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[N.A]

The only way to stop piracy is to make the alternative more attractive.

You do this by:
- Convenience
- Pricing
- Quality Product
- Making sure the customer knows the money funds new games/music/movies whatever.
- Not appearing like a big evil empire. (punishments that are worse than shoplifting will make people not want to give you money)
- Not punishing legitimate customers with obtrusive DRM.

The music business (itunes, DRM free music, prices falling) and movie business (netflix) have gone some way to adapting to their piracy problems. The games industry is miles behind and is reacting like the record companies did 10 years which got them nowhere.

 

[DangerousDave]

Ah, we're in shitty analogy world again. Allow me to present the other side of the shitty analogy. In an ideal world we wouldn't have to send people to prison for murder, but we do. Sometimes we don't do this soon enough, and the criminals kill again.

What you are saying is: Send everyone to prison for murder whether they committed it or not. The inconvenience for the innocent is a fair price to pay for making sure we get the guilty locked up.

And this is how you turn preventive security measures (that is necessary, not only in game protection, in any kind of protection) to preventive punishement. You are right, this is a shitty analogy.

Are you arguing that game companies (software and hardware) should made their products without any kind of security measure to prevent piracy and simply trust that people won't pirate their products?

 

[iapetus]

Are you arguing that game companies (software and hardware) should made their products without any kind of security measure to prevent piracy and simply trust that people won't pirate their products?

No, I'm arguing that a real effort has to be made to ensure that such measures don't impact on regular users more than they do on pirates, and that it's necessary to consider to what extent you're making legitimate users feel like they're being treated as criminals because someone else might want to pirate the game.

My analogy was meant to be shitty. You, apparently, think that yours wasn't, which is unfortunate.

We're now in a situation, for example, where in order to conform to Sony's desires to prevent piracy and other use of PS3 that they don't like, I have to consent to giving them the right to run any software they want on my personal home network, with no warning, no requirement for me to agree to it, no guarantee that this mechanism won't be compromised by hackers, and no original permission granted for them to do this. That's a very clear breach of my rights, and I challenge you to tell me it's unreasonable to be angry about it.

A serial number entry on installation, possibly combined with a callback to company servers and locking the specific installation to my hardware IDs (requiring another update with the disc in the drive to move to new hardware) carried out as part of installation would be a very unobtrusive security model, and I challenge me to tell you it's reasonable to be angry about it. No, I will not take up that challenge.

Requiring the disc n the drive and/or a callback to base every time I play the game is somewhere between the two. It might drive me to look at cracking the game, but it's not going to fill me with fury towards the developer, except possibly if I want to play the game on my laptop or while my ISP's down and it won't let me because I can't dial home. I might be more reluctant to buy their games in the future, though.

See - it's a sliding scale, and calling for one extreme or the other is foolish.

 

[Zoe]

I wonder if the library of congress will allow an exception for the jailbreak for other OS?

Unfortunately we won't find out for about 2 or 3 years.

(sidenote: if exemptions are revisited every 3 years, why was it done in 2010 and not 2009? The previous years were 2000, 2003, and 2006)

 

[Safe Bet]

Piracy or not, we own our product and we should be able to do whatever we want with it!

It's not that simple...

Consoles have never been advertised nor sold as "open systems" so why would you buy one not only expecting but demanding them to be?

PS

The attempt to blanketly paint all "corporations" as evil entities is naive and immature.

 

[iapetus]

It's not that simple...

Consoles have never been advertised nor sold as "open systems" so why would you buy one not only expecting but demanding them to be?

PS3 was, of course, through OtherOS support.

 

[Mithos]

Guess its time to separate the PS3 from the home-network and place it alone.

 

[Vagabundo]

It's not that simple...

Consoles have never been advertised nor sold as "open systems" so why would you buy one not only expecting but demanding them to be?

PS

The attempt to blanketing paint all "corporations" as evil entities is naive and immature.

It make no difference to me what they say about the product. If I want to take a screwdriver to it and share with others how to do the same, that's my right. No one is going to tell me otherwise.

DMCA or not.

Fight the piracy issue directly not by trying to limit my rights.

 

[kamorra]

It's not that simple...

Consoles have never been advertised nor sold as "open systems" so why would you buy one not only expecting but demanding them to be?

PS

The attempt to blanketing paint all "corporations" as evil entities is naive and immature.

His argument still stands. It doesn't matter if Sony advertised the PS3 as a open system.

Oh and they also didn't advertised that they can take away a feature you already paid for.

 

[jcm]

We're now in a situation, for example, where in order to conform to Sony's desires to prevent piracy and other use of PS3 that they don't like, I have to consent to giving them the right to run any software they want on my personal home network, with no warning, no requirement for me to agree to it, no guarantee that this mechanism won't be compromised by hackers, and no original permission granted for them to do this. That's a very clear breach of my rights, and I challenge you to tell me it's unreasonable to be angry about it.

What exactly does this mean?

 

[Safe Bet]

PS3 was, of course, through OtherOS support.

Correct me if I'm wrong but what geohot has done and/or made possible for others to do goes far beyond what Sony intended with OtherOS support.

If I want to take a screwdriver to it and share with others how to do the same, that's my right. No one is going to tell me otherwise.

Sellers have rights too, not just buyers.

After all, they're people too.

If I produce a product for sale I believe it is within my "rights" to deny a sale to anyone who intends to use that product in a way I do not want them too as long as my Terms of Sale are rationale and reasonable.

Oh and they also didn't advertised that they can take away a feature you already paid for.

User who wished to keep the OtherOS feature could have by simply not updating their PS3s.

But yes, I agree those users who actually used the OtherOS feature and wished to retain access to the PS3's other features should be compensated.

 

[kamorra]

User who wished to keep the OtherOS feature could have by simply not updating their PS3s.

Yeah no. That's not a option for someone who bought his PS3 for OtherOS, Blu-ray and games.

 

[N.A]

Correct me if I'm wrong but what geohot has done and/or made possible for others to do goes far beyond what Sony intended with OtherOS support.


Sellers have rights too, not just buyers.

After all, they're people too.

If I produce a product for sale I believe it is within my "rights" to deny a sale to anyone who intends to use that product in a way I do not want them too as long as my reason for refusal is rationale and reasonable.

I'm going to add to the awful analogies in this thread by posting one I used a few weeks ago!

If I sell a soccer ball the customer is well within their rights to cut it in half and wear it as a hat. Even if I write "Don't use as a hat' in marker pen on the side of the box as I have a collection of soccer themed hats for sale as well.

User who wished to keep the OtherOS feature could have by simply not updating their PS3s.

The PS3 was advertised as including OtherOS and being able to play ALL playstation 3 format games. Then Sony made people choose between them.

 

[jcm]

User who wished to keep the OtherOS feature could have by simply not updating their PS3s.

But yes, I agree those users who actually used the OtherOS and wished to retain access to the PSN Network feature should be compensated.

To me, this is BS. I think Sony's removal of Other OS from the fats was unconscionable. They sold me a box that could run Linux and play video games and movies. Whether or not I actually used Linux is immaterial.

On the other hand, removing Linux from the slim is well within their rights.

If I sell a soccer ball the customer is well within their rights to cut it in half and wear it as a hat. Even if I write "Don't use as a hat' in marker pen on the side of the box as I have a collection of soccer themed hats for sale as well.

Making it into a hat doesn't have anything to do with controlling access to a protected work.

 

[Safe Bet]

Yeah no. That's not a option for someone who bought his PS3 for OtherOS, Blu-ray and games.

Edited post to be more clear.

But yes, I agree those users who actually used the OtherOS feature and wished to retain access to the PS3's other features should be compensated.

 

[Vagabundo]

Sellers have rights too, not just buyers.

After all, they're people too.

If I produce a product for sale I believe it is within my "rights" to deny a sale to anyone who intends to use that product in a way I do not want them too as long as my Terms of Sale are rationale and reasonable.

The have some rights. Like Trademarks and Trade Dress and stuff like that. Copyrights. But their rights wrt to the item I have purchased are limited.

 

[plagiarize]

In a ideal world where pirates don't exist, you don't have to bother the user with DRM, with original disc checking, or a Dial-A-Pirate. And in a world where thieves don't exist, you don't have to bother to close your door with three keys and turning your security alarm on.

the massive flaw in this analogy (other than it's an analogy), is that no one makes me lock my door. no one makes me install a security alarm. no one makes me install locks.

when i buy software, it is my software and i am forced to deal with the security measures that have been put in place. when i buy a house, i can secure it however i so choose. i can insure it, or not.

if it comes with a security system, i can remove it, because it is my house.

 

[snap0212]

But yes, I agree those users who actually used the OtherOS feature and wished to retain access to the PS3's other features should be compensated.

Everyone should be compensated, because every single person who bought a regular PS3 (not the slim one) actually paid for both features. Did I use OtherOS? No, I did not, but I did pay for it and it was one of the features Sony advertised.

When you buy a car that has a trunk you can chose to use the trunk or not. You are not entitled to use the trunk because you actually need to use it, but because it's part of the product you paid for.

