Boulder Dash ROM will not be released

[Mr SQL]

 

The only truly effective form of DRM is to not release your product, which is *almost* what First Star has done. If they honestly believe that the Intellivision BD ROM will never be freely shared, I may have a bridge to sell to them, but it's their right to believe in the impossible.

 

Excellent point - not releasing the ROM is very effective DRM.

 

The game copy no. is also DRM; seems clear if two collectors wind up with Copy #55 of BoulderDash one of them has a fake you can trace a lot easier with the sales database than that obfuscated watermark mousetraps programmers dream up and years later can't decipher themselves.

[townparkradio]

Speaking of: Hey, DZ-Jay! You gave me and everyone else Christmas Carol for free. I feel the need to repay you regardless. We never got that commercial made to run on my station.. so can I paypal you some money instead? I don;t have working hardware so buying a cart is useless to me... but you did great work and deserve pay!

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

But Boulder Dash isn't a Homebrew.

 

Yes Boulderdash is a homebrew. The difference is Boulderdash was licensed. The vast majority of homebrew games are unlicensed, whether they infringe on 3rd party IP or not.

[townparkradio]

Yes Boulderdash is a homebrew. The difference is Boulderdash was licensed. The vast majority of homebrew games are unlicensed, whether they infringe on 3rd party IP or not.

 

Half licensed anyway.

 

I doubt they own a Mattel dev kit.

[Andromeda Stardust]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5187895

 

Anyone live in one of these states?!!! Haha

I do. And I have repeatedly sodomized my video game consoles with blunt tools and other implements, in the process of installing various warranty voiding mods. They don't seem to mind and still happily play my games.

[freewheel]

You may not be aware, but that's the new software model we are facing. The owner (e.g. me), watermarks his product. He then lends (not sells) it to his customer. The customer pays a one time fee for lending it. Now the watermark helps the owner if his product is stolen (pirating is theft).

 

 

I find it cute how some of you act like this is some new discussion, or something that hasn't been hashed out a million times already. And it feels like you're talking to me from 1998 or so, because that's when that argument was being made seriously. Perhaps that's the model YOU are facing, but it sure as hell isn't a model I'm facing. There is more software out there that is DRM-free (at the author's choice, I'm not talking piracy here) than any one person could possibly consume for the rest of their natural life. Given entirely, with no expectations after as to what I do with it. Hell, it's often ENCOURAGED that I share it out to others.

 

Your "new software model" applies to a minority of software these days. It may be what most people are using, but fortunately we're allowed to be different in this modern world. There are more games in existence that I can play, DRM (and watermark, if we're being pendants here) free, than I could possibly play in my life.

[freewheel]

But all those people with the locks on their doors do not trust you. You said that not trusting you offends you. So what's different with me not trusting you when I sell you my product? I am really trying to understand your motivation here.

 

The difference is I didn't buy their house?? I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand.

 

If you bought a house from someone, and they insisted on keeping keys for what are now YOUR locks - but they promise they'll never do anything unless you break the law - you'd be completely OK with that? That simply boggles my mind. These analogies broke down long ago, but you keep bringing it up, so I'm trying to work with it. Let me be clear - I expect a large faceless corporation to not trust me. I don't expect an indie homebrew development community to treat each of the tiny number of enthusiasts as potential criminals. That offends me just a little.

 

Don't get me wrong - if you honestly, truly are happy with (and even prefer) corporations and other people having an ability to control property that you've purchased, then that's a valid opinion. I think it's an insane one, but I won't argue that you're not allowed to hold it. I just think you too easily dismiss the concept that someone might want to have control over something they purchased for themselves.

 

And if we're going to get into the tangent of "you don't BUY software, you RENT it" - then we can consider this closed. I have no interest in renting your software, but you could at least market it as such to those that are cool with it. I'm talking about things I purchase.

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

Your "new software model" applies to a minority of software these days. It may be what most people are using, but fortunately we're allowed to be different in this modern world. There are more games in existence that I can play, DRM (and watermark, if we're being pendants here) free, than I could possibly play in my life.

 

But are all those games really desirable from a gameplay perspective? What about all those "shareware" CDs that got passed around in the 90s? Most of those games are only half complete and oftentimes the other half is lost forever as vaporware.

[freewheel]

 

The only reason the watermark is there, and the only way its existence could possibly affect you in any way, is if the person you sell it to (or someone who stole it from you) starts spreading or selling copies. The worst that can happen to you in that case is that the original author might look at the watermark, identify you as the last registered owner, and ask for your help in finding out who made the copies. In that case, you're helping to protect the author's interests; you aren't becoming the target of anyone's accusations. (In fact, as Thomas points out above, finding the pirate might also help you recover your own property, in the case of theft.)

