Australian Government Announces Broken Anti-Piracy Legislation

There's A Massive Government-Led Australian Piracy Crackdown On The Way - Gizmodo Australia

Today in a speech to the Australian Digital Alliance our current Attorney General, George Brandis, revealed the government's plan to tackle the scourge of online piracy. How does he plan to do this I hear you ask. Well through the old fallbacks of graduated response (the old three strikes rule), having ISPs take down sites that share copyrighted content and blocking access to websites like the infamous Pirate Bay.

Similar plans have been attempted overseas and have been hugely unsuccessful and previous attempts to introduce them to Australia failed before they even started.  Should these laws actually go through this time then I predict the following:

1. A distraught mother with sad looking children on her lap will appear on Today Tonight in tears saying that her vital internet was cut because "people were hacking it."

2. Precisely zero websites will be taken down by ISPs because no pirate sites are hosted in Australia, mainly because the ISPs are already well versed in taking down such sites for violating their own terms and conditions.

3. There will be a plethora of incorrectly blocked websites and most Australian tech publications will publish guides about how to easily bypass the artificial blockade.

4. The laws will be removed within an 18 to 24 month period due to the cost of enforcement outweighing any actual (or perceived) benefits.

But I have already covered the problems with this type of enforcement, and possible alternatives in depth (here is a selection of stories relating to piracy).  What I really want to do is delve into the remarkable timing of this announcement in line with recent events.

First up there is Foxtel obtaining exclusive rights to the next season of Game Of Thrones, a move that has most people anticipating Australia setting new records for pirated downloads of the popular show.  Previously it has been available within hours through iTunes and last year QuickFlix joined the club giving those fans who didn't have top tier Foxtel access an alternative to piracy.  It isn't much of a stretch to believe that the owners of Foxtel have been pushing hard to try to make sure that those who previously used alternate means have no other choices to signing up to $100+ pay TV package or be forced to wait for local DVD release.

The other development is the Australian Law Reform Commission's recommendation that the principles of fair use under Australian copyright law be broadened which would allow greater flexibility for personal, nonprofit use of purchased content. The mere suggestion of letting people use content they own in any way other than the specific versions they paid for must have had many rights holders in a panic at the thought of not being able to resell content in new formats to people who had bought previous versions. There is solid evidence of just how much entertainment "lobbyists" can pressure politicians so I dare say that George has been fielding many outraged phone calls since this report came down.

Unfortunately there will be no change to this status quo while rights holders hold on to the mistaken belief that every download is a lost sale.  There are multiple studies showing those who download more actually buy more content, there are studies showing how relaxing of DRM policies have led to increased sales and most importantly countries, including France and Great Britain, are in the process of dismantling these broken laws that our government seems hell bent on introducing.

So, in summary, the Australian government has just announced they intend to waste a whole heap of time and money.

Australian's Who Campaigned For So Long For An R18+ Rating Get This?

Fable Was Rated 'M' By The Classification Board. The HD Remake? R18+ - Kotaku Australia

This is joke right?  Right?  Anyone...  Oh, they're serious.

When the original Fable was released way back in the wild heady days of 2004 our illustrious classification board gave it a solid M rating at the time.  Was this because of sex, or drugs (the usual suspects)?  Nope.  It is very combat heavy and you have the choice of being nice (only fighting bad guys, and often sparing their lives) or nasty (kill anything that gets in your way).  So why on earth would the HD remake suddenly become an adults only R18+.  Well, it's because of sex.

Apparently, under the updated classification rules, the fact you can get married and consummate said partnership comes under the "Sexual activity related to incentives or rewards".  Below is what happens in this game.  Before you click play remember this is something the classification board is deadly serious about...

Well that is about as interactive as a brick that is sitting on a high shelf.  But then there are the "incentive or rewards" from this little piece of fade to black.  So what advantages does your character get from this sordid encounter?  Nothing.  Not a thing.  The original article above suggests you and your partner can have a child but that little feature wasn't introduced until Fable 2.

