How to: Fix The Piracy Problem

Apathy

Apathy

Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2004
Messages
890
hate to be a dirty cross poster, but i didnt know if this would even be answered. im honestly just curious about this as it seems to almost completely abolish piracy, and in turn help to bolster the pc gaming market.

so when people download games with the intention of playing them without first paying for them, thats theft. but when they start to play the game using a crack/keygen thats piracy. is this correct?

WHY OH WHY, why the FUCK doesnt someone just enforce all downloaded games to use cd keys that must be verified on the internet? And if you dont have access to the internet, then you are forced to verify your cd key by phone. Once the cd key has been verified, it cannot be registered ever again unless the person calls up with the original cd key and re-verifies or does it again through the net. Keygens wouldn't work, cracks wouldn't matter.

It just seems like such a simple process to prevent people from pirating games by forcing the person that owns the game to do a cd key authentication every couple of times the game is started up, or something like that anyway. So then, if the person refuses to let the game connect to the internet to verify itself, then the game cannot be played and gets passworded, or encrypted, or something like that.

I mean wtf, how hard can this possibly be? Obviously it must be very difficult if this problem has been going on ever since I can remember.

Whats wrong with this idea?
 
in response to my cross post:
necrophile said:
You see, that was proposed with spore i believe, that you had to authenticate it online every 10 days or something which caused a big hoohaa.

However, as some more, level headed people pointed out, people are more than willing to use steam which is actually quite evil but done in such a silent fashion that many people who are against draconian DRM will happily use steam.

Whilst it has an offline mode it always requires internet access to first verify the install yet, very few people object to it for some reason.

I think steam is great but it is funny how easy people find it to complain about drm but then use steam without issue.
Click to expand...

So if people arent against this, why not start imposing it on games that people actually want to play?
 
There is no permanent fix, not even for consoles. Everything on PC will be cracked eventually, anything that is put out is just a bandage. As for consoles you could get 2 xboxes, one for online and one for cracked games, and just pirate games like mad. There is no way to stop it, I'm sorry.
 
Apathy said:
. . .

so when people download games with the intention of playing them without first paying for them, thats theft. but when they start to play the game using a crack/keygen thats piracy. is this correct?
. . .
Click to expand...

No, both cases are piracy because the developers still own the game.
 
How can you crack online cd key authentication if they make it so that cd keys are specifically tied into something like DRM. I just don't understand the major issue behind this. If something has a specific tag, and that tag can only be activated once per cd, and only over the internet/phone, why can't some kind of code be written to make this 100% secure?
 
Apathy said:
How can you crack online cd key authentication if they make it so that cd keys are specifically tied into something like DRM. I just don't understand the major issue behind this. If something has a specific tag, and that tag can only be activated once per cd, and only over the internet/phone, why can't some kind of code be written to make this 100% secure?
Click to expand...

Two possible ways immediately come to mind:

1. Fake the authentication either by using a keygen to calculate the authentication number you'd receive via phone or using external software to inject the "okay" signal.

2. Turn off the bit of code that is used for authentication so that the program no longer requires it.
 
The phone registration method won't work. MS tried it with office 2k7 and there was a crack for that in about 5 minutes.
 
Cant you encrypt the cd/dvd itself so that it cannot even be accessed without a decryption code? And maybe you need to first be allowed to download the software to decrypt the code off of the game's website, and the only way to gain access to the decryption password is to register your decryption code software registration number with the website, and then you are given a password/cd key for 1 authentication use for the decrypter/encoder, and then after all of that has been done, you are given a one time authentication code to unlock the actual game which then must verify its one and only authetication key via the internet every couple of times you load the game?

THERES GOT TO BE A FUCKING METHOD TO FIX THIS.
 
Access to the information is the problem, access to the information is what they are selling.

So there's one way they can effectively stop piracy: stop giving people access to the information.

And I don't see them taking that step anytime soon. EDIT: And I think they'd love to sell you a product you couldn't use, don't get me wrong here. I am totally not on the side of the companies because they spend too much time and effort chastising and punishing paying customers instead of being a positive force and bringing games to market people want to see and improving them via patches instead of just "getting them working".

So, I'm not sure why they keep focusing on the limit access part and start focusing on the "value added" part. Stop paying for DRM, start adding online content (with verification of course!). Stop requiring CD in the drive to play (This is so insanely annoying), start checking CD keys when people use that awesome multiplayer experience you added.

