[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Aj_

The criticising party is not charging them with anything, there is no civil or criminal action being brought towards them, thus the presumption of innocence falls to the criticising party that is being charged by the company. Presumption of innocence does not apply to an individual's opinionated blog, that should be protected by freedom of speech.

Remind to make up a whole load of rubbish about you being some twisted, sexually-perverted psychopath. I could put it on a blog and send it to the Daily Mail. Because, you know, freedom of speech and all that. So the onus would be on you to prove your innocence, right?

Oh wait, you'd take me to court.

[AFGNCAAP]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

AFGNCAAP:

You're right, it is the accuser's job to prove guilt. However, in this particular instance, it's the StarForce folks who are accusing people of spreading slander. Therefore, I would think that if they bring anyone to court, they're gonna need to prove that the criticisms being made against their product are in fact untrue, and thus the charge of slander is correct.

Er... no? The party who spread the original information/gossip, the core of controversy, is obliged to prove its claims. Otherwise, we'd have an infinite loop (because I'd argue back that it's you who accuse StarForce folks of accusing people of spreading slander, etc.).

I agree with your further points, though, ie. about them being failure at PR department.

[Jeysie]

Originally Posted by RLacey

Remind to make up a whole load of rubbish about you being some twisted, sexually-perverted psychopath. I could put it on a blog and send it to the Daily Mail. Because, you know, freedom of speech and all that. So the onus would be on you to prove your innocence, right?

Oh wait, you'd take me to court.

Yep, and then I'd have to prove you were lying, that you made the statements for the sole purpose of harming me, etc.

Think about it, folks. Companies wield a lot of leverage over the customer in terms of money, resources, and general bargaining power. The law is there to make sure that companies can't get ruined by people spreading slander... however, it is ALSO there to ensure that companies can't cover over real, genuine problems with their products just by threatening people into shutting up.

People have a right to complain about companies, their products and their practices. Companies have the right to take said people to court if they think said people are spreading slander to hurt their reputation, in which case they have to prove their charge of slander against the defendant is true, by proving that the claims the people are making are false.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[RLacey]

Yes, they would have to if things went to court. But just as you or I may not want the financial and legal hassle of a court case to prove our innocence, why should it be any different for StarForce? Just because it's a company?

And, again, there's a difference between complaining about a product - which is totally valid if you're justifying your argument - and perpetuating vicious, quite possibly untrue rumours.

[Jeysie]

RLacey:

But it's OK for StarForce to claim complaints are lies and claim complainers are crackers/pirates/criminals/etc. without any proof?

Like I said, StarForce has a number of ways open to it to prove that the claims of problems are incorrect. Their apparent choice of the heavy-handed method of sending out threat letters and making statements presuming criminal activity on the part of complainers without any proof that their accusations are true is, at best, PR suicide, and at worst, also legally questionable.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[RLacey]

Jeysie,

I've now stated this so many times that I'm getting sick of it, but let's try again .

I do not agree with the way in which StarForce has been conducting itself. I am not a fan of StarForce.

However:

I am against the unnecessary perpetuation of rumours over the internet which have the effect of tarnishing the name of a company/product without proof to back those rumours up.

I also believe that it's not StarForce's job to go out of their way to prove their innocence. They shouldn't have to, just as you shouldn't have to prove that you're not a paedophile to me if I should suddenly choose to start spreading rumours about it.



One final request, before I bow out: can you link me to some of these claims allegedly made by StarForce where they tell the complainers that they are crackers/pirates/criminals? Note that this will have precisely no effect on my argument, as I am not making any judgements over StarForce's response itself; I am only discussing the rumours made about StarForce and whether they should be required to prove that such rumours are not true.

[Jeysie]

Originally Posted by RLacey

I am against the unnecessary perpetuation of rumours over the internet which have the effect of tarnishing the name of a company/product without proof to back those rumours up.

So am I. But just because people have spread a rumor without checking to see if its true doesn't mean it isn't actually true.

The problem is that it's basically a He Said, She Said situation, and without any major detailed countering information from StarForce, it's hard to tell what's true and what isn't. StarForce seems to essentially be saying "Take our word for it," which I'm disinclined to do. How can I tell if the guesses and claims people are making about problems are untrue if I don't have any concrete information from the company in question that they are very likely to be?