The inconsistent and just plain ridiculous decisions relating to games since our pretend R18+ rating was introduced really shows that the system is still broken.  If this decision stands then I guess the next Sims game will have to be R18+.

The ongoing review by the Australian Law Reform Commission has a possible answer.  An industry based classification system like the ESRB in the US and PEGI in the UK is the real answer.  This doesn't take government regulation out of the picture since any developer or publisher can still have their rating reviewed should there be reports of inappropriate material for any given rating.

As for the Fable decision... seriously I actively participated in the R18+ campaign for over a decade and THIS is the outcome...

The MPAA Finally Found Real Pirates

MPAA: 'Notorious' Melbourne Market One Of World's Worst Piracy Blackspots - Gizmodo Australia

When the word "piracy" is thrown around it is generally used as a general term for downloading stuff for free.  It's one of those terms that has become general use while not being entirely accurate.  Sharing content on the internet comes under the banner of "copyright infringement".  The piracy aspect is only really comes in when someone is profiting from the sale of copyright infringing content.

Now that we have the lesson out of the way let's get to the actual story.  The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has apparently had investigators scouring the world looking for the dark alleys and seedy dives that are selling pirated movies.  So who is right up there amongst the biggest offenders?  That's right, Australians!

The Caribbean Gardens and Markets in Melbourne is a 10,000 square covered market and one of the biggest in Australia.  Allegedly in among the 1,000 plus stalls you can find 10 to 20 individuals selling pirated DVDs including recently released titles.  Wow this place really is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

But it gets better.  Since the Trans Pacific Partnership talks (which started in 2010 and are still going) put copyright piracy in the same category as full scale counterfeiting the MPAA and associated organisations have been touting the line that copyright infringement supports terrorism.  While this current report doesn't take it to that extreme they still take the opportunity to point out that since some of the locations on the list are associated with underground criminal organisations that must mean ALL the places are associated with underground criminal organisations.  We don't have a handful of people with access to a multi DVD burner and an inkjet printer, no, we have gangsters running the face paint stall, mini golf and train rides!

It does seem a bit odd that this rather excessive report comes out at the same time the Australian Government announced they were looking into an anti-piracy plan.  This, along with talk  promising to allow greater involvement of industry groups in trade negotiations, does not bode well for the digital freedom that Australians have enjoyed while other countries have been laboured with everything from "three strikes" through to enforced blocking of websites.

Getting back to the original subject I am utterly amazed that an industry that is losing so much money year after year can afford to pay for investigators to travel the world and discover terrible, yet family friendly, places like the Carribean Gardens and Market.  And somehow they still manage to scrape together a measly $200,000,000 for a movie such as Iron Man 3 (which incidentally has grossed at least $1.2 billion so far).

IGEA's Annual Digital Australia Report Telling Us What Everyone (Except The Classification Board) Knows

The Typical Australian Gamer Is 32 Years Old - Kotaku Australia

The IGEA (Interactive Games and Entertainment Association) has released a lovely little infographic showing the results of it's latest survey, and unsurprisingly it shows the age of the average gamer is increasing as well as an increase in parents who play games with their kids.

As for the tidal wave of depravity and filth that was expected (well by the Australian Christian Lobby at least) when our watered down R18 rating was introduced the majority of game purchases fall withing the G and PG ratings.

With the average gamer now being 32 years old, and a great indication of parental involvement in their children's game playing it is hard to ignore that people are making sensible, responsible choices when it comes to making sure children are not exposed to inappropriate content.

The average Australian gamer is all grown up, can we please stop watering down our adult rating now.  We are all "thinking of the children".

If you want to have a closer look at the stats, then head over here.

Australian's On Top (of Breaking Bad)

Breaking Bad Finale Sees Australians Beat The World At Piracy... Again - Gizmodo Australia

I know it's been a while since my last post, so I thought it would be appropriate to report on a story that also relates to one of the reasons I have been so slack.