And another thing, make patching less silly. I installed some old battlefield games, and I gotta say I had a hell of a time to get them to patch in the order that would make them actually work. Especially Battlefield 2 and it's not even THAT old. And I bought these games because the multiplayer can be fun as hell, their single player is abysmal.

Oh and other value added things would be mod tools, mod help/support, and other mod related things. Because that is what keeps games going and when the modders hate your system, that game is never going to get much of a following.

Some value added things which didn't really add any value to the consumer? In game ads ( really I dont mind them, but 2142 support sucked so where's the price cut, additional content, whatever else to add value to those who purchased it? ), DRM (The publisher pays out for this, does less actual game content because of the cost, and it causes problems for quite a few people.....how is this value for those of us who purchase games?), Expansion packs (BF2 had these little booster packs that had virtually no content or support, bf 2142 had one expansion 'Northern Strike' that was cool to play but they didn't continue adding or fixing it so no one played it after awhile), and completely switching to another gaming system...the Battlefield Franchise went to console with no information on a PC version set to come out besides Heroes which is a cartoon......in a web browser that is free* yay?

* Im assuming they will charge for weapons, character progression, or some other unpopular money grab technique that some of the foreign non-US market FPSs use....and by unpopular meaning it's pretty much nonexistent in the US market because we want full, functioning, supported games for one price.
 
Yes there most likely is, however, as others point out people will crack it. Online authentication is one way and done right can be quite robust from what i gather, regarding keygens, making sure there is a handshake between an online server and the game to make sure the key was generated by the server would stop those i believe and to stop any data being changed to bypass the checks would require some of the data to constantly be encrypted on your hard drive but even then that could be broken no doubt.

Someone will no doubt pick holes in whatever method is suggested.

However, a full proof method is to find someone downloading, search their comp for illegal software and then just shoot them, that would stop 99% of it instantly. Draconian? Yes, but effective for deterring your average pirate, absolutely.
 
Simple.

Any copy protection you build into a game can be removed by somoene who is willing to reverse engineer the games files and alter them.

Typical scene (pirate) releases of games contain the cracked exe with it, so you install the game and copy over the cracked exe to replace the original and all the copy protection is removed or circumvented.

Anti-piracy fundamentally doesn't work. The only really decent anti-piracy is for online multiplayer, if the developers host a service such as a master server browser or servers then they can kick off non-unique CD keys, even in these cases often pirate servers crop up which do not require authentication, generally speaking multiplayer piracy is quite low in comparison.
 
Easy fix, throw away those DRM crap and just sell the games for $5, you will see that the number of games sold will be tripled if not quadrupled.
 
Apathy said:
THERES GOT TO BE A FUCKING METHOD TO FIX THIS.
Click to expand...

Essentially it's an insoluable problem. There's a reason that the content industries (video/music/games/etc) have spent collective billions on the problem and don't have a working solution. There's a reason that the music industry is giving up on DRM and moving back to open format sales.

In any case, why spend your money on it when stopping piracy is only going to have a minor impact on sales.

I forget which software publisher it was, but one recently published that by thier calculations (based off of stats before/after various protection schemes were implemented), they, at best, made 1 extra sale for every 1000 pirates they stopped. At that ratio, stopping half a million pirates is an extra 500 sales... hardly enough to pay for any DRM. Their conclusion was that the people who are pirating thier games aren't going to buy them even if they can't pirate, and that intrusive DRM is a waste of money that pisses off thier customers. If you're curious, look it up on slashdot, I think it was a comparision between piracy rates of two publishers, one that didn't protect, and one that used relatively minor protection such as unique keys and the like.
 
The only way to fix problems like this is to do it from to the consumer's side, not the dev side.

What I mean by that is that you have to make it attractive for the consumer not to want to pirate, instead of putting all these hard locks on pirating.

For instance...pirating music still exists...but iTunes still makes millions of dollars a year. It is because they simplified the process so much that most people don't want to deal with the headaches of trying to download music elsewhere. Same with the App Store. People don't need to jailbreak their iPhone anymore because the quality of App Store applications and ease of use outweighs the benefits of jailbreaking your iPhone.
 
Khanmots said:
I forget which software publisher it was, but one recently published that by thier calculations (based off of stats before/after various protection schemes were implemented), they, at best, made 1 extra sale for every 1000 pirates they stopped. At that ratio, stopping half a million pirates is an extra 500 sales... hardly enough to pay for any DRM. Their conclusion was that the people who are pirating thier games aren't going to buy them even if they can't pirate, and that intrusive DRM is a waste of money that pisses off thier customers. If you're curious, look it up on slashdot, I think it was a comparision between piracy rates of two publishers, one that didn't protect, and one that used relatively minor protection such as unique keys and the like.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Every pirated copy is NOT a lost sale. DRM really only hurts the paying customer, and is only a minor annoyance to the pirates. Loosen up the restrictions a bit, and stop shoving intrusive DRM that doesn't really help down the paying customers throat.
 
