NoCD patches and their legality

my thought are as follows, as with music, films are NOT sold with licenses, you can make backups, if you want to encode a film for a portable device like your psp, thats allowed, if you want to put a legally bought music CD on your ipod thats ok, HOWEVER removing copy protection is illeagl, and you need to remember, thats norway, a liberal EU country where downloading copyrighted stuff isnt illegal, only uploading it just liek sweden and NL (although there are reforms in place)

You're NOT allowed to remove copy protection, and thats that.. also backups in this country are a grey area.. and as always you need to read the EULA for each specific piece of software, sometimes a license says you may only install on one pc, sometimes it says you can install on 1000 pcs as long as you realise you can only play the game on 1 PC at a time
 
Yeah I agree with Slimothy, If you have bought it you should be allowed to make backups of it, as long as it is within the law.

Software and DVD's are expensive, nothing worse than finding out your Fiance removed your latest game/dvd out of your PC to listen to her new CD she bought, and never put it in the box but left it on the table and your cat got hold of it and now its scratched so badly you cant use it anymore.

So yeah. I would agree with making backups :)
 
Agreed with Slim. I think it is crazy that i cannot put my BF2 cd onto my 2 machines.
 
AFAIK If you just download a patch/crack to remove copy protection, it is not illegal. And neither is reverse engineering a game/program to make the crack (in the USA it is illegal). This is all provided you have a legit copy. You are breaking the licence which means in theory "they" could take the game back ;) or sue you :(
Not that I have ever heard of that happening.

Creating backups falls into the same realm, it is all about what the licence grants/denies.
 
Personally, If I've bought a game and I want to spare the disc from overuse I will either no-cd crack it or make an image to play with. I've had many old games (Little big adventure, Syndicate Wars and many more ) I can't play any more due to the disc being stuffed up.
 
My understanding is that you acquire a license to use the material - you don't own the material. Which is why I think Ster Kinekor suck. I had a legit copy of the Shrek CD broken by one of the kids trying to get it out of its case. Their response was that I should buy a new copy. My arguement was that I should only have to pay for the media as I have already paid the license to access the material - and it is a very rocky slope if you need a license to access the media.

So for all their bitching and moaning about piracy and the money they lose - they don't even offer customer service for the money they do get. Seems I get exactly the same guarantees or support if I 'buy' a DVD through a retail outlet or at a traffic light.
 
If the licence agreement says that modifying the software is prohibited, then a NO CD crack is illegal.
But seariously - it's not like the game publishers are going to pay for my DVD drive cleaning set, so they can all goanf themselves.
 
A recent example where the use of "cracks" seemed justified. HalfLife 2, with its incredibly idiotic steam thing. To assume people can spend hours and hours trying to authenticate and unlock a game is asinine, especially when the steam servers themselves kept falling over and couldn’t cope with the loads.
 
I have now had two cases (Doom 3 and Battle for Middle Earth) where I had to use a noCD crack to get games I have bought legally to work. They detected I had a program installed to mount CD images, which I use for expensive CDs I would prefer to keep stored in the cupboard and do not want to swap all the time, and refused to run with the original CD in the drive. I was not impressed.
 
I don't give a rats left nut if it's legal or not to make a backup copy, I'm not going to risk messing up my original copy especially if I know the supplier won't give a replacement at reasonable cost if the media gets stuffed. Besides in SA the chance of anything happening to you (especially if you own the original media) is practically zero.
 
I always use no-cd cracks!
I hate using the cd's becose they always end up being scratched.
No-cd/dvd patches should be legal as long as you have the original
 
I think the problem lies with the fact that many people will use the no-cd cracks to play the games illegally. So either by borrowing the CD from a friend, or setting it up so that your whole household can play the same game with only one copy.

Of course if they allowed a free replacement of damaged media (say for just the cost of media and postage) you would not need cd-cracks and that would solve the problem
 
Kalvaer said:
I think the problem lies with the fact that many people will use the no-cd cracks to play the games illegally. So either by borrowing the CD from a friend, or setting it up so that your whole household can play the same game with only one copy.

Of course if they allowed a free replacement of damaged media (say for just the cost of media and postage) you would not need cd-cracks and that would solve the problem
Click to expand...
well thats the only reason the cracks are created, they are made by scene crackign groups who supply bootleg games, without piracy they wouldn't exist, using the no-cd to play legally bought games without the cd is not why HOODLUM for example crack games. its people with access to the scene that take the .exe only and supply it to websites.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X