For all those out there how don't know (yes, both of you) Breaking Bad's final ever episode screened earlier this week and despite it being fast tracked to Australia via Foxtel we still managed to be the biggest trackable downloaders of this fine show.

Australians counted for 20% of the world's public torrent downloads.  That's right, a country with roughly 0.3% of this planet's population managed to account for one fifth of the traffic on this show.  Could it be that maybe not everyone wants to pay the $120+ a month for the package that will give you access to this show?

Mind you having fairly recently gotten into this show myself I can see why those without ready access would be keen to grab the final episode as soon as possible.  I am almost to the end of the third season and can't wait to see what happens next, so on that note I'll leave you with the following alternative version while I go fire up Netflix...

Netflix Is More Popular Than Piracy Because Piracy

In The US, Netflix Checks With Pirates To Decide Which Shows To Buy - Gizmodo Australia

For a while now Netflix traffic has been exceeding bittorrent traffic in North America and showing it is possible to compete with free. A principle reason is that it provides a service at a decent price that is easier than piracy, but could there be something else.

At the launch of Netflix Netherlands the head of content acquisition Kelly Merryman has come right out and said they look at the most popular targets for piracy and then see if they can acquire the rights. Obviously there are some shows that the current right holders don't want to share with anybody else *cough* Game Of Thrones *\cough * but the sheer popularity of the service and its impact on piracy on its home turf shows they are onto something.

Of course for markets where Netflix is not available it really is a moot point, hence why shows like the aforementioned Game Of Thrones and Breaking Bad are downloaded mercilessly in Australia.

With content for Australia being either locked up in exclusivity deals or simply not being made available what can you do?

I'll just leave this here.

Games Good For Kids, What Is This Madness?

Video Games Can Be Good For Young People, Australian Research States - Kotaku Australia

Sorry for the scary stock photo

The Queensland University of Technology recently collated and comprehensively reviewed a large number of video game research papers that focused on the effects on young people.  A number of interesting points have been highlighted including:

- moderate (non-excessive) levels of playing are associated with positive emotions and improved mood
- playing video games is a healthy means of relaxation and socialising
- people who play video games in moderation have significantly less depression and higher self esteem when compared to those who don't play or play excessively
- interestingly the research that suggests any negative impact acknowledges that any such effect is relatively small, a point not mentioned whenever these studies are trotted out.

The positive impact appears to come more from the flow of gameplay rather than actual content, so the better a game flows the more beneficial it can be.  Of course games that are simply inappropriate for younger gamers should still be kept out of their reach, but the same can be said for movies, books and TV.

With all the negative press gaming receives whenever any connection, no matter how minor, can be made between video games and tragic events it is refreshing to see something positive for a change.  Strangely enough this story doesn't seem to be very widely reported in the mainstream media.

The key of course is moderation, which can be applied to so much of what we allow our kids to do.  There is no reason that video games can't be part of a healthy active lifestyle.  I try to set limits on how much time my kids spend gaming but with the older of the pair now having access to a portable system it has become a bit of a game of cat and mouse!

Progress Report - Saints Row 4

This is a continuation of my first impressions of Saints Row 4 article.

Well I am still pushing through the Matrix-esque world of the Saints and still enjoying the game.  I am making very slow progress through the story though due to the optional side missions.  The repetition of these tasks can get a little on the wearing side, however the rewards and bonuses for completing them definitely helps you push through and as they usually feature side tasks it also helps your overall completion percentage significantly.

Speaking of optional missions, as you rescue your homies from the clutches of the tyrannical alien overlord Zinyak you get the option of completing "loyalty missions".  These are usually pretty generous with cash and xp but the main gain is the supporting character also gains superpowers for when you call on them to help you out in the simulated city.  Incidentally, it's the Shaundi loyalty mission that earned SR4 it's refused classification in Australia, and yes I have completed it.