So... to continue from my last post a bit, if it's so stupid to pay lots of money to try and stop piracy why does EA and similar companies do so?

Answer, they're not trying to stop piracy.

They're working at killing doctrine of first sale from a technical standpoint since they can't from a legal. They figure that people that are willing to buy used will buy new instead if they remove the used option... and DRM that implements a limited number of installs, and ties the software to hardware... well... that does a pretty good job of killing your ability to sell it when you get tired of it.
 
necrophile said:
However, a full proof method is to find someone downloading, search their comp for illegal software and then just shoot them, that would stop 99% of it instantly. Draconian? Yes, but effective for deterring your average pirate, absolutely.
Click to expand...

:eek: [H] has some strange homicidal users that's for sure :D
 
Damn right, a shot to the head means you don't have to look them in the eyes.

Unlike many issues with the death penalty, i think the sort of person who does casually download things without recourse to the consequences would take a minute and think if there was a live execution of a pirate on youtube, don't you agree.

O.k maybe a bit extreme for some people, but how about making someone work at the game company they stole from... sorry, pirated from for free, a days work would repay what they stole.
 
alg7_munif said:
Easy fix, throw away those DRM crap and just sell the games for $5, you will see that the number of games sold will be tripled if not quadrupled.
Click to expand...

So you're going to make games 1/10 the price and then quadruple the sales? I can't see how this possibly could go wrong!
 
Khanmots said:
They're working at killing doctrine of first sale from a technical standpoint since they can't from a legal. They figure that people that are willing to buy used will buy new instead if they remove the used option... and DRM that implements a limited number of installs, and ties the software to hardware... well... that does a pretty good job of killing your ability to sell it when you get tired of it.
Click to expand...


I like this conspiracy theory.
 
necrophile said:
Damn right, a shot to the head means you don't have to look them in the eyes.

Unlike many issues with the death penalty, i think the sort of person who does casually download things without recourse to the consequences would take a minute and think if there was a live execution of a pirate on youtube, don't you agree.

O.k maybe a bit extreme for some people, but how about making someone work at the game company they stole from... sorry, pirated from for free, a days work would repay what they stole.
Click to expand...

More like 20 minutes, not everyone makes 5$ per hour :D
 
Seriously though, making someone work off the debt would be a good way of doing it, kinda like community service. Once you factor in legal fee's and the cost of the police to kick down your door, beat you with batons and hose you down with ice cold water, it might take more than 20 minutes to pay it off.
 
Havent read through all replies but i think that obviously the person that started this thread must be American, nothing against Americans just thet its obvious that he is ignoring of other people.
Have you ever came across the thought that there are other people in very different countries that also play games? Now this has three problems:

Availability of the games in local stores? I mean where im from its IMPOSSIBLE to find a store that sells original games.. and when they do they will take quite a while to get here (and im not talking about a couple of days) so therefore, new releases are only available through piracy over the internet.

Ok thats also assuming you actually HAVE internet because in lots of countries there a lot of places that just internet isnt available. Ok this is when phone activation comes in right?

So we are supposed to call to the US an expensive call, then a person will answer speaking english, a language that not all of us know, to activate a game thats already kinda old.

Also take into consideration that some contries currencies are valued less than dollar, if you know what im trying to say, for example do you think in a country that minimun wager is $120, buying a game that in the US costs $50, you have to add to that expenses of bringing it over, profit for store. Lets say the game will cost then.. $65? thats without adding much. so more than half a monthly minimun wager for a game that you will have to learn english call to the US in order to activate? No wonder piracy gets away with it.

Unless you can come up with something that will take care of all those, i think piracy will still be around some places. Dont get me wrong if $50 were worth what they are worth for you and if i had the games available in nearby stores fast i wouldnt mind paying the 50bucks at ALL.

Cheers
Take no personal offense with this post im just encouraging you to think outside the box sometimes.
 
CJRP said:
I like this conspiracy theory.
Click to expand...

Erm, have you read any of the legislation that the RIAA, MPAA, and/or game industry has been pushing over the last 5-10 years or so?

Have you contrasted it with the legal battles that have been fought in the previous 100?

There's a constant "fight" between producers and consumers of copyrighted works.

