I'm against all forms of DRM, in each concerned sector (music, video, software, ...). It's a principle position and it's my right to have this position.

The fact that big bosses of Apple and EMI have changed their mind about DRM is a great moment. Finally, they have understood that they can AT THE SAME TIME sell more online music and respect the wishes of the buyers, what concern the copies for private using.
Read again this part from the conference with EMI :
"Steve Jobs says that they are offering people nothing more than what they get when they buy a cd directly and rip it"

So, from my point of view, Aiky and other companies (just like Sony and Warner at the moment) do not respect the buyers ... and the buyers are mainly the MSX community. What is asking this community for ? DSK/ROM files .... so, it supposes no more DRM especially. And I'm pretty sure it will come some day. But maybe only after many years of negative attitude from the software companies.

But the record labels etc. sell to everyone. Their target-audience is everyone. Bazix does not aim at MSX users specifically, they aim at a target that is *not* you. The target they aim for doesn't care a flying hoot about what you think, they just want to play a game, period.
The music industry is also a number of magnitudes larger than the 8-bit/retro community, so to compare those two doesn't make sense.

btw, this isn't classified info or so, it's either from the Bazix website or it has been written on MRC once, I'm not going to backtrack all of it. (just before you start thinking I know this because I *am* Bazix)

So, you're requesting that Aiky, Microcabin, T&E etc. should give up the DRM? That's a rather funny idea coming from someone who's around on sites with the mbox link on it..
Anyway, as said: write to them instead.

"What is asking this community for ?"

Let's first define the scale of this community. How many ppl are we talking about? So, I'm talking about how many ppl silently or actively protest against this new protected format. And you can leave out yourself and those other 5 persons, let's stick to the larger numbers here. I'm talking about those thousands of ppl you're referring to.

BTW, actually, I don't give a flying wet fart about it anyway, it's not my business. The only major thing I requested was to cut it out with the MRC/Bazix linking. The whole DRM thing has nothing to do with MRC. Is it sooo incredibly difficult to just leave it? If you have issues about the choices made in JP then go complain there, but leave unrelated parties out.


b0b: no one's flaming. If discussing equals flaming then you can as well close down the whole internet.

Short answer :
- it took 4 years for Apple and EMI to change their minds, but what seemed impossible is now a reality
- it will probably request 10 years for the Japanese software companies to change their minds and I won't buy any Woomb product before this change
- MRC not implicated with DRM ? Well, I know at least 2 MRC guys who have accepted that their work is selled with DRM : Sonic and Rikusu. And what concerns Rikusu, I have buyed in the past (before his participation in Bazix) some of his translations in the "conventional" form for the MSX community.

And this is the heart of the matter!

You just admitted the very essence of MRC-Bazix.

It's always fun to pretend there are more MRC admin's and such, but as you said, they are not maintaining the site like that one other person does.
You can say how many people are in MRC that are not in Bazix, but let's count the number of people in Bazix that are NOT in MRC: 0, ZERO!

Let's also not forget how Bazix was started. It all started with an attempt of snout to make MRC (in stead of Sunrise) a partner for MSX Association. Somehow either they, or after some thought he himself, didn't see MRC itself fit enough, so 90% of the MRC admin's of that time went on under a different name, while still keeping all of their leadership and privileges on MRC. MRC-Bazix had become a fact.

Let's also not forget how snout is claiming to be both MRC Headquarters and Bazix headquarters.

There are plenty of factual reasons to say MRC-Bazix is one entity, with MRC just having some more cruft around it. I just named but a few.

So stop crying and stop pretending. The sooner you end your phase of denial, the sooner you might return to The Real World(tm).

mars: - MRC not implicated with DRM ? Well, I know at least 2 MRC guys who have accepted that their work is selled with DRM : Sonic and Rikusu. And what concerns Rikusu, I have buyed in the past (before his participation in Bazix) some of his translations in the "conventional" form for the MSX community.

So, imagine you work in the local grocery, and you release some musical album at some company using DRM in your free time. Does that mean the whole grocery shop is evil? Because that's exactly what you're saying now.

G: It's always fun to pretend there are more MRC admin's and such, but as you said, they are not maintaining the site like that one other person does.

