While more recent generations of gaming devices offer some exceptions, the majority of platforms have fallen to pirates over the years.

From the earliest home computers to devices such as the NES, Genesis/MegaDrive, PlayStation and XBoX, all have experienced piracy problems to a greater or lesser extent.

It’s something that manufacturers and developers alike have been keen to stamp out. Interestingly, however, Nintendo itself has been contributing to 3DS piracy for some time now.

The problem began with the eShop, Nintendo’s digital distribution service for the 3DS, Wii U, and more recently, Switch. Among other things, the eShop allows users to download games, demos and other applications. However, when the 3DS was hacked, the store’s servers could be exploited to allow anyone to download games, whether they had previously bought them or not.

Enter ‘Freeshop‘, an open-source homebrew eShop alternative for the Nintendo 3DS which allows users to browse and install titles “they own” utilizing title keys/tickets. While this isn’t much a problem in its own right, Freeshop users (if they’re that way inclined) are able to exploit a weakness in the Nintendo authentication system.

After users have bought content, they’re able to use the eShop to re-download that content when required. This is made possible by the eShop keeping records of who bought what while placing the necessary credentials (a ticket/key) on the user’s machine. Freeshop, however, only looks for tickets on a user’s machine, which is a huge problem when tickets are freely available online for anyone to install.

The bottom line is that Freeshop (and other similar tools) allowed users to fool Nintendo’s system into believing that they had already purchased games, which then allowed them to download perfect copies directly from Nintendo’s own servers. In basic terms, Nintendo has been fueling piracy of its own games, and for some time now.

Yesterday, however, all that came to an end. On Twitter, ‘Matt’ (aka CheatFreak47) revealed that Nintendo had finally pulled the plug on the free-for-all.

Nintendo has enabled download authentication essentially every 3DS title on their CDN. Y'all know what this means… pic.twitter.com/Jhhf9PFrZl

— Matt (@Cheatfreak47) August 22, 2018

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

“For those seeking some elaboration, at around 1AM EST or so, Nintendo updated over 2800 3DS software titles on their CDN to require a valid ticket be received to download. Otherwise, the server will return a 403 (Forbidden) error when requesting downloads,” he added.

In a follow-up discussion on Reddit, CheatFreak47 put yet more meat on the bones.

“The system they had in place relied on the contents on the eShop server being encrypted with a key that they would send only to consoles that had purchased the software – however, once the 3DS was completely hacked, this system made widespread piracy easy, since people would simply share the keys,” he said.

“With this new download authentication system, once you have been issued a ticket, your console must send the eShop server an encrypted copy of it to have it validated before you are authenticated to download.”

Quite why it has taken Nintendo so long to plug this gaping hole isn’t clear. The gaming giant has been aware of the problem for years and in 2016 took direct action against Freeshop by targeting its Github repository with a DMCA takedown.

“The FreeShop application provided at infringes Nintendo’s copyrights, because the application circumvents Nintendo’s technological protection measures in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” the original notice read.

The developer of Freeshop, known as TheCruel, wasn’t impressed with the takedown, noting that his software would only infringe if users chose to introduce their own tickets/keys.

“Fuck Nintendo,” he wrote.

“[Freeshop] only circumvents protections if people utilize title keys they did not purchase or obtain legally. If people illegally obtain the password/PINs of a person’s bank account, you can’t criticize the banking website for facilitating theft.”

Finally, while Nintendo has now fixed its own issues, that doesn’t mean that 3DS piracy has been brought to an end. The titles are readily available from many other sources, albeit with a slightly more difficult installation process.

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Denuvo‘s anti-piracy system has been a sworn enemy of many gaming pirates for years. While it is no longer as unbreakable as it once was, the software is still seen as a major roadblock.

Earlier this year the company was acquired by Irdeto, a global anti-piracy company, which has also taken an interest in cheating.

The company recently conducted an extensive survey which revealed that more than half of all gamers felt the negative impact of cheaters. In addition, three-quarters of the gamers agreed that it was important for games to have protection against cheaters.

Game publishers and developers have recognized the problem as well, as is illustrated by recent lawsuits. And according to Irdeto, they’re taking cheating as seriously as piracy.

“Thankfully, we are finally seeing the industry taking anti-cheat as seriously as anti-piracy,” Irdeto’s Bob Hernandez wrote two months ago.

“To succeed, they’ll need to put anti-cheat strategies at the heart of game design, alongside smart technologies for cheat detection, data encryption and behavioral analysis.”

The cheating research and additional commentary exist for a reason. Today, Iredeto announced that they’re joining the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC). And perhaps more importantly, Denuvo will soon launch its own anti-cheat technology to help solve this problem.

