On copy protection

» 30 Nov 2006, 12:14pm in culture, personal - 1 comment

Being that I work in the music industry, that I'm a developer by trade and a hobbyist photographer, I certainly can understand why companies and individuals want to protect their intellectual property. However, I am also a consumer, and I'm putting it mildly when I say that it drives me crazy when I can't use a product that I legitimately purchased at a store because of the copy protection technology on the disc.

The most recent incident is my experience with the new PC game Neverwinter Nights 2, a role-playing game from Obsidian and published by Atari. I cannot play the game on my PC. I installed it, entered the CD key, updated it to the latest version with the built-in patch tool, but it just won't run. The game contains copy protection software by SecuROM that attempts to verify that an original installation disc is in the drive when you launch the game. My disc is in the drive, but the program tells me that "An original disc cannot be found or authenticated."

I've been emailing the SecuROM technical support people, who've had me install a new .exe (executable file) in the program directory. Same problem. Their latest email says that I'm trying to use the game from a "backup disc"--right! I am using the original installation disc that I purchased. Backup discs are for pirates... arrr!

This is almost as bad as the Oasis CD that I can't play in my car stereo because it has copy-protection technology on it, and my car stereo is a CD-ROM-based device from Clarion that can play MP3s burned onto CD-R.

Copy protection sucks. Why does it seem that copy protection only hurts the people who actually buy the disc? Pirates always find a way around it, and they can use copied discs to their heart's content, but people who actually pay for it with their hard-earned money get screwed.

1 comment:

  • Bryan: Happy New Year Rob!.

    I can't beleive that Pam from The Office has a blog, and a myspace page.. thanks for killing 1/2 hr of my day today with that one!. You need to blog alittle more..

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