I would like to copy the CD

[kailhun]

Originally posted by Dev
Reverse enginering someone elses intellectual property is definately illegal and that's what it takes to crack the cd protection.

I'm not sure that reverse engineering in itself is illegal. What is done with the end product of the reverse engineering is also relevant.

Most countries (at least in Europe) have a mandatory warranty on all new products so if the disk breaks from NORMAL use within that period you have the right to demand a replacement.
If it breaks after the period ends you can go buy a new copy just like you'd buy a new TV to replace your broekn one etc.

But when you buy software you buy the medium (CD, floppy) and the right to use the software. The right to use the software is not limited to the life-expectancy of the medium. Now, you can not expect the manufacturer to give you a new medium with the software if the medium gets damaged. It is up to you to protect your goods. However, copyright protection inhibits this. You cannot protect your software by moving it to other, perhaps better, media. As I know Infogrames won't replace my Civ III CD if it should get damaged, I want to protect my right to use the software for which I bought a right to use it by making a backup.
I simply wish to protect my property in this case the right to use a piece of software.

Just because you in some cases can copy/backup software you don't have a god given right to do so.

Hello your divine almightyness, you do pop up in the strangest conversations.

BTW Laws, Constitutions and treaties are man-made.

Robert

[greggbert]

If you copy the CD don't post messages to a public board monitored by the publishers saying "I did copy it". A little non-solicited legal advice.

[Bakunine]

In my country when you buy a software piece you can't be refunded unless the CD is broken. You have 30 days to get your money back only if the game won't install because of a damaged CD.

If i want to exchange the CD after that 30 days because it got screwed then i would have to send it to the publisher what would mean in almost every time foreign mail so it will be probably cheaper to buy another copy.

There's a European Union law that allows you to make as many personal copies of what you own the times you want. Be it music, games,books,etc.

CD protection is just BS. What makes games protected this days is MP codes or MP checking of your exe file. So at this point Civ III is not very well protected.

The day the L.E. edition came out in the USA the day two major warez groups released ISO fully functionall copies of the game. So even in the USA anyone could pick a illegal copie before buying the original regular edition.

10/29/2001 Civilization III Razor 1911 [xx/44]
10/29/2001 Civilization III DEViANCE [xx/44]

If it breaks after the period ends you can go buy a new copy just like you'd buy a new TV to replace your broekn one etc.

Yes it sounds reseonable. So i buy a 3000$ architectural program for instance and if a CD of let´s say the 5 that comes with the program i spend another 3000$.

A TV is protected by regular property rights. A CD, a book,etc, is intelectual rights. It's another world. A CD costs 0.50$. What is inside it can costs thousands of dolars. You must have the right to have what is inside it. After that you can have as many CD's as you want as long as they are all under your possession and you don't give/sell them to no one. At least in European Union countries. But i suppose it's the same in USA.

[sophist]

True, but I got the impression that many of the posters were American. Certainly Firaxis and Infogrames are American, as are a plurality (perhaps a majority) of the civ3 purchasers. Anyway, similar laws are on the way in the EU, and probably Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

The reason adapting the program to do this is the executable's requirement that the CD be in the drive is a copy protection device, meaning a technical method used to keep the media from being distributed through means other than from the original publisher and authorized agents. The distribution of software that circumvents this copy protection device was made illegal in the United States under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Whether you have legitimately purchased the CD is not relevant. The DeCSS case, in which (basically) software was written to crack the Content Scrambling Scheme (I think) used on DVDs, is a DMCA case. Now, the original writer of the code wanted it so that he could view legitimately purchased DVDs on his computer using Linux, for which there were no readily available players known to him (as opposed to Windows, where there are many). Now, he attempted to redistribute this code to people who had the similar wish to view legitimately purchased DVDs under Linux. He was in Norway, but those in the United States who participated in the distribution of this code are being prosecuted under the DMCA for distributing a copyright circumvention device.

Two convenient links for more information

http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/

http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/

The current legal ownership status of physical items is completely different from that of software products. Software is licensed, not owned. Due to the above law and possibly others (including contract law), you do not have the right to do what you wish with the software you have purchased. Remember, this is copyright law. As in the right to copy.

