Can You Still Say DRM Is Effective When It Creates Security Vulnerabilities, Performance Degredation, Incompatibilities, System Instability And 'Other Issues'?
Modplan alerts us to a developer at Wolfire games who wrote a blog post claiming that DRM can be "effective," and giving the example of StarForce's DRM on Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory, which supposedly took over a year to crack. But, for this to happen, there were all sorts of problems and even lawsuit threats over people reporting on those problems: StarForce 3.0 used a plethora of controversial methods to achieve this, most notably, it secretly installed mandatory device drivers. This obviously was highly controversial and there were many reports of new security vulnerabilities, performance degredation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues. As an aside, StarForce actually threatened to sue BoingBoing and CNET for reporting on these issues. Massive consumer issues aside, it worked. Wait, what? You can't just toss aside those massive consumer issues. "Security vulnerabilities, performance degradation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues," does not sound like it "worked" at all. It sounds like the exact opposite. It pissed off and potentially put at risk tons of paying customers. That's not DRM "working" -- though, that is how DRM works. Anyone who reads about "security vulnerabilities, performance degradation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues," and thinks that's an example of a system to be emulated, is not someone who you should ever trust to do business with. I'd consider that fair warning to stay away from Wolfire games.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

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