Activision Forces Online Check DRM Into New Game, Which Gets Cracked In One Day

from the totally-worth-it dept

By now it should be clear that DRM is essentially an arms race that will never be won by producers and publishers of content. While the fall of even the most vaunted DRM platforms has shown how useless those platforms are, the more consequential outcomes of DRM tend to be the way it bricks the products people bought or else limits the use of those products once the DRM is no longer supported. In sum total, it’s very clear that DRM is very much anti-consumer, while failing completely at being anti-pirate.

It’s a lesson that some in the video game industry insist on re-learning over and over again. Activision recently re-released Crash Bandicoot 4 for the new generation of consoles… and a long-awaited debut on PC. Despite the game having no online gaming components in it, Activision decided to put an online DRM requirement in the game, forcing it to check in with the Battle.net app for it to work. To be clear, there was no reason to include the DRM beyond it being a piracy check. And to be equally clear, even that reason was silly. Why? Well…

By midday Saturday, one day after the game’s Battle.net launch, cracking-group Empress claimed first dibs on stripping Crash 4’s PC version of its online check-in system. Their crack replaces one file in an otherwise vanilla install, and the group’s release notes don’t clarify what the crack does, other than describing the game’s defeated DRM as “Battle.net + online only.” (We thus believe this isn’t a case of someone defeating Denuvo, even though a joke in Empress’ release notes mocks the much-maligned DRM provider.)

As of press time, Crash 4 has zero online content, in spite of a couch co-op mode (designed to let a parent and child take turns with the single-player campaign) and a simple four-player versus mode dubbed Bandicoot Battle. Thus, the Battle.net handshake appears to revolve entirely around DRM, as opposed to checking for add-on content like new levels or even score leaderboards.

It’s all so pointless. I have no idea how much time and effort it took for Activision to build this online-check into the PC release of the game. And it really doesn’t matter, because literally every second of time and energy spent on it was completely wasted. The game was cracked in a day. Previous PC releases of Activision titles didn’t include this DRM, though some will like to argue that any title released on Steam technically has DRM saddled into it. Still, as a new effort, this was all pointless.

Which is why it’s so frustrating that game publishers keep going down this futile road. Instead, developers and publishers should be focusing on creating great gaming experiences for the public, building a bond with that public by treating them well, and not hampering their efforts with stupid online-checks that are defeated on the order of hours.

Is that really so hard?

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Wither Chamberlain brother of Wilt says:

Re: Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's not!

Pieced up because wouldn’t all go in at once! Blame Techdirt.

The REAL DRM is that after some period of playing (esp with that removed), a previously dormant bit starts sending IP address besides definitely identifying info gleaned from scanning files and so on.

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Wither Chamberlain brother of Wilt says:

Re: Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's not!

This activity almost certainly won’t be noticed — it’d require deep analyzing of net traffic from first run on (the program could set up a little autostart demon to wait indefinitely for a net connection) — and the happy thieves will think got away with it…

What purpose will be made of that? Ah… Likely nothing soon…

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's not!

"This activity almost certainly won’t be noticed — it’d require deep analyzing of net traffic from first run on…"

So in other words, the very first thing a game cracker will be looking for?

You need to get that dunning-kruger looked at, Baghdad Bob. You are, as usual, trying to convince the comment section of a site visited by techies that what you dreamed up in fantasy land is somehow real and the Black Arts required to handle a computer are actual magic.

"…and the happy thieves will think got away with it…"

In the wild assumption that your assertion is true and Activision is indeed that daft they surely will. Activisions legal team is bound to point out that copyright infringement still is nowhere near the crime building and installing rootkit trojans are these days.

But I can somehow see that this makes sense in the mind of the gormless moron who tried advocating that burglary, torture and willful destruction of property would somehow be legal means to use against someone suspected of copying a song…the way you did on Torrentfreak all those years ago.

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Wither Chamberlain brother of Wilt says:

Re: Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's not!

Just put this with the CASE Act now in place. Remember that? Fallen out of your tiny piratey minds? … All the legalities are now in place for BIG fines on pirates! Just need to find them! A hidden beacon is good easy means for collecting from pirates those $5000 CASE judgments, eh? A few months of monitoring, then swoop in on a couple thousand (good solid test cases too: the permission is in the EULA!), and they’ll more than recoup, see? — And even if not Activision, first corp that implements this will get to Step 3: PROFIT!

And you thought Democrats were your friends! — Enjoy.

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's not!

"Here’s a rule you should learn kids: IF CAN BE DONE ON A COMPUTER, THEN IT IS BEING DONE, not will, but IS."

Yes, which makes the industry’s insistence on losing sales of games on certain platforms because they’re "afraid" of things that happen no matter what they do a mystery to sane people.

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Rico R. (profile) says:

Re: Re: Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's not!

Let’s look at each of your "claims" one by one. You say that this game’s online CHECK was just a decoy, and it will really start sending IP Addresses and other personal information stored on the device. For that claim, you cite checks notes absolutely NO SOURCE. You’re already off to a good start there. Before you say inside information, remember you said this later:

Now, do I have actual inside info? No…

So you’ve already discredited yourself.

And even if that’s true, imagine the PR nightmare such a DRM scheme would cause. It would make the Sony Rootkit scandal look tame in comparison. In Sony’s case, all their rootkit did was open a security vulnerability on the listener’s PC. But here, the game developer is essentially siphoning information off of a player’s PC all because they didn’t purchase an authorized copy of the game. Pirate or not, no game should ship with code that allows private data from a player’s computer to be sent to the game publisher or some other third party. That’s looking closer and closer to malware territory than actual DRM. But with no evidence this is the case, I’ll move on from this "argument".

Interestingly, the next thing you point to is the CASE Act. You’re essentially admitting that the CASE Act was NEVER about enabling a small claims alternative for "smaller creators" to enforce their rights, but rather to make it even easier to establish corporate copyright trolling entities and even harder to dismantle them, especially in the case of a default judgment. Does Congress even know that this was your true intent?

And you’re wrong about how this would go down if Activision went down this route:
Step 1 – Gather a list of individuals who are pirating your game.
Step 2 – Sue as many individuals as possible under the CASE Act.
Step 3 – Experience the backlash of fans (even paying ones) for going after people who dare defeat their DRM and/or pirate the game, creating a PR disaster and potential boycott.
Step 4 – Profit?????

