Advertising Done Right: Archer Promotes New Season On Reddit GoneWild

from the pics-or-gtfo dept

Let's say you're part of the team that puts together one of the funniest shows on television, Archer, known most for its sharp and offensive wit served with a dash of the brazen and racy. Let's also say that you're looking for a way to promote the new fifth season of the show in a way that will both grab some attention and deal directly with a group that is sharply in line with your core demographic. And, finally, let's say you're the type of person who understands that advertising is content. So, what do you do?

Well, you jump onto Reddit's GoneWild board, known as the place where Reddit exhibitionists can expose their lack of wears (get it?), and you start posting as each of the characters of the show in the buff.

Sadly, they're just ads drawn up in the familiar gonewild style (complete with disingenuously coy headline and cheesily sexual handle), but as one Redditor points out, it's "still pretty cool way to directly target their demographic."

If you're a fan of the show, you will recognize the characters, scenes in the pictures, and the references in each post. If you don't know the show, you're probably thinking, "What the hell is this insane nonsense? Maybe I should check it out!" What with the lack of captive audiences and all the different forms of entertainment competing for our time, producers might feel as though they were in some kind of Kenny Loggins song. They have to come up with new ways to literally...figuratively snatch our eyeballs. Fun little interactions and nods towards fans like this are part of that way.

Filed Under: advertising, advertising is content, archer, content is advertising, gone wild
Companies: reddit

Office Depot Sends World's Worst DMCA Notice To Reddit

from the the-non-swastika-is-the-least-of-your-problems dept

I'm always amazed when lawyers send clearly bogus DMCA notices. It shouldn't be hard to figure out that doing so ends badly. I'm doubly surprised, however, when it comes from big companies that should know better. And, I'm quadruple surprised when one of these companies that should know better sends a completely bogus DMCA notice to a company that absolutely understands why the notice is bogus, and is also in a position to make the world know all about a company's bogus DMCA notice. That's what we have here. You see, this morning, Office Depot decided to send a DMCA to Reddit.

Yes, to Reddit.

Now, yes, it's possible that someone posted copyrighted material to Reddit, for which a DMCA could possibly be appropriate. But this isn't one of those cases. The complaint is about this r/circlejerk post by heisenberg69 from seven months ago. I imagine that post isn't going anywhere, but just in case it is, I've also embedded the screenshot that Office Depot helpfully included with the DMCA notice to Reddit. As you can see, heisenberg69 posted a link to this imgur image of not-quite a swastika over the Office Depot logo. We'll repost it here for you to see: Of course, as the first comment points out, this isn't even a swastika. It's a sauwastika, the Buddhist symbol for peace. Basically, it's a backwards swastika. Either way, let's count the many, many, many ways in which this DMCA notice is bogus.

1. This is not copyright infringement. At all. Office Depot's Corporate Counsel Jared Namm appears to admit this at the very beginning of his DMCA notice. While he first says it "violates the copyrights and trademarks of Office Depot," at no point does he explain what copyright is violated, because he can't. He later points only to "the Office Depot trademark." But, you cannot use a DMCA for trademark. It is only for copyright. Pretending to use a DMCA claim for a trademark claim is an abuse of the DMCA.
   
   
2. Even if you look at the trademark issue, this is not a trademark issue. Making use of a logo in this manner is in no way an infringement on Office Depot's trademark. There is no "use in commerce." There is no likelihood of confusion. And there are many, many, many cases where simply parodying or mocking a logo of a company has been found to be non-infringing. Nazi-izing someone's logo for the purpose of mocking the company is not infringement.
   
   
3. This is not copyright infringement, part two. After trying out the bogus trademark claim, Office Depot's Namm claims that the posting is in violation of Reddit's terms of service. Even if this were true, that's not a reason to send a DMCA notice.
   
   
4. This is not a violation of Reddit's terms of service. Again, even if you could send a DMCA based on a violation of the terms of service, this is not a violation of the terms of service. Office Depot argues that this is "defamatory, abusive, harassing, racist, hateful or violent." I guess you could try to make an argument for "hateful," but it's difficult to see how that reaches the level of a terms of service violation.
   
