No CD Petition

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by gunkulator
Technology exists today that can track almost anything that goes on in your computer.

Only if you allow it. Thus, spyware likes to install itself secretly.

[Shivan]

CD protection is very similar to the tape on DVD cases- both are to supposedly prevent theft, but neither truly do. Well, the tape infinitely less so than the CD protection, but there you are.

It would be extremely easy to completely eliminate CD protection and still prevent piracy. Mandatory Registration. Similar to the whole thign with WoW and other MMORPGs, except that you don't pay. I mean every game already has a registration kind of thing, so all you have to do is a little more intrusiveness on the part of the registration, to confirm IP address or just simply the CD-key and force you to be online if you want to play the game.

The latter is very irritating simply because sometimes you have internet trouble and so it's impossible to start the game (Half-life 2).

Instead, what would be good is make it mandatory to connect to the internet to install the game and register it and confirm IP or something else, and that's it, no more CD needed. This way, no one can even install and pass along their CD to other people, especially if you limit the number of times you can do this (much like a windows installation). Or something like that.


But until then, I see ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with downloading no-cd cracks to play games I own but, say, don't have with me. Since I'm at college, I didn't bring down alot of game CDs because A: theft and B: space. If I can download a nocd to allow me to play my games without the cd, then more power to me.


And best of all, I feel that all game developers should put out patches that act as nocds about a year after release, since the majority of their sales is pretty much over with.

[ulyanov]

Originally posted by Solver
Then again, CD-cracks are now sort of a thing of the past. Virtual drives are getting used more and more, and they don't have the issue you mention with patches.

and they too are getting smarter - there are virtual CD's that are just a stub of the original, and take up only a few meg of space, eliminating the agrument of one user about not wanting to fill his laptop with cd/dvd images.

this thread is fun, keep it going...

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Shivan
CD protection is very similar to the tape on DVD cases- both are to supposedly prevent theft, but neither truly do. Well, the tape infinitely less so than the CD protection, but there you are.

It would be extremely easy to completely eliminate CD protection and still prevent piracy. Mandatory Registration. Similar to the whole thign with WoW and other MMORPGs, except that you don't pay. I mean every game already has a registration kind of thing, so all you have to do is a little more intrusiveness on the part of the registration, to confirm IP address or just simply the CD-key and force you to be online if you want to play the game.

The latter is very irritating simply because sometimes you have internet trouble and so it's impossible to start the game (Half-life 2).

You can play Half Life 2 in offline mode. Where did you hear you couldn't? I downloaded my copy through Steam and I don't have to be connected to play it.

[nbarclay]

IP addresses are not permanent, unique identifiers. If you change ISPs, your IP address will almost certainly change unless you, as a user, have an IP address assigned to you independent of your ISP's operation. Also, a lot of ISPs use a dynamic IP address allocation mechanism. If I understand the implications of that kind of mechanism correctly, it means that different users can get the same IP address at different times and the same user can get different addresses at different times. So I can see a lot of potential for problems with registration schemes tied to IP addresses.

[Akaoz]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru


You can play Half Life 2 in offline mode. Where did you hear you couldn't? I downloaded my copy through Steam and I don't have to be connected to play it.

Also, there was a working warez release out that didn't need a net connection at all within days of release...

Piracy of sotware will not be stopped untill the PC as we know it dies. Music and Movies will never be stoped 100%. If you can play it back you can copy it.

What this will do to the music and film industry in th elong term is hard to predict, but it will change it one way or another.

[Shivan]

Ah, didn't know that about IPs.

And yeah, I assumed that you have to be connected to the internet to play HL2 because you have to start up Steam, right? at least, i thought so.. and when steam couldn't connect, I assumed you wouldn't be able to play the game...

Well some kind of systems like those... something that identifies the original owner to that copy and prevents its use by others. Of course, then you have problems of accidentally being unable to provide identification for some reason... and reformating and all kinds of other stuff...

bah. there's no excellent answer

[pupfiction]

Quite a debate going on here. I think i'll keep it simple:


//signed//

[LzPrst]

i tried closing down this thread as the discussion went overboard and overshadowed the petition, but it seems it has a life of its own...

its aaaaaaaaaaaaliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!!!!!

[Tae]

I finally got a mini image to work. Now I can keep the cd away from my daughter.

She already destroyed a Wiggles DVD I was trying to back up so she couldn't get to it. Ironic huh, I leave the thing in the drive after copying it to the HDD and a couple hours later I find it in the trash can in the kitchen with crap all over it. She loves throwing stuff in the trash. It really bugs me that she learned how to open the DVD drive. Nothing is safe around my PC. She just turned 2.

To be honest, the more these companies put roadblocks in front of me, the less I want to give them money at all.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Shivan
Well some kind of systems like those... something that identifies the original owner to that copy and prevents its use by others. Of course, then you have problems of accidentally being unable to provide identification for some reason... and reformating and all kinds of other stuff...

bah. there's no excellent answer

There's no excellent answer because people have been asking the wrong question. They should read what Bard Wardell has to say on the subject of CD copy protection vs piracy -- he's one of the persons on the front line and has first hand knowledge on this whole controversy. In summary, Bard is totally against the use of copy protection.

[Robert]

I admit, I've pirated civ1 back in 1992 or something (1993?)
I never heard from civ before.
A friend played it, copied it for me, and I played it for years and for hundreds of hours.

After that I bougth:
- civ II
- civ II:MPG
- Alpha Centauri
- Civilization: Call to Power
- Call to Power II
- civ III
- civ III: PTW
- civ III: C
- civ IV

and indeed, I bought civilization 1 (the original) as well (dump price: $5) years later to just complete my collection. (ok, it's not complete since I officially miss the AC expansion and 2 civ2 expansions) (ok, both civ2 expansions are in the MPG edition)

Anyway, copying civ1 brought me into the genre.
I became a fan, and spend hundreds of dollars to the game series.

Same with Dune II
I pirated Dune II, but got into that game-type.
Later I bought C&C, C&C Red Alert, C&C Red Alert II, Dune 2000, and one more (forgot which one, Dune: Emperor? )

anyway, copying one game made me buy other games.
The game industry and the music industry should focus on making fans, not on making cheap commercial crap that people copy once, play twice and ignore forever.

I'm a Queen and a Dream Theater fan, I buy everything that Queen and Dream Theater release.
Britney Spears and other one-day flies have no real fans. They have hoax fans. Their music fades away after 10 listenings. A lot of people copy their music.

The music/game industry should focus on quality. Then copying is a way of advertising. Not a way of stealing.

[Robert]

Oh, not to mention that I bought civ: the boardgame.
I played the boardgame with friends, who came into civ as well. So thanks to my civ1 copying back like 15 years ago, the civ-producers bought like 20 or 30 civ-games after that. Did the researchers ever incorporate this in their research programs?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by CyberShy
The game industry and the music industry should focus on making fans, not on making cheap commercial crap that people copy once, play twice and ignore forever.

Exactly. Turning out sequel after sequel is not the answer.

Originally posted by CyberShy
The music/game industry should focus on quality. Then copying is a way of advertising. Not a way of stealing.

Who are you and what did you do to the real CyberShy?

[Robert]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Who are you and what did you do to the real CyberShy?

What did I do or say that gave me the image of being the anti-CyberShy?