regional restrictions – Techdirt (original) (raw)

from the different-but-still-bad dept

Last week we, like many others, wrote about the story of Anders G da Silva, who had complained on Twitter about how Apple had disappeared three movies he had purchased, and its customer service seemed to do little more than offer him some rental credits. There was lots of discussion about the ridiculousness — and potential deceptive practices — of offering a “buy” button if you couldn’t actually back up the “purchase” promise.

Some more details are coming out about the situation with da Silva, and some are arguing that everyone got the original story wrong and it was incorrect to blame Apple here. However, looking over the details, what actually happened may be slightly different, but it’s still totally messed up. Apple didn’t just stop offering the films. What happened was that da Silva moved from Australia to Canada, and apparently then wished to redownload the movies he had purchased. It was that region change that evidently caused the problem. Because copyright holders get ridiculously overprotective of regional licenses, Apple can only offer some content in some regions — and it warns you that if you move you may not be able to re-download films that you “purchased” in another region (even though it promises you can hang onto anything you’ve already downloaded).

And, here the situation is slightly more confusing because Apple actually does offer the same three movies — Cars, Cars 2 and The Grand Budapest Hotel — in both Australia and Canada, but apparently they may not be the identical “versions” of the film, as they may be slightly altered depending on the region.

And while this may be marginally better than completely removing his “purchased” films, it’s still absolutely ridiculous. The CNET article linked above is sympathetic to the idea that Apple has to go to extreme lengths such as these to prevent “region hopping,” and says that da Silva is just an “edge case” that “fell into a licensing crack.” But, again, that’s nonsense. This is digital content that he “purchased” using a “buy” button. It shouldn’t matter where he is at some later date. He should still get access to those original files. That’s what a purchase means. The fact that this might possibly in some cases mean that (OH MY GOSH!) someone in Canada can access a movie released in Australia when they’re actually in Canada, well, uh, that seems like an “edge case” that a movie studio and Apple should deal with, rather than screwing over legitimate purchasers.

But, alas, we’re left with yet another example of the insanity driven by excessive copyright, in which copyright holders get so overly focused on the notion of “control” that they feel the need to control absolutely everything — including making sure that no wayward Canadians might (GASP!) purchase and download a movie meant for Australians. It’s this overwhelming, obsessive desire to “control” each and every use that messes with so many people’s lives — including da Silva’s — and makes sure that the public has almost no respect at all for copyright. Give up a little control, and let the edge cases go, and maybe people wouldn’t be so quick to condemn copyright for removing their own rights so frequently.

Filed Under: copyright, downloads, drm, itunes, licensing, ownership, regional restrictions
Companies: apple

Nintendo Cracking Down On Pokemon Go 'Pirates' Despite The Game Being Free

from the overprotectionism-i-choose-you! dept

In these past few weeks, the world has become divided into two camps: those who are sick of hearing anything about Nintendo’s new smash mobile hit, Pokemon Go, and those who can’t get enough of it. While the media tags along for the ride and with the app shooting up the charts as the craze takes hold, it’s worth keeping in mind that this is Pokemon and Nintendo we’re talking about, two connected groups with a crazy history of savagely protecting anything to do with their intellectual property.

Still, it was strange to learn that Nintendo is issuing all kinds of takedown requests to “pirate” versions of the Android app that are available roughly all over the place. The reason I wrapped that word in quotation marks above is that the Pokemon Go app is entirely free and even the unofficial versions of the app still point the user back to the app’s official store for any in-game purchases.

Nintendo is obviously not happy with this black market distribution. Although it doesn’t seem to hurt its stock value, the company is targeting the piracy issue behind the scenes. TorrentFreak spotted several takedown requests on behalf of Nintendo that were sent to Google Blogspot and Google Search this week. The notices list various links to pirated copies of the game, asking Google to remove them.

Thus far the efforts have done little to stop the distribution. The files are still widely shared on torrent sites and various direct download services. The copies on APKmirror.com remain online as well.

So why is Nintendo engaging in a losing war against its own popularity instead of deciding to spend the time counting the money that is streaming in from its smash hit instead? Well, the speculation is that this has all to do with the geographic release windows for the app.

With no commercial gain to be had from stopping people playing the game, I’m guessing Nintendo is just trying to keep it in the hands of users in countries where Pokémon Go has been officially released. Maybe to cut back on stuff like the problems some Korean gamers are having right now.

The issue appears to be that the game doesn’t really function in countries where it hasn’t been officially released yet. This means that users of the unofficial apps in these countries are likely to find that no Pokemon exist to be collected, or are at least far more sparse than they will be once the release is official in that country. This has led to some minor frustration from those who downloaded the app from an unofficial source, as they wander around doing essentially nothing.

But so what? That isn’t really Nintendo’s problem and there’s no way that the company will take on any ill-will from those downloading unofficial copies of the game where it hasn’t been released yet. The app, keep in mind, is a free one and points to Nintendo’s in-game store for purchases whether it’s from the official app or the unofficial one. There’s literally no money lost in this in any way and, it can easily be argued, the widespread availability from many different sites may well be super-charging the viral nature of the product. That should be a huge win for Nintendo, as the company gains new and free distribution channels at zero cost.

If this is about the geo-restricted release dates, I sort of get it, but I only sort of get it because I already know how crazy-insane Nintendo is in terms of controlling every last aspect of every last product it offers. The company just can’t help itself, even when it can be argued the “pirated” apps are doing way more good than harm.

Filed Under: competition, copyright, free, geoblocking, piracy, pokemon go, regional restrictions
Companies: nintendo

Modders Un-Region-Restricting Halo Online Undeterred By Microsoft DMCA

from the back-in-the-ussr dept

One of the most wonderful sights to see in the gaming community, particularly in the PC gaming community, is what a combination of a loyal fan-base and a strong modding community can produce. This is particularly so when the mods released are clear and active attempts at doing nothing more than making the original product even better. You see this all the time in PC gaming — old games being yanked into the present, an increase the replayability of a classic, and even all-new sub-games created out of the original. All of this done through a modding community that loves the original work produced by game designers. Some gaming companies embrace the modding community, while some don’t. Which way they go is typically decided by just how much control the company generally wants to exert over its product.

Guess which way Microsoft tends to go? Well, they tend to be the protectionist sort, but a recent story about the release of a new free-to-play Halo game, Halo Online, both puzzled me and amused me. The puzzled part came from Microsoft firmly insisting that the release would be available for play in Russia only, which…what the hell? Even the excuse of a long testing period in a Russia-only beta setting is, well, kind of strange.

Microsoft: Right now our focus is on learning as much as we can from the closed beta period in Russia. Theoretically, any expansion outside of Russia would have to go through region-specific changes to address player expectations.

Note that availability of the game to markets outside of Putin-ville is theoretical at this point. Except not really, of course, and that’s where the amusement came from. Because if the alchemy ingredients for mods is a loyal fan-base, something begging for modification, and a capable modding community, everyone had to know that restricting this to Russia was going to be a barrier tested by the public before too long. It turns out that “before too long” meant in the past few weeks, because modders were already posting information on their work to free Halo from Russian imprisonment when Microsoft caught wind and fired off a DMCA notice to the host site.

Modders have been mucking about with the leaked Halo Online files to unlock features, with one team creating a game launcher called ‘ElDorito.’ But all that work came to screeching halt yesterday after Microsoft sent a DMCA takedown notice to Github, who was hosting the files. The site quickly complied. Microsoft sent the following notice to Github:

“We have received information that the domain listed above, which appears to be on servers under your control, is offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to, copyrighted works published by Microsoft,” the company wrote in a DMCA notice to Github.

Under other circumstances, that might be the end of the story, except that these are game modders we’re talking about. When they commit, they’re committed, and their work tends to mean that they’re the sort of types who know how to route around these sorts of attacks. Now, to be clear, Microsoft certainly has the right to try to kill off these modders’ work, but they’re going to have to try a lot harder than a single DMCA if they want to really have this battle.