Again, in the United States. I am not a lawyer, but I have been following the development of these laws for the last few years.

/me gets down from soapbox.

Originally posted by kailhun


Which law? Remember that American law does not apply to the world at large.

Why would adapting the program to use it without the CD be illegal if you own the CD? I can see why Infogrames wouldn't like it, but the fact that someone doesn't like something does not make that thing illegal.

Robert

[sophist]

Originally posted by kailhun


Not only is it allowed as in not forbidden by any law. It is your right as buyer of software. My right has been infringed by the copyright protection on the CD. Curses. I wish this infringment to stop.

Robert

At least in the United States, it is not your right Remember, there are two different ways to attempt to prevent your copying of the software. 1) They can just make it illegal. Well, actually, they can't, because they cannot legally take away your fair use rights. 2) they can make it technically difficult. This does not violate your fair use rights under current law (AFAIK) because fair use is a legal concept that only covers what the government can do to restrict your usage through law. There is nothing that states that companies must provide for guarantee your fair use rights. Basically, the government can't take away fair use legally, but the publisher can technically. But wait, you say, there are hacks available. And guess what? If Infogrames gets zealous, they will go after people providing them with the DMCA (outlined above). They can make the software harder to hack (not impossible), but the killer is when they make it nearly impossible to distribute the hack.


Now, I totally agree that it should be your right. And companies should find a better way of balancing your rights with their need to minimize copying from which they see no profit but should. I don't expect you'll disagree that lots of people getting the software for free is a bad thing; it's just the way that they're going about it that's bad. But unfortunately, the law does not rule in our favor right now. Software licensing isn't the same as ownership; AFAIK, it is covered by contract law, which means they can be a lot more restrictive about what you are allowed to do.

[Akka]

Originally posted by sophist
True, but I got the impression that many of the posters were American. Certainly Firaxis and Infogrames are American, as are a plurality (perhaps a majority) of the civ3 purchasers.

Infogrames is French.

[CygnusZ]

I wouldn't worry about breaking the law. There's no way to enforce it. Just break it.

And yeah, piracy is illegal to start with, and mass scale piracy is of course rapant and the gaming industry is way to incompotent to put an end to it. So, the "spirit" of these laws is shattered too. So, copy away knowing that the spirit of the law is perserved.

[Bakunine]

Good informative posts sophist.

Im curious of one thing. Could some american ( and also nacionalities outside of E.U.) answer me this simpe question.

In my country it's virtually impossible to the " piracy police" to come to a house ( i really mean a house, a home, not a office or a store) and check if the PC as any warez installed.

Does in your country this is diferent and are made random checks at home PC's?

[wervdon]

I'm not going to comment on legal or moral issues with this, but I don't think copying something exactly (like clonecd would do if it is as the name suggests) would entail reverse engineering per say. Since you don't have to crack the code to copy verbatim what is there.

Its sort of like if I had a nifty code language that could turn the string "sdasd" into beethoven's fifth, and someone copied the string "sdasd"...they wouldnt be reverse enginnering my work, they'd be copying a string that says "sdasd" :P Course thats an impossible example, and a technicallity on the larger issue being discussed

I said I wouldn't comment on the larger issues, but I guess I will. If your truelly making a backup copy that will sit in a drawer somewhere until the original breaks (or maybe you'd put the original up and use the backup), then I dont see a problem with that, and I seriously doubt any publisher/developer would care. Course they aren't gonna make it easy for you to do it cause then people who wouldn't put that backup copy away would have a field day.

Course Im a bit of a nut anyways, I think copyrights/patents should morally expire after 10 years anyways, or the lifetime of the author(s) at the very least. I also think source code, secret recipes, schematics and such should be a matter of public record (library of congress or whatnot) and be made available soon as the copyrights are void (cept of course for national security stuff like weapons ) Its not that way though cause we are a capitalistic society and thats one of the pitfalls of it. (not that I dislike capitalism, its better than the alternatives that are available)

[Venger]

Are you sure about the sub-channel data being the only required special adjustment (besides DAO+RAW, which is just REQUIRED to copy games these days)? I could swear when I copied Civ3 it had some weak sectors just like a Safedisc v2 game...