This was done already by the music industry, and this was the result. After a few years, the RIAA abandoned the practice. You really think a different industry will be able to succeed this time without a PR disaster because a new small claims board was set up to enforce copyright? All that does is change the venue in which the legal claims are brought while ignoring the reasons going after individuals for file sharing was a bad idea in the first place.

Oh, and the CASE Act will have NO effect on piracy. Could it make a handful of pirates pay damages to copyright holders? Maybe. But those that want to pirate will still pirate. And you’re ignoring the fact that bypassing/removing DRM doesn’t always mean piracy. What happens in, say, 20 years, when Activision shuts down the DRM servers because virtually no one is playing that game anymore, and legitimate owners of the game have no recourse to continue playing, even in offline mode, without bypassing DRM? Do you know who will be unaffected by such a move by Activision? PIRATES.

In closing, thank you to the mighty Techdirt, who allows people (like me) to flag comments such as yours!

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's n

"Plus, in Europe and the UK, collection of personal data is subject to GDPR and the commission can, and have, levied fines if the rules are followed."

…and in the US there are a number of cyber-security laws which would make it that much worse. I can see it all now – Activision goes to court and on presenting the case the first thing the judge says is; "So let me get this straight, you bring before this court a case of civil litigation using data you admit to have collected by performing thousands of actual felonies?"

Only Baghdad Bob is this stupid. If the copyright cult followed ANY of his schemes, copyright would be dead a dozen times over.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Don't worry yourself about wasted effort. It's not!

"I have it on good information that the online requirement was a throw-away diversion."

So Activision decided to add, at high expense, a means they knew would be utterly meaningless while turning their legitimate offer into a worse product than the cracked copy floating on The Bay?

Seriously, Baghdad Bob, only you would drift around holding high a piece of suck and fail as if it were a cunning plan.

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BG (profile) says:

Re: 'Teach you to pay us...'

Exactly. I got nothing but snotty responses from Eidos when I tried to play Deus Ex Invisible War years ago. Apparently it wouldn’t play if you had virtual CD drive software installed (Daemon Tools). In their opinion nobody could ever have a legitimate reason for installing such software, so the game gave an obscure and unhelpful error message. I couldn’t uninstall Daemon Tools as I was using it daily to browse ISO files of product documentation for my job as I was travelling for several months. I had to get a no-CD patch from a decidedly less than legitimate site in the end so I could play the game I legitimately owned.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: 'Teach you to pay us...'

"I had to get a no-CD patch from a decidedly less than legitimate site in the end so I could play the game I legitimately owned."

This is largely the reason why with any game containing DRM, what I install will never be the copy I bought but the copy I got from The Bay. Why the hell would you want the version of the game which loads slower, crashes more often, and stutters because the DRM keeps loading the CPU you’d want handling the actual game executables?

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Anonymous Coward says:

Nerd harder, you'll figure it out.

What I love about all the DRM stuff is they always try to outfox the nerds. They say, "nerd harder" to figure out a better way to secure stuff.

Cracked in one day. Awesome.

What I say to DRM people is … "NERD HARDER, YOU’LL FIGURE IT OUT."

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tp (profile) says:

DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

The claims that DRM is completely useless if some crackers manage to remove it. When the game is being sold 10 million units, then 9.9 million of those instances, the DRM is still employed, and will do its job nicely. So any claims that if one user out of 10 million manages to crack the protections, that the whole system would be useless is completely crazy bullshit.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

And those that’d pay for the content/game/etc. would pay for it anyway. Those that won’t will never get exposure to the awesomeness and the amazing talent of your studios/coders/etc.

The market you’re going after has already been lost; those never exposed. It almost seems like a piss-poor business deal to only sell to those who want your product, rather than expose the whole world to a product that they may want regardless. (When the cost of reproduction is virtually zero, there’s almost no reason not to.)

You’ve lost a whole market almost immediately, let alone those who would probably work to improve something you’ve already worked. Sometimes it does pay to allow others access to code and the undercarriage to allow them to come up with better engineering ideas.

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tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

who would probably work to improve something you’ve already worked.

this "million eyeballs will find all the bugs" seems to be kinda horrible myth, basically the myth was false, the user community never cared about bugs in the software, and much less about providing fixes.

I have yet to see those people who are actually "working" to improve the offered products. More popular trend is people who want to bash and harass your development teams and wants products to disappear from the earth.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

Removing DRM, especially invasive, game- and system-breaking DRM, is an improvement all its own. But yeah, let’s just ignore the huge modding community for almost any title, especially those who help keep way old games popular and playable. (You know, maintaining a market to which the publisher can sell stuff if they care to do so.)

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

"this "million eyeballs will find all the bugs" seems to be kinda horrible myth, basically the myth was false, the user community never cared about bugs in the software, and much less about providing fixes."

May I invite you to the "nexusmods" site where the community has offered hundreds of thousands of mods and bug fixes for several dozen games?

It’s not that the "myth" is false, it’s that you’ve somehow managed to establish the conclusion and are as usual very busy ignoring all the evidence to the contrary.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

So apparently you can’t count on two million eyeballs to do bug reports but you’ll still use them to bloat viewership numbers when there’s no Meshpage animations getting teleported to the Internet? Okay then – whatever you think gets you your imaginary mansion, Chuckles.

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tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

when there’s no Meshpage animations getting teleported to the Internet?

Well, it seems to be difficult to search for meshpage animation instances from the internet. Given that any potential users who placed animation to their own web site are not visible in your search.

You’d actually need to know what files my 3d engine installs to end user’s web server to do proper search…

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tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

if you know where they are, why not show them?

I know the correct number of instances are nearer to 0 than 5…

i.e. there is nothing to show… But the technology exists and its just laziness of the community that they can’t get bleeding edge technologies into use. Is this the community that ought to find all bugs from my software?

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tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

You competitors get thousands of hours of 3D models to screens

Google decided to drop the ball with their poly.google.com and now they’re claiming that they are discontinuing the service.

I.e. even the biggest companies on the planet cannot get the system to work properly, so what chance do one person has against technology blockers that even the most powerful companies cannot manage properly?