I'm taking the side of the possibility of StarForce not being entirely truthful to play Devil's Advocate of a sort, but the truth is, I'm not sure who to believe. If I had some kind of checkable information on how StarForce actually works then I could determine whether it would cause problems or not. (One advantage of being friends with several techies and programmers. )

As it is, I have one side of consumers claiming that StarForce has caused problems, and the other side of StarForce folks claiming it doesn't. I also have one system I can't afford to risk screwing up if it turns out StarForce software does cause problems that the StarForce folks didn't look into. Who do I believe? The customer side that at least has offered some guessing into what StarForce does, or the company that hasn't given any info about what StarForce actually does? How do I know for sure the customer side folks are lying/misguided? Especially considering the latest hoorah that AFAIK Sony's CP methods have been shown to be dubious?

Originally Posted by RLacey

I also believe that it's not StarForce's job to go out of their way to prove their innocence. They shouldn't have to, just as you shouldn't have to prove that you're not a paedophile to me if I should suddenly choose to start spreading rumours about it.

In a perfect world, nobody would have to offer proof that an unflattering and incorrect accusation isn't true.

In our reality, people are cruel enough to spread untrue information. People are also cruel enough to claim that justified and factual complaints are lies and slander. Without enough information being available, it can be impossible to tell whom to believe.

Originally Posted by RLacey

One final request, before I bow out: can you link me to some of these claims allegedly made by StarForce where they tell the complainers that they are crackers/pirates/criminals? Note that this will have precisely no effect on my argument, as I am not making any judgements over StarForce's response itself; I am only discussing the rumours made about StarForce and whether they should be required to prove that such rumours are not true.

Well, in addition to the BoingBoing article AJ posted (as he pointed out, nobody's yet stated which parts on boing-boing.com were false), there's a CNET post (StarForce response), and there's the article I linked to a previous post which has links to relevant forum discussions.

There's also the contest link that Fov posted...

Therefore, we now have proof that such issues with StarForce protected applications are pure fiction and all of these rumors are false and probably initiated by frustrated pirates.

Uh.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by RLacey

Remind to make up a whole load of rubbish about you being some twisted, sexually-perverted psychopath. I could put it on a blog and send it to the Daily Mail. Because, you know, freedom of speech and all that. So the onus would be on you to prove your innocence, right?

Oh wait, you'd take me to court.

I wouldn't, but regardless, you're admitting malice or reckless regard of the truth right there. Yet again, no statement of what is false in the boing-boing article.

I wonder if StarForce actually pressed on with their legal action, or were these responses just frivolous threats.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

StarForce = Plenty of alternative options for the company.

Not really. As far as I know, Starforce is the only copyright protection that, at this moment, takes a long while to crack. And even when it is cracked, you need to do all sorts of nasty stuff to get an illegal copy working. You need to disable all your cd/dvd-rom drives, for example. It's so cumbersome to get an illegal Starforce program (SFclone) working, that a lot of people, who normally wouldn't have bought the game, just give up and get it in the shop (I know a couple of these personally). It's the only copyright protection that actually works (to a degree, it of course won't convince everyone to play it legal).

[Jeysie]

Phantom:

If that's true, then it's all the more important to make sure it doesn't cause problems, isn't it? (Since lots of game companies would be likely to use it.)

I'd also point out that the fact that people have to disable their CD and DVD drives to get cracked versions working just lends more credence for me to idea that StarForce might possibly bork up one's drives even when you're not trying to get around it, but, anyhoo.

More food for thought...

I came up with what I hope is a good example the other day.

StarForce is essentially a program that the company asks you to install on your computer for the sole purpose of helping them out, which does nothing for you at all.

So, what other company has had something like that? Opera! For those not sufficiently versed in alternative browsers, the Opera web browser used to be ad-supported, in that the free version showed you banner or Google ads. The ads didn't do very much for you, but showing them helped out Opera.

Now, I remember back when there were quite a few people accusing Opera of being spyware. Not an entirely unfair thing to worry about... in this day of rampant malware and tracking cookies, people get a little paranoid about a program that shows them ads.

Did Opera go around making threat letters and counter-accusations? Not that I know of. I do remember several forum and blog posts being made in various discussions *explaining* to the askers/accusers, in a civil manner, why they felt Opera was not spyware.

They also...

Made a webpage response.

And made a technical description of their ad-passing protocol.

And another technical description of the ad component itself.

And a webpage explaining the Google ads.

IOW, anyone who was worried about Opera being spyware had a fair bit of official technical info they could pore over and evaluate to decide for themselves. And while lots of people griped over the ads for various other reasons until the day Opera did away with them, I don't remember the whole "Opera is spyware!" accusation ever gaining serious ground.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[RLacey]

But, as I've already stated, if StarForce detailed the inner workings of their software it could become easier to crack...

