Norfleet said:
Unfortunately fragmented text
Ugh, this is turning into a huge quotefest and since I usually try to avoid it, let's try to cut it down to a more simple view so we can start all over again, eh?
Anyhow, a friend of mine sent me a link the other day, a link with a fictional story about the world where DRMs get out of hand so badly that any violation of copyrights, even borrowing a book, would be a crime. It's pretty short, and not too badly written, so one may want to check it out -
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Now, my worry is that while there are companies moving away from the DRMs and such, there are
governments that tighten the screws all over and create the most dumbfounding laws, the sort that go in direct clashing with the actual existing global laws,
denying people the right for making a reserve copy of their software, a right that the international law gives us! These are developments of five recent years, and I can't agree, based on these observations, that the pirates are winning anything. In fact, this is just playing into governments' hands - the corporations can threaten moving to states with lower taxes, lower cost of production et cetera, et cetera, leaving the governments without their tax money. The pirates then make people buy less and steal more government money again!
And thus the retarded laws are born. That story, too, contains examples of recent history, like changes in legislation of France. A good read.
As for the points you rose about Steam, I couldn't agree more. I certainly don't feel that it's less of a DRM-infested medium, hell, the whole thing is a DRM! It's your CD check, internet activation, AND digitally encrypted software that you can't very easily (or so I understand, people may correct me if I'm wrong) copy - thus denying the right of a
hard copy of something you have purchased.
Furthermore, I also agree that, "paradoxically", the pirate software often works better than releases by the official companies. There is better support in rips than there is on many normal media disks, which I find appalling. I mean really, I sometimes find myself looking all over the net for hours to find out how to make something run or fix a stupid bug; meantime, a rip will contain everything needed to run the game, from DT to VM updates to whatever. Why can't publishers offer the same level of support? Mystery!
However, I do disagree that the solution lies in kicking the rubbish-spewing companies off the PC market. That just doesn't work. The point is in maturing the audience into
not buying trash just because of a name, into understanding what is a good game or program and what isn't, and into actual protests. As Kris posted, no buying DRMs. Complaining about DRMs. Making others see what DRMs do to their machines and their rights in simple terms. Perhaps, if the legislation or store rules permit, purchasing DRMed game, then finding a perfect DRM-related reason to return it the next or same day.
You know, if you have enough time and patience to counter my points here, surely you have enough time and patience to do things through other means as well. :grin:
Edit - Didn't know PoP didn't have DRMs, glad to hear that. And yush, certain companies, like Stardock, openly stating their non-DRM policies is great. Would be nice if the political pirates would reward such companies by trying to influence the trackers to, say, not spawn until after a few weeks into releases
