Morganni Wrote:I kinda doubt that quote's real. At the very least, I'd expect to find it somewhere else online if it were.The whole GeoHot fiasco is a big part of why I won't buy from Sony ever. As well as the music CD rootkit fiasco. Well, OK, overall, Sony has basically been trying to paint it as you never, ever, ever, own your own hardware, and worse, that Sony effectively gets to own anything they didn't make just because you want to run their content on it.
Anti-piracy measures that inconvenience the non-pirate while not stopping the pirate shouldn't be a surprise anymore. I can't even think of an example where it worked otherwise.
(Sony's actions with the PS3 really stand out. In response to a linux-based security breach that didn't allow running copied games - or much of anything else in fact - they disabled linux support in a system update. They took away a feature from legitimate users, which might actually have been part of what they bought the system *for*. The actual ability to run copied games came along not much later, and didn't even require a linux-capable system. I think I've heard that hackers have even managed to re-enable linux now. Of course, that still leaves people with the choice of being able to play games they bought on a system they bought, or use a system they bought for a purpose it was advertised as being able to do but not be able to play some games that they could buy. A group of regular customers gets screwed, piracy isn't stopped.)
I was amused when they seemed to start reaping what they had sown via the myriad of hacking incidents they suffered, most notably the PSN shutdown.
Morganni Wrote:ETA: Oh, and here's a story about Warner Brothers sending takedown notices for things they haven't looked at or don't even own. Including but not limited to free software posted on hotfile by it's creators and "http://hotfile.com/contacts.html and give them the details of where the link was posted and the link and they will deal with the @sshole who posted the fake."And this, overall, is reason why the powers should not be expanded. They're already engaged in scatterfire approaches, and attempts to make the process automatic, and otherwise trying hard to stretch the letter of the law well and truly beyond the spirit of the law in an effort to protect their now outdated business models.
I'm pretty much predicting that, if they manage to get SOPA past the veto pen, we'll have efforts made to finally shut down places like YouTube that have, so far, played by all the rules placed on them and avoided being run out.
I've been talking today to Mike about the whole issue with piracy of copyrighted material. It's not just money. In many cases, it comes down to availability, either of the product itself, or of the product in a form you want, like the BBC cut of a Top Gear episode versus the BBCA cut of a Top Gear episode, or the American release of a game versus the sanitized release that Australians get of it. Or a movie DVD that doesn't nag you with ads for upcoming releases and "buy the game too!" like the commercial releases have become annoyingly thick with. Or even that the media in question has been out of print so long that the surviving copies don't turn up very often at all, and the seller wants a premium for the privilege of ownership.
It also comes down to fair price. I know Valve has extensive data now of how much sales explode when the price is $10 lower, and the heavy implication that $60 is way too much, and the market could blow the top off their sales figures by hitting the $45-50 price point on new release games instead. To say nothing of the digital download side of the house. And that isn't even necessarily conversion from piracy, either, which I sincerely doubt would be even a 10 to 1 ratio in certain categories when you get down to it.
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"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor