Comment by Silhouette | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Silhouette | Hacker News Reader

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There is a broader issue here than just gaming, too. Many high-end applications now have obnoxious DRM/copy protection schemes that require varying levels of Internet connectivity to work.

I have asked a reseller about how this operates if the original developer of the $X,000/seat software my business relies on goes under, and they basically laughed my question off, saying that would never happen. I have also, in an entirely different context, had some knowledge of legal actions involving that same developer, and I don't share the reseller's faith in their guaranteed longevity.

There have been occasional court cases on these matters, and at least in Europe the courts mostly seem to have taken the view that if it looks like a purchase (for example, if there was a reasonable expectation that once money changed hands the new holder of the software would be able to use it indefinitely) then it must be respected as such.

Still, I wonder at what point primary legislation is going to become necessary. Copyright reform has been vigorously opposed by Big Media and mostly successfully so far, but when you start hitting large numbers of customers in the wallet and they can't just pirate their way out of it and get away with it any more, sooner or later I suspect something has to give.

In enterprise (and academic) settings a traditional approach has been to let the client run the license server. That's how Matlab works, for example: a network-licensed copy won't start up unless it can "phone home", but typically it phones home to the license server run by the client, on the client's network, not to centralized DRM servers run by the vendor. I know for consumer software things are slowly moving towards centralized-DRM as the norm, but I thought for enterprise applications this kind of self-hosted license server was still the norm. Maybe not?

I know for consumer software things are slowly moving towards centralized-DRM as the norm, but I thought for enterprise applications this kind of self-hosted license server was still the norm. Maybe not?

It seems to depend on the application/software developer. Just about everything serious I've worked with in recent years defaults to needing some sort of phone-home activation in the first instance. Some certainly have alternative options, usually at a significant but not off-the-chart price premium, to have a floating licence server on your own network so you can have up to N machines running at once but it doesn't have to be the same N all the time. And of course various brands are trying to push some popular software suites towards a full-on subscription model anyway: Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite come to mind.

Unfortunately, my businesses currently fall into an awkward middle ground, shared by many start-ups and probably freelancers/contractors/small agencies as well, where you're not really into volume licensing or floating licence server territory, but you still rely on heavyweight professional software to get things done. Basically, we have none of the protections of a consumer because we're operating as a business, but we also lack the natural bargaining power and the in-house legal department a larger business would have.

Sadly, despite recommendations even from a formal review within the legal profession, neither our previous government nor the current one seem keen on fixing this. That leaves many of us in a permanent position of vulnerability to these kinds of Internet-based DRM schemes, where the failure of a key software supplier could quite literally bring down our entire company overnight, even though we have already completely paid for all the software we need. And yes, as a business owner, that does scare the $#!% out of me.

Theoretically, the bitcoin ledger could be used as a decentralized phone-home.

Or say any other type of crypto-ledger that is not participating in the currently fadish pump-n-dump bitcoin schemes. And I post this comment knowing I will suffer the down-vote rage of bitcoiners.

The only possible reasonable response to this well-meaning comment is to point out that you spell it "faddish".

That's why enterprise customers demand source code escrow clauses, for protection against that same scenario.

In theory, if the reseller adopts a 'that will never happen' attitude, then they should be happy to commit to giving you a full refund if the developer does go out of business. After all, if they think it won't happen, what have they got to fear about it?

In practice, good luck getting any guarantee, promise or actual refund!

We actually took legal advice on this at one point, and the bottom line was that we could well have a claim against the reseller (as they were the other party in the actual sale contract) if something unfortunate happened, but that's only worth anything if the reseller themselves is still around. Our major concern here is that software we've paid for that might otherwise be useful indefinitely could be rendered useless because some external system ceased to be available.

This being the case, relying on the ability to sue anyone and get meaningful compensation after the fact seems unwise. Clearly some sort of legal obligation for those selling the software to make arrangements in advance to unlock everything if they go under would be a much more useful guarantee for customers. It would suffice to have a version of the software sold that is identical except for removing all copy protection logic, and require that this be provided to a third party escrow service to be released automatically in the even that the software developer or their agent/successor is no longer providing the necessary services to support that copy protection system.

One does not usually go out of business with enough cash reserves to refund your customers. That being said, they should offer some sort of self-hosted open-source promise: if we go out of business, we will release the code for our former customers to maintain.

I think the grandfather comment implied that the reseller (not the bankrupted editor) should refund the client ;)

Copyright reform has been vigorously opposed by Big Media and mostly successfully so far

Actually no. Big Media is very much in favour of copyright reform (such as extending the period of copyright) if it benefits them. They are very opposed to copyright reform that benefits the customer/little guy.

That's not "reform", that's "keep everything the same except the numbers".

But reducing copyright term to (say) 20 years would be "just changing a number", but I'd regard it as a reform.

Apparently GabeN commented on the forum a couple of years back that they would remove the DRM if Valve goes under & that they tested the patching already. I can't seem to find a good source for that though.

They are only able to remove the DRM on their own games (which is what he was surely talking about). The article is about a game that is not made by Valve but merely distributed via Valve's distribution channel.

No I meant removing the DRM that is Steam. i.e. They'd effectively need to enable a permanent offline mode.

Also: http://i.imgur.com/4sa1Ln6.jpg

For many games on Steam, Steamworks is the only DRM. Valve is technically (though probably not legally, unless there a provision for this in whatever contract they offer) capable of disabling this DRM.

"Still, I wonder at what point primary legislation is going to become necessary."

Could end up with a market based solution, once the MBAs know that paying more than three digits for business critical single source software that could disappear at any time is insane, which the techies already know, the market for extremely highly priced software will simply dry up and blow away in the breeze. This seems like a fairly inevitable outcome, which should be considered by devs and businesspeople thinking about entering that market space today. There's a "use by" date on that business model and once its time is up, its gone.

This applies to software as a service, too.

More than likely any .gov changes would be purchased by businesses currently in the dying legacy business model to support their obsolete business model, not to help out the general public. Think about it... when was the last time .gov did anything of any significance to help the general public, anyway?

yeah, ask the guy in 2007 if Lehman Brothers would go bankrupt next year, he would think you escaped mental clinic.

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