So, I think its pretty well assumed that all players have all cracked software, and that they can do so for free before the game starts (sicne it'd take like an hour otherwise and just slow down gameplay while the PC describes what he did before the sun went down).

What I wonder, is how the rest of the shadowrun universe deals with digital-rights issues. Example:

I amAverage Joe Consumer. In my house, I have a TV, of some sort. Trideo, nothing special, can accept audio/video feeds from anything, but since I'm Average Joe Consumer I only really use it to show television programs, that I stream from the Matrix (for some nominal fee, that's taken care of in my lifestyle, I am sure).

Techniqually, though, this television has infinate (or nearly so) hard drive space. I could store every show I've ever watched on it, for later enjoyment (which makes sense, if I payed for them). I could theoretically even store shows I didn't watch (ala TiVo), to resovle schedualing conflicts.

Even if, for whatever reason, televeisions are specifically built with VERY limited storage memory... my commlink (and everyone has one) DOES have infinate memory, and is more than capable of hopping online, and using my account to retrieve my programming (either piping it to my television, saving it to disc, or both).

Same really goes for audio. My car radio couldeasily record all of my favorite songs, and is almost certianly able to wirelessly synch up with my "Sony sTunes" program I run on my commlink to manage my personal playlists.

I guess my question is, based on the loose rules/fluff presented in the SR4 core book, does anyone have any guesses at how the Corps would really enforce digital rights management stuff? Or by then, is illegal file sharing of this weeks episode of "Karl Kombat Mage: The Teen Years" the least of their concearns?

Is it safe to assume that any starting character could choose to have a nearly-infinate playlist of music and television reruns (HBO simflicks?) on his junky old commlink? or are they still expected to blow starting character cash on them?

Yeah, Sony's going to install a rootkit the first time you buy anything from them. Joe Consumer's an idiot in their opinion, so what will it hurt them to screw JC. If he uninstalls the spyware, it will expose you to more spyware, spam and viruses.

Oh, wait. You meant SR.

Uh... Same difference.

I think it's so cute that everything isn't commodified on a per-use, leased basis. Matrix connection. Content. Everything.

I think the biggest deterrent to file sharing would be the ability of corporate hackers to locate and destroy the sharing host. Extraterritoriality of the owners, not technology will be the casual file sharers biggest deterent. Do they care how long you store their shows/songs etc probably not you pay for it it's yours. There is probably some form of DRM in it to keep the average user from transfering it without them getting their cut however.

As for the character, I'd think the playlist would be included in the lifestyle, and the question would be how up to date they are, not how much they have.

Since it is a dystopian setting, you have to figure on everything being the absolute worst possible scenario for Joe Average.

First off, free and pre-recorded media as we now know it is gone and everything is on a pay-on-demand model. You turn on your Trideo set, choose from a near-infinite level of content, and then pay per minute (perhaps even second) of viewing time. Perhaps the climax of your show is billed at a higher rate than the opening, so if you want to know if the outcome, you gotta pay. The signal contains broadcast flags making it impossible to copy without illegal hardware or some major hacking, and the legal hardware is required to have a matrix connection so that the content provider can snoop its memory at will and 'upgrade' their software.
It will be completely illegal to intercept, record, share, etc.

There will be some 'free' media available, but it will be corporate, religious, or political propaganda of one kind or another, and virtually unwatchable by anyone but those already converted to whatever brand of thought is being advertised. In fact, advertisements will be gone and instead you'll have the aforementioned propaganda, and insanely blatant product placement in every trivid, simsense, and audio file you can download. Essentially, the only 'free' media will be spam media.

Even better, consumers will be contractually REQUIRED to submit themselves to a certain level of spam media in order to maintain the ability to be able to stream in new media. Trivid sets may not even have an 'off' switch, and when they're not broadcasting requested content, they're spewing out corporate content at an aggressive volume.

Fortunately, the characters are all (presumably) savvy enough to have the hacks, cracks, and workarounds so that they have a bit more freedom in their media consumption. But years of media providers eroding consumer rights have left many expecting to be treated in such a manner, and used to it, and perhaps even believing that is how it SHOULD work.

Shadowrun isn't that terribly dystopian, though. Not really.

It's more like a stirred-up hornet's nest, only some of the hornets are ninjas.

The World Recording Idustry Army (WRIA) will send strike teams to enforce the death sentence for copyright infringement. They won't send them to high security or corporate zones, because of the diplomatic hassle, but if you share files in the Barrens or Papua New Guinea, they will be on your ass with copters.