   
5. Merely mocking a company such as Office Depot for having Nazi-like attributes is not hate speech. It may not make much sense, but that's not how it works. It's even more ridiculous when you realize this isn't even a swastika. Amazingly, even Office Depot admits this in the DMCA letter, which Namm adds as if it's a helpful tidbit:

   A little history on the symbol as well: this particular design is not Nazi related but the original Sauwastika (facing left) vs. the Nazi Germany alteration (facing right). The left facing has been a symbol in Hindu/Buddhist art/texts that predate the Nazi usage by centuries. While this does not dismiss the use of the symbol in conjunction with our logo, in reviewing the posts it appears there is confusion on the symbol, but heisenberg69's posting of the symbol over the Office Depot logo associates Office Depot with Nazi Germany.

   So, Office Depot admits this isn't a Nazi symbol, and sends a screenshot in which the top comment, with the most votes on the thread, is pointing out that this isn't a Nazi symbol... and then still says this posting associates Office Depot with Nazis.
   
   
6. Jared Namm swore "under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." Yet, despite mentioning copyright, nowhere does he name an actual copyright that's been infringed, because there hasn't been one. While he may be able to skate out from under perjury by arguing that the second half of that penalty of perjury clause was "owner of an exclusive right," again no trademark law has been infringed and you can't use the DMCA for trademark anyway. It's not wise to swear under penalty of perjury to something that is almost certainly not true.
   
   
7. The image is not hosted on Reddit. But on Imgur. Which is a different company.
   
   
8. Oh yeah, and this was a Reddit r/circlejerk post from 7 months ago that didn't get that much attention then and has all but disappeared from view entirely. And now, due entirely to the absolutely stupid decision by either Office Depot Corporate Counsel Jared Namm, or someone above him in management who told him to do this and who failed to heed any suggestion that this was (a) not infringement and (b) a monumentally stupid move, he went ahead and sent this notice, practically guaranteeing that the post and the image would suddenly get renewed life and attention.
   
   
9. And, finally, sending a totally bogus DMCA notice to Reddit? Reddit, who as a community was perhaps the most instrumental community in bringing down SOPA, has no love for bogus copyright claims. Remember, Reddit is the community who organized the massive GoDaddy boycott that got GoDaddy to back down from its support of SOPA (and to eventually turn over almost its entire management team). Poking Reddit with a bogus DMCA stick for what appears to be no reason at all just doesn't seem smart at all.

Incredibly, Jared Namm's LinkedIn profile claims that he advises Office Depot on a variety of intellectual property and social media initiatives. I would imagine that picking a bogus fight with Reddit is not exactly the wisest of "social media" strategies.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, jared namm, sauwastika, swastika, terms of service, trademark
Companies: office depot, reddit

If 'Just Metadata' Isn't An Issue, Why Can't Tech Companies Reveal 'Just Metadata' About NSA Surveillance?

from the simple-questions dept

You may have heard the news today that a bunch of big tech companies -- including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr and others -- have sent a strong letter to a variety of government officials, both in the administration and Congress, demanding greater transparency, and the ability to reveal more information about the government's various surveillance programs that compel the tech companies to participate:

We the undersigned are writing to urge greater transparency around national security-related requests by the US government to Internet, telephone, and web-based service providers for information about their users and subscribers.

First, the US government should ensure that those companies who are entrusted with the privacy and security of their users’ data are allowed to regularly report statistics reflecting:

• The number of government requests for information about their users made under specific legal authorities such as Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the various National Security Letter (NSL) statutes, and others;
• The number of individuals, accounts, or devices for which information was requested under each authority; and
• The number of requests under each authority that sought communications content, basic subscriber information, and/or other information.

Second, the government should also augment the annual reporting that is already required by statute by issuing its own regular “transparency report” providing the same information: the total number of requests under specific authorities for specific types of data, and the number of individuals affected by each.