 

So, for anyone who doesn't engage in piracy, a watermark is nothing to worry about. I still can't understand the basis for such virulent opposition to them.

 

Having a different opinion is "virulent opposition". Neat.

 

I've bolded the parts that have been used, literally verbatim, for a lot worse. And often *intended* to be harmless, but either abused or accidentally used in such ways as to be incredibly harmful. I've already given examples of how this goes horribly wrong - people get accused falsely all the time. Shit happens beyond your control. Hell, the DMCA was put into law with those exact sentiments, and people ended up in jail because of it. "If you're not doing anything wrong.." is a pretty piss-poor justification to do something.

The very act of watermarking begins with the thought process of "people are likely to steal my stuff". You honestly are going to sit there and claim that if my personal copy of DK starts floating around out there, Carl M. is just gonna be all cool when I say "I have no idea what happened"? Pardon the French, but bull-fucking-shit. The blacklisting and witchhunting would start nearly immediately and I'd be lucky to ever be able to "clear my name" with the community that is already convinced that people are going to pirate at the first opportunity (hence watermarking in the first place). Granted, the risk of that happening without me intending to do it is miniscule - but it's not zero. The risk of rampant piracy and a collapse of game sales, or whatever this watermarking is intended to prevent, is also miniscule. I, as consumer, choose not to engage in such a risk. If a developer is that worried about piracy, then don't sell to me and we're both happy. There are plenty of other games for me to play.

 

Honestly, guys: none of these are new arguments. This has been discussed to death for pretty much every media format in existence. Read up from some people who can write much better than I can:

 

http://www.anamardoll.com/2011/06/ereader-why-digital-watermarking-is.html

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/01/why-watermarking-will-never-replace-drm/

 

Plenty more where that came from, from the great Google.

[freewheel]

 

But are all those games really desirable from a gameplay perspective? What about all those "shareware" CDs that got passed around in the 90s? Most of those games are only half complete and oftentimes the other half is lost forever as vaporware.

 

Depends on what you mean by "desirable". Right now I own over 2600 (numeric coincidence) unique game cartridges, from 1976 through the late 90s. I can take any of these carts and play them on any compatible hardware, lend them, sell them, share them, without ever fearing being shitlisted (or actual legal consequences). And that's just on consoles. If I wanted to get heavily into used PC software, for pennies a disc I could add literally thousands of titles more. I don't have to get the author's permission to copy it to a new cart, and I sure as hell don't have to worry about my ID tied into thousands of these things if I ever got broken into. With most of it I can put it on my hard drive and STILL not worry about any of that being a problem. Unless I start up a file-sharing service (duh).

 

Some games might bore me in 15 minutes, others I might play for 100+ hours. Either way, I think that's more than enough to keep me entertained pretty much forever. I don't exactly spend 12 hours a day playing video games. YMMV. And I haven't even touched on the endless DRM-free content that continues to be produced today. Tons of crap, to be sure, but if even 1% of it is good, that's way more than I need.

 

Not so surprisingly, the same people who most strongly insist on watermarking and stronger forms of copy protection also tend to be the same organizations that advocate making all of the above either illegal or impractical. If anyone thinks I'm kidding, you haven't been following the news close enough .

[freewheel]

 

I think the argument that watermarks are onerous is pretty thin. It'd be more compelling to argue that homebrewing is, and/or should be, a kind of gift economy -- where programmers are paid less than they deserve but write great games anyway, and consumers who could pirate homebrews choose not to do so and, instead, pay for a product they could easily get for free. I can get on board with that, since it's pretty much what I think.

 

In other words, I think it'd be better to make one's case affirmatively -- i.e. that a gift economy, not a big-business model, will lead to the healthiest possible homebrew scene with the minimum drama -- rather than negatively ("DRM is bad and destructive and you're an idiot if you can't see why", which is the clear and inarguable subtext of several posts in this thread).

 

That's actually what I'm trying to do - argue that the fears of piracy are way overblown, and a community such as this is insanely happy to support producers of quality product. Hell, that's what we see happening here. Do people honestly think Rev's (random example) carts are undumpable? Yet he keeps selling them. And I haven't seen Copter Command show up on the Pirate Bay or whatever the kids use these days. Make a quality product and people will buy it. Hell, he's even clearly stated that the ROM will be available for free in the near future, and people STILL buy it.

