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Or send it to the Publisher. You get a new CD then when your old one is gone. You know with a legally bought Version you call that "support".


And what if the publisher/developer goes tits up? Where's my support and new copy of the game then?

Do i have to pay for all the postage, and wait god knows hom many weeks to get the game back?

When the EULA says I can make a backup, I should be able to make a backup. After all, if you lot aren't paying any attention to the EULA, why should anyone else.

It isn't the developers/publishers job to stop piracy; this is a criminal offence, and is dealt with by the law enforcement agencies. If you have legitimate concerns about piracy or unlawful copying, then it should be taken up with them.

I'd like to send my personal regards to Xaishi who appears to be the only one who thinks this is important.



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So let's say there's no disk protection, in what form is the software protection.

Say it's one .exe file, like the program Flash. It's 'protected' and I use that term very loosely by a serial code.

Anyone can use the code to install it anywhere, send it over the internet, copy it to disk with the code in a read me file. Then there's cracks for turning the trial version into the full version as well.

Because though it's a company development tool macromedia make a lot of money from it, as most companys are afriad to use illegal software.

But companys don't use games, home pc users do. So how do you protect this code?

Serial codes? Pointless.

Dongle? You'd have to swap that thing around for every game.

What's the answer? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

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20@ bucks to ship a disc? Um, no. I can get CD protectors that are 5 dollers, wbith a guarantee, and then maybe a few more dollers to send it to the publisher's home base.

Please, show me where in the EULA it says that.

Last edited by LewsTherinKinslayer13; 25/06/04 04:49 PM.


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So let's say there's no disk protection, in what form is the software protection.

Say it's one .exe file, like the program Flash. It's 'protected' and I use that term very loosely by a serial code.

Anyone can use the code to install it anywhere, send it over the internet, copy it to disk with the code in a read me file. Then there's cracks for turning the trial version into the full version as well.

Because though it's a company development tool macromedia make a lot of money from it, as most companys are afriad to use illegal software.

But companys don't use games, home pc users do. So how do you protect this code?

Serial codes? Pointless.

Dongle? You'd have to swap that thing around for every game.

What's the answer? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />


I'll grant you that this is a very interesting question. However, there are people paid bucket-loads of cash for coming up with the very thing you're talking about. I enjoy wondering about the solution, as this is a difficult question.

The bottom line, however, is that the law enforcement agencies should deal with it. I know they're not doing a fantastic job in some countries, but law enforcement isn't anyone else's responsibility, and at the end of the day, it's a crime.

Over here people buy cheap cigarettes that have been imported. Again, it's against the law to sell them, so what should the tobacco companies do? Ban cigarettes in all other countries completely, in order to effect few people who import them? You can't make everyone suffer, just to target a minority.

Perhaps this money so heavily invested in protections could be spent on independant organisations to investigate this matter... Perhaps online authentication or monthly/ one-off subscription is the way. Perhaps they could invest in more pubilicty, so that the governments change the law (in their favour) or embarass the authorities into doing something about it.

I'm just a dumb gamer! If i can come up with these, I'm sure the collective might of the publishers can do better <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />



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isn't that like having faith in something you know is not true! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

good point....now just apply it to this topic....
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You can't make everyone suffer, just to target a minority.


and you two are the minority! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/kissyou.gif" alt="" />


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Having faith in something you know isn't true, is what get's the human race from one day to the next <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Like buying a lottery ticket <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> (yeah, you all do it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />)

Everyone being made to suffer isn't a good idea. It's usually reserved for the poeple who lack brains and can't get to the heart of the matter. When I was a kid, my teachers used the same stratergy:

"Right, if whoever made that noise doesn't admit it, the whole class has to stay behind after school"

It might be ok for kids, but dealing with adults and multi-million dollar industries, we should take a different perspective I think. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />



Last edited by xAcesx; 25/06/04 06:35 PM.

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20@ bucks to ship a disc? Um, no. I can get CD protectors that are 5 dollers, wbith a guarantee, and then maybe a few more dollers to send it to the publisher's home base.

Please, show me where in the EULA it says that.


Then you have to pay them to ship it back to you, and depending on where you live, each way the shipping could be up to $10, more if you're in a different country.

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WELL, you can just ship it to Hip Games, not that far away.



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Right now in the US for instance IT IS ILLEGAL TO MAKE A COPY of a dvd. Not a privillege, but illegal.

No, it's not. You are legally righted to produce personal backups of your media.

To the guy who said, "Why don't you [just make a backup of Beyond Divinity] then?": you cannot. Starforce 3 is built in such a way that makes what are supposed to be useful backup discs into useless backups. You can install Beyond Divinity with backup discs, but you can't play it with backup discs.

Anyone who doesn't yet see the problem with Starforce 3 has no concept of computer security, privacy, and the potential for malicious code.

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Anyone who doesn't yet see the problem with Starforce 3 has no concept of computer security, privacy, and the potential for malicious code.


