Pirates having A headache...

[djwilko6]

FM has always gone gold well iin advance of release, and as I stated before, fully cracked versions appeared on Sites on the 13th, a full day before official release.

The first files were seen around 6.00pm on release day.

[homerjnick]

That's not what pirates do!

It is!!! They deprive SI of money that they are due for the game....

[djwilko6]

I hate discussions like these because everyone taking part always end up sounding like a moron, whether they win or lose. However:

That's not what pirates do!

You cant really back up your point with Wiki tho.

[Glyn]

Piracy isn't theft.

Still piracy though.

[Hamselv]

You cant really back up your point with Wiki tho.

Fair enough, then read the full quote from the original Theft Act 1968 instead:

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and "thief" and "steal" shall be construed accordingly.

Not much of a difference, huh?

[Up_The_Terriers]

That's not what pirates do!

You are trying to support an unsupportable argument by quoting three lines from one of the most unreliable sources around in such a way as to present it as a complete synopsis of English law?

Or any other law come to that?

C'mon......... You can do better than that.

See my post directly above yours? If it was your work in my example would you or would you not say I had stolen from you by reducing your potential earnings from your work?

If you're supporting piracy you are clutching at straws.

[GillsMan]

As has already been said a million times, the difference between piracy and theft is mere semantics. It's irrelevant - the only relevant thing is that piracy/theft/copyright theft is illegal.

[Glyn]

Fair enough, then read the full quote from the original Theft Act 1968 instead:

Not much of a difference, huh?

Yes there is. Piracy isn't depriving some of what you're 'stealing', it's making an unauthorised copy of it - the original owner still has their copy and are thus not deprived of it. And that's enough of a difference to make it not be covered by the Theft Act.

[treble_yell_:-)]

No pirate has ever been convicted of theft, its always copyright infringement . Simply because in English law, downloading something doesn't constitute theft .

I agree its a matter of semantics, but legally.......it simply isn't theft.

but lets look at facts, there wasnt a 100% fully working crack until the 15th , with most games day 1 sales are traditionally when most copies are sold.........SI sold more copies on day one than they did the entire opening weekend last year.... yes it could be considered coincidence , maybe its not , maybe the drm aided in better day one sales.

[Hamselv]

If you're supporting piracy you are clutching at straws.

I'm far from supporting or defending piracy, and I would be surprised if you can find a single post from me where I'm doing that. This all started by someone saying that we should stop using the term pirate in this thread and start saying thief instead. Then I simply told him that there is a difference in the definition of thief and pirate. Lots of people seem to disagree, which is why I've been trying to show people that there truly is a difference.

[GillsMan]

I'm far from supporting or defending piracy, and I would be surprised if you can find a single post from me where I'm doing that. This all started by someone saying that we should stop using the term pirate in this thread and start saying thief instead. Then I simply told him that there is a difference in the definition of thief and pirate. Lots of people seem to disagree, which is why I've been trying to show people that there truly is a difference.

I receive lots of complaints from pedants objecting to the TV ads that refer to piracy as theft. Glyn and others are correct, no-one caught pirating software would be charged under the Theft Act afaik, however the point the TV ad (and I assume others on this board) is trying to make is that piracy is just as bad as theft. Just as you wouldn't walk into a shop and help yourself to a DVD, neither should you go online and help yourself to a free pirated copy of said DVD. That's the important point here.

[Hamselv]

Yes there is. Piracy isn't depriving some of what you're 'stealing', it's making an unauthorised copy of it - the original owner still has their copy and are thus not deprived of it. And that's enough of a difference to make it not be covered by the Theft Act.

That's the exact point I've been using half of this thread to make

I used a quote from Wikipedia to prove that piracy is not stealing, but someone did not like the fact that I proved it with Wikipedia. So, I quoted the original law and wrote "Not much of a difference, huh?" (between Wikipedia and the original text).

I am however glad that someone finally seems to agree with my point

[djwilko6]

That's the exact point I've been using half of this thread to make

I used a quote from Wikipedia to prove that piracy is not stealing, but someone did not like the fact that I proved it with Wikipedia. So, I quoted the original law and wrote "Not much of a difference, huh?" (between Wikipedia and the original text).

I am however glad that someone finally seems to agree with my point

When you realise that Wiki pages can be edited by ANYONE, you'll realise why it isn't such a reliable source of information.

[DJ]

Wiki pages can be edited by ANYONE

And work on the assumption that there's more people out there who will put in the correct information, as well as correct wrong information, than there are people putting in wrong info or defacing the place.

So far, that is largely the case.

