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What is DRM? Digital Restrictions Management. DefectiveByDesign.org is a broad-based anti-DRM campaign that is targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors. The campaign aims to make all manufacturers wary about bringing their DRM-enabled products to market. DRM products have features built-in that restrict what jobs they can do. These products have been intentionally crippled from the users' perspective, and are therefore "defective by design". Learn more about our campaign

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Gears of War is defective by design

Posted On: Fri, 2009-01-30 14:53 by JohnSullivan

Epic Games's Gears of War title apparently includes a cut-off date, enforced via DRM. Ars Technica is reporting that the game ceased to function for everyone who bought it on January 28, 2009.

While it's not rare for games to ship with bugs every now and again, it's pretty shocking when one ships with an issue that causes the title to stop working for everyone who paid.

We await the explanation from Epic Fail Games, but this seems to be another case of a product being made defective by design through the use of DRM.

See our recent list of free software DRM-free games for alternatives that don't come with a death certificate.

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Join the new Defective By Design microblogging group

Posted On: Fri, 2009-01-23 09:15 by JohnSullivan

For more Defective By Design discussion and updates, please join us at the microblogging site identi.ca.

The official Defective By Design group to join is "dbd".

See you there!

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