“In terms of DMCA/C&D mitigation, we have made redundant git backups on private and public git servers. This is to ensure we will always have one working copy. These are being synchronized so that data is always the same,” [modder] Woovie explains. “Further DMCAs may happen potentially, it’s not really known at the moment. Our backups will always exist though and we will continue until we’re happy.”

Team member Neoshadow42 says that, as a game developer himself, he sympathizes with Microsoft to a point about protecting ones copyrighted material:

“As someone involved in game development, I’m sympathetic with some developers when it comes to copyright issues. This is different though, in my opinion,” the dev explains. “The game was going to be free in the first place. The PC audience has been screaming for Halo 3 for years and years, and we saw the chance with this leak. The fact that we could, in theory, bring the game that everyone wants, without the added on stuff that would ruin the game, that’s something we’d be proud of.”

Making the moral equation here slightly more complicated is that the things that “would ruin the game” don’t only refer to the geo-restrictions, but to other game “features” as well, such as in-game microtransactions that almost uniformly piss off the PC gaming community. The modding team has aimed at removing those from the game as well, which, given that this is a free-to-play game, might break the business model Microsoft set up for the game. I expect Microsoft to continue battling for control of its product, as well as for the game’s restrictions and microtransactions.

Ultimately, this is a damned shame, because there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this and that lesson is not that the modding community is the enemy of the game designer. This is pure market testing at its finest. What this entire episode clearly outlines for Microsoft, were it willing to listen, is that potential customers want wider availability for the beta version of the game (as in, not restricted along national borders) and don’t want annoying microtransactions in a Halo game. And if they want those things, fans will be willing to pay for them. Should Microsoft continue with its plan to not meet customer demand, those customers likely won’t go unfulfilled, they’ll simply find their pleasure in the form of a mod from a strong modding community that Microsoft wants to play whac-a-mole with, rather than listen to the wants of its customers.

Filed Under: community, copyright, dmca, geoblocking, modders, regional restrictions, russia, takedowns, video games
Companies: microsoft

Undownloading: Further Proof Those eBooks You Paid For Really Aren't Yours

from the upsub dept

Over the years Techdirt has run a number of stories that make it abundantly clear that you don’t own those ebooks you paid for. But in case you were still clinging to some faint hope to the contrary, here’s a cautionary tale from Jim O’Donnell, a classics professor at Georgetown University. He is currently attending the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Singapore, and naturally wanted to bring along some serious reading material; ebooks on an iPad seemed the perfect way to do that. As O’Donnell explains:

> when I got here, I noticed that several of my iPad apps had updates on offer, so I clicked and approved. One of them was Google Play. When it finished and I went to open the app, it told me that it needed to update my book files and this might take several minutes.

Pretty standard stuff. But then something unexpected happened:

> all of my books had un-downloaded and needed to be downloaded again. The app is an inefficient downloader, almost as bad as the New Yorker app, so I dreaded this, but clicked on the two I needed most at once. (I checked the amount of storage used, and indeed the files really have gone off my tablet.) > > And it balked. It turns out that because I am not in a country where Google Books is an approved enterprise (which encompasses most of the countries on the planet), I cannot download. Local wisdom among the wizards here speculates that the undownloading occurred when the update noted that I was outside the US borders and so intervened.

So, it seems that ebook users need to add a new word to their vocabulary: “undownloading” — what happens when you leave the authorized zone in which you may read the ebooks you paid for, and cross into the digital badlands where they are taken away like illicit items at customs. If you are lucky, you will get them back when you return to your home patch — by un-undownloading them.

What makes this tale particularly noteworthy is the way it brings together a host of really bad ideas that the publishing and distribution industries insist on deploying. There’s DRM that means you can’t make backups; there’s the country-specific usage that tries to impose physical geography on your digital ebooks; and there’s the update that spies on you and your system before deciding unilaterally to take away functionality by “undownloading” your ebooks. And copyright maximalists wonder why people turn to unauthorized downloads….

