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Ahh, simpler times. That was one of Dani Berry's (Dan Bunten at the
time) early titles. Shortly thereafter Ozark went to a "enter
the 7th word on the 4th line on page 12 from the manual" - model for
DRM. It was irritating but worked well enough. It meant that you
had to have a copy of the shipped manual to get into the game. This
worked alright at the time and served as a middle ground between
protected disks and dongles and no protection at all. Obviously
this wouldn't be much of a solution present day for retail product.
Much of the point of DRM (forgive me if you've had this discussion
already) is simply to create enough friction to dissuade 95% of those
copying the software. Same goes in other media. You'll never
eliminate all of them unless you stay with a closed Steam-like
setup. <br><br>
Steam works well for new releases designed to be distributed that way.
I've been using it since '03. The only trouble I've had with Steam was
with the purchase of a single legacy pre-online title. Wouldn't
run, wasn't supported, they even make refunds impossible. I had to
settle for a credit. I wouldn't recommend purchasing anything not
designed to be distributed through online means. Or at least I
wouldn't purchase titles not supported by a major label. Id's stuff
works fine via Steam. There may come a day when a system like this
may be feasible and supported for preservation purposes. Possibly
as a research network of some kind.<br><br>
Sam Punnett<br><br>
At 11:01 AM 8/4/2009, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Content-Language: en<br>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>
boundary="_000_C69DB7955C10zvowellaustinutexasedu_"<br><br>
<font face="Verdana">This doesn’t have much to do with DRM mechanisms,
but it’s an interesting little footnote to EA’s history of copy
protection....maybe call it the pre-web attitude to copying. It’s a
snippet from the Command Summary document found in “Robot Rascals”
(published by EA in 1987):<br><br>
“For your convenience, “Robot Rascals” is not copy protected so that you
can easily make <b>one</b> backup copy for your own use, or install the
program on <b>your own</b> RAM or hard disk. Please show us that
copy protection is unnecessary -- <b>do not give copies of this product
away</b>. Thank you.” [emphasis in the original doc]<br><br>
Very polite :)<br><br>
<br>
Zach<br><br>
<br>
On 4/2/09 12:28 PM, "Andrew Armstrong"
<andrew@aarmstrong.org> wrote:<br><br></font>
<dl>
<dd>That, along with Henry's comments, really does make it seem like the
<dd>most sucky system ever - what I'd half expect from laws of
course.<br>
<dd>Either we'll have to look to propose something for next year (I
presume
<dd>it runs yearly) somehow if anyone is interested, else the Americans
on
<dd>this list might be having legal troubles with some of their efforts,
or
<dd>just, well, let it all lapse!<br>
<dd>No idea about how to coordinate it however. I'm not American, good
luck
<dd>letting a UK citizen into the USA law books and procedures ;) It'd
have
<dd>to be sorted, I guess, between the digital archives, libraries and
the
<dd>Library of Congress.<br>
<dd>Andrew<br>
<dd>Rachel "Sheepy" Donahue wrote:
<dd>>
<dd>>> A question to the procedure: Is it necessary, to propose
that an
<dd>>> exemption should be keept every three years again after it
was
<dd>>> granted first? Or does it remain automaticly until someone
proposes
<dd>>> that it should be canceled?
<dd>>>
<dd>>> Andreas
<dd>>>
<dd>>
<dd>> I looked at this a bit more in depth in the fall, and looked at
the
<dd>> list of proposals up for review, and this one was not included.
I am
<dd>> fairly sure that someone has to sponsor it for it to remain.
<dd>> _______________________________________________
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<dd>> game_preservation@igda.org
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