DRM News

Archive for May, 2010

Trent Reznor continues to give music away

May 31st, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

It’s worked for him before, so why not do so again?

Free from any contracts or obligations to record companies, he’s released music as a free download previously, counting on tour ticket sales and fans buying collector’s editions of the free material still seeing him through. And he was right. He’s continued with that model with many of the artists who he produces, such as Saul Williams. From an article on CNet :

"Personally, I would like people to support artists," Reznor said. "After all, we as artists dedicate our lives to producing the best music we can. It’s been a painful process for me personally (to see the changes in the music industry). But should I be angry at the audience that wants to hear music so much, an audience that is so passionate about hearing it they go online to get it two weeks before the music debuts? No, I want them to be that way."

Well, with Nine Inch Nails on hiatus at the moment, we now see the inaugural 6 track EP from Trent’s new band How to Destroy Angels make an appearance. And it’s absolutely free to download from the band’s site.

The download consists of high quality MP3 files. For $2, fans can also purchase an HD version that comes with a music video. Other band oriented swag can also be picked up from the web site. A retail album will be available within a week.

Trusting the fans to pony up enough to make it worth your while…if history repeats itself, that’s just crazy enough to work.

Posted in Music

Tags: free EP, How to Destroy Angels, Trent Reznor

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Australian Internet filter going ahead

May 31st, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Stephen Conroy, Minister for Communications in Australia, is pushing ahead with his internet filtering system.

Not only is he pushing ahead, but he also insists that advocacy groups are deliberately misleading the public about what the system will entail. One such group named GetUp! has received support from 120,000 people, and raised $100,000 to stop the legislation. As well, an opinion poll by the research firm Galaxy showed 86 percent of respondents felt that it was the job of parents to protect their children in the online sphere, not the Government.

The system, known as the ‘Cyber Security policy’, will force all ISP’s to block access to a blacklist of web pages that will be kept secret. Despite the fact that the list will be secret, Australian internet users will be able to nominate any page that they consider ‘unacceptable’. From theage :

”This is a policy that will be going ahead,” Senator Conroy said. ”We are still consulting on the final details of the scheme. But this policy has been approved by 85 per cent of Australian internet service providers, who have said they would welcome the filter, including Telstra, Optus, iPrimus and iinet.”

The problems inherent in this scheme are many. Who gets to decide what ‘unacceptable’ sites go far enough to deserve blacklisting? How much does this entire operation cost? And how exactly is this magically going to keep children from seeing anything icky (which is essentially what the stated purpose of it all is)?

Who exactly is running this country?

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tags: Australia, Internet filter, Stephen Conroy

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Treyarch believe pre-owned is a problem

May 31st, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Chalk up another one!

Treyarch Studios, the developer responsible for all of the Call of Duty games that Infinity Ward didn’t make, is concerned about used sales.

Speaking with MCV, Treyarch’s community manager Josh Olin has said that CoD : Black Ops will not use a one-time multiplayer code requiring used game buyers to spend extra money to obtain access to the game’s online content. However, it is a basic concept they find intriguing.

“We don’t plan to do anything like that for Black Ops, but it is interesting to see how that’s going to work out for EA and THQ,” says Olin. “It’s no secret that pre-owned game sales do pose problems for developers and publishers, so it’ll be interesting how well that works to mitigate that issue.”

Posted in Games

Tags: Call of Duty Black Ops, one time multiplayer code, Treyarch

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Michael Pachter supports Ubisoft’s DRM system

May 30th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

During the latest episode of his Gametrailers video webcast called Pach Attack, games industry analyst Michael Pachter stated his support for Ubisoft’s always connected DRM system.

Pachter said that anything a publisher does to ensure that you don’t rip off their game is fine. As for the specific Ubi example, I quote :

Do I think they made a mistake? I wish all games were like that, because I think people who steal should be in jail.

While I certainly don’t disagree with Mr. Pachter with his many statements in the video about pirates and the general gaming public needing to stay firmly set ‘against’ them, I also believe he is completely mistaken in who is being affected by Ubisoft’s system.

Sadly, this is likely a good example of where the games industry’s sights are set when it comes to DRM. They’re so focused on those who are stealing their content that too often they lose sight on who else might be affected by their solutions.

Posted in Games

Tags: Michael Pachter, supports, Ubisoft, Ubisoft server DRM

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Games industry analyst believes Ubi-style DRM benefits pirates

May 28th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

As reported on CVG, Gamesbrief analyst Nicholas Lovell has told PC Zone that Ubi-style server DRM benefits the pirates more than the genuine customers.

Digital Rights Management is "too draconian" and "pirates now have a better experience than legitimate consumers" as a result.

"It seems crazy to me that Ubisoft didn’t emulate Steam, which by some estimates has more than half the market, and instead went for their own, draconian system."

"There is no doubt in my mind that pirates now have a better experience than legitimate consumers," he continued.

Some of the alternatives Lovell suggested would be releasing smaller games for free, then charging more for DLC and content released later.

Certainly, when someone pirating a game can play without the hassles of needing an Internet connection 100% of the time (when many legit buyers are having problems with slight connection glitches causing constant problems), that’s not exactly a system doing its job.

Posted in Games

Tags: DRM benefits pirates, Gamesbrief, Ubisoft server DRM

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Avalanche Studios believe Ubi-style DRM punishes legal gamers

May 27th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Speaking as a direct counter to the opinions expressed earlier in the day of a Namco executive, Avalanche Studios (Just Cause 2) boss Cristofer Sundberg has told CVG that the type of DRM being used by Ubisoft indicates that the market is scared. He also said that those who stand to be the worst affected by these systems are the PC game buyers that the market needs to be courting.