 

[Bojanglez]

the massive flaw in this analogy (other than it's an analogy), is that no one makes me lock my door. no one makes me install a security alarm. no one makes me install locks.

when i buy software, it is my software and i am forced to deal with the security measures that have been put in place. when i buy a house, i can secure it however i so choose. i can insure it, or not.

if it comes with a security system, i can remove it, because it is my house.

I think some people would probably argue the semantics of that statement.

 

[Chaplain]

when i buy a house, i can secure it however i so choose. i can insure it, or not.

At the same time, the city can come and take your house away if you violate some of their laws.

 

[iapetus]

At the same time, the city can come and take your house away if you violate some of their laws.

Yes. And not because you haven't violated any of their laws, but they think that other people who do the same thing with your house that you have might do.

 

[noire]

The only way to stop piracy is to make the alternative more attractive.

You do this by:
- Convenience
- Pricing
- Quality Product
- Making sure the customer knows the money funds new games/music/movies whatever.
- Not appearing like a big evil empire. (punishments that are worse than shoplifting will make people not want to give you money)
- Not punishing legitimate customers with obtrusive DRM.

Tell it to iOS app developers.

Piracy happens because free is always cheaper than paying.

 

[Chaplain]

Piracy happens because free is always cheaper than paying.

People like to steal. That is what is really going on.

 

[Raist]

If I sell a soccer ball the customer is well within their rights to cut it in half and wear it as a hat. Even if I write "Don't use as a hat' in marker pen on the side of the box as I have a collection of soccer themed hats for sale as well.

Would you argue that if you sell your movie for $10 any customer is well in his right to make hundreds of copies and sell it for $2?

 

[kamorra]

Would you argue that a bear doesn't belong in car whenever the ashtray is full and the door is closed?

 

[iapetus]

Would you argue that if you sell your movie for $10 any customer is well in his right to make hundreds of copies and sell it for $2?

Would you argue that there's a difference between doing something that is illegal and doing something that is not illegal but the manufacturer doesn't like?

 

[jcm]

Would you argue that a bear doesn't belong in car whenever the ashtray is full and the door is closed?

What do you mean? An African or European bear?

 

[kamorra]

What do you mean? An African or European bear?

A Panda. There are no bears in Africa!

 

[N.A]

Would you argue that if you sell your movie for $10 any customer is well in his right to make hundreds of copies and sell it for $2?

More bad analogies!

Mine didn't include the customer making a profit or refer to piracy. It was demonstrating that a customer is free to modify their own property in any way.

 

[AniHawk]

What do you mean? An African or European bear?

...I don't know that!

 

[The Faceless Master]

cars still come with ashtrays?

 

[kamorra]

cars still come with ashtrays?

Just the ones with Pandas.

 

[DangerousDave]

More bad analogies!

Mine didn't include the customer making a profit or refer to piracy. It was demonstrating that a customer is free to modify their own property in any way.

You are free to modify your own property. Sony isn't suing you. Is suing someone who filter their encryption keys.

 

[squatingyeti]

Would you argue that if you sell your movie for $10 any customer is well in his right to make hundreds of copies and sell it for $2?

WTF kinda even remotely realistic statement is this? Even amongst terrible analogies, you sir, win a golden globe.

 

[Raist]

WTF kinda even remotely realistic statement is this? Even amongst terrible analogies, you sir, win a golden globe.

How?

People are throwing the "I bought it, I can do whatever I want with it, full stop." argument. Then it should be totally valid in that case as well, right?

 

[iapetus]

How?

People are throwing the "I bought it, I can do whatever I want with it, full stop." argument. Then it should be totally valid in that case as well, right?

You're missing the implicit 'within the law' bit from that. <analogy type=shitty>Someone who sells you a hammer can't say you're not allowed to use it to bang in nails made by other companies. It's your hammer. You bought it. You can do whatever you want with it. That doesn't mean it's okay to use it to club someone to death.</analogy>

Applying that principle to the DVD of a movie, you own it, you can copy it for personal use and convert it for display on different devices - which I understand is a protected right. You can't redistribute it, whether for profit or not, because you don't have the legal right to do that.

Applying that principle to the PS3, you can modify your PS3 as you see fit. Sony may choose not to let you access PSN or some of its features if you do - that's entirely their prerogative, though they'd be foolish to block you completely so that you can't buy games off them. You can't pirate games, because you don't have the legal right to.

 

[ReBurn]

This thread is like a thread that has really good analogies in it, except that the analogies aren't all that good. Throw in a healthy dose of hyperbole and it achieves absolute perfection.