[Jackal]

Maybe somebody could identify exactly what it is that StarForce is NOT answering. A cursory read through the reams of info out there suggests that they've addressed the pertinent points. As Robert said, no one in their right mind would simply lay bare their technology. That's completely unrealistic.

StarForce has admitted to an older build causing some device issues, and claim to have fixed it. I've yet to hear any concession from the naysayers on that point. Much easier for them to continue harping on it to further the hate mongering.

Most of the rest of what I'm hearing is unspecified accusations and generalized rants about copy protection issues that other programs get away with. Stuff like "causes system instability" is vague and completely useless, and all the rubbish about "covertly installing" and stuff like that is no different than many other programs. And yet StarForce is singled out. Still waiting to hear why. Seems to me that its one ill-fated build that caused device problems allowed it to become a lightning rod for a general outcry about copy protection. NOT necessarily from pirates (that's where I believe SF goes to far in its own response), but from anyone who has experienced ANY kind of issues related to copy protection (and I've certainly read many complaints about other protection programs, just without all the vindictiveness).

Originally Posted by BoingBoing article

What's more, you should join the boycott of any game that comes with this malicious software onboard.

If I read this about my product, I'd sue, too. Or at least certainly consider it. This is NOT simply "spreading rumours". It's not only presenting opinion as fact (fact = StarForce is malicious software), but it's actual advice to cause the company harm.

And let's set aside the Grisham-like notion of the big, bad, rich and evil coporate omnipresence crushing the little guy in a battle of finances. This is just another company with real employees trying to make a living. Again, if people were actively campaigning against MY ability to do that, I wouldn't take it lying down, either.

Also keep in mind that their response was private. It's the accusers who have chosen to make it public. If it were StarForce making loud public noises about all this, that might be different.

Incidentally, the whole thing about free speech is irrelevant. This is not the government imposing censorship. And the question isn't whether the actions are criminal. The only issue is whether it's harmful. If the latter, a lawsuit is simply other citizens enforcing their other protected rights. No one's freedom has been infringed upon in any way here.

[Jeysie]

RLacey:

And I already pointed out that "security through obscurity" is notoriously unreliable. Sooner or later the pirates will figure out a way around it, and if that renders StarForce useless then the market will move on anyway.

I sympathize with anybody trying to "clear their name". But, well, go browse through Snopes.com sometime. Most of the time when a company is having bad information spread about them they release counter facts and information for people to evaluate.

If StarForce can't release detailed info on why their product can't cause the accused problems, well, there's not much they can do. The technical guesses why StarForce could cause problems do not look unreasonable at first glance to me, and I have no counter information from StarForce to compare with. And while I have no doubt that many people are just "jumping on the bandwagon", I have no proof that some of the complaints aren't valid.

Furthermore, IMHO StarForce's program is inherently suspicious. I mean, I don't know about you, but generally when I install a system driver it's to make some bit of hardware work. Now I have StarForce installing drivers on me? So, what's it doing to my hardware then? And I'm doing this solely for the company's benefit, not my own? Furthermore, I've been very, very badly bitten by drivers before. I want some idea what this is going to do to my system before I install it.

StarForce's responses seem to essentially boil down to "Trust us", and because there's been many companies throughout history that have screwed over customers, either intentionally or unintentionally, that's sadly just not good enough. Heck, you can even look at all the problems with Sony's music CD copy protection for a recent example of how you can't just blindly trust that a company knows what they're doing.

Originally Posted by Jackal

Maybe somebody could identify exactly what it is that StarForce is NOT answering. A cursory read through the reams of info out there suggests that they've addressed the pertinent points. As Robert said, no one in their right mind would simply lay bare their technology. That's completely unrealistic.

Why not? I just posted how Opera did just that.

Originally Posted by Jackal

And the question isn't whether the actions are criminal. The only issue is whether it's harmful.

Posting legitimate complaints about a product is also harmful to a company, but I certainly hope nobody would get punished for that!

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

StarForce's responses seem to essentially boil down to "Trust us", and because there's been many companies throughout history that have screwed over customers, either intentionally or unintentionally, that's sadly just not good enough.

It is for all those other pieces of software you install on your system. Copyrighted software is inherently a "trust us"-case. You can't know what an application does to your system. The developers made sure you can't just crack open their binary to check out the code, or otherwise you could just steal if and release your own version. This goes not only for games, but also for small applications like Winrar, Winamp, mIRC, and so on. For every single piece of software on your computer, you have to put some degree of trust in the developer.

