Reactivate? AGAIN!?
This is just a quick post to say how much Microsoft and their draconian OS licensing mechanism are pissing me off right now.
Last week my computer stopped booting. I didn't get around to looking at it until a few days ago because I had visitors over from the UK. Not just that, it is Christmas, and the last thing you want to be doing on your Christmas break is to be fixing computers.
Biosham ™
I can fully understand the desire a developer has to protect their creation from being copied illegally. I can understand why some steps would be taken to mitigate the risk of losing money due to piracy. What I can't understand is why some companies go so far with their anti-piracy measures that it starts to have an impact on the honourable, paying customers.
I have bitched in the past about how activation is a pain in the neck. But that example is nothing like what 2K Games have recently inflicted on the buyers of their latest creation, Bioshock. Rather than throw a few links to a bzillion blog and forum posts that have covered it already, let me just give you the short version:
- Bioshock comes with SecuROM.
- It requires online activation before it can be played.
- It can only be activated twice.
On the surface this might not sound so bad, but when you think about it a little deeper it becomes obvious why this is such a pain in the arse.
I’ll View What I Like!
I have a few questions for you:
- How would you feel if TV channels changed automatically because you weren't paying attention to the ads?
- Would you like it if your newspaper closed by itself because you were reading the articles but skipping over the classifieds?
- How happy would you be if you were kicked out of a cinema for not watching the latest and greatest in Val Morgan Cinema Advertising?
- Would you be happy if you weren't allowed to walk into a shop unless you HAD to buy something?
If you're anything like me, you'd be pretty pissed off about it. The scary thing is that this kind of thing is already happening on the web.
Digg is Being Used Against Itself
Over the last day or so, stacks of people have been hammering digg as a revolt against their recent actions. For those of you who don't know, HD-DVD encryption was cracked recently and the master key which allows all movies to be ripped has been released across the web. Digg, in their infinite wisdom, decided to kill off the original blog post (and apparently banned one or two users? - unconfirmed), resulting in an avalanche of posts preaching "free speach" and "fuck you Digg". Digg is now being dugg big time, and as a tool it's being used as a weapon against itself.
This is quite an interesting issue. Digg are obviously in a position where they have to remove anything that may be considered an infringment of copyright, otherwise they could be subject to hefty lawsuits which could result in the site being closed (have a read of this for a bit more information), but by the same token it almost goes against their whole business idea - sharing information that people want to have shared in a democratic fashion.
At the end of the day, the encryption key is just a bunch of numbers, and most people have a problem with the idea that a bunch of numbers can be patented/copyrighted. I have to say that I agree with them. A number is a number, it exists in so many forms, and can have so many meanings. Trying to prevent people from posting these numbers is a waste of time. There are some smart people out there using some pretty funny and clever ways to post the number without actually stating that the number is the encryption key - which is perfectly legal.
Regardless of the politics, the cat is out of the bag. And from this point on, the 'Net community will no doubt be pushing to spread this number as far and as wide as possible.
What are your thoughts on this?
Edit: Kaz just sent me this awesome link. I wonder if they'd have the power to rip the shirt off your back?!
Edit 2: So, the masses have been heard! Digg has changed its tune and will no longer be attempting to stop said key being shared. Hats off to them for taking a stance. The thing is, whether they try to stop it or not, the encryption key will not be removed from the web - it's out there, and people won't let it be brushed under the carpet.
Edit 3: Couldn't resist posting this, it's bloody awesome (I'm talking about the pic).
Is it Becoming Illegal to do Anything?
I can't help but feel that over time the world is getting harder to live in. To be a bit more precise, it's becoming very difficult to do anything at all for fear of putting yourself in the firing line, or on the receiving end of a law suit. Two things that have caught my attention over the last couple of weeks which have really annoyed me. One of them is down to the frustration I feel when people are trying to get something for nothing, and the other is down to annoyance at regulations that are put in place which are just totally ridiculous
The first thing was the news that there's a class action lawsuit against Nintendo due to the apparently insufficient quality of the straps that hold the Wiimote on the wrist. After I first read this I decided to do a bit of research into the cases where people had lost their grip, snapped the band and witnessed the Wiimote flying through the end and breaking either something expensive, or someone's face (or both!). In every case, the person's actions have been incredibly excessive. Sure, the Wiimote no doubt gets you going. It's easy to get caught up in the moment and let excitement get the better of you. But to swing that controller that hard while expecting it to stay in your hand makes you (the user) a complete tool. Instead of just easing up a little bit and admitting that they've gone over the top, the users are now saying that it's Nintendos fault, and in the classic American tradition, they're suing.