 

But people keep insisting that there is absolutely no valid argument against DRM and/or watermarking unless your intention is to pirate software, so someone has to correct misinformation. There are plenty of problems with both. They may not be a problem to a person specifically, and they may benefit a producer more than they harm to the consumer, but there are still problems. And yes, you kinda do have to be an idiot to not see why (although I'm trying to avoid the name-calling).

[freewheel]

Yes Boulderdash is a homebrew. The difference is Boulderdash was licensed. The vast majority of homebrew games are unlicensed, whether they infringe on 3rd party IP or not.

 

I couldn't find the good "sarcasm" tag. Sorry Yes, BD is homebrew.

 

Treating it as anything but is partly why this thread exists and why it's gone on so long.

 

[jaybird3rd]

The difference is I didn't buy their house?? I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand.

 

If you bought a house from someone, and they insisted on keeping keys for what are now YOUR locks - but they promise they'll never do anything unless you break the law - you'd be completely OK with that? That simply boggles my mind. These analogies broke down long ago, but you keep bringing it up, so I'm trying to work with it.

Okay, so let's work with it. You say that a watermark is like letting the previous owners of a house that you bought keep a copy of your keys. What might they do with those keys? They could enter your house without being invited. Steal things out of your house or break things without your permission. Let others into your house and let them steal or break things. All that is true. But what would the analogous activities be in the case of watermarks? Do they allow the publisher to tamper with your game? Do they allow the publisher to deactivate it? Do they allow the publisher to disallow you from making backups, or from using it on multiple systems, or from selling it to the next person? No, to all of the above. So I don't see how this analogy holds up.

 

If you were taking about some onerous form of DRM which allows a publisher to track your activities or deactivate your software on a whim, you might have a point. But yet again, these are watermarks. Unique identifiers. Passive data, hidden away inside the ROM, which does absolutely nothing and sits there completely unnoticed unless unauthorized copying has already taken place. It's not something that can "open the door" to more oppressive forms of protection, which would require supporting technologies that simply don't exist on the platforms in question. It's not something that can be used as legal evidence against a person, either: if Publisher X sells a ROM to Customer Y, and if Publisher X subsequently notices that this ROM is floating around on the Internet with Customer Y's watermark on it, that would give Publisher X enough information to begin tracing how the piracy occurred, but not enough to sue Customer Y, because Customer Y can simply claim that the ROM was stolen.

 

Watermark != DRM. Stop trying to equate them.

[freewheel]

Okay, so let's work with it. You say that a watermark is like letting the previous owners of a house that you bought keep a copy of your keys. What might they do with those keys? They could enter your house without being invited. Steal things out of your house or break things without your permission. Let others into your house and let them steal or break things. All that is true. But what would the analogous activities be in the case of watermarks? Do they allow the publisher to tamper with your game? Do they allow the publisher to deactivate it? Do they allow the publisher to disallow you from copying it, or from using it on multiple systems, or from selling it to the next person? No, to all of the above. So I don't see how this analogy holds up. If you were taking about some onerous form of DRM which allows a publisher to track your activities or deactivate your software on a whim, you might have a point. But yet again, these are watermarks. Unique identifiers. Passive data, hidden away inside the ROM, which does absolutely nothing and sits there completely unnoticed unless unauthorized copying has already taken place.

 

Watermark != DRM. Stop trying to equate them.

 

Watermarking absolutely is DRM. It's a way to Manage the Digital Rights of a producer. I already said - I agree with you, it's probably the most innocuous form - but it's still DRM. ALL forms of keys, serials, watermarks, ANYTHING that has to do with in any way, shape or form controlling copying of media is DRM. That's what DRM is. Protecting a creator's sole right to make copies for distribution. Watermarks facilitate this. I'm not equating them. Watermarks are a form of DRM.

 

And man, the analogy is terrible to begin with. I'm just trying to work with the "cars have serial numbers therefore no form of watermarking can never be a problem" theme.

 

Look - you keep coming up with "omg why are you so worried, how can event X apply here?". Which is valid, most of those concerns don't exist, but the problem is that it's incomplete. Let me give you the nightmare scenario with watermarking:

 

Imagine that every piece of software ever created was watermarked. And rightsholders, given that copyright is essentially infinite, kept track of it all. Now let's take me. I personally own and have paid for several thousand pieces of software over several decades, in untold formats. Some physical (carts, CDs), some entirely digital (hard drive files of whatever sort). THOUSANDS. With rights belonging to literally thousands of companies and individuals.

