He was referring to the DRM present in certain versions of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, the hot new title from CD Projekt. His calculations revealed the following:

* With SecuROM: 41 sec game launch, 16 sec savegame, 16-43 fps
* Without SecuROM: 9 sec game launch, 8 sec savegame, 24-73 fps

Although the performance hit is dramatic, only retail versions of the game are affected since Steam versions and those from GOG.com are supplied DRM-free.

“I bought the game from Amazon,” said our concerned reader. “I am an idiot, apparently.”

However, after listening to complaints like these around the web, today CD Projekt will release a patch which will remove DRM from all versions of the game.

“Our goal is to make our fans and customers happy and to reward them for buying our game and DRM schemes does not support our philosophy as they might create obstacles for users of legally bought copies,” reports CD Projekt’s Adam Badowski, refreshingly.

“Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version. This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users.”

Interestingly, TorrentFreak had already been in contact with CD Projekt who told us their main concern was avoiding a pre-release situation, something they achieved.

“Nowadays most PC games are available for download with a working crack at least couple of days before official release,” Agnieszka Szostak of CD Projekt told us. “We’re happy we were able to avoid it with our game.”

While CD Projekt’s approach to DRM in this instance is to be commended, and piracy can indeed be deterred by making it more worthwhile to get the official copy, this announcement should perhaps not be read in isolation.

As reported last year, CD Projekt already warned that DRM aside, they might take another and even more controversial approach to dealing with piracy.

“Of course we’re not happy when people are pirating our games, so we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies,” CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwinski explained at the time.

“In quite a few big countries, when people are downloading [The Witcher 2] illegally they can expect a letter from a legal firm saying, ‘Hey, you downloaded it illegally and right now you have to pay a fine’,” Iwinski added.

A couple of weeks ago TorrentFreak heard rumors that a pre-released but uncracked version of a Witcher 2 torrent on The Pirate Bay had been put there as “a trap”. Our investigations didn’t show any evidence to back up that claim. So, along with a link to the company’s earlier statements about getting law firms involved, we contacted CD Projekt and asked them outright – is this torrent a trap and do you still intend to go ahead with tracking illegal file-sharers?

We received no answer on the first question, but we did on the second.

“Yes we will track illegal file-sharing hoping people will find the game good enough to actually change their mind and be willing to pay for it,” Agnieszka Szostak told us.

If CD Projekt do indeed go ahead with their threats, this will be the second time that a Witcher title has been involved in these so-called “pay-up-or-else” schemes. In 2008, large numbers of Internet users started receiving letters from notorious file-sharing lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK demanding cash settlements. Among those letters were demands for payment on an Atari game with a familiar title – The Witcher.

We asked CD Projekt if that scheme had been successful. We received no response.

Source: Witcher 2 DRM Dumped, But CD Projekt Is Watching Torrents

The paradox above has gone unnoticed by many copyright holders who don’t appear to realize that in many instances DRM does them and their customers more harm than good. However, that doesn’t mean that DRM is inherently evil. There are examples of how DRM could work, at least, if executed successfully.

Garry Newman, the creator of the popular game Garry’s Mod which allows Steam users to alter the appearance of Source engine based games, has come up with such an elegant form of DRM. Yesterday he tweeted whether any people were “unable to shade polygon normals,” an issue that seemed to be quite common among a certain group of players.

The Google search Newman linked to in the tweet indeed suggested that the problem was fairly common. However, affected users who thought that the tweet meant that their problems would be fixed soon were wrong. The ‘bug’ is actually a feature that was put in the game as an anti-piracy measure, a form of DRM really.

After getting a few responses to his call for bug reports, Garry’s Mod’s creator Newman tweeted the following:

Although this appears to be nothing more than a gimmick, the type of thinking that goes behind it is definitely a step in the right direction compared to the more invasive types of DRM we’ve seen in recent years. It doesn’t affect legitimate players who were willing to spend the $9.99 on the game, but it’ll send a clear message to those who pirated it.

Newman doesn’t think the new ‘feature’ will result in many additional sales, but hopes the people who bought the game can appreciate it.

We have to agree that tackling a piracy issue in this way doesn’t leave users with much to complain about (that is, if no people got the message by ‘accident’). However, we wonder if it was a good idea to permaban those who were caught from the game’s forums. Giving people the opportunity to correct their mistakes and continue to participate in the community might have been and even more sensible and educational approach.

The bottom line is that instead of adding restrictions to regular customers, DRM fares much better when it’s framed in the opposite way. Offer people who bought the game legitimately the best experience possible, at the least better than that of people who pirate the game. At the end of the day DRM is nothing more than an acronym, which by itself doesn’t have to be all that evil.

And let’s be honest, those damned pirates deserve to be pranked every now and then! Or to put it in Newman’s words: “You can’t stop pirates.. but you can troll them.”