The second thing that's got to me is the new Aussie rule that states that you're no longer allowed to link to copyrighted material. I'm not sure how broad that rule actually is, but it does sound like you could end up with someone suing you for linking to their blog post, their home-made video, or whatever it is that they've put online - even if you've helped increase the traffic to the site. I'd have sent you a link to the original SMH article, but I wasn't sure if that was legal. Let's be honest, if the rule is that broad and you can't even point people at a newspaper article, the world is going nuts. The original idea of hypertext linking is now being threatened - as you're no longer allowed to use them! Sure, link to pages in your own site, link to Google, and tell them what to search for. That should be ok. But direct linking looks to be a no-no.
Total and utter crap. The world is going nuts! If we keep going at this rate it's going to become illegal to do anything other than read emails - and considering the amount of SPAM that's buzzing around the Internet the value of that doesn't look too good. We're going to have to nip this shit in the bud before it goes too far. Not only will it stop the open communication and information sharing mechanism that the world is, but the threat of being sued will prevent people from innovating - that's not the kind of world I want to live in.
DVD Cracker Nails Apple’s iPod Code
You gotta hand it to this guy, he says that he "doesn't like closed systems", which is pretty darned obvious 
The man, Jon Lech Johansen, who years ago cracked the DVD encryption known as CSS, and released (with two other unknowns) the software that could be used to decrypt DVDs (called DeCSS), has taken his code-breaking career to a new level - he's nailed Apple iPod's ecosystem (or so he claims) by breaking their FairPlay DRM software.
I have no reason to find his claims outrageous, since he's quite clearly experienced in this area (he was 15 when he cracked CSS after all), so it looks like Apple have got themselves an issue to deal with. It'll be interesting to see if they take steps to stop him and his new DoubleTwist venture from taking off, or releasing any information/software pertaining to the crack.
Check out this SMH article for a bit more info.
A pox on your DRM
I can no longer resist the temptation to talk about DRM (at least in part) after the issues that I faced over the weekend. I know I'm not the only one that has experienced the pain that I'm about to describe, and I'm pretty pissed off about it.
I'm going to be getting married pretty soon, and as a result my fiance and I are both trying to finalise arrangements for the wedding. One of the things that we're trying to get right is the music that we want to have playing at various points, and over the weekend we spent a bit of time going over quite a few options. After pretty lengthy discussions (which aren't yet over) we got together a shortlist of albums with songs that we would like to have played. In order to make our lives a lot easier, we wanted to have the songs ripped to my PC so we could play with the order of songs in playlists to get the right feel/flow.
This is where the pain started. Most of the CDs ripped perfectly fine to MP3 using CDex and the LAME encoder that comes with it. There were a couple of CDs, however, that just didn't want to behave. Out of the two CDs that didn't want to play nice, I managed to get one of them to rip, but the second just refused to work. I think I might know how to solve the problem after doing a bit of research, but this obviously brought my thoughts on DRM to the front of my mind - which is why I'm posting.
So why do we have DRM? Why is it being rammed down our throats every time we buy a new CD? The answer is simple: the music production companies feel that they need to have some form of mechanism in place to prevent music from being ripped and shared across the world by pirates. While this is a knoble cause, it has nasty effects on those people who do pay for their music.
One of those effects is that users are unable to play the music on their MP3 player. It makes me wonder what the point is of having an iPod or Network Walkman when you can't rip CDs to be able to put the content on them anyway? What happens if I don't own a normal standalone CD player, but instead only have an MP3 player and my computer which I use for the transfer? In short: I'm screwed.
I feel that while there is a need to stop the pirating of music content, there is no way that legitimate consumers of music should suffer as a result of the extremely crap mechanisms that are currently in place. The worst of the crap mechanisms out there is one that Sony has used. Not only does it go out of its way to hide itself so that you don't even know it's installed, it even goes as far as to provide a mechanism for other programs to hide themselves. This has been exploited already by malware, and Sony have copped a bit of a hiding as a result.
Has this kind of thing made any difference? No not really. Companies are still putting mechanisms in place to stop people ripping their music. I'm bloody sick of it.
Let's be honest. If you really want to rip music, you will find a way. There's a stack of information out there which will cover almost any scenario well enough to point you in the right direction. What does this mean to the average user? Well, those people who do buy their music are more likely to not know where to look to find this information out. Those people who deliberately pirate music are the kinds of people who not only know how to get round most copy-protection mechanisms, but are likely to circumvent them by themselves and let other people know how they did it.
The net effect is not a reduction in piracy. Instead it's the legitimate user who cops it. The pirates have it easy, as they always seem to be up to speed or one step ahead, and Joe Blow sits in front of his PC baffled and cursing his new purchase wishing he'd never wasted the money on the CD in the first place.
I personally feel that in the long run DRM mechanisms like this are going to prevent people from buying. If I find a CD that I want to buy, then I'll look for the information regarding the copy protection. If there is some in place, chances are I won't bother buying it.
When are the big companies going to wake up and stop slapping their clients with DRM software that does nothing but make their lives more difficult? We need more and more artists to get behind the consumer and stop the production companies from installing DRM on their albums. We should be free to play our purchased music on whatever the hell we want - and that includes PCs and MP3 players.