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Strawb (profile) says:

Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

DRM is a waste of time and money, and in several cases results in complications for the paying customers, while not inconveniencing the pirates one bit. So yes, DRM is utterly useless. It helps no one, except whoever created the DRM, if any.

GOG.com and CDPR has proven many times over that DRM is useless.

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That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: 'Useless' would be a notable improvement

Calling DRM ‘useless’ is actually giving it more credit than it deserves as if it was merely useless it simply wouldn’t do anything, when in fact as you correctly noted DRM actively makes the experience worse for paying customers on a regular basis while doing nothing to pirates.

‘Punishes paying customers, encouraging and training them to find and use the cracked version of your product, potentially skipping right past the step where they pay you first’ goes well past ‘useless’ and right into outright counter-productive territory.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: 'Useless' would be a notable improvement

"…when in fact as you correctly noted DRM actively makes the experience worse for paying customers on a regular basis while doing nothing to pirates."

…and adds a lot of development overhead which means the harmful code ends up shoving a hefty chunk of extra cost on to the consumer, providing even more incentive for the savvy consumer to five-finger discount their copy of the game. As if getting a copy which wasn’t actually deliberately crippled wasn’t incentive enough…

crade (profile) says:

Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

Incorrect. The DRM won’t do it’s job nicely for those 9.9 million instances, since it’s job only applies to the 0.1 million instances in your scenario.

The DRM’s only purpose is to prevent people who want to pirate from doing so, once it is cracked, it no longer helps with that since when 1 person cracks it, they publish the crack and anyone who wants to pirate can easily do so afterward. Those who don’t want to pirate won’t use the crack, but the DRM has no job to do for them.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

without DRM there would be 10000 different cracks in the marketplace..

If there is no DRM to crack, how can there be 10000 different cracks in the market. Also note that removing DRm in various music stores did not have any impact on piracy, while increasing sales by the stores.

crade (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

There is no supply problem for the crack, it’s infinitely reproducible. How widespread the availability is just depends on how much people care or want it. Judging from every previous crack any 10 year should have no problem finding it. Sifting through a flood of material to find what you want on the internet is not really much of an issue

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

"When the game is being sold 10 million units, then 9.9 million of those instances, the DRM is still employed, and will do its job nicely"

By definition, the DRM only applies to people who paid for the game. As soon as a single copy is cracked, no pirate will ever have to deal with the DRM, while every person who ever paid for the game will have to deal with it every time they play it, ultimately being unable to use the product after the DRM servers are shgut down.

Why do you hate legal customers?

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tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

DRM is snake oil whose only beneficiary is the salesman.

There are many other technologies that only benefit the salesman. For example every tech that deals with money, like cash registers, stock markets, food stamps, accountants, taxes, business schools etc… The whole system is based on such technologies.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

Have you literally never heard the term "snake oil salesman"?

DRM doesn’t exist to facilitate financial transactions involving or make any kind of budgeting or accounting easier. That’s because it exists to give whoever buys and implements it an inherently false sense of security. DRM doesn’t benefit anyone but the people who sell that false sense of security – in other words, the snake oil salesmen who con people out of their cash.

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tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

I’m curious as to what you think DRM is, given that this doesn’t make sense in our reality.

Well, I haven’t seen actual DRM implementation, since I don’t like the tech and also refuse to purchase any computer games. So all the info I have is coming from horror stories from techdirt and other places, where users of such systems are complaining how the companies are controlling their lives.

Obviously one of the nastiest ways of controlling human lives would be to make them excersize or jump up/down or run in a threadmill… So DRM must be doing that too to make it really evil.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:7 DRM isn't useless even if it

The effort put into DRM is meaningless. It will be cracked. It does nothing to deter pirates/reduce piracy rates. And it only ever inconveniences paying customers and gives publishers a false sense of security. DRM is snake oil, and it doesn’t benefit anyone but snake oil salesmen who at this point know DRM is snake oil but don’t give a damn. Now get out of the deep end of the pool and let those of us who know about DRM have an adult conversation, you premature summer child.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 DRM isn't useless ev

No reward exists for DRM, other than a rather temporary measure of security that lasts only as long as it takes for someone to crack the DRM. You have no counter for the fact that DRM is snake oil besides some ridiculous argument about "the effort put into it". And since you admit to knowing nothing about DRM, anything else you could say on the matter is pointless.

Kids don’t get to swim in the pool during Adult Swim. So get out of the pool already.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:10 DRM isn't useles

No reward exists for DRM, other than a rather temporary measure of security that lasts only as long as it takes for someone to crack the DRM

Funnily enough DRM does provide one ‘service’ if you want to call it that beyond just keeping the con artists who sell it employed, and that’s providing a challenge for groups and individuals to compete to see how quickly they can crack it.

Throwing out a new form of DMR is like tossing bloody chunks of meat into the sea, it’s not a matter of will it be ripped to pieces but merely how quickly, and this allows people to sharpen their skills taking apart and examining code in a friendly competition with others with similar skills.

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tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 DRM isn't us

Throwing out a new form of DMR is like tossing bloody chunks of meat into the sea, it’s not a matter of will it be ripped to pieces but merely how quickly

At least the cracking groups were interested of the material. Without drm (like my meshpage web page) it seems noone is interested, and you get no users. If DRM improves the material’s interest in the market, that’s all positive development.

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 DRM isn't useless ev

"If the companies put in effort to build DRM systems, they can also collect the reward associated with the resulting technology"

There is no reward, since the sales supposedly gained by DRM are counterweighted by the sales lost from people who avoid DRM and/or pirate when the DRM is bypassed.

"And you (or anyone here) has nothing to say about that."

There’s over a decade of articles and comments on this very subject, which you claim to have read but somehow not understood the first word of what was written.

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 DRM isn't useless even if it gets cracked...

"Well, I haven’t seen actual DRM implementation"

So, you admit you don’t know what you’re talking about? That is an unusual example of honesty for you, I’ll give you that.

"also refuse to purchase any computer games"

Although DRM is largely talked about in terms of games, it’s also rampant in utility software. In fact, it used to come in the form of hardware dongles in the 90s and software before that in other forms. Strange how a self-proclaimed genius software developer doesn’t know about his own industry’s history…

"So all the info I have is coming from horror stories from techdirt and other places, where users of such systems are complaining how the companies are controlling their lives."