"Games have become a luxurious form of entertainment and piracy has scared the market to start implementing ridiculous DRM solutions that only limits the consumers that actually PAY for their games, not stopping the pirates," he told CVG.

Sundberg also believes that part of the problem in terms of PC is that a lot of the PC offerings are simply rushed ports of the console versions of those games.

"As PC sales constantly dropping, they are a small group of very dedicated PC players who deserves a game designed for them and I strongly believe that PC games and console games are two completely different games.

"If we constantly keep on delivering console ports and not games design for the PC player, the PC market will suffer from bad sales, piracy and bad DRM solutions. I strongly believe that most PC players are online players and online games are so much easier to design that we both protect the developer against piracy – and the consumer against a limited game experience.

Sundberg advises more time being spent on ensuring that the PC version of a title focuses on the strengths of the PC system, in much the same way that Wii versions of games focus more time on making sure the game plays well on that platform.

Posted in Games

Tags: Avalanche Studios, Cristofer Sundberg, punishes legal gamers, Ubisoft server DRM

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Namco says Ubi DRM a good strategy

May 27th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

…but only because there’s not a better alternative.

Those were the words of Namco Bandai Partners VP Olivier Comte, speaking to CVG. He believes that, until an alternative that’s better for the customer and the company appears, the Ubisoft constant connection DRM system is the way to go.

"I will be very honest. I think it’s a good [approach] for one reason: I have no alternative today," he said. "Is the best one? Certainly not but as of today if I can make something else I’ll do it, but it’s better to do something than not do something.

"At the moment they are doing a good strategy," he said.

Comte has also said that the industry needs to get another system in place, one that can be effective while also giving the gamer a better experience.

"I’m convinced that whatever system you put in place you can be sure that two hours before putting it out it’ll be cracked in Russia. I think that the combat against piracy is very complicated because it’s very complicated to explain to a 12-year-old that drag and dropping a file on a PC is piracy – he was born with this."

What this might mean for upcoming Namco PC releases, like the newest Test Drive game and the sequel to The Witcher, only time will tell.

Posted in Games

Tags: a good strategy, Namco Bandai, Ubisoft account system

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Blizzard believes DRM is a losing battle

May 26th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Blizzard has said that fighting game piracy purely with restrictive copy protection is a losing battle, according to videogamer.com.

While Ubisoft has moved to a locked down server requirement for the games to work at all, Blizzard has kept the option there for the gamer to play offline. Once an initial activation is completed, the single player campaign of Starcraft II will be playable offline. The new Battle.net client is built up in such a way that Blizzard hopes players will choose to use it, offering an integrated mod system and cross-game chat.

"The best approach from our perspective is to make sure that you’ve got a full-featured platform that people want to play on, where their friends are, where the community is," he added.

"That’s a battle that we have a chance in. If you start talking about DRM and different technologies to try to manage it, it’s really a losing battle for us, because the community is always so much larger, and the number of people out there that want to try to counteract that technology, whether it’s because they want to pirate the game or just because it’s a curiosity for them, is much larger than our development teams.

"We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology."

Starcraft II comes out in a month, and will probably make an amount equivalent to the GDP of Europe within a week.

Posted in Games

Tags: Battle.net, Blizzard, DRM losing battle

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Apple the focus of an antitrust inquiry

May 26th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

The US Justice Department is in the early stages of investigating Apple’s business tactics in the digital music market, according to an article in the New York Times.

While the investigation is still very early and general in scope, investigators have apparently asked about a specific allegation that Apple has recently used their dominant position in the marketplace to keep labels from giving exclusive music access to Amazon’s digital music service as part of a promotion (reported by Billboard).

Amazon was asking music labels to give it the exclusive right to sell certain forthcoming songs for one day before they went on sale more widely. In exchange, Amazon promised to include those songs in a promotion called the “MP3 Daily Deal” on its Web site.

The magazine reported that representatives of Apple’s iTunes music service were asking the labels not to participate in Amazon’s promotion, adding that Apple punished those that did by withdrawing marketing support for those songs on iTunes.

Many tracks were pulled from the Amazon promotion by labels not willing to risk losing sales due to lowered marketing muscle from Apple, whose hold on the digital music market as a whole is growing rapidly.

Posted in Music

Tags: antitrust investigation, Apple, iTunes, US Justice Department

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Netflix expanding use of PlayReady DRM

May 25th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

According to a joint press release issued today, Netflix will begin using Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM on all Netflix devices and applications. The DRM will cover streaming and physical Netflix copies.

“Netflix ready devices are a popular way for our members to instantly watch the huge library of TV episodes and movies available from Netflix that can be watched instantly on their TVs,” said Bill Holmes, vice president of business development at Netflix. “Netflix is expanding our investment in PlayReady and making PlayReady our primary DRM technology because it best meets the requirements of our content suppliers and device partners while allowing us to benefit from efficiencies in our content delivery infrastructure.”

From the facts pages about PlayReady, it certainly seems to offer a lot of options…it can be used on rentals, pay per view or purchase and subscription models. Since the license information is actually embedded within the content itself, transferring that content between devices shouldn’t present a problem either.

All in all, it sounds like a reasonable system. How it will turn out in practice we’ll soon find out.

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Posted in Movies and TV

Tags: Microsoft, Netflix, PlayReady DRM

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