sony you friggin nazis!

beelzebubble

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Given the billions of dollars it sinks into its movie, music, and games divisions, it's little wonder Sony is big on digital rights management. The company has implemented anti-copying measures for years and has admitted it has been installing cloaking rootkits to hide DRM programs. (It has since issued a patch to remove the rootkit.)

Those familiar with Sony's CD DRM practices were unsurprised when Joystiq reported that the company has patented DRM software that could prevent PlayStation 3s from playing used or borrowed games. The site cites US Patent #6,816,972, which is for "a device and method for protection of legitimate software against used software and counterfeit software in recording media." Specifically, the patented technology would verify that when software was inserted into a "machine" (read: console), it was registered to that machine. If it couldn't, the technology would prompt the machine to shut down, preventing the software from being accessed.

Such measures would be fine and dandy, were they targeted at pirated software. But the patented tech--which bears the name of Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi--is specifically designed to prevent used software from being sold. "Since only titles for which legitimate software has actually been purchased and which have been initially registered in the machine table can be used, resale (so-called used software purchase) after purchase by an end-user becomes practically impossible," it reads. Such measures would also prevent lent or rented software from being played.

But would Sony incorporate technology from Patent #6,816,972 into the PS3? On one hand, doing so would guarantee that each gamer would buy a new copy of each PS3 game, theoretically meaning bigger sales to help defray the steep cost of next-gen development. It would also remove the PS3 from the used-game trade, a market from which Sony gets no revenue.

However, there would be some major drawbacks to implementing Patent # 6,816,972 technology into the PS3. It would mean forfeiting the rental market to Microsoft's Xbox 360. Though there are signs that the game-rental stories are in decline--Blockbuster Video is reportedly shopping around its GameRush subsidiary--Netflix-esque services like GameFly are gaining in popularity. Then there's the fact that many people can't afford to buy a whole lot of games. When presented with a choice between a console that does play rented games and one that doesn't, which way do you think they'll go? There's also the risk of sparking a blacklash like the one currently raging over the BMG DRM rootkit.

man sonys attitude bites.
 

norton9478

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beelzebubble said:
man sonys attitude bites.

They have always been asses like this...

It's what happens when your company produces both entertainment hardware AND the content that it plays.

Why did you think they pushed the Mini Disc instead of a Portable MP3 Player? Because they don't want people pirating Micheal Jackson and Beatles CD's easily.

Sony should sell off all of it's IP's so that it's not currently working against it's self.
 

Korigama

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Just logging in to say that that is one of the most retarded ideas I've ever read...
 

slerch666

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Sony designed the SACD format. They also required that it ONLY allow analog output, meaning if you have a multi channel SACD, you have to have all those damn RCA cables connected to your receiver, rather than just the single, convenient, digital coax or optical cables. This was to prevent people from being able to make perfect digital copies. What it succeeded in doing was making it so I'd never knowing buy a SACD again unless it has a regular CD layer as well. DVD-Audio playback is the same.

My problem with all technology companies is they treat us all like thieves. I legitamately purchase my content, yet I have to jump through hoops to be able to use it where, when and how I see fit because of these companies. I saw something where an industry member stated "we're doing it to keep the honest people honest." The honest people will buy the content properly no matter what, while the Internet pirate will continue to do as they always have once someone's figured out a way to hack the content.

DRM can suck my dick from the back.
 

norton9478

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slerch666 said:
Sony designed the SACD format. They also required that it ONLY allow analog output, meaning if you have a multi channel SACD, you have to have all those damn RCA cables connected to your receiver, rather than just the single, convenient, digital coax or optical cables. This was to prevent people from being able to make perfect digital copies. What it succeeded in doing was making it so I'd never knowing buy a SACD again unless it has a regular CD layer as well. DVD-Audio playback is the same.

My problem with all technology companies is they treat us all like thieves. I legitamately purchase my content, yet I have to jump through hoops to be able to use it where, when and how I see fit because of these companies. I saw something where an industry member stated "we're doing it to keep the honest people honest." The honest people will buy the content properly no matter what, while the Internet pirate will continue to do as they always have once someone's figured out a way to hack the content.

DRM can suck my dick from the back.

DVD audio is only Analog????

What's the fucking POINT?

It's like the DC....

You can download just fine... But you can't copy your own games.... WTF?

And SONY does not realize how much of new game sales are because of used game sales......

It's like GM saying that you cannot trade in your car......
New Car Sales would decline sharply.
 

shirt

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Wow. Fucking wow. So absolutely ridiculous yet unsurprising.

EB, Gamestop, etc. would take huge losses from this (not that I give a shit about that fact alone).
 

toy_brain

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Some people just cant be arsed to use Google
Click the link and take a look at when that patent was filed..... in 2000!
If they were gonna use it, it would have shown up in PSone and PS2 games - dontcha think?