Well, your reading comprehension is as bad as ever, anyway. It’s very simple – DRM exists to block you from having access to software you purchased, forcing you to pass a check to prove you bought it every time you load it. Obviously, whenever that check is bypassed through DRM cracking (and it’s always bypassed), the pirates then have a better version of the software than legal customers, since the necessary overhead of that check is no longer there.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Nobody gets “raided” for downloading a pirate version of software. At worst, they get a sternly worded letter and some sort of fine. At best, they don’t get anything of the sort. That’s because corporations tend to not care at all about individual downloaders but give all the fucks about crackers and distributors.

And yes, if a DRM-less version of otherwise DRM-infested software works without putting up roadblocks to using it, that is a better version of the software. Those versions don’t treat you like a criminal for buying the actual software.

You’re in over your head in this discussion, tp. You jumped in the deep end without a life vest and the knowledge to stay afloat. Get out now before you completely embarass your whole, entire, probably-unwashed-for-decades ass.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7

Two things.

  1. At most, yes. The fine can always be lessened.
  2. Your practice of picking out the easiest sentence to go after because you can’t say shit in regards to all the others — including “fair point”, to acknowledge when someone is right — shows a kind of willful ignorance that makes you no better than an American conservative politician. Don’t be a Trumpian, tp.
tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

Then why are you still here?

If I was as evil as you think, I would say that my rules only apply to other people and not to myself.

But sadly for you, I actually follow my own rules. There exists a rule collection of over 300 rules which is being followed by myself. But its complex enough operation that you (or any other person on the planet) has no chance of determining if the rules are being correctly followed.

This is why you fail.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11

I actually follow my own rules.

Okay, Gibbs, let’s put that to the test.

  1. Is one of your rules “know what you’re talking about before you talk about it with someone else”? Because you’ve made clear that you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about vis-á-vis DRM…or other 3D modeling/rendering programs…or the way people use said programs.
  2. Is one of your rules the so-called Golden Rule? Because you seem to treat everyone else with contempt at best, outright hatred at worst for not falling to their knees and French kissing your shithole every time you say or do anything.
  3. Is one of your rules “don’t fall in over your head in situations you can’t control”? Because you’ve done that multiple times now in these comments sections and you’re doing nothing but embarassing yourself with your ignorance (intentional or otherwise, and I’d believe in “intentional” before I’d ever believe in “otherwise”).

There exists a rule collection of over 300 rules which is being followed by myself. But its complex enough operation that you (or any other person on the planet) has no chance of determining if the rules are being correctly followed.

Does your dad work at Nintendo, too?

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:12 Re:

Is one of your rules “know what you’re talking about before you talk about it with someone else”?

nope. (I expect accuracy/statement being exactly correct. But it says nothing about knowing what you’re talking about.) Basically discussion topics can be anything from rocket science to fringe science. I don’t think anyone on the internet can be expert on rocket science after watching spacex videos.

Is one of your rules the so-called Golden Rule?

nope, i don’t even know what golden rule is.

Is one of your rules “don’t fall in over your head in situations you can’t control”?

nope.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:13

first nope

Huh. The ignorant fuckwit who thinks he knows better than everyone doesn’t think he has to know a goddamn thing about a topic of discussion before he chimes in with his worthless opinion. Imagine that~.

second nope

Huh. The asshole who thinks everyone else is an asshole and thus deserves to be treated as such doesn’t know about the Golden Rule. Imagine that~. (Also: Do you not know how to use a search engine?!)

third nope

Huh. The fool who believes “an inability to swim shouldn’t stop people from diving in the deep end of the pool” doesn’t think he needs to stay out of a situation where he is likely to (metaphorically) drown. Imagine that~.

…Jesus monkeyflipping Christ, dude, you’re not helping yourself look like anything more than the loser you are — and trust me when I say I know a loser when I spot one.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:15

Alls I need to know about it is the results it produces. I’ve seen what your program can do, and it doesn’t compare at all to modern 3D modeling/rendering programs. Unless you can get results in your program that look like the results that are possible in ZBrush, your program is worthless to everyone that isn’t you.

Now, when you’re ready to have an actual discussion about DRM with adults who know what the fuck they’re talking about — which is to say, when you’ve done more reading on the subject that the lede paragraph of the Wikipedia article about DRM — we’ll have that discussion. Until then: Go away, you simple summer child.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:16 Re:

Alls I need to know about it is the results it produces.

Well, I don’t want to promise too much in the web page. Users will be badly disappointed if my web site looks very professional, but then regular users cannot get the same result when using the application. Blaming that your users are idiots when they cannot get the same result is not very useful even though it might sell more software.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:17

I don’t want to promise too much in the web page.

You don’t promise much of anything — especially anything relevant to the 3D modeling/rendering world as it stands in 2021. Between that, your flagrant and repeated insulting of pretty much everyone that isn’t you, your foolish desire to fully annihilate the public domain in its entirety, and your intentional ignorance for the sake of trolling this site, are you geniunely, sincerely, actually surprised that nobody wants to deal with your bullshit program…or you, for that matter?

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:21 Re:

"3d modellers have not been able to take web browsing experience to their workflow"

They have, they just use different tools to the ones you provide in your attempt at a tool that gives them this feature you imagined they need, while taking away the complex tools they need to create good quality results.

"Basically my solution is the first one that properly solves that problem."

…and it’s a "problem" that is encountered by nobody but yourself, and the solution produces results that wouldn’t be adequate even if it were a real problem to solve.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:22 Re:

and it’s a "problem" that is encountered by nobody but yourself, and the solution produces results that wouldn’t be adequate even if it were a real problem to solve.

It took over 100 years before the gadget industry managed to build GPS system, which was the first actually useful stuff coming from einstein’s special relativity/general relativity.

Given that markets have this poor track record of producing useful gadgets from scientist’s inventions, I don’t expect useful stuff coming from my innovative technologie in next 50 years.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:23 Re:

The first atomic clock was built in 1949, giving the time keeping accuracy needed for GPS. GPS launched in 1978, when they had developed an atomic clock that worked after the violence of a launch. Also required, was the computing power of the Microprocessor, which arrived around the mid 1970’s. Like most complex systems, GPS arrived when several technologies reached a state that made its implementation viable.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:24 Re:

Like most complex systems, GPS arrived when several technologies reached a state that made its implementation viable.