“Denuvo’s Anti-Cheat technology, which is soon to be launched as a full end-to-end solution, will prevent hackers in multiplayer games from manipulating and distorting data and code to gain an advantage over other gamers or bypass in-game micro-transactions,” the company says.

With its anti-cheating solution, Denuvo hopes to help game companies protect the value of their games. But, unlike their anti-piracy technology, it’s also good news for gamers, and not just professional E-sporters.

Whether that will be good enough to restore some of Denuvo’s negative image, which even rubs off on game ratings, has yet to be seen.

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As a relative newcomer, Worldwide Torrents (WWT) has managed to secure a loyal userbase of the past two years.

This site, which was started after the KickassTorrents shutdown, is a home to many comic book fans, including the prolific uploader Nemesis43.

However, since the start of this month, there was little to upload or download, as the site has been down the whole time. Instead of the usual homepage, users have been staring at a default hosting software message, which brings little hope.

Default hosting software page

Despite any noticeable progress, sources informed TorrentFreak that the site was moving to a new hosting provider. Initially, this move was expected to complete a week ago, but today there is still no progress.

As one of the site’s prime uploaders, Nemesis43 has kept a close eye on the situation and informed people to the best of his ability.

Nemesis43 informed us yesterday that both users and staff are being kept pretty much in the dark. After some internal issues in the admin team, and a seemingly sabotaged image hosting site, one person is now in charge of bringing the site back online.

“The whole problem has been a very non-communicative admin – who was left to deal with everything on his own. There has been zero communication from our admin – myself and others have mailed him with no response,” Nemesis43 said.

Initially, people were told that the site would relaunch on Tuesday 14 August, but nothing happened. The admin in charge wasn’t responding to messages, causing people to fear for the end of the site

Clearly frustrated with how things were being handled, Nemesis43 started uploading his collections to ETTV, The Pirate Bay and elsewhere, and many users followed his path.

However, just when it seemed like the and was near, another glimmer of hope appeared today. Apparently, a comeback is still in the works.

“Okay – this is difficult, but I have to delay once more – looks like WWT is coming back – SO we wait once more – one change this time is that I will have a backup for when WWT goes offline which is ETTV.TV,” Nemesis43 wrote on Reddit this morning.

According to sources WWT has found a new hosting partner and is planning to be back online within a day. Time will tell whether that’s indeed the case.

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For several decades, video games developers and publishers have been doing everything in their power to prevent unlicensed copying and distribution of their products.

The theory is that if games are easy to copy, people will share them around with non-paying individuals and this will have a detrimental effect on sales for that product.

As a result, customers of companies like Denuvo sink significant sums into systems that attempt to protect their games from pirates. And Denuvo gets tough with anyone who dares to circumvent its systems.

While these kinds of anti-piracy systems can be popular with games makers, they are invariably unpopular with consumers. Games protected by leading anti-piracy systems come with a number of restrictions, meaning that titles cannot easily be backed up and may even lose functionality altogether, should developers make that decision.

Bucking this trend in the gaming marketplace are the folks behind GOG, the digital distribution platform for DRM-free video games and video. Brought to life by Poland’s CD Projekt, GOG has been offering content without DRM for more than eight years. It’s a strategy that has proven extremely popular with the gaming public and as a result, GOG has become synonymous with content ‘freedom’.

In a fresh move to enhance this reputation, GOG and owners CD Projekt have launched a new portal with the eye-catching title FCKDRM. The platform aims to promote GOG and other companies with a similar ethos, including those offering DRM-free music, books, and video.

“DRM-free approach in games has been at the heart of GOG.COM from day one. We strongly believe that if you buy a game, it should be yours, and you can play it the way it’s convenient for you, and not how others want you to use it,” GOG said in a statement.

“The landscape has changed since 2008, and today many people don’t realize what DRM even means. And still the DRM issue in games remains – you’re never sure when and why you can be blocked from accessing them. And it’s not only games that are affected, but your favorite books, music, movies and apps as well.”

Through the FCKDRM portal, GOG also hopes to educate people while igniting a discussion about DRM. The company wants to help consumers understand the implications of DRM, how it affects purchased content, and how the absence of DRM in a product leads to various benefits.

The benefits of DRM

While the discussion over the negative effects of DRM has been sizzling for many years, the majority of consumers have become used to operating within its boundaries. Most games are protected by DRM but its security measures also extend to music, video, and books purchased from online vendors. Such content is controlled and could be taken away at any time.

“Games with DRM include a layer of software or code on top of what’s needed to just play the game. Nowadays DRM will send your information to an online server, it could run checks to see if you touched any files, or outright refuse access unless you’re logged in somewhere. In other words, DRM is there to question what you’re doing every step of the way,” GOG says.

