A protection system from Macrovision and British games developer Codemasters ensures that pirated copies of games slowly degenerate to the point where they become unusable -- players in car games will find they can no longer steer, games involving shooting will go off-target, and so forth.
The keyword, of course, is "slowly". The idea behind the system, called Fade, is to lure players into buying genuine games via the unreal thing. By the time the copied game becomes unplayable, the players would have had time to get addicted, forcing them to go out and buy a proper copy.
Fade was devised by Richard Darling, co founder of Codemasters, and uses the error correction systems that computers adopt to read scratched CD-ROMs and DVDs. Software with Fade has bits of "subversive" code which look like scratches, but are carefully arranged in a pattern that the game's master program will look for. If the pattern of abrasions is detected, the game plays with no trouble.
However, if the disk is copied, the error-correction system of the computer that makes the duplicate will automatically delete the fake scratches. As the game is played, the master program can identify it as a fake when it fails to detect that preset pattern.
Whereas traditional protection software would refuse to let the game be played, Fade allows play, but gets the master program to disable it.
"The beauty of this is that the degrading copy becomes a sales promotion tool," Bruce Everiss of Codemasters told New Scientist." People go out and buy an original version."
Fade has been tested on the game Operation Flashpoint, and will also be used on a snooker game. It has been incorporated into Macrovision's SafeDisc anti-piracy system.
Macrovision, which deals in digital rights management, is also planning a DVD movie protection system based on the same idea as Fade, which will make pirated movies stop playing at a key point in the film.
Could it be endgame for the software pirates?
Talkback
That would be a good idea if it was at all possible!
I believe it is just impossible to stop pirates from countering all the new "great anti-copy ideas" the game companies can come up with... as you said in your article, this is just a cat and mouse game... that will never end!
Everyone knows today that some CD burner software allow you to copy the bad sectors as well as the good as an option! Hence most of the games today supposedly copy-protected are still copyable and playable. When new copy protection techonology kicks in... new patches or cracks see the light to allow copied cds to be played. Safedisc is no longer a mystery nor a good protection... SecurRom is no longer secur. CDs copied onto the HD can also be played by making the game application believe that the HD is a CD drive and patch the security program! So many techniques can be listed to counter-attack the game industry!
Good luck to all these bright engineers, the battle is not won yet... the game is on!
I expect the pirates will produce cracks for protected games just as they do currently.
This is a bad thing as far as I am concerned.
As a matter of routine I use some of the tools that allow you to make a copy of a CD and then run the copy while fooling the system into thinking that it is the original disk, or when that method fails, using a cracked executable to enable me to play the came without needing the CD.
Why do I do this?
Well it means that my Original CD can then be retired to the back of a cupboard, and stay in pristine condition. Some games manufacturers demand £7.50 for a replacement CD if the original one you bought gets damaged.
Also the performance of my HD is superior to that of a CD so cames load faster as do FMV sections.
Lastly, it enables me to take my PC to a LAN Party and not have to carry a load of CD's with me.
As a method of "try before you buy", well thats really just shareware rebadged, but with extra technology protections - in the old days they just left out the level data for the later levels, giving you a good taster but limiting how much of the game you could see.
I have been guilty of downloading games and movies, but once I know that they are good, or in the case of movies, once they are available I always go and buy - my motto being "if its worth playing, its worth paying"
To my mind, there is no way that software, music or video can truly be made un-copyable, what one person can do, another can undo.
A much better way of doing things would be to come up with sensible pricing schemes to encourage sales of the originals. If they can drop the price to £15 from £30 or £40 after 6 months, surely they can lower the initial launch price a bit.
Stupid idea!
As always, the honest buyer will be annoyed (CD can be scratched, you can't backup, no way to use a cdrom emulator to get more than one drive, etc.). But the pirates will soon go around the copy protection.
Remember the floppy era? They abandonned this kind of things because it did not work.
Copy protection is just SILLY, it only bothers honest users.
(I always buy the software I use, and it drives me MAD to be annoyed whereas pirates get an hassle free version)
This sounds no different than normal other than allowing semi working versions of games to be made from copies.
From the pirates perspective its simply another piece of protection to remove before repackaging the game ready for distribution over the net, car boot sales etc
It had better "FADE" quickly - many games these days are so poor that most players will have become bored with it or finished it long before it fades.
Ever rushed out to buy the latest mega hit </advertising speak> only for it to sit on the shelf after the first week ?
Maybe this is a good thing after all, if the game is any good people will buy it, if its rubbish then you will not have thrown away your money.
Roll on tasters :-)
I agree with the last post, but also game makers will not use this protection simply because it will force companys to put out quality products. However for the people that create games like Halflife or the Unreal Tournaments they could gain alot from this idea. basicly the better the product the more likely a company will use this protection. Pirates will simply reverse engineer the game and remove the protection and recompile it and distribute it so why bother at all.
Just make a few copies and play each one from the point the last one "fades"! I don't agree with piracy, but they need better than this. When I read this it seemed obvious how to get around it - as every game has saved positions, and the word will get around what games have "fading" in them, before playing just make two or three copies (an hour and a buck worth of CD-R's) and play it and save it till copy 1 fades, then plug in copy 2 and play from the last save game, then when that fades, plug in copy 3 etc. Unless I'm reading the system waaaay wrong, its as easy as that. It isn;t even "check" for the software pirates, let alone "checkmate". C'mon industry, you must be able to do better than this....
You're missing the point. CD/DVD copy protection will never stop EVERYONE, the aim is to make it as difficult and time consuming to copy as is possible. Sure you may be able to just make a bunch of copies, but that requires you spending time burning each cd, remembering which one you used last, possibly having to re-install the game each time it fades, etc. Most people who have more productive lives would rather just spend the money...
However, I do agree that there are alot of crappy games out there today, this way you can still "try" the game, see it sucks, and let it "FADE" away. Too bad that doesn't include fading off you're hard drive.
lol
Why would that stop pirates from buying the real thing? and cloning it?
Pirates who find 3 copies too much effort? I suggest you are missing the point Anon Canada, not me. Saving $60-$100 by spending 80c worth of extra CDs and 30 mins more? Oh you're right, 90% of those that copy CD's would never do that. Sorry, my bad. Oh and how would you remember which one you're up to? Try a markerpen.