Of course the military used einstein’s theories to develop the atomic bomb, but it has the same problem than my current web page -> it’s not useful. It is destructive and misuse of the cool scientific breaktroughs.

Basically we cannot expect people unfamiliar with the theories to develop useful applications or even see the potential of the technologies until long time after the death of the inventor.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:27

You’re already relying on me more than you think.

What the fuck have you done to actually, knowingly, directly, personally contribute to the development of the 3D graphics programs that have been industry and hobbyist standards for years (if not decades)? Keep in mind that you must offer a credible indication that you actually helped personally develop some part of those programs — that is, you knowingly and directly developed by way of adding code/fixing bugs, and you received credit for that work from the broader development team — for any such claim to be taken seriously. Saying “well I did [x] with my program and that’s competition by proxy and yadda yadda yadda” or the usual kind of asinine “my dad works at Nintendo” preschool playground horseshit you usually spout when asked a question like this will not be accepted as a credible answer.

Answer the actual question with an actual on-point no-bullshit answer that doesn’t deflect or dodge from anything I’ve said or invokes intentional ignorance/misreadings of what I’ve said, or go the fuck away. Make your choice.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:28 Re:

contribute to the development of the 3D graphics programs that have been industry and hobbyist standards for years

I don’t develop any standards, de-facto or any other kinds of standards. If this is your requirement, there’s only very small number of people who can say they contributed to it.

Keep in mind that you must offer a credible indication that you actually helped personally develop some part of those programs

Nope, you’re not going to get any such indication, because it would be lying if I tried any such thing. Whatever I contributed was in completely different area compared to 3d graphics… Did you actually think I would have a hobby in same area where I actually contributed to the world?

preschool playground horseshit you usually spout

Yes, most of my answers are taking your response into account. If you lead the discussion to preschool playground, that’s what we’re going to talk about.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:29 Re:

"I don’t develop any standards, de-facto or any other kinds of standards."

No, you don’t, and you refuse to comply with any of them as well, hence your failure.

"If this is your requirement, there’s only very small number of people who can say they contributed to it."

Those thousands of people being a drop in the bucket compared to the total world population, sure.

"Did you actually think I would have a hobby in same area where I actually contributed to the world?"

Well, I’m sure we all assume that what you did/do as a day job must have been something where you were way more competent, else you’d have starved years ago.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:30 Re:

where you were way more competent, else you’d have starved years ago.

The 3d hobby projects were just started much earlier in my life. There’s only like <20 years of actual day work, but over 35 years of hobby projects. You’re assuming that the hobby is low quality even though it’s a best work that one person can do after whole lifetime of research into different technologies. You somehow expect that programming language knowledge appears in 2 days from some c++ programming for dummies -books? Or matrix calculation knowledge would come without going through university? Or ability to write large amounts of error-free code appears from nowhere without actually writing large amounts of code?

Basically you’re underestimating the amount of work that went into those hobby projects. Maybe that’s because you haven’t actually done anything like that yourself.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:31 Re:

"You’re assuming that the hobby is low quality"

Yes, because I’ve seen it.

"Basically you’re underestimating the amount of work that went into those hobby projects"

Nobody’s said you don’t put a lot of work or effort into the coding. We only comment on the fact that it’s badly designed, borderline unusable crap with terrible results for users, for which you’ve refused to even provide the most basic instruction on how to use it or what it’s meant to do (for example, you had to tell people here which keys to use in order to move a model, because the software doesn’t even indicate that this is a feature).

You might be the best coder in the world as far as anyone else knows. However, you’re terrible at support, documentation, marketing, interface design, collaboration, among many other things, and refuse to allow anyone else to even glance at the code itself, so all your work is for naught.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:32 Re:

refuse to allow anyone else to even glance at the code itself,

You can’t complain about missing open source feature when it was internet itself that broke the requirement. I had it actually implemented early in the project, but the internet decided that its useful to misuse the version control access feature to purposes which are not acceptable in open source ideals.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:33 Re:

"You can’t complain about missing open source feature when it was internet itself that broke the requirement."

I can’t complain about your twisted version of the concept that exists only in your head.

However, your only argument is about how great the code is. Being unable to examine that, I have to judge based on the results it creates, and those are so badly designed and implemented in terms of usability that it doesn’t come out looking good.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:34 Re:

I have to judge based on the results it creates,

But you failed to get 3d model to the screen with the builder tool?

Basically the actual offering has not been tried by anyone.

Also the 3d models available in meshpage.org are significantly better quality than what I expect casual users of my builder tool to be able to do. That’s always the case when tool author provides the best work that is available within the tool. The end users who have only limited amount of time available for the learning and examining the behaviour and features of the tool, will not get as good result as what the original author who knows every feature from inside and out.

The information what level of problems ordinary users have with using the builder tool would be the most valuable input from the activity, but that’s exactly what you refuse to provide.

"I looked at it and it looks crap" isn’t even near of what I’m talking about. It is guaranteed that you’re not able to get anywhere near that quality with the tool.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:35 Re:

"The end users who have only limited amount of time available for the learning and examining the behaviour and features of the tool, will not get as good result as what the original author who knows every feature from inside and out."

Strange, you’ve spent a lot of time in threads here attacking Blender and other industry standard tools for having a learning curve and claiming that your software is better because it doesn’t require one. Even to the point of attacking experienced professionals and claiming your tools should be used by children.

Now, you’re claiming that nobody can possibly use the tool as well as you can because only you have so much experience with it?

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:36 Re:

industry standard tools for having a learning curve and claiming that your software is better because it doesn’t require one.

Yes, both of these claims are true. It is ensured by two principles in the implementation of builder tool:
1) the core features required to be learned is small
2) with the core features, it’s possible to use every feature available in the builder.

I.e. once you figure out how to connect the graphs in builder, then rest of the features all work the same way. There isn’t jumping from one user interface to another like in blender. Everything works with the same interface.

Now, you’re claiming that nobody can possibly use the tool as well as you can

This is also true, mostly because there’s over 600 features available and noone who spent less than 2 hours with the tool can know what those tools are doing or even where to find the correct kind of tool that connects with the rest of the graph.