One thing about the American legal system, anyone can sue anyone they want to for anything they want to. Whether there is any merit to the case or not. The defendant may be able to convince a judge to throw the case out, but the process of doing so can be rather expensive.

Assuming the case of a civil matter, the party bringing the lawsuit only has to convince a judge or jury of a preponderance of the evidence in order to win. In essence, "I'm more right than he is." By painting this negative picture of geohot Sony is trying to destroy his credibility and make him seem less right in the eyes of the judge. It looks like this tactic is working, considering the blow geohot took with the TRO and order to surrender.

This can still only be a deterrent, because if Sony believed that they could prove theft of their intellectual property they surely would have called in law enforcement. Maybe they have and that's a separate matter. It'll be interesting to see.

 

[Raist]

You're missing the implicit 'within the law' bit from that. <analogy type=shitty>Someone who sells you a hammer can't say you're not allowed to use it to bang in nails made by other companies. It's your hammer. You bought it. You can do whatever you want with it. That doesn't mean it's okay to use it to club someone to death.</analogy>

Applying that principle to the DVD of a movie, you own it, you can copy it for personal use and convert it for display on different devices - which I understand is a protected right. You can't redistribute it, whether for profit or not, because you don't have the legal right to do that.

Applying that principle to the PS3, you can modify your PS3 as you see fit. Sony may choose not to let you access PSN or some of its features if you do - that's entirely their prerogative, though they'd be foolish to block you completely so that you can't buy games off them. You can't pirate games, because you don't have the legal right to.

I'm not missing it. People who are using this argument for CFW are the ones who are. You CANNOT do anything you want with software, even if you 100% own the piece of hardware it's running on.
There are laws (I'm not talking about EULAs here, but keep in mind that EULAs can be enforceable as they are a very much legal kind of contract) limiting what you can and cannot do, just like there are laws forbidding you to copy and resell (or freely distribute if that bothers people) a piece of music or movie. So why exactly are people understanding it in one case but not the other?

 

[squatingyeti]

How?

People are throwing the "I bought it, I can do whatever I want with it, full stop." argument. Then it should be totally valid in that case as well, right?

The winner is overwhelmingly...Raist! Come on down here you old dog you.

You know damn well people are not saying do illegal stuff. You can do whatever you want with something you own within the law.

 

[kamorra]

(I'm not talking about EULAs here, but keep in mind that EULAs can be enforceable as they are a very much legal kind of contract)

Except there are not.

 

[plagiarize]

I'm not missing it. People who are using this argument for CFW are the ones who are. You CANNOT do anything you want with software, even if you 100% own the piece of hardware it's running on.
There are laws (I'm not talking about EULAs here, but keep in mind that EULAs can be enforceable as they are a very much legal kind of contract) limiting what you can and cannot do, just like there are laws forbidding you to copy and resell (or freely distribute if that bothers people) a piece of music or movie. So why exactly are people understanding it in one case but not the other?

when we say 'we can do whatever we want with what we buy' i would expect it's implicit that we mean 'without breaking the law'... but if you want to take thinks to ludicrous extremes...

i bought this knife. if i want to stab someone to death with it i can, and it has nothing to do with the person that sold me the knife, or the people that made the knife, or the other people that bought the knife for its intended purpose.

stabbing people to death is illegal, so the law enforcement of the country will come and arrest me for my crime and i will be punished.

Sony want to be the police here, and that's where it fails horribly. Sony want to set court precedent here, essentially establishing law.

in all these stupid analogies how many of them are putting a company in the place of law enforcement? ask yourself... is that a good idea? cause i don't think so.

as a store owner selling a hammer, you can refuse sale to me (so long as it isn't for discriminatory reasons) if you suspect i'm going to go all Maxwell's Silver Hammer on someone, but if you sold me the hammer, you can't then come and take the hammer back because i was using it wrong.

the police can take it off me though.

 

[DangerousDave]

You're missing the implicit 'within the law' bit from that.

Here, in my country, creating or distributing a crack (or any kind of program used to break the security measures of software, etc) is a crime, from 6 months to 2 years.

There is any official penal code in GAF in order to know if something is within the law or outside?

 

[iapetus]

I'm not missing it. People who are using this argument for CFW are the ones who are. You CANNOT do anything you want with software, even if you 100% own the piece of hardware it's running on.
There are laws (I'm not talking about EULAs here, but keep in mind that EULAs can be enforceable as they are a very much legal kind of contract) limiting what you can and cannot do, just like there are laws forbidding you to copy and resell (or freely distribute if that bothers people) a piece of music or movie. So why exactly are people understanding it in one case but not the other?

