no-CD patches for games

[Solver]

Hmm not that I'm aware of it's meaning very well.

n.
Acceptance or approval of what is planned or done by another; acquiescence. See Synonyms at permission.

OK... and so what, then? It doesn't violate the stuff. Nor does the Civ 3 crack.

You know what annoys me the most? The fact that it won't use the CD. If it had, for instance, a setup option where it installs 150 MB and plays from CD, it would be, of course, OK with me. However, I find it very annoying to have all the game files on my hard drive, but having the game ask for CD just to do that "security check"... bahhh. Hell, Firaxis, please make the CD useful at least! I've only needed it once since I got the crack, to reinstall Civ 3 . No, really, I work with my own compiled data CDs, and music CDs, etc, and it's incredibly annoying to swap it if I want to play civ.

BTW, Markos, you're violating the Greek law by playing Civ 3 at all .

[Solver]

Originally posted by Level
People from Firaxis have told people to get a no-cd patch from Infograms, that is the official patch and is legal, any others are most likely ilegal.

The unjustice of it all . Infogrames basically does the same thing, yet it's legal then...

Yeah, yeah, I know .

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Solver

BTW, Markos, you're violating the Greek law by playing Civ 3 at all.

I'm more than confused now. Er... Is it illegal to play Civ III in Greece?!?

[Solver]

It is, because Markos's computer has electricity.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Rasbelin
I'm more than confused now. Er... Is it illegal to play Civ III in Greece?!?

To answer that question...

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=60795

[optimus2861]

Technically, no-CD patches could be illegal in the USA under the DMCA, section 1201 - I think game publishers could argue that a CD-check is an "access control technology" that is illegal to circumvent (what a rotten law that is ). Wonder why they haven't gone after sites like (hmm - if I name it MarkG might just delete it, won't he? ) yet?

[Grrr]

Markos; if you have problems with tampered .exe's then don't you have problems with tampered files; such as those in the Modding fora?

[Asher]

The problem here is many EULAs say you can't modify or back it up the content of it, but as far as I know that's NEVER held up in court because on the other hand you PAID for it and you have every right to make backups or alter it.

Likewise it's not illegal to mod an Xbox, even though the EULA says not to, but you just can't run pirated software on it.

[moomin]

No CDs have to be illegal in the USA on account of the DCMA act. If, as all halfway rational people hope, SCOTUS eventually throws it out as unconstitutional, it will be legal again.

In Europe, no-CDs are perfectly legal, because it's established European practice that EULAs aren't binding - European consumer law is.

So I suggest Apolyton only enforce no cd-patch discussion bans on Americans!

[zulu9812]

moomin, what is European consumer law on this issue?

[moomin]

Well, it's difficult to say, because at the moment member state laws take precedence. Here in Scandinavia, that means I as a consumer have the right to copy anything I bough for my own personal use (there are some exceptions). More importantly, I have the right to mess around with my property any way I like, even if it voids the warranty (again, there are exceptions... Installing pirate docoders on cable and satellite box-tops is actually illegal, although it has never been tried in court here in Sweden at least). I belive Brit, French and German law make similar allowances. I don't know about Southern Europe.

This happy state of affairs is about to change, though. The European Union has passed a new directive which will become member state law by December 1st which will effectively deny the consumer the right to do back-ups of software for personal use, and this will become effective in the entire Union. The directive also vaguely mentions intentions to curtail reverse engeneering of copyright protection technologies, but that part has so many exceptions as to be practically uneforceable, and is left to the member state to implement - or not - as they see fit. The Scandinavian countries have jointly decided not to pass that, at least for now.

Hope things are clearer now

[Galvatron]

Hmm I'm wondering if discussions about piracy is also some kind of support piracy and if this is the case I think this thread will be closed. Well I would like to hear a statement from an official if discussions about discussions about piracy is allowed (wow things getting rather complicated ).

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Grrr
Markos; if you have problems with tampered .exe's then don't you have problems with tampered files; such as those in the Modding fora?

it's obvious that the letter of the law is not the only issue here. it's also what the companies like and dont like. well developers happen to like mods and not like no-cd patches as one is good for games and the other is bad. and we tend to agree with this view

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by MarkG
it's obvious that the letter of the law is not the only issue here. it's also what the companies like and dont like. well developers happen to like mods and not like no-cd patches as one is good for games and the other is bad. and we tend to agree with this view

I don't think it's as cut and dried as that. For instance, If someone barely has the minimum requirements to run Civ3, but they know that the No-CD crack will allow them to run the game a little better, they are going to buy the game and get the crack.

However, if they have to buy a new computer to run the game better, they may decide against the game.

[zulu9812]

I still don't understand why developers don't like no-CD patches. If you want one, you've obviously installed from the CD and thus have the game legally anyway. Personally, I think you should be able to register with a serial number and d/l the crack from the developer. And the developer could automatically log each serial number so that it can't be used by more than one email address. And it's also possible to make the crack non-transferable off the hard drive (like they do with mp3s from those pay-to-download American music sites)