I can provide both easy-to-learn-user-interface and large number of features available in the tool without that user interface jumping that blender is famous for.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:39

right-mouse-button-select strange conventions

I’m sorry modern two-button mice are too complicated for you to use, but any program like Blender has right-mouse-button menus and options to use that button for selections and other operations. Plenty of other programs in other fields have similar functionality; fuck, even web browsers have that functionality. For all your complaining about “1970s archaic technology” like JPEGs, your abilities with a computer seem stuck in that same timeframe.

Do you not know how to use keyboard shortcuts, too?

Fuck off.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:29

I don’t develop any standards, de-facto or any other kinds of standards.

I didn’t say “standards”, you intentionally obtuse fuckhead. I said “the 3D graphics programs that have been industry and hobbyist standards for years”. I was referring not to any kind of standards within the 3D graphics world, but to the programs that have become so ubiquitous as to be standard-use programs within that realm. You knew that. You intentionally misread what I typed, like you always do, so you wouldn’t have to address that. Do you realize that such a movie makes you a complete asshole, or do you just not give a fuck about snapping your credibility?

there’s only very small number of people who can say they contributed to it

And they still did more to develop those programs, and the overall direction of the 3D graphics industry, than you ever have or ever will — in this life or the next.

you’re not going to get any such indication, because it would be lying if I tried any such thing

At least you finally admit your own worthlessness. It’s a start, I guess.

Did you actually think I would have a hobby in same area where I actually contributed to the world?

You would’ve first needed to contribute in that area, which you all but admitted you haven’t. And even if you have, plenty of artists who work in art-related careers/industries make personal/side work as a hobby. What makes you think people who draw for a living don’t draw stuff they want to draw in their spare time?

most of my answers are taking your response into account

And now you’re admitting to just being an intentional asshole for no reason other than “nuh-uh to your uh-huh”. Christ, you must really hate yourself to sink that low.

I treat you like shit because you’ve done nothing to deserve respect or the treatment that would come from your having my respect. You intentionally misinterpret what I say to make a point nobody was arguing for as a brazen (and ultimately failed) attempt at making you look like you have an upper hand. You distort anything said by anyone else to feed your “I’m literally better than everyone, they’re just too fucking r⸻ded to see it” ego. If you’re going to think you’re the “bigger man” in all this but act like someone who can only win an argument if they keep changing the way it’s “scored”, you’re not getting my respect — and I’m going to treat you like an adolescent pinhead who thinks he knows the world better than everyone despite having his head so far up his own ass that he can vomit his own shit.

If you lead the discussion to preschool playground, that’s what we’re going to talk about.

I lead the discussion to actual points. You dodge them (as proven in the comment to which I’m replying) and try to argue against points I never made — or points you wish I had made — because they’re the only ones you can argue against. If you had to stay directly on topic, you’d be so far out of your depth that I would feel even sorrier for you than I already feel.

You are a punk bitch who can’t argue a direct point to save your life. Your software will never be used by anyone meaningful in any significant company, corporation, organization, or hobbyist circle within the realm of 3D graphics work. And I’m tired of having to tell you that you’re such a fucking narcissistic egomanic that you make our trolls look well-adjusted by comparison.

Fuck all the way off and don’t come back.

Fuck you.

…I’m finished.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:30 Re:

I treat you like shit because you’ve done nothing to deserve respect or the treatment that would come from your having my respect.

I know your mom’s basement is still very convinient, but when you move out, you actually need to interact with other people and they will somehow detect it every time when you treat them like shit.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:35

you wouldn’t believe any of my proof anyway

Hardly surprising, because in the comments you’ve posted over the span of half a decade, your user count is exactly… zero. It’s something you’ve boasted as a sign that your antipiracy tech is impeccable.

The one bit of proof that can be agreed on, though, is that Meshpage hasn’t made the money you think it should make, which would be because… you have no fucking users.

Shouting to the forest has never been too useful activity.

And yet here you are.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:31 Re:

People are referring to the customer you have your your laughably unusable side project, not whatever you get employed for in your day job.

If I understand you correctly from previous comments, you’re a successful telecoms embedded engineer who has created some widely used code, who has then gone on to show that he’s utterly incapable of collaborating or creating anything that’s intended to be accessed directly by anyone but himself. It’s the latter part we’re mocking, and only then because you seem so intent on exposing how incompetent you are in that area with your insane false claims.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:32 Re:

incapable of creating anything that’s intended to be accessed directly by anyone but himself.

Its clearly available in a web page. If the users have problems using web, its not my problem. Web still happens to be one of the easiest to use environments available on the planet. And I spent enough time with the environment that the web site is easy/safe to use even by people who are not comfortable with using computers.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:33 Re:

"If the users have problems using web, its not my problem"

…and here we have the ideal example of how your arrogance and wilful ignorance lose you any sympathy. You’ve created a page whose purpose is obscure, what it’s meant to achieve it not explained to any meaningful degree, and for which you had to explain obscure key mappings here that are not referred to anywhere on the actual site, just so people could see a particular function that nobody else knew about before you mentioned it. Yet, you believe it can’t possibly be your fault that all these problems exist.

They are your problems, and nobody would be giving you shit about it if you weren’t on here constantly whining that everyone else on the planet is in the wrong for your failures.

"Web still happens to be one of the easiest to use environments available on the planet"

Yes, and it’s that way because it’s built on collaboration and standards – two things you aggressively avoid.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:34 Re:

You’ve created a page whose purpose is obscure, what it’s meant to achieve it not explained to any meaningful degree,

Well, yesturday while developing the web site further, I exploded the stability of the software so that the web site crashed constantly? Do you know what my users did? Send me a bug report that the site is down and half of the animations are giving black screen? No, I haven’t received even one bug report about that. It’s as if the internet isn’t doing their job at all. We expect community to be our eyes and supposedly many eyeballs will find all bugs, but they don’t even notice when I test my software’s stability and give nice explosions.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:35 Re:

"No, I haven’t received even one bug report about that."

If you want bug reports from users, you need a number of things:

1) Users
2) A clear understanding from those users about how things should be working
3) A clear method as to how to submit a bug report
4) A clear support structure so people can track and collaborate on those bug reports
5) Someone dealing with the bug reports who’s not an aggressive asshole who attacks any user who has a problem.

