Denuvo Anti-tamper (Yes/No or toxic view) risky post?

[fenrif]

As someone who works in a software based industry I have to ask: Don't you think you have an ethical obligation to pay people who own IP's and do the work that gives you that information?

I mean, I get that you don't see a tangible good and therefore don't feel you should. But is that necessarily correct? Is it okay to use other people's labor and property for free just because you can't diminish its availability to others by doing so?

Think of this more as a service: You're not getting a lasting tangible item from a barber or a massage therapist. But they are making your life more convenient for a fee. It costs them their time and effort. Technically, the people who make software's availability to do tasks related to software that is used to solve various problems is limited, and they lose that time permanently when they commit it to creating a piece of software. The company that employs them and its investors also lose the money and resources they spent to hire and pay them to do it, including training and organizational costs. In reality, what you're buying isn't an asset: You're paying for it to have been worth it for all of these people to have committed to this endeavor in order to justify the industry seeing that it was successful and continue to do it. If some companies make a lot of money doing it, that also means they're really good at solving people's problems, so that's not necessarily an argument that says they don't need your money or deserve to be paid anymore. In the same way, I don't think you'd argue that you shouldn't have to pay your lawn care people or your house cleaners just because there's a delay between when they do the work and when you receive the benefit, or because it seems like the thing they did doesn't have a tangible value as an asset after they're finished. Clearly they had to do something that they can now not undo that you should then have to pay them for in order for their work to have been justified, if in fact you intend to benefit from it. We all see that we can't have a functioning civil society where we trade our time and labor with one another and then can back out from paying each other. That's why I don't think you can say that it follows that you can act that same way when it comes to software and information services and expect those things to continue to exist. What in fact happens is that the cost of those things go up on paying customers and you effectively force them to subsidize the non-paying ones. In a society where we'd all like to get paid for our contributions, we would probably like to have a rule that says that if someone wants to benefit from something that is our contribution, that costed us time and effort and creative energy, that they should pay. If we don't agree to that in large enough numbers, society crumbles and becomes chaos. This is then the only reasonable way of doing things.

Additionally, I'm not for perpetual copyrights and patent trolling. I think that stuff needs to be reformed to be more like it was at the outset; Maybe 14 years for a patent and 30 for a copyright would be appropriate. At a certain point you are limiting people's ability to think and act arbitrarily by allowing people to buy and sit on ideas instead of act on them. This is probably the most practical idea for how to allow people to benefit from their own ideas and the work that they invest in them without it becoming too authoritarian and restrictive on everybody else.

No, I don't have an ethical obligation. Yes it is ok to use others labour and property for free if it doesn't diminish it's availability to others or deprive the creator of anything. Sharing is caring.

It's interesting that you bring up copyright. Because one of the many reasons I feel no compulsion to pay for free things is because copyright (and it's counterpart: public domain) are so completely broken that it renders the social contract moot. I feel no compulsion to pay for data that will never enter public domain. I feel no desire to support creators that will never allow their work to be free to use for the public. This problem in particular gets worse and worse as the years go on, with false DMCA claims being commonplace.

For the same reason I don't feel bad for fast-forwarding through adverts on TV, using an adblocker on my browser, recording songs off the radio, ripping youtube videos to mp3, copying cassette tapes and making mixtapes, right clicking and copying artwork to my hard drive, etc. Also piracy does not impact sales in the long run, as many studies have shown (The EU comissioned a study on this very subject and had to bury it quietly as it supported what I am saying). If piracy did harm sales then gaming as an industry would've died decades ago.

As someone who works as a service engineer I do not feel I have lost out on anything if someone decides to repair their own stuff. They aren't depriving me of anything other than imagined money they might have given me. They have no moral compulsion to pay me to fix their stuff. Even though there are many people in my company who would lose their jobs if everyone just cracked open an instruction book and started fixing their own stuff. And I've spent a lot of time learning my trade and a lot of money on my tools. My job exists because other people are disinclined to do something. Game sales exist because people are disinclined to pirate. If everyone decided to learn to fix things I'd have to find another job. If everyone decided to pirate then you'd have to find another job. Neither thing is the end of the world, and no one owes either of us a living. People will always make art, be it paintings, novels, games, music, etc. People did this before money was invented and people do this for fun with no expectation of money whatsoever. So it's not like any of these things will ever go away.

Put it this way: If you could pick and apple from a tree and then infinitely copy it, shouldn't you feed the poor for free? Or should you tell them to go hungry because they have no money? You could argue that the apple grower is offering you a service, and if no one paid him then there would be no apples. But I disagree. The apple tree will still be there. The seeds will still grow if they're planted. The seed of creativity is not money, it's human nature.

That being said I do spend a lot of money on games. I just feel no obligation to. I do it if I feel like it, and often don't.

[Aidy]

Breaking news....someone who thinks it's ok to steal things because he won't get caught has 100 ways to justify it.

Please give us more of your unique insights fenrif

[fenrif]

Breaking news: Someone doesn't understand what the difference between copyright infringement and stealing is.

Please give me more of your unsolicited legal expertise.

[Murray]

I've actually changed my mind with regards to PC being the superior platform thanks to Denuvo. If a game on Steam has Denuvo, I actually go for the PS4 or Xbox One version instead, even if the game performs better on PC in terms of framerate and graphics fidelity. Although, at this point, I might actually just say Xbox One, since the PS4 is censoring game content.

[fenrif]

If denuvo bothers you that much you can just crack it out, regardless of if you paid for the game or not. Though it is about the same in terms of immorality and illegality as just pirating the game.

Not every game on PC uses denuvo. But every game on PS4 is subject to Sonys San FranCensorship. And every game on Xbone is unfortunatly on xbone.

[Murray]

Out of all those options, the Xbone sounds the least annoying.

But yeah, no. I can't be bothered with cracking anymore. I haven't done that in ages.

[Aidy]

Breaking news....thief focuses on semantics of the word "steal" to downplay what they do. Wow....I'm not joking fenrif I have literally never heard any of these arguments before!!

[fenrif]

Breaking news....thief focuses on semantics of the word "steal" to downplay what they do. Wow....I'm not joking fenrif I have literally never heard any of these arguments before!!

Breaking news: NPC subsitutes ad hominems for logic and reason. Don't worry. You can respond properly. It wont damage your programming. We get it... Piracy = bad. Maybe try engaging with the conversation instead of trying to shut it down and pulling the proverbial fire alarm.

The definition of a word is not semantics. If you point to a car and say "that is a bannana" it's not semantics to point out that those are two different things and you are incorrect. I'm turely sorry that you are ignorant as to what these words mean. But it behoves you to educate yourself before you speak.

[Aidy]

Breaking news....someone accuses others of using ad hominem attacks and trying to silence people goes on to make ad hominem attacks to try and silence people.

BTW fenrif this is my first day on the internet so I'm really enjoying hearing so many things I've never heard before.

[Elmo]

Breaking news....someone accuses others of using ad hominem attacks and trying to silence people goes on to make ad hominem attacks to try and silence people.

BTW fenrif this is my first day on the internet so I'm really enjoying hearing so many things I've never heard before.

[HunterEste]

I think it's been made pretty clear that dude is only here to troll/incite arguments. He's full of strawmen and sass. Just ignore him and move along LOL.

[Tonic]

While I understand it's a heated topic, I would ask users to stay focused on the topic itself, instead of trying to take digs at each other. It's nearly X-mas, be jolly with each other

[Baron Baldric]

Companies don't benefit from DRM, they only attack their own consumers, focus on providing a good product to those who can pay is more important than dealing with those who can not afford the game. Now they want to transform the games into services, pay for loot boxes in streaming, they are insane.
Luckily we have GOG.com a DRM-free store.

