Talk:Digital rights management

New Entry for "Content Security"

People may be looking for more information on just content security (security ranging from e-mail to web filtering to social media security). This could also be listed under "Unified Security". Web 2.0 has integrated all of these and many things have been redefined (see sonicwall.com or websense.com for such examples). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.15.64.200 (talk) 14:45, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

No crack for Silent Hunter V

“No fully working crack for Silent Hunter V has been confirmed.” — This passage is complete bullshit. A working crack had been released by the group SKIDROW two months after the game was published. I won’t link to the file itself but you can look it up for example in the German forum “MyGully.com”. The first working crack was posted there in May 2010. --88.153.2.141 (talk) 03:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Forums are not reliable sources of information; for all I know, those posts could be made by unsuccessful crackers who want to feel good about themselves. So basically, you need a reliable source before you can add information to this encyclopaedia. On the other hand, I was editing the Silent Hunter V article a few months ago and I think I recall mention of a working crack for the game there.

It should be noted that companies like Ubisoft would not need DRM if there was no piracy. It seems that uPlay has had a noticeable reducing effect on piracy as well, despite the complaints, since the DRM has now been implemented in games released after Settlers 7, such as HAWX 2 and POP: TFS. -XJDHDR (talk) 07:46, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

It should also be noted that a significant number of people choose to pirate games as a protest against DRM. I remember an article about Ubisoft's new uber-DRM and the uproar it was causing in the consumer market, and later following a forum thread in which a few thousand people said they were going to express their discontent by downloading the game just to spite Ubisoft. So much for the standard "loss of potential profits" argument there. There's also the problem that DRM is often needlessly invasive and is almost always a source of some incompatibilities (and in at least one case - *cough*Sony - security vulnerabilities), so downloading the game illegally can actually lead to a gameplay experience with less problems. What I cannot fathom is how games companies construe DRM as even a partially viable solution to piracy. They spend 6 months and an absolute fortune on development and testing of the DRM system, plus more cash on support tickets when it's not working for some people. A couple of guys chatting over IRC break their DRM in a couple of weeks or less. In the case of Silent Hunters, the DRM was cracked in less than 2 hours. The ratio seems a little hard to sell. 86.10.29.202 (talk) 00:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Before I say anything in reply, I'm going to refer you and anyone interested to this article as I believe it to be the most comprehensive and accurate article on the matter of DRM and piracy in the video game industry.

>It should also be noted that a significant number of people choose to pirate games as a protest against DRM.

This is an example of Newton's Third Law - For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Video games did not originally have DRM bundled with it, it was the actions of piracy that eventually forced the hand of video game developers to utilise DRM. Even then, DRM only really became intrusive after the turn of the century when Bitorrent revolutionised the concept of anonymous file sharing. The article I linked to above also provides numerous examples which prove that piracy causes DRM, not the other way around.

>...and later following a forum thread in which a few thousand people said they were going to express their discontent by downloading the game just to spite Ubisoft.

First, I suspect that you are exaggerating. And even if "a few thousand" is an accurate figure, for a game that makes a million sales, that adds up to fractions of 1%. In other words, hardly a cause for concern. I also remember Ubisoft releasing Prince of Persia without DRM expecting massive piracy and the dozens of people stating that they would buy the game just to spite Ubisoft. Despite the spiting, PoP was massively pirated and Ubisoft never released another game without DRM as a result.

>There's also the problem that DRM is often needlessly invasive and is almost always a source of some incompatibilities (and in at least one case - *cough*Sony - security vulnerabilities), so downloading the game illegally can actually lead to a gameplay experience with less problems.

Again, piracy causes DRM so the logical thing to do, if you hate DRM, is to do your part to rid the world of piracy (which is exactly what I'm doing, BTW). Additionally, if people are really worried about security vulnerabilities, they would not pirate stuff. Pirated and cracked software is widely known as THE most common method of obtaining malware. Of all the malware infections I've ever seen, only one was not caused by piracy. Additionally, the article linked above provides evidence that Daemon Tools and Alcohol 120% engage in rootkit-like behavior yet there is no campaign anywhere trying to get rid of them.

>What I cannot fathom is how games companies construe DRM as even a partially viable solution to piracy. They spend 6 months and an absolute fortune on development and testing of the DRM system, plus more cash on support tickets when it's not working for some people.

It's because their research suggests that it will ultimately improve profits to the point that the associated expenses get paid off and more. How this happens is due to impatient casual pirates (which forms the majority of pirates) choosing to buy the game rather than waiting for a crack to be released. A business is all about making a profit so it is illogical to argue that a company will deliberately and knowingly try to reduce those profits. As for support, they will probably overall lose support tickets due to less pirates demanding free tech support (which forms around 50% of Bethesda's volume, BTW).

>A couple of guys chatting over IRC break their DRM in a couple of weeks or less.

This is the common misconception that DRM must completely eliminate piracy otherwise it's a failure. It's the same as arguing that a physical lock on a building must completely eliminate break-ins. In many ways, DRM (a digital lock) is directly comparable to a physical lock and the article above elaborates on this.

>In the case of Silent Hunters, the DRM was cracked in less than 2 hours.