People are understanding it in both cases.

Nobody's saying they own the PS3 hardware so they're entitled to pirate PS3 software. If you see anyone who is saying that, point me at the post, and they'll be banned straight away.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

So why exactly are people understanding it in one case but not the other?

Nobody is misunderstanding anything. You're attempting to turn the tables by assuming the extreme position. Yes, people think they should be able to do what they want with their hardware/software. No, nobody thinks that these rights include redistributing and piracy. Therefore, it's unnecessary to keep reiterating the same point that nobody cares about.

 

[Zoe]

Except there are not.

They are unless they claim something illegal.

 

[plagiarize]

Here, in my country, creating or distributing a crack (or any kind of program used to break the security measures of software, etc) is a crime, from 6 months to 2 years.

and that's what a lot of us hope to avoid here.

i mean don't forget, i'm a guy who thinks Sony are welcome to take extreme measures in order to prevent people hacking their console. i just don't think they should be able to take legal measures, or get their wishes written into law in an anti consumer fashion.

i have cracked dozens of games that i bought. i did this until it became standard practice not to have to put the disk in to play a game on PC. i have ripped wii games i legally own to play them on an emulator.

pirating games is illegal. it should be. things which could make pirating games easier should not be when they have legitimate uses. if i'm to blame for piracy for downloading a crack so as not to have to put the disk in, then Sony are to blame for piracy for making bluray burners and PCs.

we don't need to make custom firmware or cracks illegal. there is no proof at all that doing so reduces piracy. people who are pirating games are already breaking the law. making the bought items more desirable or making piracy harder are the ways you reduce it.

not by making something illegal that a bunch of us do quite legally, just because some other people who already commit an illegal action also do that currently legal thing.

 

[mclem]

There are laws (I'm not talking about EULAs here, but keep in mind that EULAs can be enforceable as they are a very much legal kind of contract) limiting what you can and cannot do, just like there are laws forbidding you to copy and resell (or freely distribute if that bothers people) a piece of music or movie. So why exactly are people understanding it in one case but not the other?

Which law do you believe applies in the specific situation of modifying your firmware to enable the installation of homebrew?

 

[jcm]

and that's what a lot of us hope to avoid here.

i mean don't forget, i'm a guy who thinks Sony are welcome to take extreme measures in order to prevent people hacking their console. i just don't think they should be able to take legal measures, or get their wishes written into law in an anti consumer fashion.

i have cracked dozens of games that i bought. i did this until it became standard practice not to have to put the disk in to play a game on PC. i have ripped wii games i legally own to play them on an emulator.

pirating games is illegal. it should be. things which could make pirating games easier should not be when they have legitimate uses. if i'm to blame for piracy for downloading a crack so as not to have to put the disk in, then Sony are to blame for piracy for making bluray burners and PCs.

we don't need to make custom firmware or cracks illegal. there is no proof at all that doing so reduces piracy. people who are pirating games are already breaking the law. making the bought items more desirable or making piracy harder are the ways you reduce it.

not by making something illegal that a bunch of us do quite legally, just because some other people who already commit an illegal action also do that currently legal thing.

If by "here" you mean the US, then you're way too late. That ship sailed in 1998.

 

[Raist]

Please show where its illegal to circumvent the security methods of the PS3.

Er, Europe?

(c) any act of putting into circulation, or the possession for
commercial purposes of, any means the sole intended
purpose of which is to facilitate the unauthorised removal
or circumvention of any technical device which may have
been applied to protect a computer program.

And the US, of course.

Bypassing anticircumvention devices, however, is a separate no no. Section 1201 of the DMCA forbids reverse engineering if it involves circumvention of a technological protection measure

But I guess people are going to say the DMCA is absolute garbage etc etc. Still, whether you like it or not, it is illegal.

 

[DangerousDave]

we don't need to make custom firmware or cracks illegal. there is no proof at all that doing so reduces piracy. people who are pirating games are already breaking the law. making the bought items more desirable or making piracy harder are the ways you reduce it.

But, for example, in PS2 era there were a lot of computer shops that offered the service of adding "backup game" chips to PS2, so any 15yo child was able to pirate games easy, with only a small fee. The police knew that the use of those machines were used mainly for pirate games, that it was already illegal (unless here we had an amazingly huge linux community of 15 yo guys) but there was no legal way to stop the massive piracy, because the ads talked about "backup loaders" instead of "pirate games". So they changed the law to forbid the modifications done to surpass security systems.

Yeah, that don't avoid the piracy, but at least it make it more difficult.