 

What do you think happens to my life if my house ever gets broken into? How much of my time is spent over the coming years to deal with the non-stop inundation of "you pirated our software!!!!!" accusations (sorry, polite questions as I'm sure they will be). How many legal notices does it take before you're willing to acknowledge at least a potential problem for someone who has never pirated software in their life? One Intellivision ROM -extremely unlikely. So where's your threshold?

 

Let's look at the proverbial pirate. In a world where everything is watermarked, MY HARD DRIVE IS THE FIRST PLACE HE'S GOING TO GO. Because it essentially lets him do what he does entirely scott-free. The average consumer has no way of ever knowing who the hell hacked into their computer, and ISPs sure as hell can barely figure this stuff out. The average non-technical consumer is put even more at risk, the more common watermarking becomes. Because you've built in a "patsy" already.

 

This stuff has already happened. And will happen more and more as watermarking becomes more common.

 

I'm not advocating that watermarking be made illegal, I just have zero interest in product that has it.

[+DZ-Jay]

Speaking of: Hey, DZ-Jay! You gave me and everyone else Christmas Carol for free. I feel the need to repay you regardless. We never got that commercial made to run on my station.. so can I paypal you some money instead? I don;t have working hardware so buying a cart is useless to me... but you did great work and deserve pay!

 

No worries! It was my pleasure. I just want people to play the game. The CIB game was sold because it is not practical to give away such expensive collateral (although I really am not happy about the ultimate price chosen by the publisher, but that's another story).

 

Yes Boulderdash is a homebrew. The difference is Boulderdash was licensed. The vast majority of homebrew games are unlicensed, whether they infringe on 3rd party IP or not.

 

Christmas Carol was fully licensed. It is 100% brand new, original code, story, and game-play mechanics. Sure, it started as a port of a classic arcade game, but none of it is left except the semblance of the original "arcade feel" -- and even that game port was based 100% on layman's textual descriptions of the functionality of original, which means that I had absolutely no access to any original code, and no Intellectual Property was ever infringed. It was not a translation, but my interpretation of it. Christmas Carol is therefore my homage to that classic period, and 100% the product of my own making, with the occasional feedback of others who participated in its design and testing -- none of which have made a claim against its origins.

 

It is "fully licensed" because I engaged in a formal agreement with Left Turn Only Productions to produce the game in cartridge format, and we both honoured our agreement. I give away the game because I think people will enjoy it, but I still retain 100% of all rights to the game, artwork, and story.

 

-dZ.

Edited July 19, 2015 by DZ-Jay

[Eric7100]

I'm out. You guys are animals...

[freewheel]

I give away the game because I think people will enjoy it, but I still retain 100% of all rights to the game, artwork, and story.

 

Makes me wonder - when you guys distribute your ROMs this way, do you bundle with a brief text attachment outlining any sort of license agreement? Typically free stuff will come with something to the effect of "share all you want non-commercially, but you can't claim it's yours nor bundle in commercial setup without my agreement".

 

By law the copyright rests with you regardless, so you could take action against someone who did something egregious - but the "soft" side of it.. did you bother?

[+DZ-Jay]

 

Makes me wonder - when you guys distribute your ROMs this way, do you bundle with a brief text attachment outlining any sort of license agreement? Typically free stuff will come with something to the effect of "share all you want non-commercially, but you can't claim it's yours nor bundle in commercial setup without my agreement".

 

By law the copyright rests with you regardless, so you could take action against someone who did something egregious - but the "soft" side of it.. did you bother?

 

Absolutely:

 

That's the opening screen when you boot-up the ROM. The cartridge version has the copyright information in the credits roll and in the box. Plus the web site where you download the ROM specifies the following:

 

INTELLIVISION® is a trademark of Intellivision Productions, Inc.

Left Turn Only, LLC., Joe Zbiciak, and James Pujals are not affiliated with Intellivision Productions, Inc.

"Christmas Carol vs. The Ghost of Christmas Presents" the game, title, characters, and all other related material

are wholly owned by James Pujals, a.k.a. "DZ-Jay"

The game cartridge is produced and distributed by Left Turn Only, LLC.

Copyright © 2012 - 2014 James Pujals. All Rights Reserved.

Edited July 20, 2015 by DZ-Jay

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Excellent point - not releasing the ROM is very effective DRM.

If carts can be dumped, it is not very effective. And if you protect carts from dumping, you take away a lot of freedom of use from your customer. Watermarks don't do that.