As an initial step, we request that the Department of Justice, on behalf of the relevant executive branch agencies, agree that Internet, telephone, and web-based service providers may publish specific numbers regarding government requests authorized under specific national security authorities, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the NSL statutes. We further urge Congress to pass legislation requiring comprehensive transparency reporting by the federal government and clearly allowing for transparency reporting by companies without requiring companies to first seek permission from the government or the FISA Court.

This follows on a somewhat somewhat similar letter from Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner and Zoe Lofgren to Attorney General Holder and Director of National Intelligence Clapper, urging them "to authorize U.S. companies to release information regarding national security requests for user data."

Both letters point out that they're just looking for the ability to reveal specific numbers about orders received and user accounts impacted, but obviously not further information that might reveal the details of any investigations. Basically, they're asking for "just the metadata."

You may have spotted the irony, pointed out by Ashkan Soltani: Defenders of many of the government's surveillance programs have repeatedly trotted out the "just metadata" argument for why all of this surveillance is no problem, claiming that mere metadata doesn't reveal anything important. Yet, when it comes to their own metadata about their own surveillance programs, suddenly it will reveal all their secrets? (And I won't even get into the fact that only some of the surveillance programs are "just metadata").

So, which is it, feds? Is "just metadata" nothing too important, or does it reveal everything?

Filed Under: jim sensenbrenner, metadata, national security letters, nsa surveillance, surveillance, tech companies, zoe lofgren
Companies: apple, facebook, google, microsoft, mozilla, reddit, tumblr, twitter, yahoo

The Internet Is Trying To Send A Late-Thirties Man To Smell Taylor Swift's Hair

from the yup,-that-sounds-about-right dept

You know, at some point the kind of people that run online contests are going to have to blossom into the kind of people that know that 4chan exists. You see, the lively go-getters over at 4chan and Reddit really, really like messing with these kinds of contests, resulting in discomfort for some and hilarity for most. Serving as examples of this are the Time man of the year poll that resulted in a win for Kim Jong-Un, a Mountain Dew contest that resulted in more unfortunate names than I could shake a granny-orgasm-joke at, and a school for the deaf winning a live Taylor Swift concert. That the unintended results of these contests were then removed from consideration is unfortunate for anyone who likes this kind of thing, and that was typically only possible because there wasn't an adorably creepy face to put with these negations of contest results.

But that isn't the case with one Boston radio station's online contest for a meet-and-greet with oft-target-of-the-internet Taylor Swift. As you might have guessed, this contest too has been hijacked by 4chan and Reddit, all in the name of sending a 39 year old creepster on a mission to sniff Swift's dead-head-cells.

It all started with a post on the infamous imageboard 4chan asking its anonymous users to help Charles "crush the dreams of these girls and give him a chance to make a complete ass of himself by blatantly just sniffing her hair with cameras rolling."

The lulz-seekers obliged, and, with the help of 500 spambots, by early Tuesday morning Charles was sitting pretty in third place, on his way to two free tickets to a Taylor Swift show and a backstage photo sesh with the 23-year-old.

Reddit picked up on the fun shortly afterwards, vaulting Chaz (he looks like a guy in need of a sweet nickname) into first place, where he remains as of this writing. Now, while the radio station explicitly stated that they can deny winners if they deem their winning tactics unworthy, this time they'll risk the backlash of overweight creepy guys that want to sniff Swift's hair, a demographic that I'm sure is on the rise as of the past several years. More importantly, there is a single face in the story now. Charles' mug is featured on the website, as terrifyingly tousled and bearded as you would imagine, and a no to him is every bit as heart-tugging as a no to a 13 year old girl. Okay, so maybe not every bit, but still, is the station going to slap that face down just because the internet loves him?

Regardless, anyone organizing an online contest of this sort had better start building them to be 4chan-proof, or risk the internet's influence.

