BrendaEM on 25/9/2008 at 01:42
In this thread,
(
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123090)
Digital Nightfall stated, "You can't play T2 without the disc without a crack, and we don't deal in cracks here."
I honor TTLG's prerogative of not helping circumvent the DRM that is unfortunately inherent in the Thief series games, yet, it appears that that the former part of the statement is not true.
[I, myself, am a legal owner of Thief 2, possessing a legal install disk, and I have been playing Thief 2 without the disk in place to protect the game disk, (only available used or from a defunct game clearinghouse on ebay) from damage within my laptop computer, and to conserve on battery life by not leaving the disk in the drive when not in use.
Digital right management schemes do not make for a good gaming experience. While DRM may seem to protect profits, it also costs sales, such as the current Spore boycott, as well as my one-person boycott of Half-Life 2.]
kamyk on 25/9/2008 at 01:48
Ah, but most of the ways to circumvent using the CD fall into a grey area, whether you legally own the game or not... I legally own the game and play without the CD myself, but since this falls into that grey area, it's a sort of don't ask don't tell (except by PM) issue.
jtr7 on 25/9/2008 at 01:50
Discussion between legally licensed owners is one thing, but giving information that will help piracy is to be avoided. It's not about inconveniencing legal users, but it's about hindering piracy. The illicit element inconveniences us all.
BrendaEM on 25/9/2008 at 04:56
Quote Posted by jtr7
...The illicit element inconveniences us all.
... and so does corporate greed. A good portion of the people who pirate a piece of software would have never bought it in the first place.
EmperorSteele on 25/9/2008 at 05:06
Yeah, we don't deal in crack. Weed, X (or are the kids calling it E these days?), and Ice are okay, though =P
jtr7 on 25/9/2008 at 05:11
(sigh) Let me rephrase:
The "Bad Guys" inconvenience us all.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Screwing them encourages them to screw you back, encouraging you to screw them again, encouraging them to protect themselves screwing you again, encouraging you to screw them back.... Stop screwing around!
This is old old news.
Stand up for what's right by discouraging piracy, boycotting the corporations, writing letters of complaint, and keeping cracks off of public and web-searchable forums that will lead taffers here for the wrong reasons. Use PMs if you're convinced a request is legit. Encouraging cracks on TTLG threatens TTLG. Again, this isn't about the "Good Guys", even though the "Good Guys" become collateral damage and may make unwise defensive decisions.
LarryG on 25/9/2008 at 06:11
OK. I re-read the rules and see what is being refered to:
No Warez, Illegal Software or Scans of Copyrighted Material.
This includes linking to, posting about, requesting, and suggesting ways of obtaining illegal software and/or other copyrighted materials such as scans of magazine articles. Posting such information may also result in your posting privileges being revoked. Furthermore, we will not tolerate postings that encourage people to violate copy protection by referring them to sites that have copy protection codes publicized (including No-CD Cracks) and/or illegal software. Any such post will be removed from our forums and your membership and posting privileges will be revoked as soon as we find the offensive post.
While I did not refer anyone to a site that encourages violation of copy protection, encourage violation of copy protection myself, or disclose a method of violating copy protection, I did dispute that the subject under discussion was indeed a "No-CD Crack". Since there can be a legitimate disagreement about just what a crack is, I will withdraw my posts.
jtr7 on 25/9/2008 at 06:24
Ditto. :thumb:
Volca on 25/9/2008 at 06:25
It might be interesting to point out that some newer distribution CD's with Thief (namely the trilogy from Cenega) don't contain the CD protection and are playable without a CD, even though they are 100% legal.
I wonder:
* did they use a crack, or simply unwrapped version of the executable, so it does not need the CD?
* does this mean anything in the legal area for the discussed problem?
I'm unsure how this works in USA or other countries, it's legal in Czech Republic to hack/crack software you legally own and does not work if it makes it work. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to do such a thing.
Anyway, for those who'd like to play Thief without a CD in drive, this represents a legal way to do so - just buy a CD/DVD which does not contain the protection.
jtr7 on 25/9/2008 at 06:30
It is interesting to see that there are so many versions of the games around, with software tweaks and other fiddling, for legal sale. If it is Eidos approved, and they haven't been tricked by someone on the inside (Limbo of the Lost, anyone?), then owners of the games that don't require a CD without user tampering involved have themselves a boon. And by versions, I don't mean the official version numbers, or languages, but those other hidden things. For the last two years, there have been several threads about a file here or there that have been found to be different than what most of us have. The rules in the USA are relaxed and unenforced until somebody is caught making money, or does something stupid and catches attention. Corporations often hire or have at least one employee to type key words in a search engine and see what pops up, which is why I'm against posting about this stuff publicly, especially on sites I'm grateful for.
