Sega Apparently Learned Nothing From EA's Spore-DRM Mistakes

Mon, Sep 29th 2008 11:27am

Filed Under:
backlash, copying, costs, post-it notes, viral videos

Companies:
3m

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Understanding The Backlash Cost In Copying Someone Else's Work

from the thinking-things-through dept

Earlier this month, we wrote about a neat marketing campaign put on by the Eepy Bird guys using tons of Post-It Notes. It wasn't clear if 3M, the makers of Post-It Notes was actually involved or not -- but it appears the company is busy at work on its own viral marketing campaign, though it's off to a poor start. As a bunch of folks have sent in, 3M apparently decided to make make its own car covered in Post-It Notes photo after the company failed to license the original photo that was made famous a few years ago.

Now, I find the people who claim that 3M was "stealing" the concept just as (if not more) silly as those who claim that downloading an unauthorized song is "stealing." 3M tried to license the photo and couldn't agree on a price, so it made its own. It didn't "steal" the idea, it just found it more cost effective to do it on its own (the classic buy vs. build decision). However, it does appear that the company didn't take the backlash cost into account in figuring out that buy vs. build equation.

This is actually quite important. Often, when we talk about things like plagiarism or copyright infringement, people insist that others will always "rip you off" and copy your work and there's absolutely no recourse. Yet, they fail to acknowledge the importance of reputation. If you are caught so uncreatively copying someone else, without doing anything new or innovative on top of that, it's not surprising that people will call you out, often vehemently, for your uncreative copying efforts. That can have quite a big cost in terms of reputation and credibility, probably a lot more than it would have cost to have reached an agreement with the original creator. So, before thinking it's so easy for big companies flat out "rip off" someone else's creative work, just remember that there are some pretty serious hidden reputation costs in them doing so.

(Mis)Uses of Technology

Thu, Sep 25th 2008 9:10am

Filed Under:
backlash, class action lawsuit, drm, rootkit, spore

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Will Spore DRM Become EA's Rootkit Moment?

from the increasing-parallels dept

With the news coming out that some purchasers of the video game Spore have filed a class action lawsuit against EA for its inclusion of SecuROM DRM, it's reaching the point where you have to wonder if this is becoming EA's "rootkit" moment. The parallels are there. Both involved an overly draconian form of DRM that severely limited how a "purchased" product could be used. Both involved hidden files installed on a computer -- and both resulted in massive backlash from consumers, and a very slow response from the company. And, of course, the rootkit resulted in class action lawsuits as well. At some point, perhaps, companies will start to realize that treating your customers as criminals is probably a bad idea.

Surprises

Fri, Sep 12th 2008 1:31pm

Filed Under:
backlash, deletions, drm, reviews, spore, streisand effect

Companies:
amazon, ea

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Did Amazon Delete Spore Reviews? [Updated]

from the they're-all-gone dept

Want to know how not to respond to criticism? By deleting it. Yet, it appears that's what Amazon has done. Earlier this week we wrote about the controversy of EA's decision to put cumbersome DRM on the highly anticipated video game, Spore. The response was that thousands of people started posting one star reviews of Spore, noting the problems with the DRM. Things then got worse when people realized that EA had misled customers about the fact that they could only have one user account on Spore.

Now, a bunch of people have noticed that Amazon appears to have deleted all of the reviews on the Spore page. This is only going to end badly. When you try to shut down a large group of people who feel wronged, you're not just whacking the bees' nest with a stick, you're setting it on fire with a flame thrower. The folks who were complaining are only going to complain louder, and louder. Remember what happened when Digg tried to takedown the AACS crack? Whoever was responsible for removing the comments -- whether it was Amazon or EA -- they may find that the reaction to trying to shut down the angry mob is only going to make folks that much angrier, and alert that many more people to the problems they have with EA's use of DRM.

Update: It appears that some, or potentially all, of the reviews are now back on the site, and Amazon is claiming that it was a "glitch" that they disappeared. Some people claim that their own reviews are not back yet, though, so the whole situation is a bit fluid. Either way, if it really was a glitch, it was a pretty bad time and place for such a glitch to occur.

Overhype

Fri, Jul 11th 2008 3:50am

Filed Under:
backlash, ip addresses, privacy

Companies:
google, viacom, youtube

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Judge's Order For Google To Hand Over YouTube Usage Morphs Into Google Backlash On Storing IPs

from the backlash-everywhere dept

There was plenty of attention given to the judge's order that Google hand over log files to Viacom's lawyers in the Viacom/YouTube lawsuit, with much of it focused on what an awful ruling this was. Now it appears that some are trying to use this bad ruling to actually focus negative attention on Google instead. A lawyer who is also suing YouTube over copyright issues mistakenly claims that Google has tricked the press into making Viacom the enemy here. That's not quite true, though. Most of the anger was focused on the judge's decision, not on Viacom. However, he does make another, related point that is getting picked up by others as well: "How else do you explain why they have been collecting and using IP addresses to monetize their site (for a while now), yet only now, with great self righteousness, claim to be concerned about producing IP addresses?"

Of course, that's not quite an accurate portrayal of the situation either. It's one thing to store your own log files -- it's quite another to be asked to hand them over to a random third party. Louis Solomon's statement above is like saying "how can a doctor store your medical info and then, with great self righteousness, claim to be concerned about protecting your medical info." It's rather easy: the doctor has a right to the medical info, while a third party does not.

However, that hasn't stopped some privacy advocates from asking why Google has kept the log files in the first place. This doesn't strike me as being that big a deal, to be honest. There are plenty of reasons why Google should be able to control its own log files. I can understand questions concerning what it does with the log files should those actions violate user privacy -- but merely tracking how people use their websites hardly seems like a privacy violation.

Legal Issues

Tue, Jul 8th 2008 2:14pm

Filed Under:
backlash, surveillance, sweden, wiretapping