Posts Tagged ‘drm’

After nearly a year of selling ebooks free of DRM copy protection , Macmillan subsidiary Tor Books UK said that it has seen no increase in piracy on any of its properties. The company’s editorial director elaborated in an extensive reflection on the decision earlier this week, writing, “The move has been a hugely positive one for us, we’re still pleased that we took this step.” The science fiction and fantasy publisher officially made the change last July alongside its American sister company, noting that their audiences were too technically savvy to be forced to deal with the limitations of DRM. Though Tor Books UK’s editorial director noted that the decision was met with significant support by its authors and customers, it… Continue reading…

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Piracy not an issue after one year of selling DRM-free ebooks, says Tor Books

A new report from Polygon reveals that, much like Sony, Microsoft aims to make sharing a major element of its next-generation console. The Xbox 360′s successor is said to include a “share” button on its controller that will upload your gaming highlights to YouTube and Ustream. Users will also be able to post these clips to Facebook and other social sites, according to the report. Microsoft’s rumored approach essentially mirrors that of Sony, which outlined its plans during February’s PlayStation 4 event

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Next Xbox rumored to emphasize sharing, let publishers mandate ‘always-on’ connection

Pulselocker, a new streaming music service is launching in beta today aimed specifically at DJs. Unlike Spotify, Rdio, and other “mainstream” streaming services, Pulselocker is focusing explicitly on music selected for DJs, but more importantly it’s offering an innovative new way of storing and managing music that goes well beyond what has been available before. It’s available in Beta today on Macs at monthly costs beginning at $9.99 after a free trial. Pulselocker isn’t looking to unseat major players like Spotify, but instead betting that catering to a smaller and more dedicated DJ audience will lead to success and acceptance from the music labels its working with. So far, the service has over a million tracks and is aiming for five…

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Pulselocker launches an innovative new take on streaming music for DJs

Streaming service Ustream has suspended the use of the third-party DRM tool Vobile after the system automatically shut down a broadcast of a popular science fiction awards ceremony on Sunday night. Viewers tuning in to Neil Gaiman’s acceptance speech during the annual Hugo Awards were confronted with the message “Worldcon banned due to copyright infringement” — the ban was triggered by clips of the British drama Doctor Who , for which Gaiman had written a script. As io9 points out , not only did the Hugo Awards have explicit permission to broadcast the clips, but they would also likely be covered by fair use provisions in US copyright law. Writing in a post published on the official Ustream blog yesterday, CEO Brad Hunstable admitted… Continue reading…

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Ustream suspends Vobile DRM amid outrage over Hugo Awards takedown

The Liberated Pixel Cup draws to a close. The deadline for code entries was July 31st, and those entries were posted online Thursday (with descriptions). You’ll have to wait longer than expected for the results though: “Note that due to the larget volume of entries (48 code entries alone, plus a large number of art entries), judging may take longer than we had originally thought. Our current time frame for judging is the end of August.

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48 Games Entered Into the Liberated Pixel Cup

Fluffeh writes with a piece of good news on the privacy front: “Two rulings in related cases this week have dealt a serious blow to the plaintiffs and their dodgy legal strategy. Ordinarily, copyright law is handled by the federal courts, but Florida plaintiffs have begun using an obscure provision of state law called a ‘pure bill of discovery’ to attempt to force ISPs to reveal the identity of suspected file-sharers. The rulings, one on Monday and one on Wednesday, saw two different judges siding with the objecting ISPs.

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Two Florida Judges Quash Copyright Fishing Lawsuits

The Witcher 2 may have sold over a million copies and received plenty of acclaim (including a Game Developers Choice nomination ), but according to developer CD Projekt Red the inclusion of digital rights management software had no part in its success. Speaking at GDC 2012, CEO Marcin Iwinski explained that the studio wouldn’t use DRM again because it over complicates things and “does not protect your game.” According to Iwinski, the retail version of The Witcher 2 , which included SecuROM, was cracked in around two hours — this in spite of the fact that a DRM-free version was available digitally at GOG.com. And considering the issues that can arise from certain kinds of rights management , we can’t help but feel this is a step in the… Continue reading…

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‘The Witcher 2′ developer will no longer use DRM in games

The new OS X Gatekeeper encourages desktop apps to be registered with Apple, with users warned against installing unsigned software unless they disable the prompts. The benefits—and the potential pitfalls—are obvious. It’s intended as as an anti-malware system (with a whitelist rather than a blacklist), and the registration process will be simple and inexpensive. It’ll

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Gatekeeper: Cancel or Allow?

From February 7th, a number of Ubisoft games will become completely unplayable while the company transitions between data servers. The server switch will affect customers because of a particularly aggressive digital rights management (DRM) system found in the publisher’s older titles. The system, called uPlay, connects to a server each time a game is loaded to ensure the software is genuine, and as the servers will be down, affected games won’t play.

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Ubisoft’s DRM ‘solution’ will render some games unplayable next week

Syndicate, the Amiga-era Bullfrog classic of crime and corporate behemoths, will soon work on modern computers thanks to a DRM-free re-release by Good Old Games.

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Cyberpunk classic Syndicate re-released

1. The new Playstation Vita will only permit one account per device. Preventing people from conveniently switching accounts thereby makes it harder to switch between accounts established in different regions, which have different releases and prices. Also, Sony recently added additional DRM restrictions to games: you can only play them on 2, instead of 5

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Three sad things Sony did this weekend

Due to pressure from studios, Lovefilm will no longer be using Flash to stream online video. The European rental and streaming service announced yesterday that without moving to the more DRM-friendly Silverlight, it would “suddenly have next-to-no films to stream online.” Flash will run alongside Silverlight until the first week of January, and streaming to devices won’t be affected. However, this change marks the end of Lovefilm for Linux, one of the few advantages the service had over its American analogue Netflix, which has used Silverlight exclusively for some time. Lovefilm’s parent company, Amazon, still uses Flash for its online streaming. With Microsoft indicating that it may abandon Silverlight after the latest release, it’s…

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Lovefilm kills Flash for movie streaming, switches to Silverlight

Penguin Group, USA has pulled all of its books out of the Kindle Library Lending program today and there’s no word when its titles will be returning. In addition, Penguin has delayed the release of any new e-books into the Overdrive library lending system which powers both Kindle Library Lending and other e-book library lending programs — though non-Kindle users will still have access to borrow existing titles. The news came as a bit of a shock today, as The Digital Shift reported surprised librarians throughout the country discovering that their patrons with Kindles were suddenly unable to borrow Penguin books. The publisher cites “security concerns” as the main reason for its decision: We have always placed a high value on the role… Continue reading…

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Penguin Group pulls library lending e-books from Kindle, delays further releases

As rumored , you’ll be able to get your hands on that Zelda-themed 3DS bundle in time to play under the dinner table come Thanksgiving. The pack contains a limited edition black console with gold trim and Zelda motifs, together with a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . Nintendo also confirmed a Super Mario 3D Land bundle, which ships with a standard red console and a copy of the game. Both packs will be available for $199.99 on November 24th, or $179.99 via a Black Friday deal at Best Buy. The Zelda bundle comes as part of Nintendo’s 25th anniversary celebrations for the series

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Zelda 3DS and Wii bundles help Nintendo celebrate Thanksgiving