Why do software companies need 2+ forms of copy protection?

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Why is it that game companies seed the need to use a CD-key where if you lose the sleeve, manual, or insert for the game, you're SOL, and then put something like Securom so you can't play on a backup CD? Especially when the game requires you to have the CD in the game every time you play? Then if anything happens to the original CD, you're once again screwed.

Isn't just one or the other enough, but needing both is just insulting and frustrating. I really hate key-disk copy protection (or is it key-disc these days? I'm thinking of the old days with my Apple IIGS when the game would detect that you're not using the original disk and either promptly terminate with a chiding message about copying disks or ask you to insert the original. That was known as "key disk copy protection") or anything that prevents me from making and using a backup copy of my software due to the number of times a CD has rolled or been knocked off the desk, onto the floor and under the castor of my chair where I can't spot it until I hear the crunch sound.

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Sorry for the rant, I was just frustrated as I was unable to reinstall something from a backup CD and had to dig out the original.

 

While having any DRM automatically handled by the Steam client is certainly more convenient than confronting the user directly with it like it used to be done (as SlickRCBD describes), I don't think it is unreasonable to want games not to include any DRM at all.

People will crack any software and distribute it on Torrent/P2P networks anyways, so in the end DRM only ends up hurting the honest customers who are using official, legally acquired copies. (Considering what kind of incentives this presents to potential customers, it may well translate into a financial loss for the game developer/publisher too.)

Most big game publishers are still pretty stubborn when it comes to this and keep clinging to their DRM, but at the same time more and more games become available DRM-free, e.g.:

• All GOG.com games (mostly older games)
• All Humble Bundle games (mostly Indie games)
• Many Kickstarter-funded games (all kinds of games)

So, I'm optimistic for where things are headed...

 

Steam is just another form of DRM. Sure it has some nice features, but they can just as easily revoke the game that you've paid for if they believe you did something violating the user agreement. VAC (steam's anti-cheat detection) is apparently considered infallible by Valve (going by the stories) and so false positives don't exist. I've yet to find a piece of software with any modicum of complexity that 100% failsafe. Yet it can cost you a game.

No, I would prefer DRM free solutions as well. No activation that may or may not work in a couple of years (highly relevant as I tend to play older games, mostly), no copy-protection software that installs rootkits on your PC which are a security risk, no CD's that need to be in the drive.

Paradise.

I don't think we'll see it happen on a larger scale anytime soon, certainly not when Windows requires activation as well, but in the mean time at least there GoG and some other venues through which we can get games without DRM.

It would be nice if they extended it to movies as well. No more unskippable legal notices and trailers that of movies I don't care about, just straight to the stuff that I actually paid for.

 

Henkie it is legal to make backup copies of your blu-ray movies and remove the copy protection on those then just make a MKV out of just the movie stream and there you go. Many blu-ray drives nowadays let you stream videos to it Ala DLNA. Our brand new Samsung does and so does the PS3 as well. No having to worry about crappy copy protection and skipping all the trailers and legal notices. It will even stream proper 5.1 lossless audio tracks. Just need to run a DLNA server on your PC with the media like PS3 Media Server for instance or TVersity.

 

Two responses.
One, I don't mind requiring the CD/DVD in the drive, as long as I can make a backup copy of the CD/DVD and use that instead for everything.

For the other copying movies issue, I was under the impression that it was illegal under the DMCA to circumvent copy protection and access control measures, unless you figure out how to do it yourself. Distributing the knowledge of how to do so is illegal, as is downloading automated tools like CloneCD to do so yourself.

DMCA is a nasty piece of work.

 

Its legal if you are getting rid of it for personally use but if you remove to give the files out then yeah that is getting into nasty territory. there have been some changes to the DMCA that have made it possible for personally use.

 

I haven't read it since sometime in 1999. I actually read the law when I was on Usenet and listening to the debate. I wanted to see what it was really about. Surprisingly, unlike some laws, I actually understood most of it.
I think this is the link, but if it's the original, or the amended, I'm unsure.
www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

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Were those changes made in the last three years? This is the kind of thing I was thinking of.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/legalize-personal-use-dvd-copying/

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http://info.legalzoom.com/dmca-backup-copyrighted-content-22827.html

 

http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2010...revent-you-from-backing-up-your-dvdsblu-rays/

Good read on the subject

It had been updated in 2010.