As far as I can see this is just a renewal of a patent that sony filed ages ago, that they havent bothered using since.
So, move along folks, nothing to see here, just some bored internet journalist with too much time on his hands and a bad experience with that shitty software Sony stuck on a bunch of their music CD's.......
 

jro

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The funniest part of it all:

would be forfeiting the rental market to Microsoft's XBox 360

No mention at all of Nintendo or the Revolution... /waits for response from Kernow.

More Kutaragi bullshit, agreed.

What was the source on that article?
 

bstoppel

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It won't happen. For it to work they would either have to required you to connect to the internet to play your game or have a way to write the data back to the disc.

Putting a blu-ray writer in the PS3 would be too costly, and requiring the user to connect to the internet to play games would alienate too much of the market.
 

Mark of the Wolves

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I wish people would stop believing all these wild rumors.

This would be suicide and Sony knows this. I think all other sectors are fair game though. Just can't fathom this happening for the console unless they wanted to be out of the market.

I knew this was bullshit when I read it yesterday.
 

JHendrix

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bstoppel said:
It won't happen. For it to work they would either have to required you to connect to the internet to play your game or have a way to write the data back to the disc.

Putting a blu-ray writer in the PS3 would be too costly, and requiring the user to connect to the internet to play games would alienate too much of the market.

Ding Ding Ding!!

Someone actually thought for a second and said "hey wait, that'd be impossible to implament on machines that aren't hooked to the internet!"

You win a cookie.
 

norton9478

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A game that can only be played on one single SONY Machine= a Bad Idea...
 

shirt

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I imagine the good majority of people will indeed be connecting their systems to the internet anyway.

If there's any way they could still do it and have no consequences they still would. But yeah, it would probably do them more harm than good.
 

JHendrix

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shirt said:
I imagine the good majority of people will indeed be connecting their systems to the internet anyway.

If there's any way they could still do it and have no consequences they still would. But yeah, it would probably do them more harm than good.

Barring the internet, which unless they make all online gaming free, this ain't gonna happen.

And then there's the whole "my PS3 broke and all my games won't play on my new one" thing.

It's called a class action lawsuit the likes of which you've never seen.

Oh and it's damn near impossible to implament and probably near impossible to prevent from being circumvented.

ie. Disconnect from net, flash system BIOS/FlashMemory/etc, insert game and play.

Oh and the fact that the patent is uber old and the Gamestops/EB's of the world wouldn't give Sony the retail space they need if they did this kind of thing.

THINK PEOPLE.
 

Buro Destruct

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Big-Brother-is-Watching-You-oversized-postcard--C10204521.jpeg
 

ki_atsushi

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Buro Destruct said:
big.gif

Looking for ex-girlfriends I suspect.

:lol: good pic.

And I never sweated this stuff anyway(even though it's not goint to happen), I'm probably not going to buy a console from this next generation anyway.
 

Takumaji

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To bei fair, all this protection bullshit and DRM wouldn't exist without piracy.

Not that I'd think a DRM rootkit is a valid option for Sony, far from it, but hey, software piracy is on a new all-time high and they want to scare those HK bootleggers with partly made-up stories about their super new protection schemes.

Just look at SNKP, they gave up on the MVS because they couldn't find decent dev'ers, but also because they couldn't stand a chance against all those zero-day-warez dudez who provided careless arcade ops with boots only a few days after an official game release.

On the downside, it's the average-joe user who will suffer from all those protections and DRM, the '1337 P1R473z & friends will break the new schemes as they did before, it's just a matter of time, then the normal user will download the cracked version because it not only is for free but also way more convenient to use.... this is were the snake bites its own tail.

There's not a single protection scheme or DRM system which hasn't been broken. Sometimes it took the hackers a couple of weeks or even months, but in the end they always were successful.

A DRM like Sony has in mind would backfire at them big time, not to mention that installing rootkit-style software without user interaction is considered illegal in many countries, like my own. A panel of influental European lawyers already issued a stern warning of a possible wave of lawsuits against BMG that would inevitably follow and I guess it will be the same in the US and the rest of the world... Sony can't afford to ignore that, but BMG is an international company based in Europe, and Sony is in Japan...

About "customizing" a game to run on a dedicated machine only, well, that also has been done before, and it didn't work. because I bet there will be some clever dudes who come up with some sort of mod chip that circumvents the registration process, unless it happens online, but as others mentioned, this isn't going to happen.
 
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Curt

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What a terrible rumour. I was really worried about this policy.

let's hope we never see such a thing implemented.
 

Kid Aphex

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realllllllllllllllllllly, who fucking cares?
someone sell me their ketsui pcb.
 
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