4 ms·

Woah, we're not talking about cracking your games. I think every console from at least the last two generations has supported copying game files to external/rem

by dcow 14d ago

Woah, we're not talking about cracking your games. I think every console from at least the last two generations has supported copying game files to external/removable media.

ndriscoll 14d ago
Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct. Copying doesn't matter if it doesn't produce a usable backup. If you remove the DRM, then you do actually own the thing for practical purposes. And non-ownership of things you buy is unjust, so entertaining the law here is silly.
- dcow 14d ago
  > Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct. Don't move the goalposts. The only thing I am conceding is that conceptually it still ownership if you own the encrypted bits but they work fine with some other hardware that has the keys to decrypt them. I can backup my games on one playstation and play them on another. Otherwise, we agree ideologically. At the same time I'm rhetorically supporting the point at the top of the thread that this has been a problem long before Sony decided to go digital. I am copyleft and anti-drm and whatever else you can imagine. It doesn't change the fact that there's a precedent that consumers will purchase drm games that require a rootkit to run under ambiguous terms that make it clear they don't own the bytes and it's a true observation that for some reason people allow this to happen on PC but when Sony does it it's the end of the world. I think to make progress here you need to address the root of the issue legally, not attack Sony for doing what society has condoned for decades.
  - ndriscoll 14d ago
    You can't back up your encrypted bits on one machine and use them on another without constant permission from Sony though. Other hardware doesn't have the keys to decrypt them (actually this is it's own issue: it's obviously a very monopolistic, anticompetitive move that you can't run a PS5 game on a commodity PC because of their encryption). As far as I know, Valve's "DRM" just calls into a dll that asks Steam whether you own it, and you can just give it your own implementation of the Steam API dll that says you do. Or many titles on Steam don't have any DRM at all. There are reasons to criticize Valve (gambling, microtransactions, "achievements"), but they seem to be too busy making money to want to do DRM.
    - dcow 14d ago
      You can’t back up your games on one PC and use them on another without constant permission from Value either. It’s the same and that is all I’m trying to point out. DRM is a red herring, the real problem is the phone home always online bullshit. Both Valve and Sony run a completely legal video game platform service. There are minor differences here and there, of course… but this is 100% a general intellectual property law problem, not an instanced technical implementation issue.
      - Timon3 14d ago
        A large number of games on Steam don't use any DRM, you can just copy the files and use them wherever you want. So no, it's not the same.
        dcow 13d ago
        Let's put the actual numbers in front of people: 1,924 out of 43,179 games, or 4.4%, as of today (according to PCGamingWiki) are DRM free. The vast majority check whether you've purchased the game at runtime. If you stick to only indie games and the one off AA or AAA with no license check on Steam then sure thou-art-holier. I think the argument is more precisely made by saying: on Steam, while the platform supports DRM, the decision is up to the publisher whether or not a game will use it and at least that provides the option for consumers to speak with their wallet and play only DRM free games. On Playstation it's all or nothing, you have to reject the entire platform/ecosystem if you want to avoid DRM. At large, the problem still remains that our society allows DRM in the first place and if people want to avoid it then they need to be principled activists.
        ndriscoll 13d ago
        Except as Valve themselves points out[0], > The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy... but it is easily removed And it takes about 2 seconds to find the removal tools on github. So you can treat Steam's DRM as basically non-existent. This is unlike consoles, which require kernel exploits or hardware modifications to bypass. [0] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm?l=english https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm?l=english

by dcow 14d ago

Woah, we're not talking about cracking your games. I think every console from at least the last two generations has supported copying game files to external/removable media.

ndriscoll 14d ago

Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct. Copying doesn't matter if it doesn't produce a usable backup. If you remove the DRM, then you do actually own the thing for practical purposes. And non-ownership of things you buy is unjust, so entertaining the law here is silly.

dcow 14d ago
> Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct. Don't move the goalposts. The only thing I am conceding is that conceptually it still ownership if you own the encrypted bits but they work fine with some other hardware that has the keys to decrypt them. I can backup my games on one playstation and play them on another. Otherwise, we agree ideologically. At the same time I'm rhetorically supporting the point at the top of the thread that this has been a problem long before Sony decided to go digital. I am copyleft and anti-drm and whatever else you can imagine. It doesn't change the fact that there's a precedent that consumers will purchase drm games that require a rootkit to run under ambiguous terms that make it clear they don't own the bytes and it's a true observation that for some reason people allow this to happen on PC but when Sony does it it's the end of the world. I think to make progress here you need to address the root of the issue legally, not attack Sony for doing what society has condoned for decades.
- ndriscoll 14d ago
  You can't back up your encrypted bits on one machine and use them on another without constant permission from Sony though. Other hardware doesn't have the keys to decrypt them (actually this is it's own issue: it's obviously a very monopolistic, anticompetitive move that you can't run a PS5 game on a commodity PC because of their encryption). As far as I know, Valve's "DRM" just calls into a dll that asks Steam whether you own it, and you can just give it your own implementation of the Steam API dll that says you do. Or many titles on Steam don't have any DRM at all. There are reasons to criticize Valve (gambling, microtransactions, "achievements"), but they seem to be too busy making money to want to do DRM.
  - dcow 14d ago
    You can’t back up your games on one PC and use them on another without constant permission from Value either. It’s the same and that is all I’m trying to point out. DRM is a red herring, the real problem is the phone home always online bullshit. Both Valve and Sony run a completely legal video game platform service. There are minor differences here and there, of course… but this is 100% a general intellectual property law problem, not an instanced technical implementation issue.
    - Timon3 14d ago
      A large number of games on Steam don't use any DRM, you can just copy the files and use them wherever you want. So no, it's not the same.
      - dcow 13d ago
        Let's put the actual numbers in front of people: 1,924 out of 43,179 games, or 4.4%, as of today (according to PCGamingWiki) are DRM free. The vast majority check whether you've purchased the game at runtime. If you stick to only indie games and the one off AA or AAA with no license check on Steam then sure thou-art-holier. I think the argument is more precisely made by saying: on Steam, while the platform supports DRM, the decision is up to the publisher whether or not a game will use it and at least that provides the option for consumers to speak with their wallet and play only DRM free games. On Playstation it's all or nothing, you have to reject the entire platform/ecosystem if you want to avoid DRM. At large, the problem still remains that our society allows DRM in the first place and if people want to avoid it then they need to be principled activists.
        ndriscoll 13d ago
        Except as Valve themselves points out[0], > The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy... but it is easily removed And it takes about 2 seconds to find the removal tools on github. So you can treat Steam's DRM as basically non-existent. This is unlike consoles, which require kernel exploits or hardware modifications to bypass. [0] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm?l=english https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm?l=english