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Published on October 23, 2008 By Jedmonds24 In PC Gaming

Instead of using the acronym DRM for current versions of "digital rights management". I think companies should use,

WAACAT

WE

ASSUME

ALL

CUSTOMERS

ARE

THIEVES

I'm not saying we should not have DRM, I'm just wondering if we should start using the WAACAT acronym now. Because thats how I feel like I'm being treated by companies like EA.  


Comments (Page 1)
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on Oct 23, 2008

I would encourage this.  The name of something holds a lot of psychological sway in people's minds

When copyright infringement was called copyright infringement, nobody cared.  Then they changed it to piracy and also called it theft when neither are technically correct.  Because of that play on words, it became much more serious.  (That said, I don't think copyright infringement is good, but I don't like to mince words either).

Changing it from digital rights management, a seemingly unobtruse name to WE ASSUME ALL CUSTOMERS ARE THIEVES may help bring the nasties of what DRM is into people minds quicker.  

 

on Oct 23, 2008

Do you also believe stores with antitheft devices consider all customers to be shoplifters? Does the presence of the TSA mean the government considers every traveller a hyjacker? NO, these just mean there are POTENTIAL troublemakers in any given population, and those troublemakers don't conveniently sort themselves out.

on Oct 23, 2008

Keep DRM - dumbass retarded monkeys describes the creators very well.

on Oct 23, 2008

I think the point of this would be as a backlash for disruptive drm.

I have no problem with non disruptive drm and i agree that copyright infringement is bad for the developers in general. However, what I hate even more is politics that use psychology to try to implant certain presumptions into people's heads. I don't believe DRM truly exists because they assume all customers are thieves. In fact, the disruptive DRM is probably mainly targeting second hand sales (and also making the controlling board members feel secure and fuzzy inside).

Still, I hate disruptive DRM and if they want to play the dirty word psychology game - calling copyright infringement theft and piracy - then I'd love to call DRM WAACAT. Tit for tat in my eyes

on Oct 24, 2008

DRM is stupid for one very simple reason.

Once it's broken, that's it. Game over. Genie can't be stuffed in the bottle.

All it takes is one hacker and BOOM! The entire world can now rid themselves of the DRM.

So why even bother investing all that money? Stardock clearly prove that not everyone is a pirate and their games have sold like hot cakes.

Jinx: Nice to see SOMEONE realises the semantic games going on with calling copyright infringement "theft" and "stealing". Totally different things. That's why copyright infringement carries far harsher penalties. But then most people will go "Huh? What?" So the industry whores call it stealing and theft, because those are scary words.

EA can shove it. I am done with them. I've rarely bought their stuff for years due to their attitude, but really, with this latest, they can stick it. In fact I have to say it's reaching the point where I almost WANT to start pirating their software. They treat me like a thief, then fine, I shall live up to their perceptions.

on Oct 24, 2008

WIllythemailboy
Do you also believe stores with antitheft devices consider all customers to be shoplifters? Does the presence of the TSA mean the government considers every traveller a hyjacker? NO, these just mean there are POTENTIAL troublemakers in any given population, and those troublemakers don't conveniently sort themselves out.

 

You haven't bought anything from the store that employs anti-theft devices. Once you have bought something, the anti-theft tags on the products are removed. They no longer infect your purchase.

DRM sticks around even though you've paid for the product, happily installing malware drivers and disabling your optical drives.

on Oct 24, 2008

Not to mention that you don't walk into a store, buy a microwave or something, then go home and read the part that says you can only plug it in three times before you have to ring customer support and they MIGHT let you plug it in again.

 

EA has no customer support.

on Oct 24, 2008

Anniko



Quoting WIllythemailboy,
reply 2
Do you also believe stores with antitheft devices consider all customers to be shoplifters? Does the presence of the TSA mean the government considers every traveller a hyjacker? NO, these just mean there are POTENTIAL troublemakers in any given population, and those troublemakers don't conveniently sort themselves out.


 

You haven't bought anything from the store that employs anti-theft devices. Once you have bought something, the anti-theft tags on the products are removed. They no longer infect your purchase.

DRM sticks around even though you've paid for the product, happily installing malware drivers and disabling your optical drives.

The books I've purchased with little magnetic tags in them beg to differ. Annoying little bastards, leaving an irritating bump in an otherwise pristine book

on Oct 24, 2008

Just think about it:  If you started buying movie DVDs and it would not work saying "this is not your DVD player, so viewing movie not allowed".  You could not loan anyone the movie either.  That's what computer games are comming down to   Seems music is almost that way now; I lost all my music when I got my new computer (I had NO idea it was specific to my computer only)

 

 

on Oct 24, 2008

The books I've purchased with little magnetic tags in them beg to differ. Annoying little bastards, leaving an irritating bump in an otherwise pristine book

Well, if you truly bought the books, then go ahead and tear the magnetic tag out .

Seems music is almost that way now; I lost all my music when I got my new computer (I had NO idea it was specific to my computer only)

Well, there are oline stores selling MP3s now. In addition, I've been buying from iTunes Plus whenever possible.

MP3s and iTunes Plus music are not tied to any particular computer. Regular iTunes music, on the other hand, still is.

on Oct 24, 2008

WIllythemailboy



The books I've purchased with little magnetic tags in them beg to differ. Annoying little bastards, leaving an irritating bump in an otherwise pristine book

 

But that little tag will never affect our ability to read the book, nor will it affect your ability to read other books.  DRM potentially makes the purchased software and/or other programs on your system unusable.

on Oct 24, 2008

DRM works: Diabolical Reaming Method

or how about:

Customer Rights Infringment MalwarE

Seriously though, DRM hasn't caused any problems to me yet, and on principle, the only DRM method i have a problem with is the UNREVOKABLE activations version that EA seems to be bent on using. But still, that didn't prevent me from buying Dead Space. A good game is a good game, and the developers deserve money for their work, despite the DRM the publisher might ship it with.

BTW, i am a (business) software developer, so my opions may be consireded to be biased

 

EDIT: "We assume all our customers are thieves" - Is there an alternative? The software doesn't know wether it's legal or not, so it has to use the "white list" method (Everyone denied as default, those on the 'list' are exceptions).

And yes, not using DRM is an alternative. Not to some publishers though apparently.

on Oct 24, 2008

WIllythemailboy


The books I've purchased with little magnetic tags in them beg to differ. Annoying little bastards, leaving an irritating bump in an otherwise pristine book

 

Yeah, maybe they're still there, but you don't have to activate the tag in order to read the book. The tag doesn't phone home to make sure the book's still in your house. The tag doesn't investigate your other books and force you to remove some from your shelf before you can read it. And when you're done with the book and get rid of it, the tag's not still sitting there on your shelf (and it doesn't require special tools - or you getting a new shelf - to get rid of it).

on Oct 25, 2008

That's just plain funny Coelocanth... but also sad since it's at least partially true.

on Oct 25, 2008

Amazon mp3 the best music there is without DRM. I purchased nearly 200 CDs in the past few months and will purchase dozens more in the next couple weeks since I just got a new Zen with 32GBs of flash to fill and an extra slot is waiting for 32 more - woohoo!!

Anyway, I liek the following for the real name of suckrom:

Secondhand

Exterminating

Customer

Undermining

Restrictive

Operating

Mechanism

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