You seem to argue that Wiki is per definition wrong, because it could be wrong.

[GillsMan]

When you realise that Wiki pages can be edited by ANYONE, you'll realise why it isn't such a reliable source of information.

Yes, but if you read the links included to substantiate any assertions made, 9/10 it can be a reliable source of information.

[djwilko6]

And work on the assumption that there's more people out there who will put in the correct information, as well as correct wrong information, than there are people putting in wrong info or defacing the place.

So far, that is largely the case.

You seem to argue that Wiki is per definition wrong, because it could be wrong.

Or on the other side of things, there are people who believe Wiki is the gospel and everything on there s true.

The references I would believe, but any text taken directly from Wiki I would always take with a pinch of salt.

*edit* Here's an example/blog/discussion about inaccuracies on Wiki

http://www.jimkarpen.com/wikipedia-lies.html

[sjm]

I honestly think that the solution to piracy in terms of financial freedom for companies is finding other sources of revenue. Many musical artists have started going this way, and tv shows as well providing free access on their web sites to the episodes right after they debut on tv.

As for games SI themselves have started putting ads in the game, and this might in the long term allow for a cheaper game and thus more people buying it. If it goes down from the current 50€ to around 20€ then many people will buy it over pirating it.

That and making the retail price more attractive than the pirated one. Offers, specials etc.

Fully agree. You can't compete with the pirates on any real level, because the pirated offering is always "better":

1) No silly CD checks/DRM that can horribly backfire and inconvenience paying customers (I've got loads of games CDs/DVDs that won't read on my laptop's Panasonic DVD drive; or will install but you can't play because Securom/Safedisc etc. don't work with the drive)

2) No added cost, apart from the time it takes to download (and can be done overnight anyway)

3) Ease of access - can be comfortably downloaded from your living room without needing to leave the house. Obviously Steam also offers this option and is a step in the right direction, but ultimately still incredibly flawed right now.

The future is going to be ad-funded. Controlling the SOURCE will be key, as that's where the money will be made. If you're getting millions of hits per month on your web page, advertisers will be willing to pay quite a bit for the privilege of addressing those millions. The Daily Show and Southpark are two examples of how this should be done. Instead of having loads of people downloading torrents of the show from other sites, get them to download it from your site whilst showing ads, and tap into an additional revenue stream.

All this bitching about pirates will only get you so far (i.e. red in the face). Companies need to stop clinging to their 20th century distribution models in order to capitalise (literally and figuratively) on the opportunities offered by the internet. The smart companies will switch, those that are too conservative and more focussed on fighting against pirates than beating them at their own game will crash and burn. It's basic economics.

The internet has totally shaken up traditional distribution methods, which can no longer compete with the permanent availability, negligible costs and the comfort of the internet. These are advantages that companies are daft not to take advantage of. But they're too busy shouting "foul play" instead of seizing the unique opportunity to position themselves as the market and technology leader in the distribution model of the future.

Plus you get to chop out all the middle men that eat up a significant chunk of sales income (distributors, warehousing, packaging, retail, CD/DVD pressing), drastically reducing the costs of getting the product to market.

[Hamselv]

I receive lots of complaints from pedants objecting to the TV ads that refer to piracy as theft. Glyn and others are correct, no-one caught pirating software would be charged under the Theft Act afaik, however the point the TV ad (and I assume others on this board) is trying to make is that piracy is just as bad as theft. Just as you wouldn't walk into a shop and help yourself to a DVD, neither should you go online and help yourself to a free pirated copy of said DVD. That's the important point here.

I don't disagree with that. I was just surprised to be treated like I was some kind moron, by people insisting that I have no idea what I'm talking about, because I'm claiming that piracy isn't theft. When I know I'm right but am still being treated like that then it just makes me insist even more on what I know is the truth. There are far too many people in the world who likes to argue quite strongly about things they have no knowledge about and that always irritates me a little

By the way, some of the anti-piracy ads I've seen here in Denmark tend to use the term "thief" as well. It's probably because it's easier to try and convince people that it's unacceptable, by creating associations between piracy and the act of stealing a car or robbing a house.

When you realise that Wiki pages can be edited by ANYONE, you'll realise why it isn't such a reliable source of information.

I'm fully aware of how Wikipedia works, and I remember that already back when I was working on my master's thesis everyone was warned that Wikipedia was never to be considered a source. I did check the original law at first as well, but depending on who you are arguing with, some people just tend to accept Wikipedia as something they trust. So, I chose that to avoid something like "what on earth is Theft Act 1968?", but it turned out I should probably have started with that instead

[sjm]

I'm not going to condone piracy, because people should be rewarded if they make a good product. But piracy is not theft. Unless lighting a cigarette with someone else's lit cigarette constitutes lighter theft.