[fenrif]

I've already addressed your point of view here in what I laid out originally, but I guess what I would go on to stress about your response is that what you're advocating for, whether you realize it or not, is at best anarchy and at worst slavery. What you're essentially saying here is that you should be able to benefit from the contributions of others without having to pay them. In order to have a civilized and voluntary society, we have to agree that individuals have the right to own their own bodies and to keep the fruits of their labors. The patent office and copyright law are natural extensions of this recognition we extend to individuals in order to allow them to monetize their ideas and creative activities. To say that they should not be allowed to do that is about as unethical of a position as you can possibly take.

Having said that, I hope that you will continue to ponder this issue and consider rethinking your ideas based on our conversation here at some point. Enjoyed speaking with you.

-Ghostflowers

I'm neither advocating for anarchy or slavery. No one is depriving anyone of the fruits of their labour. I'm just making unauthorized copies. Their fruits are still right where they left them. I'm not saying anyone else should be allowed or disallowed to do anything.

Copyright law, as it stands now, is a natural extension of the greed of multinatinal corperations and the politicians they pay to shape the law to their benefit. Patent law is completely different and not really related to the topic at hand. But with the number of patent troll corperations I would suggest this system is also corrupt and broken beyond belief. But I am far less familiar with patents and patent law than I am with copyright.

Copyright and public domain are two sides of the same coin. The idea being that eventually everything that becomes sufficiently popular should enter the public domain. This benefits society as a whole. You invent a cool new way to plant crops. Good for you. But it benefits society more if everyone uses it rather than if you own it completely. Also you can't really own ideas (and that's all data is). Ideas want to be free. So our forefathers set up a system whereby people are allowed to profit off their innovations and inventions for a period of time, before it becomes common property of all. Copyright protects the people who make things, public domain ensures that they are used to the benefit of all society. Also, the fact that eventually your song or story will enter public domain means that creators are forced to keep creating. They can't just make one good song and have their family coast on it for generations.

However public domain is effectively dead. Nothing new enters public domain. Corperations endlessly re-release and rehash old ideas instead of making new things. The system is completely broken. This is terrible for society. It's why our entertainment is stagnating. It's why Hollywood spent the past 20 years endlessly remaking and rebooting and remastering ther old content. It's why video games from 25 years ago are re-released for £10, running on a freeware emulator or with a warez scene crack. This is what I mean by "the social contract has been broken."

You have not adressed my point of view, nor any of the points I made in my last response. You have instead invented a position I am not advocating and adressed that instead. Let me try this technique on you in return: You are advocating that anyone doing anything should always be paid, or else they are a slave. You are suggesting that people are owed a living by society. I just drew a picture on a napkin. How much money am I owed in your mind? I also just hummed a tune to myself. Where do I go to get my paycheck?

I'm a little disappointed you didn't really engage with anything I said in my last post. But you've been cordial so fair play. I hope you also will continue to think on this and consider rethinking your viewpoint. I'm glad this forum is a place where people can disagree politely on complicated topics.

[Aidy]

I'm neither advocating for anarchy or slavery. No one is depriving anyone of the fruits of their labour. I'm just making unauthorized copies. Their fruits are still right where they left them.

And what if everybody did that?

[Elmo]

If i have been harsh in some of my post in this thread i apologize especially to Aidy , i think i took him out of context, rather than take his examples i took them out of context and probably over exerted my opinion to the point of total dismissal.

Certainly a heated discussion, nothing like some heat to get the blood pumping.

So in summary of the thread, DRM is not ideal and can effect the customer, but it's a necessary evil?
IT's my opinion, please feel free to disagree!

Oh and Happy Xmas and New Year. Lets start the New Year on a positive.

[SpicyLemones]

DRMs are clearly unnecessary, and intrusive DRMs lke DENUVO only serve to make it worse, if it was necessary the gaming industry would have crashed by now and indie gaming wouldn't exist at all.


Refer to Witcher 3 and every successful indie title for proof.

[Baron Baldric]