An Old And Growing Problem.

[Galdron]

For all you gamers out there, the source code for Half Life 2, was stolen.........a playable version. This type of sofware piracy is costing companies Billions of dollars, and personally think that it needs to be controlled.....damn what a task that will be.

We all bitch about the cost of a simple CD, yet this explains at least some of the reason behind the cost to the consumer being so high. They are making up for lost revenue.

Anyhow for those interested, some links regarding the issue of Piracy.




http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/07/comm...column_gaming/



http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/200...terpiracy.html



Please let me know your thoughts on this issue.


Ltrs.

Olas

[phantomj104]

I can Certainly agree, The Only software Company that has Sucsessfully "blocked the Copy Bug " is Eversoft/ Maxis.. Their Newest Version of Sim City Blocks Burn Copying on the Player , or Playing Disk. I agree with you on the cost issue, but I think that untill software companies Put a REAL effort into anti piracy , I think the problem will remain.

[lucktsm]

I think the game companies need to do what the record companies are doing and really go after the biggest pirates. They know who they are and if they put in the effort they can at least start getting these people in the courts.

Until then the only thing new security will do is make it harder for people that actually buy the games to play them. I had more than a few not work on my machine because the protection scheme didn't work with my CD drive.

[lumpyporridge]

"The Only software Company that has Sucsessfully "blocked the Copy Bug " is Eversoft/ Maxis.. Their Newest Version of Sim City Blocks Burn Copying on the Player , or Playing Disk."

Client side protection never has and never will work (excepting a drm monoculture) I will take a wild guess and say sim city4 is what you are talking about http://www.google.com/search?q=Sim+C...utf-8&oe=utf-8 (78600 hits for simcity 4 crack)

btw from what i know the halflife code is alpha and barely playable and probably a good advertisement for the game (i may even buy it myself from the video i have seen its incredible)

If you try and protect it people will crack it whether it be for a challenge,fun or money its just the way it is. (one more whack at the dead horse)

[D0pp139an93r]

As the adage goes, there is no unpickable lock, and there is no unbreakable code. The best way for us to help stop piracy is not to contribute to it. Don't download cracked games, don't copy software, etc.

In some cases I'd say that "piracy" is ok, for example, a few days ago I had to get a copy of Windows 98SE, I just borrowed a friends disc, and used a CD Key I pulled from the internet. I wouldn't do the same with XP though. Any relatively current software should be paid for. Even if it comes from a company like Microsoft. We shouldn't sink to their level.

Piracy will never end, but we can all help to slow it down.

[nihil]

lucktsm has a good point: Go after the piraters.

This can be a bit of a problem, because a lot of piracy happens in countries where it is not illegal. The product is then smuggled into the marketplace.

In the UK we go for anyone producing pirate product for resale, and the distributors . I guess the logic is the same as for drugs.................go for the dealers not the addicts?

I do not believe that it is possible to prevent commercial piracy by software methods. You might stop private copying, but then you might come up against problems in countries where it is your legal RIGHT to make a backup copy?

And, as already noted, the more complex you make it, the more incompatibility problems you face. The vendor gets hit with having to make refunds, and getting very negative publicity, if only by word of mouth?

The main deterrent to criminals is the certainty of being caught, not the complexity of the crime or the severity of the punishment.

Cheers

[PM8228]

I suppose it is a growing problem. I am not really against it as I am in a serials crew. I look at it as more of a challenge than anything else, the cracking that is. To each their own I suppose. As for the stolen code, that is completely inappropriate. There are rumors of beta Condition Zero out, but I haven't had time to check on them.

-Cheers-

[sysmin770]

Several companies that make music recording software have made some very nice advancements in anti-copy techology. Steinberg and Navtive Instruments especially. Native Instruments even drills two tiny holes in the CD itself. That doesn't stop someone from cracking the programs, but it does stop people from just copying the software from their friends.

[PM8228]

It'll stop someone who is pretty new to computers. Not someone who knows what they are doing. The thing is now you do not really have to know what is going on. There are programs that will crack/rip for you.

-Cheers-