When Sony Attacks

A really interesting article on joystiq about the PS3’s copy protection is available. Apparently, it’s a system to prevent used games and pirated copies from playing on the system. From the patent application:

“A device and method for protection of legitimate software against used software and counterfeit software in recording media… A specific title code is read, and if this title code has been registered, the main unit shifts to a normal operation. If the code has not been registered, verification software is initiated… If matching does not occur, the disk is processed as illegitimate software… Since only titles for which legitimate software has actually been purchased and which have been initially registered in the machine table can be used, resale (so-called used software purchase) after purchase by an end-user becomes practically impossible.”

Being a programmer, I can utilize my vast skills to try and puzzle out how Sony will try to make this work from a technological persepective. Basically, there are two ways: write the register number of the PS3 that first plays the disc (stored in ROM memory) to the disk itself (this, of course, requires that Sony PS3 discs be writable), or utilize a centralized database to compare the register number of the PS3 to a corresponding register number of the software.

The first possibility is unlikely. It’s highly doubtful Sony will have the discs writable and the hardware to do it. Doing so would open up possibilities for piracy heretheto unseen! It’d be a trivial matter to use the PS3 itself to make copies of games, or to simply rewrite the register number on the disc so that it matches your PS3. That said, if Sony has found a way to make just a few bits on the disc writable and nothing else, this still may work, but still suffers from the other problem of making the PS3 an easy copy source. And, of course, as soon as someone finds the rewrite sector, it’ll still be trivial to rewrite the registration number.

The other possibility is more interesting. In this, there would be a central repository located at Sony headquarters. When someone plays a game, the PS3 would phone home and ask the repository if a) the register number on the software is currently in use and b) if so, does this particular PS3 have access to this particular registered software. This method is very similiar to the Sony rootkit they’ve been using to monitor private citizens’ CD usage, so it seems most likely.

Of course, it also has some disadvantages. First, it requires authenication from the net. What happens if the PS3 isn’t connected online? Do no games at all play? I think that’d be disasterous for Sony if they tried to do that one. Secondly, it’d be very slow, limited by both the net speed and the speed of the search. There are some methods you can use to speed it up (hash table based on software title, binary search through specific IDs, etc), but as more and more titles are added, the system will get slower and slower.

There is also an interesting legal question here in the Right of First Sale. In the United States (and I believe the UK has a similiar law), it’s been established by the courts for a very long time that if you buy something, you are granted the ability to sell it to someone else at a later date. Sony could make the claim that the software is still sellable, it just won’t work on the new owner’s machine. It’d be an interesting thing to be tested.

That said, this likely isn’t too big of a problem. Even the arrogance and hubris of Sony has to cowtow to market forces and they’d be morons to try and force this type of restriction on the PS3, especially due to competition from XBox 360 and the Nintendo Revolution.

Still, it’s yet more reason why no one should buy Sony products. They are seriously out to screw you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But someday.

References:
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000420067137/