With theft, one person loses something, and another gains the same item. With piracy (as with the fire example), no one has lost a tangible "thing". Someone just didn't pay for the privilege, and someone somewhere therefore feels they lost a sale. Whether or not they would have otherwise made that sale (lighter or software) is a different matter (and this is where the "theft" idea probably comes in, people feeling that they have just been ripped off by the value of the product; but the 30 quid or whatever it costs never actually changed hands).

[BlueWolf]

The first files were seen around 6.00pm on release day.

depends where you look

I know of one member site that had it around an hour after the patch hit on the 13th, and my mate wa splaying his copy ebfore I even left to pick mine up at midnight

[Leclercq]

Haha, it's nice to see the crackerz getting as much stick as SI and Sega got on these forums. Kinda puts all the whingers into perspective where you realise that EVEN IF YOU GIVE THE GAME AWAY FOR FREE people will still complain.

They aren't giving the guys stick, they are asking a good cracking team to crack the game. Kind of like asking Rockstar to continue making GTA as opposed to EA. All this is misleading. As Action Man said, there must be a fair number of people out there who are playing the game fine and simply don't comment.

How can the game recognise that it's a pirated copy and therefore contain all these bugs? Are they bugs that SI deliberately developed? Or do they come about when someone changes the .exe file to crack it? I don't know how cracking works exactly.

And if the game can detect it's a crack copy, why doesn't the game just render itself useless?

The modifying of an .exe file can trigger it to produce different results to that of the original. I believe they are deliberately put in there, like last years fiasco of the Euro 2008 teams and so on. If the game rendered itself useless, it's easy to spot and therefore the crackers know what to do. If they put in little things such as the holiday bug, as useless as it may be, then it plants a seed of doubt as to what else is not working properly in the game and the crackers will generally take longer to make sure the game is perfect and in theory this would mean more people would turn to buying a legit copy.

[djwilko6]

depends where you look

I know of one member site that had it around an hour after the patch hit on the 13th, and my mate wa splaying his copy ebfore I even left to pick mine up at midnight

I have trouble believing they were working copies (seeing as I have access to 0-day and "top-level sites" sites), you only have to look at TPB or Mininova for the 10's of Football Manager "cracks".

Did you see this for yourself or were you told of this?

[treble_yell_:-)]

I have trouble believing they were working copies (seeing as I have access to 0-day and "top-level sites" sites), you only have to look at TPB or Mininova for the 10's of Football Manager "cracks".

Did you see this for yourself or were you told of this?

Same here, there are a few people claiming this, yet none of the larger scene groups have release a copy yet, and every pre forum or website had nothing but nuked copies up for fm over the course of the whole weekend, im more inclined to believe those who claim to have a working copy simply havent hit a trigger yet.

Whatever the case, the FM anti piracy measures did better than most

[jayyyz]

IP must be respected!

Is the Ip of the various leagues / names of copyrighted players respected by Si? Or do they leave a nice door open to fans via the .LNC file trick?

Is the IP of the league/clubs respected when users use a 'real fixtures' file.

Is the IP of the league/clubs respected when you have fans putting in club and league logos badges into the game.

I know, I know...SI havn't sold a product that directly has such things in. However, they do leave a nice door open on various fronts with the way the files are structured.

Just before everyone moans at piracy and IP violations - just remember you probably violate loads of these things with the most innocent purposes- no one is whiter than white.

thats a good point, i never thought about that.

@everyone with the "SHUT THE WEBSITES DOWN" - lets give SI the benefit of an ounce of intelligence? If it was easy (under inter/supra/sub-national legislation) to shut down these websites/hosts/torrent libraries/etc then they would clearly have done so.

I think one possible policy (which people will no doubt shoot down) is for FM10 to be reduced to £19.99 (firstly lets face it you owe us something for this year, especially MAC users), but only offer demo versions to anyone who bought FM09, and they can claim their 1 demo version with their FM09 keycode (which then corresponds to unlocking their demo) Not only does this make pirating FM10 very hard, it also gives SI a chance to track down those facilitating the piracy in the first place (unless they paid in cash in a store without CCTV)

just to clarify, the £19.99 is mostly because every version of FM10 out there would have to have been paid for, and every demo out there would be paid for from the £29.99-£39.99 purchase price of FM09, so you make less per game, but you get paid for 100% of the games on the market

[GerdMuller]

Demo versions are for people who want to try the game not customers of prevoius titles in the first place.