Essentially the section that Australian adults are too sensitive to experience without immediately craving the hardest drugs they can find sees the main character head out with two versions of Shaundi (I can't explain that without spoilers) to track down some "alien narcotics" that boost superpowers.  Remember these powers only exist within the computer simulation where the majority of the game is set ands by this stage your character's powers are well and truly established.  We are entertained to a couple of scenes showing the drugs being taken but when the "boost" kicks in it gives the support characters powers but doesn't actually impact those that the main player character already has... it's implied that it does, but again, there is no actual increase in the powers of the main character!

Don't worry if you are concerned about the horrible personal temptation the above mission may bring into your life.  Thanks the the Australian Classification Board this OPTIONAL mission has been removed from the Australian version of the game.  True you still have to wait a couple of weeks to buy your bubble wrapped version, but at least you will be kept safe.  Incidentally, that anal probe weapon will be available in with local copies depending on the DLC you purchase.

Anyway, back to the game.  The missions are suitably insane and the current batch of story related content is focused on getting the rest of the Saints out of their own simulated realities and into your home base to help you out.  Deep Silver certainly hasn't skimped on content since everything you do seems to unlock multiple missions, both story related and optional.

The superpowers are fun and I am finding I only used a weapon or jump in a vehicle when it is necessary.  After a few upgrades the problem of travelling across the map turns into a joy as you sprint, climb and glide at incredible speed.  The only things that slow you down are the many collectables and nodes (required to upgrade powers) scattered everywhere.  There are heaps of other activities to complete, but I'll let you discover them for yourselves.  Using powers in combat is tricky enough that pulling off a spectacular move is always satisfying without being overly frustrating.  You'll definitely find some powers that you'll hardly use, but I recommend sticking with telekinesis even though it seems a bit underwhelming when you first get access to it.

This is a game that overcomes its flaws by just making it worth your while to push through the low points and is just plain stupid fun the rest of the time.  I'm still laughing at a lot of the gags, even some that I have seen a few times now.  The option to "romance" your crew presents some absolute laugh out loud moments and some strangely touching ones too, with the exception of Keith David.  Why won't you let me love you Keith David?

The scary thing is I still feel that there is more I need to see before I can put the lid on any sort of review of the game.  I am however still very happy to recommend it based on what I have seen so far.

No Xbox One Voice Commands For Australia

Xbox One Voice Commands Won't Work In Australia At Launch - Kotaku Australia

The Microsoft info drip has just released details about Xbox One's Kinect voice control.  If you have one of the many flavours of US, British, Canadian or major European accents then you can "Xbox on" to your heart's content.  As for the rest of the world...

You'd hope that after making Australian's wait for over a year for voice control to be enabled through Kinect on Xbox 360 (it came out in November 2010, Aussie's got voice control in December 2011) that some of the data they collected in that time could be used to ensure all their customers could use all the features at launch.  I guess the only question is how long it will take this time.

Considering that Kinect is a compulsory part of the Xbox One... hang on, that was one of the "integral features" they dropped.  Well, it still would have made it easier since the console needs to be always connected to...  nope, they back tracked on constant net connection too!

Well given their track record on announcements so far it wouldn't surprise me if this announcement gets revised in a couple of weeks time.

Is this even news now?  I'm confused.

Saints Row 4 Goes For The Hat Trick

Saints Row IV Australian Release Date Pushed Back - Kotaku Australia

Wow, just wow.  Just when you thought this debacle couldn't go even further down the tubes the release date for our sanitised for adults version of SR4 has been pushed back to a month later than the rest of the world.

So to summarise...  We are getting a censored version, the Aussie version will not be compatible to play online with any copy from other regions and now it will take an extra month for this game to officially see our shores.  It's just like the pre R18+ days.  Australia Tax on locally released copies will still apply of course.

SR4 is getting some good reviews out there with no mention of all the horrible narcotics and sexual assault that we Aussies must be protected from, also remembering the questionable weapon will most likely be re-instated in future downloadable content anyway!  Either the rest of the world has a thicker skin or, more likely, this terrible civilisation destroying content is such a minor feature of the game that it would barely register as a concern to most reasonable adults... as in "what a reasonable adult would consider acceptable" which is the crux of the R18+ rating!