 

The game copy no. is also DRM; seems clear if two collectors wind up with Copy #55 of BoulderDash one of them has a fake you can trace a lot easier with the sales database than that obfuscated watermark mousetraps programmers dream up and years later can't decipher themselves.

Numbered copies can be faked very easily. If you loose the database, people will start finger pointing. This can hardly ever happen with an heavily obfuscated watermark.

 

And if one can't decipher the watermarks anymore, then this is only a problem of the seller. For the customer this is the same as no watermark at all.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Imagine that every piece of software ever created was watermarked. And rightsholders, given that copyright is essentially infinite, kept track of it all. Now let's take me. I personally own and have paid for several thousand pieces of software over several decades, in untold formats. Some physical (carts, CDs), some entirely digital (hard drive files of whatever sort). THOUSANDS. With rights belonging to literally thousands of companies and individuals.

 

What do you think happens to my life if my house ever gets broken into? How much of my time is spent over the coming years to deal with the non-stop inundation of "you pirated our software!!!!!" accusations (sorry, polite questions as I'm sure they will be). How many legal notices does it take before you're willing to acknowledge at least a potential problem for someone who has never pirated software in their life? One Intellivision ROM -extremely unlikely. So where's your threshold?

 

Let's look at the proverbial pirate. In a world where everything is watermarked, MY HARD DRIVE IS THE FIRST PLACE HE'S GOING TO GO. Because it essentially lets him do what he does entirely scott-free. The average consumer has no way of ever knowing who the hell hacked into their computer, and ISPs sure as hell can barely figure this stuff out. The average non-technical consumer is put even more at risk, the more common watermarking becomes. Because you've built in a "patsy" already.

 

This stuff has already happened. And will happen more and more as watermarking becomes more common.

Yes, those scenarios can happen to you. Unlikely, but possible.

 

So effectively you are saying, that anything in a product, which does not benefit you but may eventually (even though extremely unlikely) cause you any trouble is unacceptable to you.

 

That's a valid position. But from my point of view, it is very extreme. And I am very, very sure, you are facing and accepting (being aware or not) similar situations almost every day without caring that much. I could come up with more examples, but I doubt that would change your mind. And I am sure you can come with even worse ones if required, but I doubt that would change my mind. So let's agree that we do not agree.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

And yes, you kinda do have to be an idiot to not see why (although I'm trying to avoid the name-calling).

IMO that's pretty close to name calling.

 

Anyway, I am sure everyone here can see what you see. They just may evaluate it very differently. Calling that idiotic directly refers back to the one calling.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Mord]

I don't care what you are doing with it. Except when your copy is used for pirating and making illegal money.

 

Exactly that's has been the point all the time. So what's wrong here?

 

If you buy a car you have to register. And in case a crime is committed with your car, the police will come and ask you. What's wrong with registering software (that's what a watermark is doing) for the very same purpose?

 

I think the difference is in who's doing the questioning. The homebrewer is the same as Ford in the car analogy. He's the company that sold the product. He isn't the police. Ford doesn't come to you and ask you questions since their business with you is over once the transaction was finalized. Of course the difference here is that there are criminal laws being broken in the car analogy, while for the most part it will be civil laws being broken about copying a rom. So the only way things get started is when ... the homebrewer points a finger. It might be as simple as asking a question, but what is he going to do if the person questioned decides to lie? If you don't accept what's being said, you're not asking, but accusing. (guilty until proven innocent)

 

My general stance on the whole issue tends to be that piracy in and of itself doesn't bother me. People playing on emulators or loading it into their user-programmable flash cart is fair game to me. About the only thing that would probably get under my skin would be people making standalone or multi-carts to flip on ebay. (Essentially, where people are actively making money.) Watermarking isn't going to help that out very much, and certainly won't stop it. We'll see if I change my attitude after I've released a few finished games I guess, but this is something I've been thinking about on and off for years so it probably won't. (Keep in mind that this is just me talking about how I feel about my own games and projects.)

 

I guess if you want to really see the impact adding a watermark has to a rom, then the developer should be up front and honest about it when they do a release for a game. Tell people who are buying it that there is a watermark and why it's being applied. And the market will decide if they care about it or not. I'm sure some will be very vocal about it, others may still be against it but just silently pass on it without making so much as a peep.

[108 Stars]

 

Half licensed anyway.

 

I doubt they own a Mattel dev kit.

Why would a Mattel dev kit be required?

