Will Wright, the brains behind Spore, Civilization and The Sims, finally spoke his mind yesterday about the now infamous Spore-DRM brouhaha. It’s a strange reaction, I think. It [the DRM] was something I probably should have tuned into more. It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore… I think one of the most valid concerns about it was you could only install it so many times. → Read More
Wal-Mart will not pull the plug on the DRM servers for its online music store. You can put down your pitchforks now. The Arkansas-based retailer had announced last month that it would no longer support the DRM servers for its music store. Had it shut down the servers, all the DRM’d music bought from there would have been unplayable. But, you know, DRM is great, long live DRM. → Read More
Note that I have nothing against Mr. Norris per se. You just knew this was going to happen. Sales of RealNetworks’ RealDVD have been suspended while Real fights Hollywood in court, forever. You already know what Hollywood’s beef is, that RealDVD allows people to illegally copy DVDs blah bah who cares. Rent, rip and retun all you want, I say. Take this line from the MPAA’s… → Read More
In an informative interview with Shack News, Bethesda developer Pete Hines talked about the hotly anticipated game, addressing piracy, platform differences, and so on. Most refreshingly, he said that Bethesda would not be party to the draconian DRM schemes others were trying out; there will be no install limit and probably just a traditional CD-key security system. They also say they’ve done… → Read More
Plenty of people have downloaded Spore using BitTorrent, but EA doesn’t seem too concerned. Because on Earth 2, where EA is apparently based, people downloading torrents of the game doesn’t necessarily mean that the game is being downloaded. Nope, that makes no sense to us, either. Says an EA rep: Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every… → Read More
In yet another ridiculous and short-sighted move, “the nation’s top movie companies” have filed suit against RealNetworks due to the release of RealDVD. Oh my god. Every time I think these heads of industry can’t get any more stupid, they do something like this. What are they going to accomplish here? They’re telling consumers that they can’t back up their own… → Read More
Today should be a happy day for Real, having just released RealDVD, the DVD-copying-for-the-masses Windows app. But now there’s lawsuits involved, and lawsuits make Baby Deity unhappy. RealNetworks has gone to court to get a judge to declare RealDVD A-OK. This comes after some saber-rattling by several Hollywood studios, several of which threatened RealNetworks over the sale of RealDVD. → Read More
Apple is facing quite the legal challenge in Norway because you can’t play DRM’d, iTunes-purchased songs on devices other than the iPod. The law in Norway is such that, here, consumers have the right to play music on any device of their choosing. Since Apple’s DRM prevents this from happening, it’s being dragged into court. It has until November 3 to respond to the lawsuit. → Read More
And now Electronic Arts has a class action lawsuit on its hands. Hell hath no fury like Spore fans scorned. The publisher is accused of violating two laws relating to the game’s DRM. The suit claims that EA installs SecuROM without notifying consumers. Then the suit lists SecuROM’s crimes, including the fact that it’s damn near impossible to uninstall. It also claims that SecuROM… → Read More
Did you know that movies purchased from the PS3′s video service can only be re-downloaded once, and that’s only with the assistance of Sony? Oh, it’s true. It’s damn true. (Get it?) An Ars Technica reader deleted a movie from his PS3′s hard drive in order to free up some space. When he went to re-downloaded the movie, he discovered that he couldn’t. A phone call… → Read More
SanDisk and the RIAA sure do hope y’all aren’t “finished” with physical media-based music playback. If you are, then this whole slotMusic venture will end up being a waste of everyone’s time. SlotMusic, actually written slotMusic, is the name of Sandisk’s new line of music-filled microSD cards. The thinking behind slotMusic is that consumers, what with their music… → Read More
In light of thousands upon thousands of irate DRM-hating gamers, Electronic Arts has announced that it’ll be issuing a patch to the game that’ll allow people to de-authorize certain computers. Currently, the game is only able to be activated on up to three machines. If you replace one of those machines, you’ll have to call up EA, proof of purchase at hand, and plead your case to be able to… → Read More
A consortium of digital entertainment companies including movie studios, digital device manufacturers, and electronics retailers are trying to take on Apple by standardizing their DRM practices. Originally dubbed “Open Market,” the official name of the initiative is now the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). As we first reported a few weeks ago:
Open Market is a set of policy… → Read More
How about that? It seems that people don’t like DRM. The highly-anticipated “Spore” has been released to a mob of angry customers, thanks to digital rights management that basically limits the game to being installed on a total of three different computers. So let’s say that Spore is one of your favorite games and you play it year after year, new computer after new computer. When you try… → Read More
The developer who asked the question “Why do people pirate?” now has an answer. Several of them, actually. The developer, Cliff Harris, wanted to know why people pirate games so much. The reasons are the same ones we’ve heard for years: because of DRM on game discs; to try before you buy; because games are terrible these days and not worth the money. Only about 5 percent gave the… → Read More
Oh, Yahoo. Why do you make it so hard to like you? Take this story. Yahoo is shutting down its music download store at the end of September, including the DRM validation servers. Without DRM validation servers, people who purchased tracks outright won’t be able to play them. In other words, people will be left with useless files on their hard drives. Nice. To be fair, it’s not like… → Read More
Yahoo announced that effective Sept 30, they will be shutting down the servers needed for customers who need to reauthorize their legally purchased music. Yahoo previously had announced the demise of their Unlimited Music Store. DRM encoded tracks have caused a commotion since they were introduced as a piracy-fighting tactic. Users purchasing new computers and operating software upgrades have had… → Read More
Having some trouble with your copy of Dragon Quest V? Having trouble landing a certain boat, in particular? That may be because you’re a dirty, dirty pirate and Square-Enix knows it. They programmed a glitch into the game wherein a cutscene will never end if you’re using a pirated version of the game — though they don’t say how they know it’s pirated. Of course… → Read More
The UK’s Sky and Universal are the latest companies to try, and ultimately fail, to knock Apple’s iTunes off its high horse. The two have teamed up to launch a new service, due later this year, that will be one of those all-you-can-eat subscription schemes. Think Napster and Rhapsody. Thankfully, songs that are downloadable will be DRM-free. Universal is the biggest record company of… → Read More
Geeks and enthusiasts wearing WordPress t-shirts, using laptops covered in Data Portability, Microformats and RSS stickers lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed source applications wrapped in… → Read More
A lot of people got double-screwed when there were all those 360s failing. Not only did your damn console die, but if you had downloaded content like XBLA games, chances are it wouldn’t be on your new console when you got that. Until now, recourse has been difficult, but the license transfer tool lets you consolidate any licenses you had on your last four systems that died. However, I… → Read More
2K Games has removed an annoying piece of its DRM restrictions in the PC version of BioShock, a game I refuse to play because of its violent content. While SecureROM and all that other DRM goodness remain, you’re no longer limited to the number of PCs you can install the game in. A victory for freedom, to be sure. Seriously, how do you PC gamers put up with all that DRM nonsense? It seems… → Read More
According to BusinessWeek, Nokia’s Dr. Ari Jaaski told a group of open source developers on Tuesday that they need to “obey” certain business rules, such as DRM, intellectual property rights, SIM locking, and subsidized business models. Last time I checked, open source developers generally write applications that fulfill a need that’s otherwise gone unfulfilled – and most of those… → Read More
Napster’s had it up to here (pointing near the top of my head) and wants to regain its position as the King of Online Music. The new Napster web store opened its doors today and features six million DRM-free tracks, most for 99 cents apiece and most full albums for $9.99, according to Reuters. You can still opt for subscription pricing at around $15 per month if you have a Napster-to-Go… → Read More
Yesterday we brought news that the PC version of Mass Effect would have a DRM feature that would phone home every 10 days to make sure you weren’t playing with a pirated copy. It’s a sucky system and people were upset. EA, though, listened to us bloggers and other gaming fans and has announced that when the game ships it won’t have the craptastic DRM system. There will still be… → Read More
Oops. Someone forgot to tell Hollywood bigwigs that DRM is dead, consumers don’t want it, and it doesn’t really work that well anyway. At a conference in LA this week, a member of the RIAA said that almost all digital distribution schemes they can think of use DRM. The problem with DRM is it locks you into an ecosystem that only works with the DRM your purchasing. And you can’t… → Read More
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