George Geczy, owner of Battlegoat Studios, an independent game software developer, with an open letter to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada on copyright reform.
Geczy’s Open Letter to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada
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Nice letter
That letter was an interesting read actually and I do completely agree.
I dont pirate annythning but draconian DRMs(Spore, limited activation based…) will be equivalent to a lost sale in my case because I will simply not buy it (wont pirate it either…).
Oh and does the ESA expect us to belive that childrens that circumvent DRMS to be able to play a game without the authorisation of the parents are liable in court??? The parents will have to pay the fines not the child.
light at the end of the drudge filled drm sewer?
Yes, it is a good letter. It is good to see some sanity coming from somewhere (anywhere) in the industry. DRM junk is everywhere, and they don’t tell you before you buy. It truly is hostile to customers, but they can get away with it since they have such a unified (colluded) front that consumers have little choice in the matter (assuming they aren’t willing to give up video games in general).
Parental controls / parental responsibility are a seperate issue and trying to relate it to the anti-circumvention legislation is just intentional deception (no shortage of that in the copyright debates).
Who’s the criminal?
I am offended every time I accidentally purchase something that doesn’t work as well as it should because it has been crippled by DRM.
If the manufacturer or the vendor don’t make it clear to the consumer that the product has been deliberately crippled by DRM, selling it is fraud. Consumers must be informed of this before they buy. That way, when the product that’s been deliberately crippled by DRM can’t perform as well as it’s supposed to, the consumer hasn’t been defrauded.
If manufacturers or vendors don’t start clearly labelling products with built in DRM the lawmakers will have to do this for them. As it stands, most often the consumer only figures it out after they’ve bought it and been driven nearly mad with frustration.
What makes it really irritating is the justification they always make for DRM. The rationalization is ALWAYS that the manufacturer has to protect themselves from their customers. It is presented as a given that we will steal from them. And because their propaganda machine has tirelessly campaigned to equate circumvention with theft, people are afraid to argue against DRM. After all, only criminals could possibly think DRM is wrong.
When I bought all of those Disney movies on videotape, I thought that it was worth it to pay hundreds of dollars to buy them because they would be heirlooms that one day my grandchildren would be able to watch. No manufacturer/distributor/vendor ever said anything about videotape having a limited shelf life. As it turns out, even if those tapes are still watchable when I finally get grandchildren, there probably won’t be any working video cassette recorders left in the world to play them on. Yet if I were to circument the copyprotection, I would be judged criminal. Yet Disney isn’t judged harshly for not warning consumers.
If manufacturers want to use DRM, they need to inform us. If they don’t, the products incorporating DRM are being sold fraudulently. Doubly offensive.
Thanks to George Geczy for writing the letter, and Michael Geist for posting it. Personally, although I’m not much of a gamer, I’m passing along the http://www.supremeruler2010.com along to my son, who is. (I’d prefer him to patronize ethical vendors)