News - Copyright Enforcement Group LLC

Copyright Enforcement Group - SimCity's Anti-Piracy Stance Hurts Electronic 

SimCity, the classic civic planning game that has been a staple of PC gaming for decades, recently released the first new entry in the series in a decade. The game, which was sampled by press before its launch, received high notes both for its trademark quality as well as its innovative online-only play. A first for the series, the latest SimCity requires a constant internet connection so that player’s cities can interact with one another in a global online world. This mandatory online play is a new way to cut down on software piracy, but few anticipated the reaction it would receive from fans. Server issues plagued the game's first week of release due to extremely heavy traffic that the game's developers were seemingly unprepared for. As a result thousands of paying customers found themselves unable to play the new game they had just purchased, leading to an enormous player outcry and causing damage to the SimCity brand. In the following days a recovery effort has been made to eliminate this problem, but the game contains so much data that there are no simple solutions.

Preventing copyright infringement is one of the most difficult jobs for software developers, as well as producers of images, audio, logos, and video. However, as methods to takedown infringers ramp up there is a risk of alienating the consumer base through such measures. Even the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) has come under intense scrutiny by making the tracking of file exchanges online legal. This data is being used as business intelligence for copyright enforcement companies as well as content owners. In some ways this information might be more valuable than the software being pirated, allowing for some monetization of lost income due to piracy albeit in a different manner.

Copyright Enforcement Group (CEG-TEK INTL.) is one such company offering comprehensive solutions to the problems faced by online piracy. CEG logs infringements into an extensive database where they are logged and registered. From there CEG-TEK issues takedown notices and in some cases legal action. This is all done with the goal of recovery of lost income and monetization of internet traffic. Presently, businesses dealing with intellectual property have forward thinking when it comes to copyright enforcement. Even major software developers like Electronic Arts face enormous challenges when it comes to controlling their online presence; it is in the best interest of both the fans and the teams in question to entrust these duties with a responsible and ethical industry leader such as Copyright Enforcement Group.

The lesson learned from SimCity is that much work is still required to strike the right balance between enforcement and more progressive solutions for copyrights. While the new online features of SimCity have been popular, they have also put the game at the forefront of a growing controversy over anti-piracy measures. This game is one that has a widespread fan base that has remained more or less faithful to it despite recent difficulties and setbacks. Other forms of entertainment might find their own fans to be less flexible about such an issue unless more progressive copyright enforcement solutions are doggedly pursued.