Filed Under: 4chan, internet contests, taylor swift
Companies: 4chan, reddit

Suburban Express Wants Round 3: Re-Files Against Customers

from the leeeeeeeeet's-get-ready-to-rumble! dept

In case you don't recall, Suburban Express is a bus company run by self-proclaimed human being Dennis Toeppen, who is best known for squatting on domains and levying fees against his bus company's customers for, well, everything. Included in that everything is saying mean things about Suburban Express online. That led them to threatening legal action on a Redditor for a sub-reddit about how mind-numbingly prickish the company is. The blow back from those threats, including a cameo by Ken "Popehat" White, revealed 100+ lawsuits Suburban Express had filed against former customers. Blow back having been received, Toeppen promised to drop all of those active suits, which his attorney then did, even as Toeppen continued a creepy campaign against the Redditor, Jeremy Leval.

And now Toeppen is taking decisive action to make sure everyone on the planet knows how petty he is, having hired a new attorney and attempted to reopen all of those previously dropped lawsuits against his own customers.

Well, he's now trying to re-open the lawsuit against the complaining passenger with a new attorney after his previous attorney had the case dismissed with prejudice. And he's trying to intimidate redditors by filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the University of Illinois in an attempt to expose their personal data. Also, he—or someone posing as him—has returned to reddit to trash-talk.

Dennis Toeppen, once a notorious domain-squatter, filed a FOIA request with the University of Ilinois requesting "Any and all communications to which Joel Steinfeldt of Office of Public Affairs is a party which mention, relate, or pertain to to Suburban Express, Matthew Finnicum, Murph Finnicum, or Jeremy Leval, for the period 1/1/2013 to present." A link to the electronic files generated in response to the FOIA request was then posted to reddit.

Oh, Dennis, how the childish never seem to learn. Everyone can rest assured that another round of blow back is on the way, an exodus of customers and potential customers, and all the bad press Toeppen could possibly want. You can't, can't, make a habit of suing large numbers of your own customers. That isn't Business 101, it's Human Being 101. Even more so when you promised, and in fact, did drop all of those cases once already. The internet monkey knows which lever to push to get him to back off again and I expect it to be pushed once more.

Even if this doesn't get the attention of Popehat, and I'll be severely disappointed if it doesn't, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of a business.

Filed Under: dennis toeppen, jeremy leval, lawsuits
Companies: reddit, suburban express

86 Companies And Groups Ask Congress To Put An End To Abusive NSA Spying

from the enough-is-enough dept

A group of nearly 100 civil liberties, public interest groups and internet companies have asked Congress to put an end to the abusive NSA surveillance that we've been writing about over the past week (full disclosure: our company, Floor64, is a part of the coalition, along with the EFF, ACLU, reddit, Mozilla, the American Library Assocation, the Internet Archive and many, many more). Along with this effort, a new website has been launched, called Stop Watching Us, which is collecting more signatures for the letter, while also asking for some specific reforms from Congress.

1. Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;
2. Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;
3. Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.

The full text of the letter is below.

Filed Under: congress, letter, nsa, nsa surveillance, patriot act
Companies: aclu, american library association, eff, floor64, mozilla, reddit

Kitchen Nightmares Lawyers Threaten Infamous Samy And Amy If They Talk About Their Experience On The Show

from the hmmm dept

Last week we wrote about the crazy mess that followed the recent episode of the show Kitchen Nightmares on Fox, in which the star of the show, Gordon Ramsay, actually walked away from Amy's Baking Company, after the owners, Samy and Amy Bouzaglo, didn't take well to any criticism. After the episode aired, they were further mocked on Yelp and Reddit (Yelp "haters" were a key part of the episode), and there was an explosion of anger on the restaurant's Facebook page, though the couple insists they were hacked.

Following all of this, however, the restaurant announced that it was doing a grand "re-opening" today, which involved a planned press conference and a "job fair" to try to hire 30 new workers. As the show noted, the Bouzaglos apparently have difficulty keeping staff employed for very long. However, the "press conference" has been cancelled. The couple claims it had to do with death threats they received, though it might have more to do with a very different kind of threat: a legal threat from the producers of the show, as reported by RadarOnline.

