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^That article reports on a civil suit (which may, or may not rule in favour of the plaintiff), it certainly doesn't indicate copy protection systems are illegal.

As far as businesses go, copy protection systems have long existed and I don't see too many developers on the wrong side of the law for using them. My business systems have Windows XP, which requires Product Activation. I have Office, which requires Activation. My accounting software Quickbooks (and the one before it, MYOB), requires a Registration Code that changes on reinstallation and my quoting software ITQuoter has a license file that requires annual renewal. It's a often a pain but it isn't unusual.

I do agree the Starforce protection seems to be a violation of BD's EULA and that seems a legitimate (if pedantic) complaint.


All the protections you've just mentioned (with the exception of Starforce) aren't disc orientated. What I said was disc protection (not software protection) was forbidden. The actual article in PCGAMER said it was illegal also.

The reason they're filing the suit, is because the law has been breached. If a law hadn't been breached, there would be no point in launching the proceedings. You cannot take someone to court for not doing anything wrong.

ITQuoter is a licence for 12 months, you aren't allowed to run it after that without renewing. This isn't the same EULA as a game, where you have unconditional use of the code, regarding time.

Finally, starforce may well be doing it's job of protecting games from being copied, however, it's appears to be doing a host of other little jobs too. Like rebooting computers randomly, causing authentication failures and damaging data. As I understand it, the law only permits the encryption of DVD movies at this time. And if this changes in favour of the publishers, then the EULA must be changed to reflect this.

If we lose the "Fair use" policy, I suppose you'll be binning your DAT drives and tape drives, that back up your server, as this on a technical level would be a breach of the new EULA, if copying is outlawed.

Faith is believing in something you know isn't true