In the end, as Long as you do not use things that require a license (such as the Mattel dev kit, or an encryption/decryption tool used to make sure only licensed Software works) you are free to do as you please. The key is that you have to work around to Bypass whatever sercurity measures are in place. For that reason EA was allowed to manufacture their own carts for Genesis; they had successfully bypassed the system's security with their own method, and thus were able to program working Genesis Software without anything from Sega. They told Sega so, and that they would release games with or without license, so Sega better just allow it to not be left out in the cold and get nothing of it. Nothing Sega could do.

 

Now I don't know if there is any kind of encryption key or something used in Intellivision games... but if nothing is used that homebrewers did not get on their own, it is not even a grey area, but fair game. The game is not licensed by Mattel then, but it is Intellivision compatible. Nothing illegal about that.

 

 

Watermark != DRM. Stop trying to equate them.

But why? I read out loud what DRM stands for. Digital Rights Management. That is, simply by the Name, not limited to a measure that absolutely disables distribution by means of some protective mechanism. It can be basically any implementation of a way in the Software of how user licenses can be verified. That goes for watermarks too.

 

I think People have very different ideas of what DRM is; most think of it in the restrictive way it is used on Steam etc. But just because the vast majority of Software uses such methods does not mean completely different means of identifying a file do not qualify as DRM. It is a way to manage the digital rights, even if it is just watermarks.

 

 

 

I think the difference is in who's doing the questioning. The homebrewer is the same as Ford in the car analogy. He's the company that sold the product. He isn't the police. Ford doesn't come to you and ask you questions since their business with you is over once the transaction was finalized. Of course the difference here is that there are criminal laws being broken in the car analogy, while for the most part it will be civil laws being broken about copying a rom. So the only way things get started is when ... the homebrewer points a finger. It might be as simple as asking a question, but what is he going to do if the person questioned decides to lie? If you don't accept what's being said, you're not asking, but accusing. (guilty until proven innocent)

That's the Problem. For this reason, I do not want watermarked games. It may extremely unlikely, but in Thomas model it could still happen that he asks me about the ROM. And that is not acceptable. I do not wish to be on standby as a witness of a crime if something happens. I do not wished to be approached about such a Thing, if anything I would be the one to approach the dev and tell him out of my own initiative. For me to be asked and not answering would make me a suspect; thus the watermark would put me in a situation where I am under some degree of suspicion if it gets leaked. It puts a pressure on you. I do not take that from sellers. The Police, I have to answer. They have the right to ask questions. But it is not the seller's place.

 

I would never be willing to agree to tat Kind of measure. It's fair if People know what they get into when buying, but it is not for me. Such a watermark would basically disqualify the product for me.

And again, especially in a scene as small as the Intellivision Scene I find it to be waaaay over the Goal. It is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If we were talking SNES or Genesis games, I could at least understand the worries as they are much more popular platforms, and given their wider popularity piracy may be more of an issue... but even then, I think this is too much.

 

It is about Intellivision games. about the loss of a few bucks, if the unlikely event happens that someone who would have paid for the ROM otherwise decides not to do so because of an illegal copy. Way out of proportion in my eyes.

Edited July 20, 2015 by 108 Stars

[Mord]

Your "new software model" applies to a minority of software these days. It may be what most people are using, but fortunately we're allowed to be different in this modern world. There are more games in existence that I can play, DRM (and watermark, if we're being pendants here) free, than I could possibly play in my life.

 

And where might they be?!

[+DZ-Jay]

Yes, those scenarios can happen to you. Unlikely, but possible.

 

So effectively you are saying, that anything in a product, which does not benefit you but may eventually (even though extremely unlikely) cause you any trouble is unacceptable to you.

 

That's a valid position. But from my point of view, it is very extreme. And I am very, very sure, you are facing and accepting (being aware or not) similar situations almost every day without caring that much. I could come up with more examples, but I doubt that would change your mind. And I am sure you can come with even worse ones if required, but I doubt that would change my mind. So let's agree that we do not agree.

Your view point exposes your hubris, when you try to compare what people are willing to accept from other products and services to your home-brewed ROMs.

 

People's desires, necessities, and subjectivities are myriad, and they tend to convey more importance, relevance, or tolerance upon them in different measures.

 

Just because I accept that I must give my personal information, birthdate, and social security number to the DMV when registering my car, does not in and of itself mean that I should feel as comfortable doing the same when I register my new dishwasher with the manufacturer -- and it most certainly does not mean I will even consider doing so for a video game.

 

Like I said before, it is important to understand human nature in order to have a proper dialog in such matters.