-Frank

and maybe a case alarm/self-destruct sensor...

open the box to get at the hardware, and it can no longer be used...

sure it can be opend, but that info is for internal use only, as in to know it you have to work for the maker of the hardware.

hell, today its becoming more and more common that faulty electronics are sendt in the the maker rather then letting some shops service department have repair manuals.

basicly, for joe wageslave every box is a black box. and im guessing that rather then go after every joe that use some sort of p2p, they go after the makers of said p2p, forcing them into the shadows to avoid long jailtimes. and then they send out the runners with a wetwork mission. as this is all happening in the shadows it can be written of as gang or organized crime related deaths. hell, the person that died most likely did not have a valid sin any more...

its realy the sin part thats the important part of the shadowrun legal system. today its common that when a crime happens within a contry, it does not matter if the person isnt a legal citizen of said contry. the crime will be investigated in either case.

but with the sin system that changes. no sin and your legal rights are sharply cut. no sin and your legaly do not exist, basicly your more or less comparable to a wild animal when it comes to rights. a sentient wild animal but still a wild animal.

the funny thing is that there is just talk about the sin system coming into effect, there is no talk about any triggers for why it came into effect or why the law(s) covering are what they are.

basicly the corps dont care what the sinless do among each other. its when it spills into the sin'ed masses that they take down the source.

im guessing that a file, when bought, is tied to a persons sin. want to use it, show your sin bubbo. the file will then phone home about it.

ie, security in layers. not only will you have to make the file work without a sin. you will allso make it work without having to call home.

all this and the tools for doing so are probably injecting their own footprints so that the changes can be traced back to whoever have a licnece for using said tools.

now, if they point towards the shadows the corps will just shrug as long as its not spreading like wildfire into the bright world. at that time they will send out their lawyers to make a point in the bright world. and runners to take care of the shadow source.

edit:

other options are stuff like bundling. buy this premium file from us and we will allso trow in x other products for free. limited time offer. rember, antitrust laws no longer exist...

basicly its not about making it 100% secure. that cant be done, not even with physical security. the point is making it so troublesome that most people dont want to jump thru the hoops when they instead can just fire up the pay pr view feature of their entertainment setup and select the show they want to see and see it now.

another thing is that fair use is a no show. forget about taking backup of programs and similar

Okay, granted, the corps would label such activity "illegal" and due to their extraterritoriality, they're well within their "rights" to send ninjas to your house to kill you and your family for collecting every episode of "I was a Teenage Troll". It even makes sense that hacking programs are illegal/restricted (which they are). Edit, however, is not. And I think that is the program you use to send data from one device to another (from TV to commlink) and neither is whichever program allows you to save streaming media (such as that from a camera or microphone) to your storage memory. And the data can't be coming in encrypted, or else you couldn't do anythign with it, unless your TV also had the correct decryption codes, in which case, the data is defiantly no longer encrypted by the time its being piped to the screen.

So I'm more inclined to believe that the corps require you to instal their special memory-checking software (which, I belive Sony is already doing something similar in real life) in order to enjoy their content on your TV, which, in 2070, is pretty much the same as doing it on your computer.

I would also suppose that there is a Hacking-type program capable of fooling their software into thinking you have nothing else running in memory, and arn't storing anything that's being transmitted. That seems reasonable. Using it is illegal, but the players won't care - because its far less illegal than what they do for a living. Would have some repercussions if it failed, though, since in order to get that sort of content, you must be using some sort of real/fake SIN.

Which brings up another question, wouldn't your fake SIN be under constant scrutiny? I mean, every time you change the channel, you're using your fake SIN right? Or, while walking around the mall, your commlink is transmitting that sort of data to all the stores, so they can check their databases and respond to you with ads you might be interested in. Doesn't think mean that any fake SIN would be detected within days by any normal person? Or is the assumption that the Corps just use rating 1 verification methods on most low-end things like television programming and buying a t-shirt at Laser Topic.

i would guess that only high cost pay-pr-view channels would use any real SIN checking...

and yes, the analog hole will allways be around.

the thing is convinience. why would joe wageslave bother to put a episode of "LOST:2070" online when everyone and their dog can view it anywhere, anytime if they have a valid SIN and some money on the account? micropayments all the way.

just look at how itunes is doing lately. if it was compatible with more devices then they would have a broader customer base and therefor more people would choose to look for their music there rather then on some p2p network that may or may not have the song or video your after. hell, some videos are relabled low-grade porn on some of those networks, just so that people can pimp some sort of 0-day uploader status...