Since the modified version has already been submitted and approved by the Australian Classification Board I honestly think that the delay is a deliberate ploy by the developers to try to kick up some extra stink on Australian shores.  Unfortunately with an election looming this will not even register on any politicians issue list.

At the end of the day the only way we can object to the our nannified "adult" rating is by ensuring any purchase of this game is made off-shore which means the local retailers will have take the brunt of any consumer action.  Buying locally means supporting an ineffective ratings system.  As an adult you should have choices.  If you find any aspect of any item too objectionable then it is your choice not to support a product, or express your concern to the distributors and publishers.  There are no floodgates to be opened by allowing a cartoonish game like SR4 through uncut as the real objectionable content is not made by any game developer intending to distribute their games via normal retail channels.

At the end of the day as an adult the choice is yours to make, and the government should not be taking making that choice for you.

Saints Row 4 Refused Classification in Australia

Breaking: Saints Row IV Has Been Refused Classification - Kotaku Australia

This... I... what? I don't even...

Okay, some background.  For almost 11 years Australian gamers fought for a change in the classification system to allow 18+ games (the equivalent to 17+ on the ESRB system) to be released in Australia.  Prior to the eventual introduction of the R18+ rating games where either refused classification (could not be sold), edited for release in Australia (to much outrage), or most commonly shoe-horned into the in-appropriate MA15+ category.

Essentially there was no category for video games intended for adults, and the long painful process and the screams of protesting conservatives yelling "think of the children" wrapped up to cheers of campaigning responsible adults, who wanted nothing more than a clear designation to help less informed parents know what was and wasn't appropriate for little Johnny, when it was announced that Aussie would finally an R18+ classification starting 1 January 2013.  I know exactly how it felt since I had been one of those campaigners right from the start.

So, upon seeing the above headline I immediately investigated further, wondering what exactly it took to push Saints Row 4 beyond the category of R18+.  It has been refused due to "interactive, visual depictions of implied sexual violence which are not justified by context".  Okay, sounds nasty, however exactly how visual can implied content be?  Considering Saints Row 3, which I just happen to have recently started replaying, had a scene early on where a guy could be seen pushing a woman's head down towards his crotch.  Number 3 also has a lovely mission called "The Ho Boat" where you get to stop a container boat full of women being sent off into sex slavery by shooting anything in your path, including any of the ladies who get caught up in the crossfire.  At the end, well you can put them to work as prostitutes for your character's benefit.  These are scenarios that I find distasteful, yet I know there is much worse sitting in my local video store.... Human Centipede anyone?

Now the above examples are probably the most extreme available in Saints Row 3 and I feel certainly can be described using the classification board's nice and provocative, yet very broad, statement about number 4.  The point of this is that Saints Row 3 was released in Australia, completely uncut, under the MA15+ banner.

This decision appears that, in essence, the rather flexible rules for the old MA15+ have been tweaked, tightened up a bit and applied wholesale to the new R18+ guidelines.  We were promised that wouldn't be the case however, to date, the only games to get the fabled new rating are the ones that would have been MA15+ under the old system anyway.

Now, if this implied content is really that bad, if it is a scenario that can easily be seen to exceed any interpretation of the R18+ classification then I am happy to abide by that decision and have some of my faith restored in the classification board.  I still however find it incredibly unlikely that a game designed by adults, for adults, in such a well established game franchise with experienced, commercial game developers at the helm would include anything that would push those bounds.

Adult entertainment (and I don't mean porn, that is a whole different discussion) needs to have the scope to push reactions, push buttons and be set up so that adults experiencing it can make there own decisions on the content, regardless of the medium.  To sum up I will make the point that I made in numerous submissions to local members, state MPs, Attorney Generals and even the Prime Minister...

R18+ for any content needs to be same for ALL content, be it games, film, television or print.  Only then can we have a true adult rating that meets the criteria for all Australian adults.