in the UK.

I do not consider defence of rights to be a waste of the government's time, indeed it is one of the few things I do strongly support the state should be doing. No-one questions that the state must do this for physical property, I fail to see why updating this to include non-physical property is so opposed.

say for example you had a stall and were selling oranges...someone came and stole all your oranges.
now you have no oranges to sell and have no money.

now say you had a stall and were selling cd's with games on them ...someone downloaded an image(or several) of the game and played it.

now you still have your games to sell.

we don't know for sure if the person who downloaded the image would have bought the game for sure had he no other means to obtain it.

we also dont know for sure if the person who downloaded the image went and bought the game from your stall afterwards because he liked it....creating a sale for you.

if the person had no money to buy the game anyway what real difference does it make to you.

i guess you're just in the minority if you see it as all the same.

 

[Tefal]

Well if you treated it as normal theft then would you count each song as a single theft?


Down loading a pack of music could then result in being hundreds of thefts and would probably qualify for the maximum scentance unless it was handled completely differently.

 

[Evilsod]

The main reason why it is so much more common is because it is not handled correctly by the state. If the law said you could take anyone's property as long as you didn't cause them physical injury in the process, and that it was a civil matter, we'd have much more property taking in that manner.

Taking the property of others without their consent, and redistributing it, again without their consent, should not be a grey area, any more than picking the lock of someone's house and taking their TV is considered a grey area.

Theres not much you can do to change that though. Short of a police state where 'enforcers' dressed in Ghillie Suits come round to your house and break your fingers for pirating MW2 its not going to happen with todays global situation. Until the internet is regulated by a single set of laws that all countries must accept to have access, local boundaries are always going to cause problems. Hence why thepiratebay practically made a joke out of the law for so long, and lets face it, still does.

 

[Deadbeat]

Maximum of 7 years The Bludger killers walked free after 8 years.

Bulger killers? Remember, they were kids themselves at the time. Not to say I'm excusing what they did, but I doubt after 8 years in prison they were led out into a bright sunny morning, given new passports and wished good luck. Both would have been heavily monitored, with psychiatric evaluations almost as regular as parole check-ups. One of them's back in prison now, I believe.

/off topic.

 

[Tefal]

Kids pirate too.

are they exempt from the laws?

I can see a lot of 7 year olds being blamed

 

[Deadbeat]

Kids pirate too.

are they exempt from the laws?

I can see a lot of 7 year olds being blamed

Nans, too. Don't be fooled - behind the wrinkles, they're slippery as eels.

 

[Evilsod]

Bulger killers? Remember, they were kids themselves at the time. Not to say I'm excusing what they did, but I doubt after 8 years in prison they were led out into a bright sunny morning, given new passports and wished good luck. Both would have been heavily monitored, with psychiatric evaluations almost as regular as parole check-ups. One of them's back in prison now, I believe.

/off topic.

A productive use of everyones time then overall. Why not just execute them and get it over with and stop wasting everyones time while they rot in jail.

 

[Hxc]

The only DRM that lasted any time at all was Starforce, and there was enough uproar about that

 

[Deadbeat]

A productive use of everyones time then overall. Why not just execute them and get it over with and stop wasting everyones time while they rot in jail.

/off topic

Edit: Angry Christmas smiley doesn't look quite as angry as angry smiley.

 

[Evilsod]

Edit: Angry Christmas smiley doesn't look quite as angry as angry smiley.

Mine was offtopic too though

Angry smiley doesn't look angry at all, he looks sad and feverish.

 

[Deadbeat]

Mine was offtopic too though

Angry smiley doesn't look angry at all, he looks sad and feverish.

Genuine lol. Someone needs to photoshop a thermometer into his mouth.

 

[Flickeh]

I wont buy any game by Ubisoft until they change this DRM on PC. I'll just rent the console version (the legal way to play and not actually buy a game).
AC2 needed to have some PC optimization to make people even think about buying with this DRM, like DX11 support. The developers of Just Cause 2 have recently stated that they are working with Nvidia on the PC version to add cutting edge DX11 effects.

As for PC gaming slowly dying, i want to see the sales of Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and Half-Life 2 Ep3. They're going to show publishers that if you support your fanbase and make great games you'll sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions of games.
We all know the sales of those games will dwarf what most top consoles games sell.

 

[Deadbeat]

I wont buy any game by Ubisoft until they change this DRM on PC. I'll just rent the console version (the legal way to play and not actually buy a game).
AC2 needed to have some PC optimization to make people even think about buying with this DRM, like DX11 support. The developers of Just Cause 2 have recently stated that they are working with Nvidia on the PC version to add cutting edge DX11 effects.

As for PC gaming slowly dying, i want to see the sales of Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and Half-Life 2 Ep3. They're going to show publishers that if you support your fanbase and make great games you'll sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions of games.
We all know the sales of those games will dwarf what most top consoles games sell.

True, but it depends on what proportion of the sales are digital. Am I right in thinking that digital sales are often still left out of published sales figures? HL3/EP3 certainly won't show up on any top-selling retail lists.

 

[Dolph]

say for example you had a stall and were selling oranges...someone came and stole all your oranges.
now you have no oranges to sell and have no money.

now say you had a stall and were selling cd's with games on them ...someone downloaded an image(or several) of the game and played it.

now you still have your games to sell.

we don't know for sure if the person who downloaded the image would have bought the game for sure had he no other means to obtain it.

we also dont know for sure if the person who downloaded the image went and bought the game from your stall afterwards because he liked it....creating a sale for you.

if the person had no money to buy the game anyway what real difference does it make to you.

i guess you're just in the minority if you see it as all the same.

You appear to be completely missing the point here. Have you acquired the product of my work without my consent? Whether or not I still have access to it is not the issue in question. Did you have my consent to have use of it?

The expansion of that is 'did you have my consent to give it to other people'.

If you take my car without my permission when I'm at work, and return it fully fueled before I finish work, have you done anything wrong?

 

[Dolph]

Theres not much you can do to change that though. Short of a police state where 'enforcers' dressed in Ghillie Suits come round to your house and break your fingers for pirating MW2 its not going to happen with todays global situation. Until the internet is regulated by a single set of laws that all countries must accept to have access, local boundaries are always going to cause problems. Hence why thepiratebay practically made a joke out of the law for so long, and lets face it, still does.

But surely the first step is to treat copyright infringement as a crime? You don't just ignore a breach of someone's rights because it is difficult to enforce, and indeed it would be a lot easier to enforce as a criminal, rather than civil matter.

 

[Tefal]

If you take my car without my permission when I'm at work, and return it fully fueled before I finish work, have you done anything wrong?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8220274.stm


if the police are to be believed no

 

[Dolph]

The problem that's likely to result is that people won't see it the same way. One of the reasons piracy is so rampant is that on the surface at least, it's a faceless crime - there are no discernable victims, and there's no visible surveillance for it, as there is with other forms of theft. As far as Average Joe is concerned, piracy doesn't cause the same damage as physical theft - certainly not to Average Joe himself, who can't understand ownership of digital media. I'm not saying it's right, but the implementation of such laws are inevitably going to conform to public opinion, and if they don't it'll be laid at the doors of publishers, levering pressure on the courts.

I agree with you, the problem of public opinion being given consideration in lawmaking is a problem on both sides of the argument (ie both where the public removes rights for no justifiable reason, and where the public refuses to acknowledge rights for no justifiable reason). I'm firmly of the view that public opinion should be irrelevant to lawmaking in place of a system of
codified rights and evidence derived protections though...