Since you’ve spent the last few years whining about having no users, refusing to collaborate or provide a UI that makes a lick of sense and and aggressively attacking anyone who dares question your software, it’s not hard to find the reasons why you didn’t get anything.

I mean, yesterday you literally said that it wasn’t your problem if users couldn’t use your site. Why would you expect any feedback from them when you made it clear you’re not interested in it?

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:36 Re:

it’s not hard to find the reasons why you didn’t get anything.

So the "enough eyeballs finds all the bugs" is just blatant lies?

First, they couldn’t even get 3d model to the screen with builder,
and now they are not even sending bug reports when there are real
visible problems directly in the web site.

Guess my evaluation of the status of the open source community is correct -> the community is dead, their willingness to help projects in the world has been eaten by poisonous practices and harrassment in the internet. => source availability isn’t really needed in this kind of world.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:37 Re:

"So the "enough eyeballs finds all the bugs" is just blatant lies?"

Nope. The problem is, you need those eyeballs, and you have spent years attacking potential users not to look at your software, being it through attacking people here, removing any possible collaboration or making your website and marketing so incomprehensible that people don’t know what the hell it’s meant to do in the first place.

"More eyeballs" works. You have spent your time ensuring that the number of interested eyeballs is just your own.

"there are real visible problems directly in the web site."

Yes, the UI, design and level of documentation on the website is a real visible problem. As we’ve told you over and over again since you first came on here whining that ads on buses that told nobody anything about the site didn’t magically result in. millions of users.

"the community is dead"

If the open source community is dead, why do you complain constantly about all your vastly more successful open source competitors?

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:39 Re:

Not as such. An actual community would have places where people discuss their problems, which would involve both users and developers, and issues raised by end users would be submitted as bug reports by the devs if it turns out to be an actual bug and not something that’s dealt with by the support of the community. Sometimes, there’s even dedicated support channels for this purpose. For most other projects, people congregate in various places, be that StackOverflow, Discord, Reddit, whatever, and things filter through.

Whereas, you have exactly one developer because you chased off all collaborators, and no clear way for end users to get support or report problems. Which makes it fortunate that you have zero users, I guess.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:41 Re:

They can use email, but you provide zero reason to do so. Most end users will be put off by your "documentation" well before they try looking on the about page. Also, you know what’s directly below the email link? A GitHub link that leads to a 404 error. Most people wouldn’t bother with the email after confirming that the entire project appears to be dead, since GitHub would be the preferred first port of call.

You really don’t understand how opaque and illogical your site is to any potential user, or how laughable to results are to modern eyes. But, hey, one of the advantages of having zero users is that you can make site breaking changes to a production website and nobody notices, so you have that positive.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:43 Re:

"This leads to better quality for my web site."

You know what would be even better quality for your website? A proper release management schedule where your incompetent ass is not breaking the site every time you try tinkering with it.

You talk a lot about how great a developer you are, but you don’t even have a dev platform, you’re making direct changes in production? I would get a severe reprimand for that in my job and I’m not even a developer, I just know that when I’m testing may changes to Ansible scripts and fiddling with automation I don’t do it where users are likely to notice.

But, I work for a company that has tens of thousands of concurrent users spending money, so it’s somewhat more risky than a website nobody visits.

"better quality leads to users choosing my site over competition."

It would, but you have to change things people actually notice or want to use.

"more users will eventually break the nice feature"

If your software breaks because people are using it, the problem isn’t the users.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:40 Re:

It’s honestly kind of impressive how Tero goes out of his way to absolutely destroy his own position. You’d think that he’d be able to disprove claims that nobody uses his tech by… citing one person, one project, one developer that actually uses it, but nah. He’d rather call all users stupid, call all other programmers stupid, and claim that oh wait, I don’t have a user community finding bugs, I have a developer community… because that’s somehow different.

Like, I’ve never seen a guy try this hard to saw off his own dick. He links everyone to a broken Github link. He includes the London bus blogpost as the only review about his work… as in the same "review" that absolutely rubbished his tech, and the very same review he used as a reason to justify strengthening copyright protection so content creators can be protected from negative reviews.

I swear there’s something in the water in Finland…

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:41 Re:

He includes the London bus blogpost as the only review about his work…

yes, those were the only people who actually bothered to look at the tech.

as in the same "review" that absolutely rubbished his tech,

Hiding bad reviews under matress would be lying. I think revealing the real story is more powerful approach. More honest.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:42 Re:

"yes, those were the only people who actually bothered to look at the tech."

They weren’t, but it’s easier for you to pretend that to spout your nonsense here.

But, let’s say you’re right – nobody has even looked at what you wrote and the only person who did is laughing at the poor quality? Doesn’t that tell you something about your marketing and UI design abilities?

"Hiding bad reviews under matress would be lying"

Here, I actually agree with you. Some of the greatest movies, album, games, TV shows, novels of all time had their fair share of bad reviews. Looking at something like, say The Thing (1982) – my favourite movie of all time – and the reception it got when it was released tells you a lot about the time it was released.

But, even that film had positive contemporary reviews from some places. If all you have is negative from the tiny number of people who even glanced at your site – maybe you’ve not John Carpenter, you’re actually Neil Breen or Tommy Wiseau? In fact, that seems to be a perfect analogy – Breen seems unaware that his films gained cult status because people were laughing at their incompetence, he seems to think they are deep and meaningful, like some Finnish guy believes his software to be.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:26 Re:

you’ll be claiming to have invented a neat thing you call “the wheel”.

Yes, but I call it SpikyTire: https://meshpage.org/57

It’s something new that you haven’t seen in wheel-area, The world needs many different kinds of wheels, and my virtual reality spiky wheel is one such revision for creating better and better wheels. This doesnt even require large factories to build.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 DRM isn't useless even if it gets cr

"…if you need to be afraid of being raided by the police and copyright lobby after downloading the pirate version."

Last I checked the dangers any given downloader runs of being targeted by a raid, even if the downloader is a moron not using a VPN or proxy, is still less likely than getting struck by lightning multiple times in a week.