Lawyers representing the producers of Kitchen Nightmares, Upper Ground Enterprises, sent the couple a letter warning them that talking about the show would be a breach of contract:

We understand that you are planning a public event on May 21, 2013, at which you will discuss your experiences and your "unflattering portrayals" on the show. If you speak about the show without Upper Ground's and Fox's prior approval, and if you disparage the show, its host, or its producers, you will breach your obligations under Paragraph 10 of your Personal Release and Paragraph 14 of your Participant Agreement. These agreements prohibit you from speaking publicly about Kitchen Nighmares, other than to acknowledge "the mere fact of your participation in the Series in personal publicity relating to yourself." Your conduct exposes each of you to liability for liquidated damages of $100,000.

Hmm. While this is a reminder to be careful about what sorts of gag clauses you sign before you do anything, it still seems like a highly questionable move by the producers. The more they seek to silence the couple, the more it suggests that perhaps the portrayal wasn't entirely fair. Meanwhile, the more the couple is allowed to stay in the news, the better one would think it would be for the TV show. The couple's actions and statements on the episode were absolutely ridiculous and clearly showed a restaurant/ownership not worth patronizing. Since then, the couple's confirmed statements (even ignoring the Facebook comments, whether or not you believe they were the result of hackers) concerning Yelp have only served to confirm that the couple can't take any criticism and seem to think that bad reviews of bad food are the world out to get them.

The decision to call out the gag order in the contract to silence them seems ridiculous by Fox. Even if the couple trashed the show (as expected), does anyone think that the couple has even the slightest credibility at this point? No one believes them. Pulling out the gag order makes the show look like it has something to hide.

Filed Under: amy bouzaglo, contracts, gordon ramsay, kitchen nightmares, samy and amy, threats
Companies: amy's baking company, reddit, upper ground enterprises, yelp

It's Not About Whether Amateur Internet Journalism Is Good Or Bad, But That It Happens And Will Continue To Happen

from the look-forward,-not-back dept

There's been a lot of hand-wringing among the types of people who hand-wring about these things, that there was a flurry of activity on Reddit and Twitter late last night / early this morning believing that one of the suspects in the Boston Bombings was Sunil Tripathi, a Brown student who went missing last month (and, for what it's worth, when people thought it was him, folks from 4Chan started complaining that they had done the real sleuthing, and were pissed off that Reddit got the credit -- but, now that it turned out to be wrong, 4Chan seems happy to let Reddit take the heat). Alexis Madrigal has the basics of the story, which has allowed the usual crew of folks who hate the concept of "citizen journalism" or whatever it's called today to whine about how awful "Reddit" journalism is. Defender of legacy newspapers, Ryan Chittum, seemed particularly gleeful in calling out that Reddit "fails again," and saying that the mainstream media did it right.

Except, that's ridiculous. Mathew Ingram points out that people attacking Reddit for this are missing the point, which is true by a wide, wide margin. First of all, as he notes, mainstream news folks also got parts of the story wrong. As we noted yesterday, the mainstream TV folks got a hell of a lot wrong. Hell, the NY Post even put the wrong two guys on the cover and falsely claimed that the feds were seeking them.

But the bigger problem is this idea that it's "Reddit" or, as some people have argued) "the internet" against the legacy media. That's not true at all. Everyone made mistakes during the rapidly changing story, but only on Reddit did you actually see the details of the process. The legacy news organizations present things as if coming from a place of authority, while Reddit is like an open newsroom where anyone can jump in. The conversation about Tripathi, for example, was about whether or not Suspect #2 was him -- it wasn't based on a declaration that it absolutely was him. Furthermore, when you look at the reason why the story actually spread, it was after some more known "press" names retweeted the initial tweet from Greg Hughes, which claimed (incorrectly) that Tripathi's name went out on the police scanner (ironically, he posted that about a minute after posting "This is the Internet's test of 'be right, not first' with the reporting of this story").

But here's the real issue: people can fret about all of this, but it doesn't change one thing: this is going to happen and continue to happen. People are naturally curious and they're going to talk to people when there's a news story going on and they'll try to figure things out. That happens all the time in newsrooms already before stuff goes on the air or is officially published. It's just that the public doesn't see the process. On Reddit, or anywhere else that the public can converse, it does happen in public. The problem is to assume the two things are the same. Furthermore, it's even more insane to blame "Reddit" or "the internet" as if those are singular entities that anyone has control over. They're not. As Karl Bode noted, they're just massive crowds of people.

