Oh, hell, copy protection

[datorrey]

I hate pirates. They screw hard-working developers out of the $$$ they deserve.

That said, I also hate having to put the flippin' CD in the drive every time I want to play the game. At the very least, I'd rather play using a backup copy.

Whine.

[chumly]

Forget backup copy, I'd be happy if the disc worked in my drive

Last three games I've bought, it either didn't work at all when patched (Painkiller, SS2), or only works if I eject and reinsert the disc (Civ)

[Qwertqwert]

Sid Meiers doing that now? I remember having the same problem with Pirates!. The name almost inviting people to come copy and give away the game.

[Malleus Dei]

IMO copy protection is stupid and silly. Like other forms of DRM, all it really does is keep the legitimate user from getting full use of what he bought.

[Stuie]

Man, I hate having to put the cd in the player when I want to listen to music, too. And swapping out DVD movies! Forget it!!

[Snotty]

Seems Gates might be onto something after all

I can understand and support the need for copy protection, even though my conquests cd eventually exploded killing my cd drive because of all the swapping the cd out for pbem

It could be worse after all, with stealable pass codes and online protection ala steam

[Atahualpa]

Yes, steam is the ultimate low-end in customer friendliness

I wouldn't consider it bad if you bought the game, have it around, but play using a no-disc crack.
Although do take into account, that sometimes no-cd crack make the game crash more often or spawn other strange behavior. If you want to scream about a bug, I suggest you try with the real executable and the CD/DVD in the drive before.

[ml_4da3]

Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by datorrey
I hate pirates. They screw hard-working developers out of the $$$ they deserve.

Thats ok, I hate anti-pirates and their stupid anti-piracy propaganda wich always plays on stealing or leeching.. Piracy is about free sharing of information; but sadly, a lot of people does not believe in that in the USA. Elsewhere, for example in Sweden, it is a totally different story..

[polarnomad]

Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by ml_4da3
Thats ok, I hate anti-pirates and their stupid anti-piracy propaganda wich always plays on stealing or leeching.. Piracy is about free sharing of information; but sadly, a lot of people does not believe in that in the USA. Elsewhere, for example in Sweden, it is a totally different story..

How exactly do you define CivIV as information?

[Jubala]

Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by ml_4da3


Thats ok, I hate anti-pirates and their stupid anti-piracy propaganda wich always plays on stealing or leeching.. Piracy is about free sharing of information; but sadly, a lot of people does not believe in that in the USA. Elsewhere, for example in Sweden, it is a totally different story..

Tell that to the guy that just got fined 16k SEK (2k USD) for sharing one movie.

[Antic]

Let me say first that i totaly opose piracy. But not at the cost of my civil liberties.

The pirate vs Anti pirate war in sweden is about more than pirating music and games.

Its about how the antipirates lobby politicians for changes to legislation that infringes uppon civil rights and the personal integrity and privacy of citizens. Wich is a violation of many international treaties.

Also about the same industry/publishers/recordcompanies threthening countries politicians into adopting laws that fit their companies interests and needs or they will move jobs elswhere. (example microsoft in denmark and ericsson in sweden among others)

Its also about the fairness of the justice system and the juridical security of a normal citizen. Because they are letting private lobby organisations funded by the industry do the work that the police do not have time for and give them the power of goverenmental ´ministry to circumvent privacy laws. How can they let screenshots from those oranizations be evidence in a court when they are so easily manipulated and not even online games see them as secure enough? Especialy when these lobby organizations that collect them have a vested economical interest in getting people to court (for making examples out of them to scare the public).

This is the case about the Västerås guy who got fined. It was all based on a screenshot from an anti pirate organisation and thats why its going up to the supreme court now. Also as it was only a fine, police arent allowed to infringe uppon the protection of privacy and demand IP numbers from ISPs. So its as much a loss for hte antipirates as its a loss for the justice system. Also the amount of money he got fined for sharing a movie that you can get for free from the department of education anyway cus its slated as educational for children in school, is way higher than someone who kills people in traffic gets for example. So now we rate sharing of a movie as worse of a crime than hit and run killings, or manslaughter?

This will lead to innocents getting sent to court. And even the anti piracy organizations admit this freely saying "You can not make an omelet without breaking some eggs."

Another aspect in this is the free share of information. I agree that games etc is not part of this. But the civil liberty battle going on is about more than that. Because you cant even write a text or create your own art online before someone threthens you with lawsuits. Culture is being regulated by corporations, we are heading for the world of the movie 1984, where corporations dictate how people live or die.


Finaly i want to end this with some words of wisdom.

People who are ready to give up a fundamental freedom for temporary security
deserve neither security nor freedom
-Benjamin Franklin

[kcmurphy88]

Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by ml_4da3


Thats ok, I hate anti-pirates and their stupid anti-piracy propaganda wich always plays on stealing or leeching.. Piracy is about free sharing of information; but sadly, a lot of people does not believe in that in the USA. Elsewhere, for example in Sweden, it is a totally different story..

Yeah, and I'm all in favor of free sharing of your bank aco****. The people who write these games are not your slaves -- why do you expect their work for free?

[seebs]

I am inclined to think that it is up to the developers to set terms on the distribution of their stuff. If their term is "pay $50 to play", hey, it's their stuff. I don't have to play it.

That said, I don't think it's okay for them to do crazy stuff with my CD drive. At least I can get Civ4 to run occasionally; I had no luck with Civ 3 until I got a recent enough drive emulator to let me make a working image that I could use on my laptop.

[H Tower]

Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Edited by Locutus: Don't let me catch you again using images to get around the auto-censor!

[SidSmurf]

My CD is not going to last long at this rate. Luckily, I have a wife that enjoys the game too, so she understands the long hours at the computer. Unluckily, she enjoys the game too (see a pattern here?) and wants to play at the same time I do. We've discovered that once you load the game, you can safely remove the CD in order to let the other person load up, but doing that 3 or 4 times a day will put a serious hurt on that poor CD. Hope it lasts, since I can't even make a copy or build a VCD on my hard drive. We haven't played a LAN game yet since we're both still trying to get used to the interface, but I'm wondering how that will work. Has anyone actually read the EULA? Is what I'm doing legal? Guess I should find out if it's one license per person or household. I've seen both...