[Hamselv]

If SI were to lower the price, then they would need to be more or less guaranteed that sales would be increased to fill the gap from getting less money from each sale.

A demo is sort of an advertisement for the full game, so as many people as possible should have access to it. Limiting the demo to only people who bought the game the previous year, is not exactly the best way to try and attract the necessary number of new customers.

Furthermore limiting the demo wouldn't help against piracy. The pirates got their hands on the full game very fast, so that would happen to a limited demo as well.

[gubbs]

If SI were to lower the price, then they would need to be more or less guaranteed that sales would be increased to fill the gap from getting less money from each sale.

A demo is sort of an advertisement for the full game, so as many people as possible should have access to it. Limiting the demo to only people who bought the game the previous year, is not exactly the best way to try and attract the necessary number of new customers.

Furthermore limiting the demo wouldn't help against piracy. The pirates got their hands on the full game very fast, so that would happen to a limited demo as well.

TBH companies are just buying into the hysteria. People who pirate copies of FM would not buy FM even if it was half the price it currently retails at.

That is bone hard medical fact.

They just think they're loosing revenue and that is enough to make them foam and rave. In reality: they are losing nothing but their dedicated fee paying fanbase by going all NAZI.

[djwilko6]

The pirates got their hands on the full game very fast, so that would happen to a limited demo as well.

Not if the demo is released only by SI, there is no chance of shops selling early then is there.

And once again, since you are failing to realise this, there is still NO full working game available to download.

[gubbs]

Not if the demo is released only by SI, there is no chance of shops selling early then is there.

And once again, since you are failing to realise this, there is still NO full working game available to download.

Erm there is. Patched to v 9.1 as well. I've spent the afternoon at a mates house watching him download, patch and crack it to prove me wrong.

[gubbs]

Same here, there are a few people claiming this, yet none of the larger scene groups have release a copy yet, and every pre forum or website had nothing but nuked copies up for fm over the course of the whole weekend, im more inclined to believe those who claim to have a working copy simply havent hit a trigger yet.

Whatever the case, the FM anti piracy measures did better than most

Thing is, if the copies are full of 'triggers', and these are enough to deter pirates, why bother with all the DRM?

[jptykes]

In reality: they are losing nothing but their dedicated fee paying fanbase by going all NAZI.

Nice comparison. Anti-piracy measure = racism, homophobia, genocide etc.

[Carl_272]

good good...

Not good at all. How many of us here have Pc's full of 'pirate' music, DVD's and games?

I have, although my copy of FM is legit.

[Hamselv]

TBH companies are just buying into the hysteria. People who pirate copies of FM would not buy FM even if it was half the price it currently retails at.

That is bone hard medical fact.

They just think they're loosing revenue and that is enough to make them foam and rave. In reality: they are losing nothing but their dedicated fee paying fanbase by going all NAZI.

That's more or less my opinion as well. I've often said that if the pirates can't get one game, then they'll just download something else instead. Very few, if any at all, will go buy a game if they can't download a working copy of it.

Personally I'm proof of DRM costing loyal customers. I've played every version of CM/FM since CM3, and the last 5 years I've pre-ordered the game, so I could have it on release day. I pre-ordered this year as well, but when I read about the DRM I canceled the order. So, now I'm stuck with FM08, and at least one pirate needs to go buy the game to give SI the money that they would normally have gotten from me.

That's why I don't like the fact that this thread might work as a way of trying to justify using this DRM by saying that at least it's stopping the pirates (which it's not). The pirates got their game just as they would have with a regular copy protection, lots of loyal customers had a lot of trouble getting to play the game they bought, and I'm stuck with FM08 because I don't approve of DRM (or piracy ).

@djwilko6

Pretty much anywhere except this forum, the general opinion seems to be that except not being able to go on holiday, the pirates are having no issues, other than those people who bought the game are also experiencing.

[Dave.C43]

"triggers"........like the FA Cup draw **** up,or the wrong Champions league qualifiers **** up or the iffy 2D view **** up.......oh no,their just normal everyday bugs missed by the testing "team"

Maybe more time testing and less time perfecting ways to alienate loyal customers is the way to go

[gubbs]

The trouble is SEGA haven't cottoned on to the fact that whatever you think you lose in revenue to piracy and proliferation of images around the internet, you gain in free advertising, product awareness and fan base. The fact that 25% of your fan base are not buying the game is moot.

In retail its called a loss leader. Microsoft did it with Windows, and still does to gain and maintain market share and platform lock down.