I got my copy just the same, mind you...

Venger

[Raleigh]

Although I can't dispense legal advice as a lawyer (at least not for another 12 months) I think that general US copyright law permits the copying of software for "backup" purposes.

However, an individual contract might be able to modify that general provision (that's where I am unclear). In theory this means that as long as Infrogames doesn't forbid such copying it is legal. In any event, even if their contract forbid it, you probably would only be liable commercially not criminally as long as you did not distribute the copy.

[sophist]

Oops.

Originally posted by Akka le Vil


Infogrames is French.

[sophist]

They won't come to your house, no. But they don't have to. They just have to go to the house of the ISP that hosts, say, gamecopyworld, and get the site shut down. They do that with any site that posts something like that. Makes it really tough to get your crack on. Yes, it's still possible. But remember you know more than the average player. If 75% of people don't copy now, and they bump that up to 95% by making it really hard, well... Copy protection will never be perfect, but they can always make it more difficult and impractical.

Originally posted by Bakunine
Good informative posts sophist.

Im curious of one thing. Could some american ( and also nacionalities outside of E.U.) answer me this simpe question.

In my country it's virtually impossible to the " piracy police" to come to a house ( i really mean a house, a home, not a office or a store) and check if the PC as any warez installed.

Does in your country this is diferent and are made random checks at home PC's?

[sophist]

Originally posted by kailhun


I'm not sure that reverse engineering in itself is illegal. What is done with the end product of the reverse engineering is also relevant.

Well, read your End User License Agreement (EULA). It's a contract. And it says, "thou shalt not reverse engineer this holy software." Or something like that.

Originally posted by kailhun

But when you buy software you buy the medium (CD, floppy) and the right to use the software. The right to use the software is not limited to the life-expectancy of the medium. Now, you can not expect the manufacturer to give you a new medium with the software if the medium gets damaged. It is up to you to protect your goods. However, copyright protection inhibits this. You cannot protect your software by moving it to other, perhaps better, media. As I know Infogrames won't replace my Civ III CD if it should get damaged, I want to protect my right to use the software for which I bought a right to use it by making a backup.
I simply wish to protect my property in this case the right to use a piece of software.

And I totally agree with you that it should be that way. But it ain't. You're buying a license (or "licence" ). You are not buying the CD. You are not buying the software. The software and the medium on which it comes are merely the software publishers way of fulfilling their side of the contract. Does it say in this contract that you have the right of replacement of damaged original CDs? Nope. In the United States, and I believe most other nations, software is covered by contract law, not by property law.

I will say it again, because people seem to be missing this important point and imagining the law is what it should be and not what it is. You have a contract with Infogrames. You do not own Civ3; Firaxis does. You are renting the software from Firaxis (through the intermediary of Infogrames). Firaxis/Infogrames agree to provide certain things. You agree to give them money and abide by the EULA. Nowhere does the contract state that you have the right to make backup copies. Nor does it state that Firaxis/Infogrames have to provide you with a replacement in case your original goes bad. Sorry.

Raleigh: To reiterate another point: they cannot sue you for the simple act of copying the software. That is fair use. However, access to the software is controlled through a copyright protection device. Under the DMCA, it is illegal to circumvent the copyright protection device. Period. There is no exception that states that this is ok to do for backup purposes or any other fair use right. Nor is there the stipulation that the provider must make available at minimum cost a replacement should the original go bad. If that happens, they have no obligation to do anything. To sum up: they didn't make copying illegal. They just 1) put up technical roadblocks (surmountable, but with effort) and 2) made it illegal to circumvent said roadblocks. The end is legal, but they've made the means illegal. Bad analogy: the Romans cannot take away your knowledge of building tanks, but if they cut off your access to oil, it's the same thing. Sure, you can get it from the Greeks, but you have to pay. And they might embargo you. Hmmm.... that should go into the "You know you've been playing too much civ3 when..." thread over in general (is funny. read it).

This is what happens when you don't vote.

/me climbs off soapbox once more.

[zhang]

this pubulisher doesn't make copy impossible,
it doesn't offer the requirement of copying though.