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Oculus Rift ANTI-PIRACY Update allows for even more Piracy

Maxxgold
Rising Star
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/05/23/oculus-rift-anti-piracy-update-allows-for-even-more-piracy

BY JOE SKREBELS An Oculus Rift security update seen by many to be a response to Revive - the mod that allows players to play Oculus-exclusive games on the HTC Vive VR headset - has backfired, allowing for full-scale game piracy.

Talking to Motherboard, Revive's secretive developer, Libre VR explained that the update - which now includes a pre-game launch check to see if an Oculus is being used to play - actually allows for the entire security check to be bypassed.

It means that Revive can now technically be used to stop the system being able to tell if a copy of a game was legitimately acquired.

On Reddit, Libre VR said: "I still do not support piracy, do not use this library for pirated copies." He also confirmed that if he found a way to keep Revive's core functionality without bypassing the security checks and allowing for piracy, he would implement it.

When Revive was first released, Oculus told IGN: "This is a hack, and we don’t condone it. Users should expect that hacked games won’t work indefinitely, as regular software updates to games, apps, and our platform are likely to break hacked software."

It's likely that the company will now seek to counter this latest loophole sooner rather than later. IGN has reached out for comment.

37 REPLIES 37

CharlieHobbes
Rising Star
the title of this post is click-bait misleading. 

The person responsible for the Revive hack modified his hack to work with the latest version which inadvertedly (or perhaps not) also circumvents other things. 

The update, which comes from Oculus has nothing to do with the actions of the person responsible for Revive. 

And it doesn't allow anything, piracy is still illegal. 



Syrellaris
Rising Star


the title of this post is click-bait misleading. 

The person responsible for the Revive hack modified his hack to work with the latest version which inadvertedly (or perhaps not) also circumvents other things. 

The update, which comes from Oculus has nothing to do with the actions of the person responsible for Revive. 

And it doesn't allow anything, piracy is still illegal. 





Actually, if you read it and actually understood it then the developer of Revive removing DRM checks all together, is the result of Oculus stopping his program. In other words, Oculus has made the decision to prevent Revive from working and allowing oculus Home games on the vive.

Honestly, Oculus did this intentionally because they want a closed system. It is rather obvious. Yet, Gamers do not want Closed Systems. It is one of the most hated things on Consoles and it will be one of the most hated things in VR.

All together, that does ultimately lead to more Piracy, illegal or not.

CharlieHobbes
Rising Star




the title of this post is click-bait misleading. 

The person responsible for the Revive hack modified his hack to work with the latest version which inadvertedly (or perhaps not) also circumvents other things. 

The update, which comes from Oculus has nothing to do with the actions of the person responsible for Revive. 

And it doesn't allow anything, piracy is still illegal. 





Actually, if you read it and actually understood it then the developer of Revive removing DRM checks all together, is the result of Oculus stopping his program. In other words, Oculus has made the decision to prevent Revive from working and allowing oculus Home games on the vive.

Honestly, Oculus did this intentionally because they want a closed system. It is rather obvious. Yet, Gamers do not want Closed Systems. It is one of the most hated things on Consoles and it will be one of the most hated things in VR.

All together, that does ultimately lead to more Piracy, illegal or not.


I don't even know where to begin.

So the owner of the soft/hardware closes off a hack from working. and this FORCES the maker of said hack to take a new approach, in the process completely killing DRM checks, and this is somehow Oculus' fault?

Revive is a hack, not a basic human right. 

Let's put it in another way. 

I don't lock my front door, and you happen to know this, as a result you can come into my house without me actually wanting you there and sit on my sofa and drink my beer.
I don't like this so now I lock the door.
This somehow FORCES you to tap in a window so you can get in and drink my beers.

As a side result a douchebag walking down the street sees the broken window, decides to come in as well and steal my TV. 

And somehow this is all my fault?
How dare I lock my door.. Clearly I should have known better than to set off this string of events. 

Whichever way you cut it, the maker of Revive is the sole person responsible for creating the possibility of increased piracy of software in this scenario. 

Now on a personal level I think Oculus Home games SHOULD be able to be played on other HMDs, including Vive. But claiming that Oculus is at fault here is just nonsense.

If any party does not give you access to a non-essential product or service that they own, it does not give you the right to take it by force. 


edmg
Trustee
Cue more fanboy whining when Revive is pulled from github for violating the DMCA.

CharlieHobbes
Rising Star

edmg said:

Cue more fanboy whining when Revive is pulled from github for violating the DMCA.


Not really sure why since any real Vive fan is supposed to spit on non-roomscale games, I believe it says so it in the manual.

edmg
Trustee
I've been pointing out that inconsistency for a while. Asking why they want to play Oculus games when roomscale is the One True VR really seems to make Vive fanboys mad.

Hanover
Rising Star
It doesn't matter what anyone wants except for Oculus.  Just because you don't want it doesn't give you the right to break the law by going around DRM (I expect a cease and desist any day now).

Seriously...do you own the company?

What so many people fail to understand is there are no VR standards right now.  Zilch.  Zip.  Nada.  No standards.  There are no rules.  There is no Direct X for VR and no standard for tracking or controls.  So saying that Oculus shouldn't be doing what they're doing is irrelevant.  THERE ARE NO RULES HERE.  Both companies want to use their SDK's for this very reason.  No standards.   Using OpenVR would create a conflict of interest for Oculus because Valve OWNS AND CONTROLS OpenVR.  It's not open source at all.

So until Valve lets Oculus support Vive directly from the Oculus 3.1 SDK, it's not going to happen.  Again, competing standards.  The weird thing is, we want this...we want to see more companies competing, because that is what leads to innovation.  Then once everyone can agree on the best standards, consortiums and partnerships evolve to solidify standards everyone uses.  But right now, expecting everything to work like a standard PC gaming market is not realistic.  So much else goes into VR beyond just the display.

Think of this:  Frontier and Valve are STILL struggling to get Elite Dangerous to run smoothly on the Vive and to make the text readable.  Yet it took very little time to get it running on the Rift.  So there you go, obviously Oculus must be doing something better...and is a +1 for Oculus SDK in my book.  So maybe now Valve is motivated to try to improve....and that could only be something good for it's users.  We want this boxing match.  

RedRizla
Honored Visionary
I can't help but look at it like this. When I purchase a game, it's then up to me if I want to view it on my 42" Television/PC Monitor/Laptop. I know the VR device is doing more then just displaying, but not a lot of people are interested in what's under the hood. I think open VR on any headset is the best bet, because if you go into lockdown, then the ones which are more open to other devices will come out on top. They will sell more games etc. This is from someone who doesn't want to be tied to one headset though, so others might think differently.

Hanover
Rising Star
OpenVR can't access some of Oculus functionality. It doesn't support Asynchronous Time Warp which is what is responsible for never having dropped frames. It's also owned by Valve.

I don't blame Oculus for wanting to use the SDK they spent time developing for their hardware.