Digital Rights Management (DRM) part 2

Ubi Soft, a computer games publisher protects its games in a way which doesn't let
customers play them if they don't have a stable internet connection, because it is necessary to check
if a copy is not illegal. There is no need to say that hackers soon found a way to bypass this
protection and run games with no internet connection. Owners of genuine copies still have problems
when the servers happen to be down or they do not have access to the internet connection. On
February 7, 2012 some of Ubi Soft's games were unplayable due to company's data transitions
between servers. This also shows that if the company went bankrupt, people who had bought their
games wouldn't be able to play them anymore (Souppouris).

What is more some new Ubi Soft's games have a restriction of only 3 installations, after
which a copy becomes useless. This means that if one changes a video card in his computer, he
loses one installation. Www.1up.com journalists tried to test Anno 2070, a new pc game on different
computers to check how it works on different hardware specifications, but unfortunately they
discovered that they lost all installations after the third test.

"While it's correct that copies of Anno include three activations and that changing hardware
may trigger the need for reactivation, the vast majority of Anno customers never encounter this
scenario," reads a statement issued to Rock, Paper, Shotgun by Ubisoft. "On the rare occasion when
a customer does need additional activations, Ubisoft customer service is available to quickly resolve
the situation, and we encourage those customers to contact us directly so that we can ensure they are
able to continue to enjoy their game." Society of gamers is shocked with this policy. One have to
ask for permission to install a game he/she have already bought for $50 (Pereira 2012). And again,
what will happen when Ubi Soft changes its policy or ceases to exist? Software industry is a very
unstable one, companies sometimes disappear in really short periods of time, it may be a matter of
months. After that, legal situations of programs is often unclear. Rights to some of them can be
bought by other institutions which may continue the customer support, but unfortunately in many
cases software becomes available only in pirate ways.