Source: Garry’s Mod Creator Trolls Pirates With Prank DRM

The paradox above has gone unnoticed by many copyright holders who don’t appear to realize that in many instances DRM does them and their customers more harm than good. However, that doesn’t mean that DRM is inherently evil. There are examples of how DRM could work, at least, if executed successfully.

Garry Newman, the creator of the popular game Garry’s Mod which allows Steam users to alter the appearance of Source engine based games, has come up with such an elegant form of DRM. Yesterday he tweeted whether any people were “unable to shade polygon normals,” an issue that seemed to be quite common among a certain group of players.

The Google search Newman linked to in the tweet indeed suggested that the problem was fairly common. However, affected users who thought that the tweet meant that their problems would be fixed soon were wrong. The ‘bug’ is actually a feature that was put in the game as an anti-piracy measure, a form of DRM really.

After getting a few responses to his call for bug reports, Garry’s Mod’s creator Newman tweeted the following:

Although this appears to be nothing more than a gimmick, the type of thinking that goes behind it is definitely a step in the right direction compared to the more invasive types of DRM we’ve seen in recent years. It doesn’t affect legitimate players who were willing to spend the $9.99 on the game, but it’ll send a clear message to those who pirated it.

Newman doesn’t think the new ‘feature’ will result in many additional sales, but hopes the people who bought the game can appreciate it.

We have to agree that tackling a piracy issue in this way doesn’t leave users with much to complain about (that is, if no people got the message by ‘accident’). However, we wonder if it was a good idea to permaban those who were caught from the game’s forums. Giving people the opportunity to correct their mistakes and continue to participate in the community might have been and even more sensible and educational approach.

The bottom line is that instead of adding restrictions to regular customers, DRM fares much better when it’s framed in the opposite way. Offer people who bought the game legitimately the best experience possible, at the least better than that of people who pirate the game. At the end of the day DRM is nothing more than an acronym, which by itself doesn’t have to be all that evil.

And let’s be honest, those damned pirates deserve to be pranked every now and then! Or to put it in Newman’s words: “You can’t stop pirates.. but you can troll them.”

Source: Garry’s Mod Creator Trolls Pirates With Prank DRM

Set on a moon under siege by humans determined to exploit its resources, this science fiction epic has been in the planning for many years and was even delayed as Cameron waited until the technology became available to realize his dream.

When the movie goes on full release this week the wait will finally be over, but some lucky individuals have already been enjoying advance previews. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of some who hoped to witness the 3D version of the movie in Germany yesterday, as instead of technology enabling a jaw-dropping extra-dimensional experience, it brought the whole thing to a standstill.

According to a report, 3D digital versions of the movie were delivered to certain cinemas but a problem with their encryption meant that they could not be watched at all the theaters.

The complex DRM system, which involves several certificates and server-delivered time-sensitive keys for hard drives and projectors, failed in a way consistent with the movie’s epic status. Unfortunately, after working for several hours cinema workers failed to decrypt 150 gigabytes of data, which resulted in at least one location reverting back to the 2D version.

DRM strikes again, this time in 3D.

“We regret the failures and the associated discomfort, but we are confident that we will be able to play the premiere both in 2D and in 3D,” Oliver Fock, general manager of CineStar group said in a comment to the fiasco. And indeed, according to the latest reports the problems have been fixed just in time for the public premiere.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Cory Doctorow, blogger, author and columnist, is not shy of technology or the Internet. His last book, Little Brother, covered the internet, RFID, terrorism and even the Pirate Party. Doctorow also served as the European Director for the EFF and co-founded the ORG. When it comes to DRM, he knows his stuff, and he also knows that DRM doesn’t work

So, when he wanted to release an audio version of his new book ‘Makers’ without DRM, it seemed a fairly simple prospect. The publishers, Random House Audio, were amenable to it. The problem was one of distribution. There are two major players in this area, Audible and Apple. Unlike the publishers, they are not so keen on the ‘no DRM’ position.

Audible, writes Doctorow in Publishers Weekly, turned them down flat when it came to a DRM-free version of Little Brother last year. Since they’re the only retailer on the iTunes music store, that locked out an huge market. When it came time for ‘Makers,’ this time they said yes. Apple, however, said No. audiobooks have to have DRM.

Doesn’t matter what the author or publisher wants, Apple wants DRM, so it’s DRM or nothing.

The backup plan then was just to sell via Audible. The problem then, writes Doctorow, is that while the files might not contain DRM, they come with an End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), which effectively does the same thing – DRM by contract.

DRM might be be gone from music as apple proudly proclaimed early this year, but it’s still alive and kicking. Often not because of the artist or the publisher wants it, but because it’s a store requirement. Indeed, Mr Doctorow is very happy with his publisher, telling TorrentFreak “Random House Audio has been remarkably flexible and committed to letting me sell my audiobooks without DRM and I’m incredibly grateful to them and to my editor, Amy Metsch, for all their hard work.”

Now for Apple and Audible to similarly be flexible and hard working, after all, they didn’t create the work, they’re just selling it.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.