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Filed Under: copyright, drm, ebooks, licensing, ownership, regional restrictions

Why Do The Labels Continue To Insist That 'Your Money Is No Good Here?'

from the the-internet-has-no-'regions' dept

You’d think that an industry so concerned about piracy would at least get its own house in order before carelessly chucking stones at people who make unavailable music more readily available, usually, without a price tag. This screenshot came across my Facebook feed recently, the frustrated result of Daniel Barassi’s (a.k.a. BRAT Productions) attempt to purchase music.

In case you can’t see the text the arrow’s pointing to, it reads: “Due to copyright restrictions you cannot buy this product in your country.”

This rant was attached:

I am so fucking sick of this shit! I am a music lover! I love to buy, and own, music. If I can not buy an actual CD, I buy WAV format, so I can have the best possible quality (fuck mp3/aac). More often than not, when I want to buy something legally, I get this shit. You want illegal downloads to stop? STOP FUCKING PUTTING REGION RESTRICTIONS! Figure out a way to talk to your labels in other regions, make a FUCKING DEAL, AND GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! There is a globe full of people who want the opportunity to hear new music. Stop selling to only one region! Fix this, and watch. You will you see less piracy. GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR COLLECTIVE ASSES!

Yes. Seriously. W.T.F.

Tell me (and Barassi) why this sort of thing happens. If your answer includes words like “licensing,” “rights” or any other explanation of the convoluted system that the labels themselves set up to prevent people from purchasing their music, your answer, while “technically correct,” is completely wrong.

What I want you to explain is why, in this day and age, with the internet handling a large quantity of the sales, are labels still attempting to pretend that the purchaser’s country makes any difference. Because it just doesn’t. The only people who would find this sort of thing acceptable are the legal teams, administrators and royalty-collecting intermediaries who need this sort of relentlessly stupid convolution to maintain their positions.

Let’s use a physical analogy because that’s just the sort of thing everyone likes to do when dealing with a digital product: If you’re a German citizen visiting or living in the US and you stop in at Best Buy to pick up a CD or movie, no one checks your passport to see if you’re legally entitled to make this purchase. Or, for that matter, anyone can order a physical CD from anywhere in the world and get it shipped to them. Obviously, it’s more expensive but no one stops them from doing it. If it already makes no sense in the physical world, how in all hell do you expect it to work in a world where anyone from anywhere at any time can at least attempt to purchase music or movies?

(If your answer contains anything like “they’re purchasing licenses, not songs,” go ahead and give yourself an F-.)

You’ve got so many entities vying over every last digital nickel that they’ve conspired to keep BRAT from shelling out $6.99 for an EP. That works out to zeroes across the board, much like piracy does, except in this case, you’ve got someone throwing money at the screen and receiving asinine statements in response. Do you seriously think that telling people “no” repeatedly is a great way to build a business? And what if these people are so determined to purchase your music that they jump through a few hoops in order to appear to be purchasing this album from an “approved” region? How does that play into your tangled web of royalty payouts? Or does it even matter? Is this just some obtuse attempt at control?

Explain. I’m all ears.

(Oh, BTW: before you critics start writing off BRAT as just some “nobody” from the internet who gasp occasionally cranks out mashups when not espousing freedtardist views, check out his FAQ. BRAT is also the official webmaster for Depeche Mode, a position he’s held since 1998. He also manages their Youtube presence, which includes issuing takedowns on infringing content. So, he’s not some Google shill or whatever it is that you imagine those of us that refer to piracy as a “customer service issue” are. And by all means, go and listen to his stuff, which includes official remixes for Depeche Mode, some “mixtapes” and a fine selection of quality mashups. I recommend the Echo & the Bunnymen vs. UNKLE track “Follow Me Down to the Killing Moon,” which I hold is actually superior to the originals.)

Filed Under: daniel barassi, infringement, piracy, regional restrictions