Incorrect! The internet connection requirement was cracked within two hours but the DRM itself was still effective because the default game was incomplete and required that internet connection to load up the files required to make the game complete. This meant that people who used the crack couldn't play the game at all. Cracking the DRM required the acquisition of those files stored on the server and this took almost two months in the case of Assassin's Creed 2 and even longer in the case of SH5. I highly doubt that many would be willing to wait this long to download a free + complete game.

Overall, pirates are the scum of the earth because they cause game prices to constantly go up and force me to deal with all this DRM **** until the game company eventually decides to patch it out the game (I will not download the cracks due to the aforementioned malware risk). And your excuses, they are nonsense. The Humble Indie Bundle eliminates every common excuse made in support of piracy yet around 25% of downloads from the official website alone were due to pirates. -XJDHDR (talk) 16:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:FORUM before continuing making more edits on the talk page. The talk page is for improving the article, not for discussing piracy.Belorn (talk) 21:05, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

History needed

This article needs a History section. This is an interesting story that needs to be told.

• locking to floppy disks is probably one of the earliest
• locking to dongle
• floating licenses

Etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danielbirns (talk • contribs) 00:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

There is a article on the subject here, but it only goes from 1998 and forward. Belorn (talk) 00:56, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Social DRM?

The e-book section should also cover the increasingly popular so-called "social drm". This consists in embedding purchaser personal data in the final file in order to discourage piracy.

http://www.teleread.com/drm/social-drm-vs-traditional-mobipocket-style-drm-time-for-a-switch/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.16.35.87 (talk) 13:37, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Unfocused - Tendentious- Fail

As a wiki-user who seeks useful information on areas of interest, I'd have to judge this article as being very unfocused, very tendentious, very close to being a complete fail. I just bought an eBook reader and I came to the article to learn more about this aspect of electronic publishing and distribution. I thought I would find information about what DRM is and how it works. While I did find out a bit about these two basic questions, the article is overwhelmed by a barely restrained, highly tendentious back-and-forth concerning whether or not DRM is good or bad, right or wrong, pro or con, left or right, up or down, etc., etc.

Information about the mechanics of how DRM actually works is perfunctory and inadequate and almost absent compared to the wealth of information about how it DOESN'T or CAN'T work. I really think a good solid understanding of how DRM actually works should be established before any extended discussion of its inadequacy.

As a positive suggestion, I think the article should focus primarily on what DRM is, and how it works - and I think the "how" should be expanded by explaining much more of the mechanics. A short and to-the-point "criticisms" or "controversy" summary section should be included with a pointer to another, completely separate article about "Social Implications of DRM" or some such fuzzy sort of topic so that those who are interested in DRM per se can get the facts and information concerning DRM per se without having to wade through a lot of tendentious, argumentative banter inadequately disguised as "neutral points of view" by hiding behind "reliable sources." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan.A.Mick (talk • contribs) 02:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

DMCA Exemptions

It might be useful to list the 6 current DMCA exemptions (either explicitly or with a link to the DMCA article). Perhaps also adding a section on the justifications for why these exemptions in particular were granted (and why some other, potentially legitimate ones (like DRMs on online music) weren't granted). Npmakarov89 (talk) 21:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

no major reports of protection-related issues from safedisc

I misssed that Tweakguides indeed do say this. I dismissed it out of hand (somewhat foolish) as non-sourced claim since good sources never have statements like that which can be proved incorrect by typing two words into google. Tweakguide is not a good source for this claim since the SafeDisc article mention reported problems, and a simple google search on SafeDisc + issue gives quite clear results to prove that there have indeed been reports of problems with SafeDisc. Now we could have a "TweakGuide say this, Group X, Y, Z say the opposite", including articles about a Microsoft patch fixing some of mentioned issues, but that would not improve that article in my point of view.Belorn (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

No problem, we all make mistakes. As for SafeDisc's reported problems, I just deleted two paragraphs from the issues section of SafeDisc's article because they do not have citations and appear to have been that way for at least two years. I will admit though that I was unaware of SafeDisc having a reported security vulnerability. So I agree, the passage is probably better the way it is. -XJDHDR (talk) 04:16, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

microsoft reader obsolete drm

Microsoft have announced that support for their e-book Reader software will end next year, making activation of new copies impossible (which seems to be the case already). Hence drm protected .lit files will no longer be able to be opened on new hardware (or current hardware with a new OS). No support is being given to facilitate customers tranferal of files (ie, a legacy reader that does not need activating), so accessing legally purchased e-books only be done by illegally by breaking the drm (currently only possible with an activated version of the software anyway, as i have discovered).

Should this be added to the list of obselete drms that screw over legitimate consumers? As the list will only get longer, should it be moved to a sub-article Obsolete DRM formats? 82.12.149.177 (talk) 15:32, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Steam plus Computer software categories

Is there any reason Steam isn't mentioned?
I think it would make the article clearer if the DRM was catagorized into it's own sections although I'm not sure if I've done it the correct way. Pleasetry (talk) 16:40, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Biased

This article makes false analogies on the supporters' side. Although there is a small section on the opposing side, this article is still biased. Jimbo1qaz (talk) 21:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Since the article is quite long, please provide more detials as what analogies you consider false, and what information that is missing about the "opposing side" (by your definition). Belorn (talk) 00:38, 21 January 2012 (UTC)