SEGA just need to work out how to make the exposure work for them instead of falling into the faux lost revenue hysteria.

[Gengis]

Sorry to tell you that, but the guys I know did crack the game only hours after its release by using the demo, the path and a crack. And it looks like it works fine :/

[jojothemonkey69]

does anybody report rapidshare links? I'm going to.

[Elio Rodriguez]

Not good at all. How many of us here have Pc's full of 'pirate' music, DVD's and games?

I have, although my copy of FM is legit.

its funny that people at SI with there war againts piracy only ban people if they admited to have a pirated copy of FM (even when they can't get the game in an other way) but do not ban those who admit to have other pirated content.

[KUBI]

The better a product is, the more will be copied and faked. But also: The better a product the more can you sell.

In my opinion companies should invest the money into the product and advertising and not in the fight against piracy. That's something that the authoritys should do.

Imaging a DRM for clothes or watches, and those are still more pirated than software.

Just making a usual copy protection, something that has to be cracked in some hours or maybe days. And release a fancy update every other week or once a month. People who bought the game could use the download and new features immediately, pirates have to wait.

It's the better direction in my opinion, as it rewards the customers, while more and more restrictions are just a pain for the customers.

[philly_flyer10]

How can the game recognise that it's a pirated copy and therefore contain all these bugs? Are they bugs that SI deliberately developed? Or do they come about when someone changes the .exe file to crack it? I don't know how cracking works exactly.

And if the game can detect it's a crack copy, why doesn't the game just render itself useless?

Because its simply not true, the only games that had this was operation flashpoint and ArmA.

[Pawel_lfc]

Yeah but at what cost?

Giving headaches to the those who paid?

[eXistenZ]

Good to see them having problems

The problem is that some people, who bought/ are planning to buy the game are also have problems.

[GillsMan]

its funny that people at SI with there war againts piracy only ban people if they admited to have a pirated copy of FM (even when they can't get the game in an other way) but do not ban those who admit to have other pirated content.

I can't believe people still feel that ban was harsh! And people who admit to piracy to incur infraction points - just not as many as when you admit to piracy of SI products - seems fairly logical to me.

[Greg0r]

Its a headache. Was a headache for the people who spent 30 quid and a headache for those who 'stole' it

[DJ]

Its a headache. Was a headache for the people who spent 30 quid and a headache for those who 'stole' it

I spent 32 quid and pennies and I have no headache at all

Install, patch, activate, play. Not a single problem.

[LewisQ]

Because its simply not true, the only games that had this was operation flashpoint and ArmA.

And even that didn't bloody work. Their FADE system was known to affect perfectly legitimate copies of the game in certain circumstances.

Dave.C43 above is absolutely right. Stop penalising and alienating your fanbase by tilting at unhittable windmills, SEGA.

[saberhagen83]

Those people that have a hard time running FM09 pirated either don't know what they are doing, or it's a game and/or hardware issue that would have been a problem even if they bought the game. So far what I've heard there has been no problems except the holiday "bug". And we're talking more than one season played. But then these people probably know how to use a file, install, patch and play. I mean just look at the comments in the 1st post, it pretty much tells the whole story...

And if they have encountered any more "bugs" along the way. Those "bugs" must be really minor so no one seems to have noticed them.

[SiN8]

It's a shame I'm still waiting for my pre-ordered legit copy. Once it arrives, I could even run into problems with activation as evidenced by this forum.

Meanwhile, pirates have been enjoying the game for the last 10 days. Great job SI. Glad to see all your effort and money invested in DRM is really paying off :rollseyes: You're supposed to make it harder for pirates, not paying customers!!

[Ronkeuren]

It's a shame I'm still waiting for my pre-ordered legit copy. Once it arrives, I could even run into problems with activation as evidenced by this forum.

Meanwhile, pirates have been enjoying the game for the last 10 days. Great job SI. Glad to see all your effort and money invested in DRM is really paying off :rollseyes: You're supposed to make it harder for pirates, not paying customers!!

Yeah, you right m8, a friend of my have 5 kids so no money for FM09 he played now every day with the 9.1.0 patch no problems for him.

i dont have played FM09 now for 3 days to buggy dont like the totaly slowdowns.

i want my money back!!!

[SCIAG]

The casual pirates who are the problem at the moment wouldn't bother, frankly, if life was made sufficiently difficult for them. IP masking is not going to be in your avaerage 14 year old's repertoire any time soon.

Tbf, I think the average 12 year old knows how to use proxies, yet alone 14 year olds. Or at least, my 13 year old nephew can.