Essentially over the past 100ish years, we, as consumers, come to have a rather well defined set of consumer-rights enshrined in copyright law due to hard-fought legal cases. Things like fair use and doctrine of first sale. The legal situation is one where directly challenging those rights makes no sense. Indirectly however is another story.

Currently DRM is being used, thanks to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, to remove your ability to exercise your fair-use rights, (try to legally grab a 5-second clip of a DVD for use in a critical analysis of the movie... can't legally do it) and now to attack doctrine of first sale.

Personally, if this trend continues, I would expect to see some large lawsuits in the next 10-20 years placing restrictions on how DRM can be used, and that it has to allow for fair use.

It'd be nice to think that the guys selling you stuff have your best interests at heart; unfortunantly they don't, they have thiers.
 
or they could you know, actually make some good games worth buying....just a thought.

take a look at fallout 3, been selling wonderfully because *gasp* its actually worth buying!

bottom line is a lot of people are sick of games that get rushed and turn out to be crap *cough*spore*cough* so they download them first to see if its worth their hard earned cash. lets face it, spend $50 on a game only to find out it sucks is VERY disappointing. download numbers does not mean lost sales. it just means that there are people interested that may buy it. sure theres always those that will never buy...but plenty do.
 
Pepiz said:
Havent read through all replies but i think that obviously the person that started this thread must be American, nothing against Americans just thet its obvious that he is ignoring of other people.
Have you ever came across the thought that there are other people in very different countries that also play games? Now this has three problems:

Availability of the games in local stores? I mean where im from its IMPOSSIBLE to find a store that sells original games.. and when they do they will take quite a while to get here (and im not talking about a couple of days) so therefore, new releases are only available through piracy over the internet.

Ok thats also assuming you actually HAVE internet because in lots of countries there a lot of places that just internet isnt available. Ok this is when phone activation comes in right?

So we are supposed to call to the US an expensive call, then a person will answer speaking english, a language that not all of us know, to activate a game thats already kinda old.

Also take into consideration that some contries currencies are valued less than dollar, if you know what im trying to say, for example do you think in a country that minimun wager is $120, buying a game that in the US costs $50, you have to add to that expenses of bringing it over, profit for store. Lets say the game will cost then.. $65? thats without adding much. so more than half a monthly minimun wager for a game that you will have to learn english call to the US in order to activate? No wonder piracy gets away with it.

Unless you can come up with something that will take care of all those, i think piracy will still be around some places. Dont get me wrong if $50 were worth what they are worth for you and if i had the games available in nearby stores fast i wouldnt mind paying the 50bucks at ALL.

Cheers
Take no personal offense with this post im just encouraging you to think outside the box sometimes.
Click to expand...

No one says you have to play games, if you can't afford it or it isn't available that is tough luck, you have no right to anything like that, i am sure you are playing devil's advocate but that's like me saying i can't afford an aston martine or a mansion but i want one anyway so will take it.

And yes, i am using that analogy.
 
necrophile said:
No one says you have to play games, if you can't afford it or it isn't available that is tough luck, you have no right to anything like that, i am sure you are playing devil's advocate but that's like me saying i can't afford an aston martine or a mansion but i want one anyway so will take it.

And yes, i am using that analogy.
Click to expand...

If you could get an aston martin for free, without imposing a cost on anyone else, then it would be a valid analogy.

There is an important distinction there; copyright infringment is a very different situation from theft. Note, that this doesn't make it right; it simply makes it different.
 
bonsai said:
You mean like this one?
Click to expand...

That's one of the games I was referring to in my comparision. (You might also link to the direct info rather than a distilled article losing context)

http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/

He refers to the other game/company I briefly mentioned. You can read about it here: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350

You may find this interesting:

2dboy said:
this is in line with a previous estimate by russell carroll (director of marketing at reflexive) for the game ricochet infinity. russell estimated a 92% piracy rate and i found his analysis quite interesting (check it out here if you’re curious). one thing that really jumped out at me was his estimate that preventing 1000 piracy attempts results in only a single additional sale. this supports our intuitive assessment that people who pirate our game aren’t people who would have purchased it had they not been able to get it without paying.

in our case, we might have even converted more than 1 in a 1000 pirates into legit purchases. either way, ricochet shipped with DRM, world of goo shipped without it, and there seems to be no difference in the outcomes. we can’t draw any conclusions based on two data points, but i’m hoping that others will release information about piracy rates so that everyone could see if DRM is the waste of time and money that we think it is.
Click to expand...
 