An even better point was made by Charles Luzar, who noted that "the crowd doesn't implicitly profess its empirical correctness like the media does," but rather admits quite openly that it's a process in action. Further, he notes that even if the crowd presents false information before finding factual information, that's still "effective crowdsourcing" and, if anything, provides a greater role to the media to be effective curators of the actual facts.

In the end, it seems likely that this incident will actually help a lot the next time there's a big breaking news story, because (hopefully) it will give people more reason to be at least somewhat skeptical of stories coming out, but it's not going to change the fact that groups on various platforms are going to talk about things, and often try to do a little sleuthing themselves. Sometimes they'll get it right, and sometimes they won't -- just the same as many others. It seems like a much better focus looking forward is in providing more training and tools to help the world be better at it.

Filed Under: amateurs, blame, boston bombing, cnn, corrections, crowdsourcing, errors, journalsim
Companies: reddit, twitter

Rep Zoe Lofgren Continues To Improve 'Aaron's Law' Via Reddit

from the the-new-way-to-do-legislation dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about Rep. Zoe Lofgren announcing plans to via Reddit, to introduce CFAA reform, called "Aaron's Law." Since then, Lofgren has taken into account numerous concerns and thoughts from various stakeholders, many of whom discussed it directly on Reddit, and has now announced a second draft, also via Reddit. While the folks at EFF note that there are still some additional improvements needed, it is, certainly, an important step forward in much needed CFAA reform.

Of course, perhaps just as important is showing how this sort of public engagement in democracy can really work. The original draft of Aaron's Law did receive some criticism from some people (including mocking by some of our usual critics in our comments), without any hint of recognition that this is part of the process. It wasn't introduced on Reddit because it was complete, but in order to get feedback for these kinds of future drafts. That is an important point, and other legislators would do well in paying attention. And, of course, even this is not a finished product, but another snapshot as to where the process is now, with more ability for people to weigh in.

Thank you, Reddit and everyone else who provided feedback to the original rough draft bill to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the wire fraud statute – the laws the government used to unfairly prosecute Aaron Swartz. With the help of Internet freedom advocates, computer and legal experts, the draft has been revised and is available here. I have been in communication with Aaron’s father who supports this draft bill and approves of the name “Aaron’s Law.”

Like the first draft, this revised draft explicitly excludes breaches of terms of service or user agreements as violations of the CFAA and wire fraud statute. This revised draft also makes clear that changing one's MAC or IP address is not in itself a violation of the CFAA or wire fraud statute. In addition, this draft limits the scope of CFAA by defining "access without authorization" as the circumvention of technological access barriers. Taken together, the changes in this draft should prevent the kind of abusive prosecution directed at Aaron Swartz and would help protect other Internet users from outsized liability for everyday activity.

As our discussions have continued, it is clear that many believe a thorough revision of the CFAA and substantial reform of copyright laws are necessary. I agree. “Aaron’s Law” is not this complete overhaul, but is a first step down the road to comprehensive reform. If we succeed in getting this draft bill enacted into law, it will be in honor of Aaron Swartz, and should be seen as a beginning of a concerted effort to bring reform to these broader issues. To be successful, that effort will likely take substantial time and require sustained and intense support from all of you in a push that will need to exceed our stoppage of SOPA.

I see “Aaron’s Law” as common sense fixes that should be enacted to stop the kinds of abuse Aaron was subjected to from affecting others. I intend to introduce a final version of "Aaron's Law" as legislation soon, and in talking with my friend Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, I understand he wants to introduce it in the Senate as well. I will be urging my colleagues in the House of Reps to become cosponsors. The chances of success – whether for "Aaron's Law" or other proposals – will depend greatly on the degree of positive public engagement and support to change the law. As SOPA showed, when the Internet speaks, lawmakers listen. I think with enough constructive support we can have an opportunity to pass "Aaron's Law."