In brief, the risk of legal ramifications for downloading is still less than the one you take just walking outside every day.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6 DRM isn't useless even if it get

Even if it were as risky as tp’s fantasies tell him it is, the fact is that piracy would still happen anyway. Either people would take a calculated risk using the necessary safeguards to try and avoid getting caught, or they’d just revert to "sneakernet" as they did before the current online distribution models were common. That way, one person takes the risk of downloading, everyone else just swaps USB drives with others, where there’s virtually no risk of being caught.

This is half the problem with DRM – if you have a legal copy of a piece of software, it demands that it "phones home" every time you use it, and if it fails a check for whatever reason (including the company you bought it from not operating their servers any longer), the default assumption is that you’re a pirate and you can’t use the product you paid for.

On the other hand, a single cracked copy can be copied thousands of times without ever having to go online, and remains available long after the publisher has ceased to exist.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6 DRM isn't useless even if it get

is still less likely than getting struck by lightning multiple times in a week.

lottery winners are rare bunch indeed, but you simply can’t argue that it doesn’t happen at all.

pirates and copyright infringers have just bought a ticket to negative lottery, i.e. they get $300,000 fine/damage award for every infringed work, in case they win the negative lottery. Usually when piracy is biggest problem, copyright owners choose one of the bad apples as ambassors that wins in negative lottery and should handle the money collection operation from their fellow pirates.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

you come down on the side of giant corporations using untold amounts of money to destroy ordinary people via copyright law

Lets consider the responsibilities and the perks of each side:
1) Giant corporations

  • created a product from scratch
  • paid salaries to all workers
  • spent millions of money to market the product to get customers choose it
  • built communities of users
  • maintained the software
  • relies on copyright law to protect their investments
    2) Pirates
  • got the product without compensating the authors
  • didn’t bother to ask permission
  • has contacts to fellow pirates so that illegal copies can flow freely
  • doesn’t care about following the law, and regularly breaks it

The balance of hardships clearly favors the giant companies.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

"Lets consider the responsibilities and the perks of each side:

1) Giant corporations

2) Pirates"

…and this is why you’re an incompetent prick. Those are not the two sides mentioned, the sides were corporations and people. People spend billions of dollars legally every year, and you’ll trample over their rights because you think that the reason nobody wants to buy your incompetent mess of a products is because of "piracy".

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:12 Re:

those are not the two sides mentioned, the sides were corporations and people.

Ordinary people do not get $300,000 damage awards from copyright lawsuits. Once the courts have decided that such damage award is appropriate, they’re definitely real pirates, not just some "people" who happened to walk by the shop when it was being robbed.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

"I consider every side of the argument"

You really don’t.

"so RIAA’s and MPAA’s position is as good (or better) than what ordinary pirates can output"

For example, you don’t consider what legal customers and creatives want. Hell, if that’s the false binary choice you’re using, you’re not even considering what you want, since you managed to exclude the industries you work in and should be targeting from consideration.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:12 Re:

I was talking about the work you do with your atrociously made side project,

RIAA’s and MPAA’s position is very good in the side project too.
This is why there are features like web site security that tries to prevent internet users from hacking the animation database, or GDPR style features for ensuring that there isn’t any user passwords leaked to the internet, or limitations to which urls can be loaded within the system for preventing most problematic copyright problems. https has been used so that if users accidentally types their passwords to one of the login prompts, that they do not leak all over the internet. This kind of minor features are very relevant when RIAA’s and MPAA’s positions to copyright issues are being considered. Then there’s also things like removal of version control visibility to prevent misuses that happen on internet.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:13 Re:

"RIAA’s and MPAA’s position is very good in the side project too"

This is again why you fail. You care more about what foreign corporate associations in another continent might think about something in an industry not directly related to them than you care about the needs of potential customers.

"Then there’s also things like removal of version control visibility"

Only in your warped mind could informing people of your own software development be a bad thing. I bet you don’t complain about version control and release notes in all the free libraries you use.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:14 Re:

informing people of your own software development be a bad thing.

This doesn’t require version control access, open source or any other techniques like that.

Microsoft can very nicely inform new releases of MS windows without providing version control access to windows source code.

If microsoft can do it, why can’t we?

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:15 Re:

"Microsoft can very nicely inform new releases of MS windows without providing version control access to windows source code."

Well, some of these projects are in Windows: https://github.com/microsoft

Also, version control and releasing are fundamental things they would perform internally even if you’re not allowed to see them. But, you stated you’re against the entire concept.

Anonymous Coward says:

I agree with you, apart from i presume there is drm on ps4,ps5, xbox consoles game discs physical,
also its hard to play many console games without using an online patch.
most online games have drm in that you need to go to an online server
to play against other human players.
i don,t think anyone has cracked the drm for ps4,ps5 ,
and why bother since most games are sold in gamestop for 20 dollars
after a few months.
i don,t think console drm is useless ,
its mostly useless on pc games .
why is steam using drm, i presume there must be a reason .
as far as i known the drm on switch games has not been cracked
but many old nintendo games can be played on emulators .

Anonymous Coward says:

Steam DRM

though some will like to argue that any title released on Steam technically has DRM saddled into it.

Most games seem to have at least minimal DRM on Steam… meaning Steam must be running and either logged in or previously set to offline mode (for games that offer offline play).

Not all games on Steam incorporate DRM or if it is incorporated it’s somehow disabled. Some games are perfectly fine running after you copy the files to another computer … that doesn’t have Steam on it… Epistory was one of these… I know I run across others, but I don’t recall off hand.
I suppose you could argue that still has DRM technically… just like a Tesla without the full driving package purchase still has it :p

Just because it’s sold on a platform that’s known to use DRM, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s encumbered by it… don’t get me wrong, I despise DRM ("Don’t Run Mechanism") and avoid it where possible

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Steam DRM

"Just because it’s sold on a platform that’s known to use DRM, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s encumbered by it…"

Meaning it’s ineffective. Valve have admitted themselves that their "DRM" is laughable and that they are applying it mainly to be able to check the box saying "game is secured" – the same way the average bicycle lock will never deter anyone actually intent on opening it but locking it will still suffice to get money from the insurance company once your bike does get stolen.

Thing is, Valve realized early on that what the customer truly values is convenience. Intrusive and halfway effective DRM is always inimical to that convenience and so they keep using a nonintrusive and unencumbering DRM solution for which every cracker has a trusty and well known solution.

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