Khanmots said:
If you could get an aston martin for free, without imposing a cost on anyone else, then it would be a valid analogy.
Click to expand...

You assume there is no cost imposed on the ip holder with copyright infringement?
 
Khanmots said:
If you could get an aston martin for free, without imposing a cost on anyone else, then it would be a valid analogy.

There is an important distinction there; copyright infringment is a very different situation from theft. Note, that this doesn't make it right; it simply makes it different.
Click to expand...

Hmm, so if i could, without cost, replicate a car and it was left out in the street with the door open, that would make it okay to take it from me?

are you even for one minute being serious about this?

Also the point again with the World of Goo was that it showed why people pirate games, it is not because the games are bad, or not worth the money or even DRM, it is because people are scum.
 
bonsai said:
You assume there is no cost imposed on the ip holder with copyright infringement?
Click to expand...

You write a book.
I would never have bought your book.
I go to the library, I check out your book, I photocopy it, I keep the copy, and I return the book.

I challenge you to show me what you have lost.

Theft would be I go to your house and steal your book.
You are now out a book.

That is why we have seperate laws for copyright infringment and theft.

Loss due to copyright infringment is all about loss of potential gains. Someone who infringed, might have bought. You are being deprived of nothing that you already have. With theft something that you have is being taken from you.
 
necrophile said:
Hmm, so if i could, without cost, replicate a car and it was left out in the street with the door open, that would make it okay to take it from me?
Click to expand...

What part of "Note, that this doesn't make it right; it simply makes it different." did you not understand?
 
Khanmots said:
Loss due to copyright infringment is all about loss of potential gains. Someone who infringed, might have bought. You are being deprived of nothing that you already have. With theft something that you have is being taken from you.
Click to expand...

Whether you choose to believe it or not, loss of potential gains is still a loss. That's why we have laws against copyright infringement. If my ip is worth your time, then is it of some value to you, whatever that value is, I have lost. Whether you ever intended to buy a product, or not, is irrelevant.
 
THRESHIN said:
or they could you know, actually make some good games worth buying....just a thought.

take a look at fallout 3, been selling wonderfully because *gasp* its actually worth buying!

bottom line is a lot of people are sick of games that get rushed and turn out to be crap *cough*spore*cough* so they download them first to see if its worth their hard earned cash. lets face it, spend $50 on a game only to find out it sucks is VERY disappointing. download numbers does not mean lost sales. it just means that there are people interested that may buy it. sure theres always those that will never buy...but plenty do.
Click to expand...

fallout 3 doesnt have install limits
 
bonsai said:
Whether you choose to believe it or not, loss of potential gains is still a loss. That's why we have laws against copyright infringement. If my ip is worth your time, then is it of some value to you, whatever that value is, I have lost. Whether you ever intended to buy a product, or not, is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

bonsai, what part of "Note, that this doesn't make it right; it simply makes it different." did you not understand?

I have in no way, shape, or form, argued that copyright infringment is right. I have argued that it is not theft.

The fact that it is not theft is "why we have laws against copyright infringement."
 
Apathy said:
WHY OH WHY, why the FUCK doesnt someone just enforce all downloaded games to use cd keys that must be verified on the internet? And if you dont have access to the internet, then you are forced to verify your cd key by phone. Once the cd key has been verified, it cannot be registered ever again unless the person calls up with the original cd key and re-verifies or does it again through the net. Keygens wouldn't work, cracks wouldn't matter.

It just seems like such a simple process to prevent people from pirating games by forcing the person that owns the game to do a cd key authentication every couple of times the game is started up, or something like that anyway. So then, if the person refuses to let the game connect to the internet to verify itself, then the game cannot be played and gets passworded, or encrypted, or something like that.

I mean wtf, how hard can this possibly be? Obviously it must be very difficult if this problem has been going on ever since I can remember.

Whats wrong with this idea?
Click to expand...

One reason could certainly be the fact that not every game company (especially the small ones, I imagine...) has/wants to spend the time/resources/money on the required servers/phone reps/bandwidth to pull off your idea for

every

single

game

evar.

This is why Steam - and any service like it - thrives. Collection of games you've purchased permanantly linked to your personal email address with your personal password? Everyone wins. (Unless your account gets stolen... but whose fault is that?)
 
jonneymendoza said:
fallout 3 doesnt have install limits
Click to expand...

Exactly. Which is why I allowed myself to buy it. I'd gotten tired of depriving myself of games like Spore and Mass Effect and Bioshock.

Is nice to be able to play a "major" title again :)

and the fact that it's a kickass game doesn't hurt either... :p
 
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