A patent describing a "method for validating legitimate media products" attributed to Sony Computer Entertainment surfaced this week. It was originally filed in August 2011, and the patent elaborates on a process by which a piece of media could be detected as legitimate (not pirated) by comparing two load times against a benchmark for the media.

As you can see in the chart above, the patent describes a secondary validation stage to which a serial number and the "user identification information" are checked against "reliable data, such as that sourced from the manufacturer or developer of the media title."
This information could include account names, location, IP addresses, the speed of the user's connection and product license numbers.

The secondary validation would account for load time errors caused by hardware issues, but would also be skipped entirely if the first cycle - the load time benchmark comparisons - checks out.

Posted: Feb 24, 2013 6:22 pm
Related Forum: PlayStation Forum