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:

1. Bioshock comes with SecuROM.
2. It requires online activation before it can be played.
3. 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.

SecuROM has a bit of a reputation amongst gamers, and not a good one at that. Most people who fork out the dollar to purchase a game don't want to be harassed afterwards. SecureROM does a good job of exactly that - harasssing. It usually requires you to insert the CD/DVD of the title while you play it. Again, this isn't a biggie for most people. But for a lot of gamers, changing CDs and DVDs constantly is annoying. I'd go as far as to say that it shits them up the wall! (yup, that one's for you, Vorlath, if you're reading ). If you buy the game legally, and you install the game legally, you should be allowed to play it legally without having to muck around with the discs.

Activation of games is fairly commonplace these days, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to enforce it on the buyer. In the case of Bioshock, the SecuROM activation does some sort of hashing of your hardware and operating system information before passing it to the Mothership for archiving. If you install it on another machine, the process happens again. Each time your hardware or operating system changes, you end up with a new "fingerprint". According to 2K Games, you're allowed two of these "fingerprints" against a given serial number and that's it. Do you think that's reasonable?

Before giving your answer, make sure you consider all the possible scenarios that might result in the need for reinstallation. Such as ...

• ... Windows biting the dust due to malware.
• ... hardware biting the dust for any reason.
• ... the need to put the game on a different machine which has higher specifications and hence can provide a more enjoyable gaming experience.
• ... the game refusing to run on a certain version of Windows (cough Vista cough).

There are probably more reasons as well.

2K Games are saying that it's possible to uninstall the game before reinstalling on another machine and everything will continue to work fine. That's all well and good so long as you can uninstall the game. What happens if your machine is fried? Fat chance of uninstalling a game from a hard disk that burnt to a cinder. Good luck removing software from a machine that's been trashed by some nast virus. If any of the above does happen to you, then you're in for a rough ride convincing the support team to allow you to reinstall past your 2-installation limit.

I'm one of those people who frequently rebuilds their machine. When I do, I don't uninstall every bit of software before wiping and starting again. Usually the disks are repartitioned and the OS is reinstalled. I don't think twice about it. I don't think I'm the only one who would end up suffering because I forgot to uninstall a game that I know I have the original discs for.

Let's consider the long term issues that might arise from a mechansim like this. What happens when 2K decide that they've had enough of supporting Bioshock, and users require help with their activation? Simple: the users are left high and dry.

If you think buying a copy of the game through Steam is going circumvent this level of protection, think again. Steam not only has its own security in place to prevent piracy, but it also delivers the SecuROM anti-piracy gizmos that you get in the boxed version. So you're not safe.

There are already reports of people in strife due to this stupid level of control. Legal users of the software are unable to play the game because they've been forced to reinstall operating systems, or try on different machines because of the hardware requirements of the game. This is just crap. If you buy the software, it shouldn't come with a stack of crap which prevents you from being able to use whenever and wherever you want.

What makes this worse is that those people who do pirate software do not have to put up with this kind of crap! They download, install and play. That's it. No tales of woe. No activation issues. No concern of not being able to reinstall on a beefier machine. Nothing. The pirate is the winner, not the legal consumer.

I take my hat off to 2K for being monumentally stupid. You've tarnished an arguably amazing game with your stupid anti-piracy antics. You've also managed to piss off half of the game playing population...

.. and that's before we take into account the widescreen issue.

Edit: Have a read of this, this and this if you want to see what other people are saying.

Apparently Facebook has started letting other websites access user information (surprise, surprise!) to third parties. They call it the "Facebook Development Platform."
To restrict use of your information, do the following:

1. Click "Privacy" on top right.
2. Under the "Facebook Platform" section click "Edit Settings".
3. Scroll down and UNCHECK ALL of the items under Facebook Platform.

Most creepy is the inclusion of photographs!
(Do your friends a favor and repost this as your own note.)

So, if you're a Facebook user, do yourself a favour and protect your privacy!

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.