It's true snout's the best in what he does, compared with other admins and webmasters, but that doesn't mean that it's his intention to have it like a onemanshow. He rather would have other admins to become more active and better. So rather than saying that it's just 'his site', let's insert some nuance by saying that he does most of the work if he wants to keep a certain minimum of quality/quantity, and therefor MRC could be called "snout's site" for the simple reason he has the biggest share of the things we see/read. It does not mean that this onemanshow is his intention tho, he'd rather prefer some other admins to do much more regarding content, but until that moment he simple has to do most of it himself. Especially in march there was less of snout, and more from -say- Ivan, me and tails. Btw, quite a large part of the crew are translators eh, you prolly won't see them at all as most ppl read the English section.

You can say how many people are in MRC that are not in Bazix, but let's count the number of people in Bazix that are NOT in MRC: 0, ZERO!

That number is about to change, or has more or less changed already behind the scenes.

As for the rest, that's Bazix-related, e.g. not my business. I could guess some answers but I could as well talk to my cat, who at least appreciates when I say something.

mars: "apple/emi/boonty story"

Since when does apple/emi/boonty equal Bazix? Who are you to tell how a company should operate? If you don't love it: leave it. What kind of a loony must you be to spend all your time on that, day in day out? Don't you have something better to do?

One of my firsts posts still stands, I'm merely talking to some loonies with a double agenda who spend their loony-time with something that can be ignored if they choose to do so. It's clearly a waste of time. As said, I won't stop what I announced then either. You had your chance, you wasted it, fine, live with it.

What can't I read here! This is totally absurd and sorry to say totally disrespectful and insulting to the people, including myself, who are working hard in maitaining websites talking about MSX in a different perspective than the MRC. Before classifying Passion MSX and MSX Posse as such, Wolf_, please get to know a little better those two sites and the people behind it and hopefully try to see that without them (and others) we would be over-bored by the one-man show that the MRC provides, with all respect I have to the work accomplished in last 10 years on that site.

Back to DRM ... More food for the brain :

"Do copy protection firms encourage piracy?

By Nate Anderson | Published: March 13, 2006 - 10:33AM CT

Copy protection is not cool. That's the conclusion of Greg Vederman, editor-in-chief of PC Gamer, who recently had his own run-in with dysfunctional copy protection tech. Of course, no gamer is going to tell you that copy protection schemes enhance her enjoyment of Quake 4, but it's less usual to find a major gaming magazine taking on the issue directly. It's not necessarily the best way to maintain cozy relationships with game publishers, but when those game publishers bundle software which causes crashes and system instability with their programs, it's time to call them out.

It's not hard to see why the publishers use the stuff; after all, no one wants to spend a couple of years on a project only to see their efforts rewarded by flat sales and a robust pirate market. Still, in the quest for better protection, these copy protection schemes have grown in both sophistication and invasiveness. Some schemes now install their own hidden device drivers that monitor your computer's optical drive access, trying to prevent copying and other unapproved uses. (If this sounds familiar, it should. Game copy protection, after all, is just another form of DRM.)

Having entertainment titles muck about with the internals of your system isn't usually a recipe for stability, but what else is a software development company to do? Vederman has looked into his Magic 8-Ball, where all signs point to "Internet delivery."

"As for the larger issue of what happens when you’ve got an industry that is justifiably concerned about losing billions of dollars and consumers who are justifiably concerned about anti-piracy software making their lives difficult, well, you can bet that over the next several years, we're going to see even more games going the secure online-distribution route. For now, that’s the only fool-proof piracy solution (that's also relatively headache-free for consumers) that anyone has been able to come up with."

In the meantime, as our own Ben Kuchera put it when he first covered this story yesterday, "There has to be a better way." That better way would obviously be no copy protection whatsoever, but only dirty hippies and Communists would dare to release popular games without such restrictions. Or would they? Stardock Systems, the small developer of the highly popular new game Galactic Civilizations II, has released the program without any sort of copy protection at all—and it's doing very well. Their philosophy is refreshing: make it easy and compelling for users to stay legal, and they (mostly) will.

"Our primary weapon to fight piracy is through rewarding customers through convenient, frequent, free updates. If you make it easy for users to buy and make full use of your product or service legitimately then we believe that you'll gain more users from that convenience than you'll lose from piracy."

Apparently, such a model worries the makers of copy protection software. Starforce, makers of a product that has triggered much user wrath, went so far as to make a post on its own forums that contained a working URL where BitTorrent users could go to download illegal copies of Galactic Civilizations II (screenshot). This is the same company, after all, that threatens its critics with lawsuits, so such hardball tactics are not particularly surprising. If companies like Stardock can show the industry that good returns are possible without using draconian protection schemes, the protection makers may themselves soon be in need of protection."

Source : http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060313-6365.html