The New Game Medium

While the music industry struggles with copyright enforcement, the computer game industry has found an effective solution to the piracy problem. Publishers provide online content and communities that users need official accounts to access. By forcing users to associate their license keys with their accounts the publishers discourage piracy, while also providing some benefits for the users. Since a license is associated with an account, gamers can log in from any computer and play. Since game publishers only allow one session per user, users are discouraged from sharing their accounts with friends. If your game CD breaks, you can simply download a new copy from the publisher because they still have your license on record. Several publishers have started selling licenses online systems and allowing direct download, eliminating the need for any physical media. The music industry needs to create a system that is beneficial to the users—not just the publishers—if they want to succeed in their anti-piracy campaign.