That's a harsh statement. How about: anyone who complains about it has no concept of dignity, morality, tolerance and is using the "right to make backups" as a lame excuse.
So much for *the other conclusion* to this subject.


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what do you mean by lame excuse?



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Right now in the US for instance IT IS ILLEGAL TO MAKE A COPY of a dvd. Not a privillege, but illegal.

No, it's not. You are legally righted to produce personal backups of your media.


You are only partially correct. In the US, you are allowed to make personal backups but you may not circumvent a copy protection system to do so.

Since commercial DVDs are encrypted with CSS, breaking the CSS to copy a DVD is illegal in the US under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Other countries have also adopted similar schemes (Australia added a similar law as part of the recent US free trade agreement.

Here's part of the law:

"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title [...] to `circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner".


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It is true in the UK too. You're not allowed to copy a DVD strictly speaking, because of the CP. There's is no current law saying that a DVD movie can't be encrypted (CSS).

The games media is different, and can be backed up. Here's the paradox though: You're not allowed to circumvent the protection, but the publishers aren't allowed to use them.

So what you have is two sides breaking the law. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/stupid.gif" alt="" />

The law isn't interested in discs being protected, and they're not interested in gamers copying games. What they're on the lookout for is people who "Trade" or run "Businesses" with copied stuff. There are stiff penalties for this, and this is where the term "Pirate" is correctly used.


Last edited by xAcesx; 27/06/04 07:13 PM.

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^"Fair use" permits personal backups in most cases but this is not the same as saying copy protection systems are illegal. Can you back your claim up or have guessed/assumed/inferred that copy protection is illegal?


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^"Fair use" permits personal backups in most cases but this is not the same as saying copy protection systems are illegal. Can you back your claim up or have guessed/assumed/inferred that copy protection is illegal?


It was a four page article in PCGAMER (I think) that I read. They interviewed the coordinator of the 'Trading Standards' and later did an article on the actual law that dictates DISC protection is unlawful. Ask them...

I'll try and dig out the mag with it all in, if you're interested.

The There are two things you need to be aware of: Copy protection and disc protection are not necessarily the same thing. People can protect their work, but not the disc, as they are also in breach of the EULA (where backup copies are condoned), as well as the law.

I'm not saying the law won't be changed (eventually) in favour of the publishers encrypting discs, but the EULA will also need to be changed to reflect this. As it stands now, when you purchase a game, you purchase the runtime code and the right to run it. There is no set expiry date in the EULA stating "you cannot run this code after two years (for example)". You have the same right to run the code you purchased six years after you bought it, as the day you bought it. If the dev/pub goes bankrupt, they cannot replace the disc with the code you paid for, and thus, your right to backup your purchase.

However, this law is in place to protect businesses in my opinion, who can become heavily dependant on custom written software, and mainstream programs. They often spend thousands on products, and backups are always implemented in any "disaster recovery" plans they make. If the law takes away this right for them, it will have far reaching consequences in the security and stability of businesses everywhere.

Check out this article Here

Here is a quote from it, "backing up" what I said (no pun inteded <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />).

" The music industry has said, however, that music creators have the right to protect their works from piracy and have done so for years without it being it being deemed unlawful. Furthermore, they point to the fact that only a handful of CDs have been distributed with the protections included so far."




Last edited by xAcesx; 27/06/04 11:49 PM.

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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.


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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.


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I have just found the mag:

PCZONE, Issue 137, Jan 2004, Page 12. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />




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The Copyright And Related Rights Regulations 2003 Act (CRRRA) are a series of regulations designed to bring us into line with the European Union Copyright Directive.

Computer games users enjoy a sprecial privilege under the existing copyright law. According to section 50(A) of the 1988 Copyright, Designs & Patents Act. It states that legal purchasers of computer games are explicitly permitted to make a backup copy of their purchase.

Interestingly, the rule specificly applies to computer games. For no adequately explained reason, purchasers of Music CD's or DVD movies are not granted the same rights to protect their investment.

This section of the law has not been changed by the CRRRA. You're still entitled by UK law to make a backup of any piece of software you legally buy.

Section 296Z - 296 makes it an offence to do anything at all which is designed to curcumvent any piece of copyright protection technology. However, it is also an offence to deprive the consumer of any right which is explicitly granted to
them by law. So if copy protection is implemented, which there is no legal way to circumvent, (and thanks to the CRRRA now there isn't) you are depriving the consumer of the opportunity to exercise their right to a backup. Which is illegal.



Here are a few links for those of you still in denial...

http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/notices/2003/copy_direct3.htm

Details of the law that's been changed.

http://www.elspa.com/consumer/faqs.asp

ELSPA's statement on backup law.



Now that I've proven it's ILLEGAL (not to mention immoral) to encrypt or copy protect discs for games, I think I'm entitled to do this: <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

I stand by everything I've said, and all the publishers are no better than the pirates when it comes to respecting other peoples rights.


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moot! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

here have a hero biscuit! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />


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