Many thanks to all of you – Zoe

Whether or not this actually works for this bill -- or whether or not this really is the full type of CFAA reform that we need (and I do think it's as good step in the right direction), it's fascinating to watch the process itself.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, cfaa, crowdsourcing, reddit, reform, zoe lofgren
Companies: reddit

SimCity Developers' Reddit AMA Swiftly Turns Into WTF With The Online-Only DRM?

from the unsurprisingly-unpopular dept

The developers of the latest SimCity learned a valuable lesson Friday during a Reddit AMA, one that will hopefully be passed on to other developers: people -- you know, the downstream consumers you're hoping will purchase your software? They hatehatehatehatehatehatehateHATE DRM.

EA, the publisher of SimCity, has seen fit to up the annoyance factor on legally purchased copies of the game by requiring an internet connection to play the latest title in the series, even in single player mode, and funneling the users through its horrendous Origin "service." Not only that, but players' games are saved online, so if you lose the connection, not only will you be prevented from playing your purchased game, but you'll be back at whatever point you were at when your service died.

The top voted question/comment digs right into the heart of the DRM issue:

What will happen to the game if I am playing and lose my internet connection - will the game still be playable and update the servers when my internet connection resumes or will it pause and wait for the connection?

As I have unreliable internet at times if I were to lose a connection and play for a while longer (assuming I would be able to continue to play) would my changes be saved locally in case my internet connection does not come back up before I need to stop playing (and then be uploaded when I next start the game).

I love what the game is looking like and look forward to the multi-player region games, but as you can tell I am concerned about what happens if my internet connection decides to drop for a few hours.

The first answer back, from Kip Katsarelis (Senior Producer) was far from comforting:

Sorry, I replied to it below. Not avoiding. Here was the reply...

"I actually just ran over to our online engineering team to get the latest info. We do handle "short" internet outages gracefully. Meaning, if your internet goes out while you're logged in and playing the game, we can can recover gracefully. You shouldn't notice a thing. "Short" is still being defined."

At least Katsarelis somewhat acknowledges that the term "short" is woefully undefined. And whether or not players "notice a thing" isn't really the sort of issue that should be getting sorted during an informal Q&A. While that answer was less than satisfactory, Kip's followup was downright laughable.

We will allow you to play for as long as we can preserve your game state. This will most likely be minutes.

The response to that bit of "online imagineering" was full of win, however.

My computer happens to have a hard drive that's suitable for preserving game state. Should I consider buying your game, or is it crippled to online-only?

It's not as though the "paying customers hate DRM" is a new development. It has been this way for years and paying customers have expressed their displeasure with being handed crippled software in exchange for perfectly functioning money, while those who have acquired the same software for free use the software much in the manner you would expect the paying customer to be able to: on his or her own terms, online connection or no. It's gotten bad enough that even EA's own employees are annoyed with DRM "solutions."

A helpful Redditor compiled all the anti-DRM comments from the AMA into an easy-to-read, linked, multi-author screed on the unpopularity of online-connection-required DRM. Perhaps SimCity's devs can run this up the chain to EA in the small hope that a list of disgruntled potential customers might persuade the publisher to drop the online/Origin requirement before SimCity's release in March. It's highly doubtful this will work, as EA's president has stated that all EA games will include "online applications and digital services." If one was optimistic and a bit naive, it almost sounds like EA wants a connected community that expands the fanbase through social media. If one is firmly grounded in reality, however, it's just another way to say "all games will include some form of online-only component DRM."

So, very possibly, no lessons will be learned. People will go and pirate themselves a working version of SimCity, which will lead EA to believe that EVEN MORE DRM is required for the next iteration, which will piss off the next set of gamers, leading to more cracked, functional versions downloaded, and so on, until either a.) all piracy is eradicated (thru some sort of black magic[k] ceremony involving Chris Dodd, Cary Sherman, the remaining members of the BSA and the exhumed corpse of Sonny Bono) or b.) EA (and companies like it) stop dumping crippled software on customers in hopes of making absolutely no discernible dent in piracy levels.

Filed Under: ama, drm, simcity
Companies: ea, reddit