Yet you trust them easily, while you distrust Starforce. And your distrust is based on ungrounded rumours ('it might screw up your disk drives') or ungrounded suspicions of your own ('SF installs something driverlike, it must be evil, even though I don't know the smallest thing about how it works or could work internally'). Your distrust in this case is quite irrational and selective.

Heck, you can even look at all the problems with Sony's music CD copy protection for a recent example of how you can't just blindly trust that a company knows what they're doing.

Sure, but you don't blame Sony for using dangerous copyright protection BEFORE definitive proof has been given that it's harmful.

Originally Posted by Jeysie

If that's true, then it's all the more important to make sure it doesn't cause problems, isn't it?

It IS true, and I agree wholeheartidly. If the crackers don't figure out a good, quick and easy to use crack for the Starforce system, I predict a huge boom in the use of Starforce. Better accept it right now, or stop buying games in the future .

[Jeysie]

Originally Posted by Phantom

It is for all those other pieces of software you install on your system. Copyrighted software is inherently a "trust us"-case. You can't know what an application does to your system. The developers made sure you can't just crack open their binary to check out the code, or otherwise you could just steal if and release your own version. This goes not only for games, but also for small applications like Winrar, Winamp, mIRC, and so on. For every single piece of software on your computer, you have to put some degree of trust in the developer.

Sure, but generally I know what a program is supposed to do. I have a general idea of how a IRC program should operate. I have a general idea of how a media player should operate. Etc. If I don't, my techie friends do.

For the most part, if I install Program X, and Thing Y on my system stops working, or I hear about somebody claiming that problem, I can figure out how likely it is that Program X would cause that problem.

Also, there have been lots of occasions where I actually *haven't* installed a program on my computer, just because I didn't really understand enough about the stuff I had to install to get it to work. There's always alternatives, after all.

Finally, as I said, AFAIK, with 99% of programs, when you're installing something it's stuff that the program *needs* to function. I know that stuff like DirectX, VB, .Net, Python, etc. is stuff that programs literally can't work without. So asking to install it isn't unreasonable, since you kinda don't have a program without it, period.

The other 1% of programs consist of an awful lot of malware, quite frankly. I don't think that asking what a third-party program that has nothing to do with the actual functioning of a program actually does is so unreasonable a question.

Originally Posted by Phantom

And your distrust is based on ungrounded rumours ('it might screw up your disk drives') or ungrounded suspicions of your own ('SF installs something driverlike, it must be evil, even though I don't know the smallest thing about how it works or could work internally'). Your distrust in this case is quite irrational and selective.

What's so irrational about it?

"It might screw up your disk drives": Er, let's see. You yourself said that pirates have to disable their drives to get cracked StarForce programs working. I know it mucks about with drive emulation, too. Ergo, it affects drives somehow. It's designed to ensure that your drive actually contains a CD and to block copying, after all. Why is thinking that it might cause problems with said drives so unreasonable?

I could understand if someone was claiming "Yeah, StarForce borked my video card!" or something, but having it mess with a drive doesn't seem off-base to me. Especially considering, IIRC, that in the past there have been a few CP methods that were proven to mess with drives.

"SF installs something driverlike": Well, I already recounted a story where updating my video card drivers totally borked my computer, and I know for an absolute fact that's what did it, and a general idea of why it happened. How do I know StarForce won't do the same? I don't, because they won't say exactly what it affects on your system.

I also know that whenever I've installed a driver it's when I put some new hardware in my computer.

I also know people are always cautioning about making sure you use the correct drivers and everything.

I think that drivers are "low-level" sorts of things, tied more closely into your system than most programs, are they not?

And now I have this program installing drivers that don't seem to be for the purpose of making hardware work. In fact, near as I can tell, it's for the purpose of making one of my drive's features *not* work, temporarily. What's so unreasonable about finding it weird?

Originally Posted by Phantom

Sure, but you don't blame Sony for using dangerous copyright protection BEFORE definitive proof has been given that it's harmful.

No, but if I hear people saying "Yeah, I think Sony's CP is causing problems," and I thought their reasons didn't look totally off-the-wall, I would be smart to be wary about it until I got more information.

Originally Posted by Phantom

It IS true, and I agree wholeheartidly. If the crackers don't figure out a good, quick and easy to use crack for the Starforce system, I predict a huge boom in the use of Starforce. Better accept it right now, or stop buying games in the future .

