UK Anti-Piracy Campaign [Aug 20, 2008, 07:43 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Times Online has news that five developers, Atari, Topware Interactive,
Reality Pump, Techland, and Codemasters, are serving notice to 25,000 UK
families demanding they pay a settlement, or risk being taken to court over
software piracy (thanks
Edge Online). Here's a portion:
The computer games industry has launched an unprecedented assault on illegal downloads, demanding payment from thousands of families who obtained the latest releases over the internet without paying.
Five of the world’s top games developers will serve notice on 25,000 people across the UK, requiring each one to pay £300 immediately to settle out of court. Those who refuse risk being taken to court. The companies will target their initial legal actions on 500 people who ignore the letters.
The companies involved – Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters – make some of the popular games, including The Lord of the Rings, the Colin McRae Rally series and Operation Flashpoint. It is estimated that as many as six million people in Britain share games illegally over the internet. The aggressive action marks a dramatic change in the approach to copyright on the internet. The British music industry, hit hard by illegal file-sharing, has taken action against just 150 people in ten years.
The game makers have appointed the law firm Davenport Lyons. This week Isabela Barwinska, an unemployed mother of two, became the first person in the UK to be ordered to pay damages to a manufacturer. She must pay more than £16,000 to Topware after downloading Dream Pinball through a file-sharing site.
What do you think the current so-called "DRM" is all about? Stopping piracy is mostly a smoke-screen, they know they can't. But what they can do is completely kill the secondhand market.
Yep, I'm hoping others will realize this as well. My questions were trying to lead readers into saying this themselves.
Steam has been effective at eliminating the 2nd hand market with their games in a big way on the PC. The console is another matter. I appreciate them putting the orange box on the console because I rented it.
But my previous purchases of their software are locked behind steam. I cannot resell them without incurring a cost to valve. ($10 last I checked to unregister a key)
I don't think other companies are likely to be this generous and DRM in it's current form is more focused on making sure people don't resell or share software than it is combating piracy.
In a perfect world games would cost less and anyone who wants to play these games would pay a small price to the developers. (forever, ie no second hand market, just a fee to be able to play the game forever)
We won't get any closer to that place by using DRM, all we'll end up with is an environment where the consumers are at the mercy of companies that control who buys and sells that content legally.
I'll support companies that take care of their customers and deliver good products but when you tack on DRM and tell me it's to combat piracy it's like hearing a record skip...
There are plenty of ways to entice people to buy your product, throwing DRM into them isn't one of them.
This comment was edited on Aug 20, 17:54.
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