instantly available, across the globe, at any time as long as you have a valid SIN and the money to pay for access...

you never buy, you rent

that realy depends on how the streaming system works.
sure, you can try stuff like recording the output to a virtual screen.

but as real life shows, they are doing their damnedest to making the prosses not worth the effort. digitaly signed and ecrypted connections all the way up to the very hardware thats supposed to display the data.

so for joe to do what your talking about he will most likely have to go out and look for a cracked piece of hardware. and the risk is that introducing even one cracked box into the chain of things can make the others refuse to play nice.

ie, today device connections are dumb. you hook your stereo to your dvd and the dvd just pipe the signal down the cable. it does not check if the device hooked up is a verifiable stereo system that cant record the signal.

tomorrows device connections will most likely be smart ones. they can query each other about capabilitys, features and similar. this then includes device serials and similar.

so when you open up the pay-pr-view dialog on your tv, the serials of each device is streamed down the line to the providers server for verifications. if any one of those shows up as bad or no longer trusted then the pay-pr-view just refuse you access to their services.

this is one of the abilitys of the TPM chip thats being put into mroe and more new motherboards these days. putting similar stuff into the latest tv, stereo amp and similar is possible, or maybe even inevitable.

thats the main thing about the crash, the posibility for the big corps to rebuild the computer in their image. forget about the default copy ability fo todays computers, DRM is enforced on every bit of hardware you can buy of the shelf. if the file says do not copy, you will need a custom bit of kit just to copy it

A few months ago Dish Network began switching its encryption from Nagra to the new Nagra 2 system. Around that time everyone was talking about how impossible it would be to crack. Some people in the DSS scene suggested that it might take years to crack the new encryption. Now Nagra 2 compatible firmware upgrades are availible for all the popular FTA boxes and up-to-date encryption codes are freely available on the internet.

If people want to crack something they will and it won't take them long.


I imagine that serivce will be less pay-per-minute and more monthly subscription. However, not every subscription service would have access to all content. In fact, most subscription services would be limited in their content in some way. Megacorp rivalries may prevent one corporation's service from carrying another corporation's media alltogether. So, if you want to watch something that isn't on your service you'd have to get another subscription or go the pay-per-view route.

I imagine that sims would be more popular than television, for the most part.

Most citizens will try to avoid pirated media, especially pirated sims. It isn't the thought of funding terrorism or being a criminal that stops them, although that propaganda is certainly still around. What stops them is that fact that they don't want to die a horrible and embarasing death or be forced to drive down to the Barrens and work as a prostitute against their will.

That's a very valid point. Even if there's not actually a huge threat from personafixing black-market pirated simflicks, the megacorporations could easily put it out on the news that pirate media is a cesspool of virulent psychoconditioning and personafix slavers. You really think ol' John Q. wants to get mixed up in THAT?

It's like the RIAA. A lot of people got used to the status quo of being able to download whatever music they wanted for free, but there's a big chunk of the population out there that's scared to try, because they might get one of those five-digit lawsuits dropped in their laps. They'd much rather pay for it legally with iTunes or the new Napster.

Hey Gothic Rose, check out Shrike30's sig. We've been all honored and stuff!

There's another option here, and that's full embrace of Peer to Peer technology.

Imagine that each file you have has a bit of code stamped in it in dozens on interesting places, which we'll call a "By and Buy " line. In essence, this little peice of code contains the cost of the file, and who owns the copyrights on it. You buy the file, it's yours, you may use it as you like. But anytime the file is copied, it detects the user who copied it, links to their credit account, and deducts the appropriate amount and sends it to the copywrite owner's account.

With this type of system Joe Average is free to download, copy and distribute software as much as he wants, and he pays for it each time he does so. In fact, adding a ByandBuy line is considered standard fare, when you save a document in any format, it automatically prompts you to enter the information. This means that you can make your own music, videos, comics, images, pornagraphy, etc, on your own, sign and proce it, and let it loose into the wilds of the matrix to be downloaded by anyone. Everyone who downloads it, no matter from your computer or ten links down the chain, automatically has the money deducted from their accounts, and you get it.

Of course, you can set the tagline to be free. You can also set it to be undownloadable at any price. Or require a specific passcode or other form of authorization to dowload it. And though ostensibly removing the byandbuy line should frag the program, a skilled hacker can crack the copy protection just as outlined in the book. They can also rewrite said byandbuy line with the same process, say, putting their account on it instead of the origional creators, and then releasing it again, only this time, whenever it is downloaded, he gets paid. He can also set the price way up or down in order to engineer a desired effect.