While some DRM does have the ability to be somewhat unintrusive for some consumers, there’s a darker side, particularly with games. They can be turned off at any point and there isn’t a thing gamers can do about it.

“[T]here is a killswitch built into your games. Sure, DRM might not affect you right now, but corporations hold the key and they’ll only let you in as long as you can repeatedly prove ownership. As long as you’re connected to the internet. As long as their DRM works without fault. As long they’re still around,” GOG adds.

“So should the burden of proof be on you? Do you place your trust in someone who doesn’t trust you?”

The list of DRM-free resources listed on FCKDRM is currently fairly limited, with Bandcamp, 7Digital and emusic on the audio front, Project Gutenberg and OpenLibra on books, and Moving Image Archive and Vimeo on Demand on video. However, GOG is keen to expand the directory and is inviting companies to contact them in order to be included.

The FCKDRM initiative can be found here.

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The entertainment industries are growing increasingly frustrated with major Internet platforms that, in their view, are not doing enough to tackle online piracy.

This was also the topic of a speech given by MPAA chief Charles Rivkin, during the TPI Aspen Forum yesterday.

The title of the speech is telling. Rivkin’s “Declaration of Accountability for Cyberspace” is a play on John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” which was written 22 years ago.

Barlow, who passed away earlier this year, was an artist, an Internet activist, and one of the founding members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As an Internet pioneer, he repeatedly warned against stifling Internet restrictions, to keep cyberspace free and open.

According to the MPAA, however, Barlow’s vision of a cyberspace where inhabitants right any wrongs themselves has failed. Its chief instead argues that the future of the “healthy” Internet is in danger.

“I want to address one of the most vibrant and interconnected ecosystems in human history. That, of course, is the internet. And as we meet, the healthy and vibrant internet that we all want is in serious jeopardy,” Rivkin says.

“The title of this speech is ‘a declaration of accountability for cyberspace’ — a reference I’m sure is not lost on this audience,” he adds.

While the complaints about Internet piracy are not new, the MPAA ties piracy in with more recent debates about fake news, election meddling, and hate speech. From Cambridge Analytica to Infowars.

Rivkin calls for a national conversation on how to return the Internet to a place of vibrant but civil discourse. A place where fake news, hate speech, and piracy are properly dealt with.

Eventually, this leads the MPAA’s boss to Silicon Valley. Rivkin sees a major role for Internet platforms to do more to stop piracy and other types of abuse. If that doesn’t happen voluntarily, the US Government could step in, he suggests.

“The crescendo is rising within our ecosystem. The message is getting louder by the day: Internet platforms must bear responsibility. And they must do more to address the harms that, wittingly or not, they facilitate.

“Online platforms could increase their voluntary efforts to work with those affected to curb abuse of their services. Or perhaps Congress could recalibrate the online immunities to more explicitly require proactive steps as a condition of those protections,” Rivkin adds.

The widespread problem of online piracy is a sign of worse to come, the MPAA chief suggests.

“Online piracy is also the proverbial canary in a coal mine. The same pervasive theft that my industry faces is part of a continuum of toxic developments that harm all of us in this ecosystem – consumers, creators, and commercial operators alike,” he says.

In his speech, Rivkin refers to the “broken windows” theory to illustrate his point. This theory suggests that an atmosphere of lawlessness is created when small crimes are left unpunished. Seeing broken windows in the streets makes it more likely that others will start vandalizing as well.

This is also happening on the Internet today, according to Rivkin. When people continuously cross legal boundaries, by pirating, for example, others are more likely to follow suit.

To fix this problem, the MPAA has already started working with advertising companies, payment processors and other intermediaries. These companies have adopted a strict anti-piracy stance, and it is now time for the Twitters, YouTubes, and Facebooks to follow suit.

“If we want to bring back the internet we all want, it’s better to work together than cut each other off at the knees,” Rivkin says. “There are too many online windows broken and left unfixed for us to do anything but take collective action – and take it now.”

One of the major gripes of the MPAA and other rightsholder organizations is the fact that current laws shield Internet platforms from direct liability. This should be changed, if these platforms don’t work along, they argue.

Not everyone agrees that this is the case. Internet Association spokesman Noah Theran told Variety that the protections provided by laws such as the Communications Decency Act are a good thing.

“Without intermediary liability protections it would be harder, not easier, for online platforms to keep bad actors off the internet,” Theran notes, and many Internet platforms will share this view.

—

Without adding any commentary, we would welcome everyone to contrast Charles Rivkin’s “Declaration of Accountability for Cyberspace” with John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.”

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