With Ubisoft's new digital rights management regime for the PC proving both easy to circumvent and wildly unpopular

Publisher Ubisoft's latest attempt to curb piracy of its PC games, making its debut appearance in submarine sim Silent Hunter 5, has allegedly been cracked by "sceners" the day after its release.

An article on GamePro.com uses the controversy of Assassin's Creed II's PC copy-protection requirements to discuss the ceaseless debate over Digital Rights Management. Simple question: What would the perfect DRM be?

Ubisoft's new digital rights management setup on the PC sounded bad, then in practice, sounded even worse. That can mean only one thing: damage control!

We've known for sometime that Ubisoft's plans to curb piracy on the PC will include a required internet connection to play the publisher's games, including the upcoming release of Assassin's Creed II. But we didn't know it was this unsavory.

Yeah, sure, “always-connected anti-piracy plan” is just a tongue-twisting maze of exec-speak for “different DRM,” but the devil’s in the details, so let’s see what Ubisoft’s got cooking.

Some German movie goers were a little disappointed yesterday when faulty DRM caused major issues in their advanced screening of Avatar in 3D. The special 3D version was delivered to a number of cinemas in Germany, but some of them were unable to decode the files.

Microsoft has been granted a patent for a new type of DRM that works over p2p-style networks. By using public/private encryption keys, it could be used to reinvigorate p2p as a legitimate source of content. The patent explains, "Partial licenses are combinable to form a formal license that may be utilized to output the content."

Remember slotRadio, SanDisk's anachronistic plan to load microSD cards with sometimes-DRMed music, as if they were CDs? It was strange! Also strange: SanDisk still believes in it, and they've even produced a second, fuller-featured player, called the Clip+.