Actually, I think I'll wait until "nobody dies from it", as it were. My usual practice for *everything*, before you get pissy. If StarForce ever gains critical market mass, this matter will get settled one way or another.

Of course, we then will get to debate over things like Fair Use and the fact that I had been looking forward to one day buying a huge hard drive that I could use to install many of my games at once and play them whenever without having to swap CDs or risk having them damaged more than necessary.

I know one friend who will be very dismayed... after a few bad experiences with ruined CDs, he's gotten very paranoid, makes copies of all his games to run them from and keeps the originals in a safe place.

But we'll save that aspect of the debate for later.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by Jackal

but it's actual advice to cause the company harm.

I missed the part where it says bomb the HQ. immediately. It's their right to advise whatever the hell they want.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Finally, as I said, AFAIK, with 99% of programs, when you're installing something it's stuff that the program *needs* to function.

That's what they WANT you to believe. Who knows what nasty stuff comes with Winrar? I don't. An you don't either, unless you do extensive research and consult experts every time you install an application like that.

Why is thinking that it might cause problems with said drives so unreasonable?

Every single piece of software directly affects and manipulates your CPU and hard drive. Yet you don't worry about that. That's why you're being irrational. There are viruses out there that can damage hard drive boot sectors, so it wouldn't be much of a problem to add code like that to any software. You don't know what evil lurks under the hood of Winrar. You trust it because, after all, thousands of users have used it and nobody has had any serious problems with it... yet.
It's the same with the latest versions of Starforce. There have been no reported drive problems with it yet.

If StarForce ever gains critical market mass, this matter will get settled one way or another.

I don't know what you consider to be critical mass, but many high-profile games (like POP: Two Thrones) already feature Starforce. Millions of people have it on their PC.

[Jackal]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Why not? I just posted how Opera did just that.

Fine, I'll rephrase. No commercial company would. I assumed that was obvious.

Posting legitimate complaints about a product is also harmful to a company, but I certainly hope nobody would get punished for that!

That's why there are defamation/libel laws. I'm not a legal expert, so I won't spell it out in detail, but again, I assumed it was apparent to people that there's a difference between saying "go boycott this malicious software" and "people have complained of problems with product X." Maybe not.

Originally Posted by Aj_

I missed the part where it says bomb the HQ. immediately. It's their right to advise whatever the hell they want.

I already said that. Want to make any other self-evident points? It's StarForce's legal right to sue them, too.

[Martin Gantefoehr]

Originally Posted by BoingBoing article
What's more, you should join the boycott of any game that comes with this malicious software onboard.

Well, a very unpleasant side effect of the whole discussion is that even the opinion leaders of the Anti-Starforce lynch mob (like this BoingBoing guy) are so fascinated by their own heroic fight for a just cause that they can't be bothered to at least compile accurate information about the subjects of their boycott, or to research and double check "information" they're linking to.

As I said on another thread, the TAC release of Moment of Silence is falsely blacklisted as a "Starforce game" on the "Games That Use Starforce" site. The BoingBoing article links to a blacklist simply listing the game as a Starforce game, although the majority of its worldwide releases does NOT have Starforce. I emailed one of the two concerned listkeepers about that fact, but neither did he respond, nor was the list corrected.

I consider this harmful. Since my request in writing was ignored, I even consider it intentionally harmful. I won't sue anyone over that (my desire to engage in Don-Quixote undertakings is limited), but I am a little surprised how sites compiled by Some Guy Who Has A Modem are frequently and entirely taken as the world's most trustworthy sources, while what a company representative says is either being ignored or marked as a corporate lie.

*shrug*

[natalia]

That's why there are defamation/libel laws. I'm not a legal expert, so I won't spell it out in detail, but again, I assumed it was apparent to people that there's a difference between saying "go boycott this malicious software" and "people have complained of problems with product X." Maybe not.

I think that regarding libel/defamation laws there is no difference between those two statements if the person making them actually believes what they are saying is true. After the 1964 NY Times vs. Sullivan case, public officials suing for defamation/libel had to prove that the entity publishing the alleged falsehood did so knowing that their statement was false or with reckless disregard as to whether the statement was true or false. That's why libel cases are notoriously hard to prosecute -- you're trying to determine what was in the publisher's mind at the time of the publication of the statement, not an easy task to do.

In this instance, I'm guessing that SF would have to prove that the posts made were made with the knowledge that they were false.

This is all U.S. law, though, where the burden is much greater on the plaintiff than in some other countries.

Also, I'm only writing this based on some cursory reading on libel laws and cases -- I may be totally off base here.