It's mostly the paying customer who ends up with the burden. I would really like to know the train of thought behind it because for me that is just plain weird.

It's the same when you buy a movie or a television show on DVD/BR. You first get the traditional FBI warnings (that as a non US citizen doesn't apply to me) and if you are lucky you get a 3 minute unskippable scenes about how piracy is the equivalent of murdering a thousand puppies.

Somebody who pirates never see these things and have a better viewing experience.

Love how you just summed up (in my mind) the reasons for Netflix's success.

Really glad that the market really played its role by providing customers with a near-perfect (Netflix's library is inconsistent to say the least) viewing experience.

This is exactly why I pirate what I bought when I want to rewatch it. Torrents are superior in every way so those box sets usually sit on the shelves gathering dust.

I don't know why media companies insist on punishing paying customers.

Investing in new infrastructure and a changing market is more expensive than talking to a few Senators and buying off the shelf DRM solutions

> "You first get the traditional FBI warnings (that as a non US citizen doesn't apply to me)"

Many have acted upon that belief and lived to regret it. The US has a surprisingly long reach when it comes to punishing what it considers illegal trafficking.

On my legit DVD copy of 'Mulholland Dr.' by David Lynch the entire main film is one continuous video and you cannot skip, fast forward or jump to a particular scene, so you have to watch the whole thing end to end. The directors notes that come with the DVD say this is because he wanted to limit the way people experience the film.

First thing I did was rip it and remove the restriction. Imagine if you bought a film and it refused to play on any screen less than 32" wide...

You sure? I believe he intentionally did not put in scene breaks but regular old fast-forward still worked.

If you're right, it's an interesting example of "artistic" DRM that is not related to copyright enforcement. Can anyone think of any others?

If this is true, then there will also be a measurable environmental impact to playing the game.

reminded of the unexpected (or at least, in the early days, under-reported) energy costs associated with cryptocurrencies...

As far as I know, the "crack" for Denuvo, simply emulates the correct server responses, so the game can run normally. So unless the dev remove the DRM themselves, everyone loses...

No, what you describe is a bypass and it's not considered a crack by the scene. Denuvo has been completely removed from some games, but I don't keep up with the news so I can't say which.

Well there's a scene group called steampunks, who "crack" denuvo games by generating a correct key for the offline version of denuvo (normally if you play a denuvo game offline it'll send you to a website with a key to enter in a game prompt).

Their releases are scene releases, even with denuvo remaining as is.

The bypass "crack" Sephiroth87 is referring to is from (I believe) a non-scene person called baldman.

Right? I havent seen anyone try to take the hit for it either, no pull date or anything. Pathetic.

Operation Flashpoint/FADE DRM