So, What’s the ECA Doing About Ubisoft’s DRM?
By Jared Newman
The Entertainment Consumers Association bills itself as an advocacy group for gamers, so in light of Ubisoft’s new anti-piracy scheme that requires a constant Internet connection to play its PC games, I was curious whether the ECA was going to bat against the publisher. Beau Hunter, the ECA’s digital rights consultant, answered my questions by e-mail. You can read the whole thing if you like, but here’s what I took away from Hunter’s responses.
Before this interview, I was feeling confrontational. Gamers were genuinely pissed off at the restrictions Ubisoft was imposing. It seemed like a golden opportunity for the ECA to step up and tackle this beast head on, or at least publicly condemn Ubisoft for going to such extremes. Neither happened.
Asked whether the ECA opposed Ubisoft’s new digital rights management methods, Hunter’s initial response didn’t commit one way or another. It read, in part:
Consumers have the ability to speak with their wallets; rights holders simply must consider the needs of the consumer, or else those customers will take their money and their loyalty to other brands and companies that are satisfying their needs and interests.
That doesn’t really answer the question of whether the ECA itself has a strong feeling about the DRM. So I asked again. Here’s a portion of the follow-up response:
There are many methods to protecting intellectual property without reducing the rights of the consumer to enjoy that have been established for decades. The ECA encourages rights holders to continue to protect their brands and franchises, but also reminds them to remember how consumers react to invasive or egregious DRM.
From these responses, you can see that the ECA doesn’t care to become an attack dog on the side of consumers. The group is more interested in being a liason of sorts between gamers and publishers. That makes sense given ECA president Hal Halpin’s ties to the industry; before founding the ECA, Halpin founded the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association, which represented video game retailers.
The ECA’s neutral stance towards publishers has its ups and downs. On one hand, staying friendly with them could help the ECA in its push to get DRM disclosed on game boxes and standardize End User License Agreements. The Federal Trade Commission held a conference on DRM that the ECA attended last year, and Hunter said the commission may circle back to the issue later this year. But I’m guessing it helps if the ECA can work with publishers rather than threaten them.
On the other hand, there’s something to be said for a group that galvanizes gamers. Do a Web search for “boycott Ubisoft” and you’ll find plenty of disparate movements. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a group to unify them all?
Hunter explained that the ECA views itself as a source of information. It sends out a nightly newsletter, appears at speaking engagements, responds to interviews and publishes two blogs that cover DRM issues, GamePolitics and GameCulture. “Each of these points enables a free-flow of communication and feedback between consumers, rights holders and other parties as new programs and initiatives are introduced,” Hunter wrote.
The problem is that DRM isn’t getting better for gamers. People who pay for their games continue to be collateral damage in publishers’ war against piracy. Unless the ECA can bring about change in the way DRM is disclosed to — or used on — legitimate buyers of games, it just looks like the group is handing out informational pamphlets from the sidelines. [Full Interview]
Thursday, March 18, 2010 4:08AM
Not to be sounding like I'm going overboard or something, but could purchasers have a potential class action lawsuit on their hands? Ubisoft submits a product and statements saying it will be completely playable provided you maintain an internet connection. However, this does not occur as the servers go down and Ubisoft cannot maintain service. In essence, Ubisoft is selling you a service instead of a game you own while advertising it as a game that is playable at anytime provided you have an internet connection?
Just a thought…what do you guys think?
Thursday, March 18, 2010 4:09AM
At the least, a class action lawsuit would be taken by an attorney I'd imagine, and it would shine some real light on this ridiculous DRM.
Thursday, March 18, 2010 4:43AM
Hey mothrpe,
I'm not an attorney, nor do I own any of the Ubisoft games in question (I'd purposely steer clear of them if I was more of a PC gamer). But I'm guessing that Ubisoft makes you consent to an End User License Agreement when you install the game, and I'd be very surprised of Ubisoft didn't cover itself in that very EULA.
That's typically the nature of these agreements — you agree to play buy the publisher's rules, and those rules obviously favor the publisher.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 5:22AM
So basically, the ECA is a misnomer and pretty much worthless.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 6:59AM
Remember dude, the dinkiest muncipal law on the books overrides the best EULA ever written. And Local/State/Federal legislation is rife with tons of anti-lemon laws. Just saying "Oh i bet they covered their ass" is plausibly not correct here.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 9:01AM
I went to the ECA site and couldn't find the Ubisoft DRM issue mentioned specifically on their news or forums. Apparently the news they post is about the ECA. The downloads section is ECA wallpaper. The letter to the FTC is ass-kissing following by "be cool to each other, bro".
They seem way too much like the type of group that generates money for itself. OMG, with your support, together we can send this email to the guberment.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 9:01AM
Okay, so you claim the ECA is taking a neutral stance, buy they say in the interview you posted, "Rights holders should be able to protect their goods from counterfeiting and piracy, but consumers should also have the ability to legitimately use the software that they’ve purchased in a reasonable and fair fashion, such as using software without constant authentication from the rights holder." Which all but states that they are against publishers using invasive DRM, and then they explicitly define Ubisoft's DRM as invasive. They answered the question you asked, just not with torches and pitchforks like you may have wanted.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 9:17AM
mothrpe..what I think is that chidklren should stop acting like that have ANY knowledge of the law just because they know how to use Google.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 2:00PM
Unfortunately or fortunately depending on which side of the fence your Ubisoft's new DRM seems to be working as there hasn't been a crack submitted yet that allows you to play the game.
As far as I can tell from forums the one's released so far don't work properly as parts of the game are stored on Ubisoft's servers.
Given that the game has been out for nearly a month now I'd expect to see more of this sort of DRM.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 5:27PM
Would you prefer us "chidklren" use bing instead?
Saturday, June 12, 2010 4:24PM
Eca is pretty worthless untill it will change it's profile for now.
Sunday, March 13, 2011 2:23PM
A legal action lawsuit could be taken by an attorney, and it would shed some real light on this ridiculous DRM.