Copy Protected CDs

[moose]

This is one scenario the RIAA uses as an example to protect music cds

 

Such rules let consumers enjoy music on an array of consumer electronics devices -- from PCs to portable players. But it would discourage 15 high school friends from getting together and pooling their money to buy a single music CD and a spindle of blank discs and making dubs for everyone in the group -- with a few extras to sell at school.
 

lol.

[miko2d]

I am pretty ignorant on the subject of copy protection, so could you please elaborate what you've found ridiculous in that statement?

 miko

[ 12-19-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]

[AKSWulfe]

Both Il-2 and Operation Flashpoint have CD protection in which copying them (for my software) is a long tedious process which will take anywhere from a day to two to simply get the data on my harddrive to burn to a CD.... if it will burn to the CD... and if the burned CD will then work is a whole other deal.

Copy protection and all this other nonsense is rediculous, it's a burden on the end user who wants to make back-ups on something he paid a good amount of money for simply because hackers want to make it free for everyone else.

If there's a will, there's a way, and there's a lot of will to break CD protection. It's a pointless waste of development time and programming, it can always be cracked.
-SW

[Curval]

Swulfe....while I agree that copy protection is a pain for the user in terms of legitimate usgae..ie back-ups...but what other alternatives do the producers have to protect themselves?

Imagine for a moment that you spent a great deal of time, money and genuine hard work to produce a computer game...you release it without Copyright protection.  Soon everyone is playing your game, but only a small minority actually paid for it....you lose money and eventually all your hard work goes down the tubes and you have a mortgage company taking your house to pay creditors relating to the development of your game.  

Wouldn't that SUCK!?

[ 12-19-2001: Message edited by: Curval ]

[AKSWulfe]

CD keys work, they work very well as a matter of fact. They work much better than CD-protection.

You can't play online with duplicate CD keys, and thus half of most games that are duped or hacked or pulled from Warez can't be used.

CD protection is just a temporary deterrant, it's certainly not worth the money it costs to scramble a CD or make it protected so you can't copy it.

With CD-keys, you can only have one key per game. The game won't work otherwise. In the case of CD protection, it's just a matter of time before someone cracks the code and floods the warez sites with it... and then there's no stopping that, anyone can play the online portion for free.
-SW

[AKDejaVu]

CD Keys work for on-line games... if everyone has to play through one server.  That is the about the only time it works.

CD keys do not work for music.  They do not work for stand alone games.  They do not work for most other applications.

AKDejaVu

[SageFIN]

Copy protection embedded into the CD itself just doesn't cut it as even physical alteration stands no chance. All it does is inconvenience the guy who bought the cd. For example some audio cd's are protected in such a way that you can't read them with some PC CD-drives or even with some dedicated CD-players.

Copy protection in the form of a CD-key is a relatively good idea, as SW pointed out, though it only works properly with online games.

What we have now is pretty mild, though, if compared with some really infuriating copy protection gadgets that were used some years ago. Some games (BOB and SWOTL come to mind) had disc-thingies that you had to spin and try to extract the right answer to the copy protection question, some spiderbashing game came with almost unreadable sheet with pictres of spiders on it and then you had to match the one on the screen etc etc.

Sooo... IMO when one designs a copy protection scheme, practicality and invisibility to the end-user should also be thought of.

[Tac]

Yes. Any form of copy protection is ridiculous imo.

I can understand the developers not wanting to have their stuff pirated, but it WILL happen ANYWAY. All they end up doing is giving a real headache to those that actually paid for the program.

I have some CD's of games and of software that I can't copy because of the damn thing, and ive already lost 2 of them to accidents over the years. Will that make me go and buy another one of their products? Fat chance. Send them the broken CD in HOPES they will send me a good copy back..in about 2 months? Again, fat chance. Kept the receipt? Oh yeah, I keep all the receipts since I was 5 and bought my first chewing gum.  

All this does is actually encourage me to find myself a free copy of their program which has been cracked and I can burn into as many CD's as I want.

[Boroda]

Hmm... Will try to copy a Russian IL-2 CD on an RW. Interesting. Never tried to copy any protected media.

IL-2 ISO image was "released" by some "warez" team the day after it was in stores in the US. I tried to find it, couldn't wait until I could buy a boxed Russian version, but failed.

Tac, once in maybe 1990, when I was a "nomadic" computer user we were sittling at the only AT machine at K5 department of MHTC where I studied, and one of the guys brought a floppy with a game called "Blue Angels". It refused to run without a proper answer to a "copy protection question". We found a TXT file there with an exact description of a "code-wheel" for that game. Having nothing to do we spent 1.5 hours making that code wheel, and finaly were иду to run a game. It was absolutely useless. We erased it after 10 minutes of playing  

[Am0n]

This is another example of your right being voilated buy corparate bellybutton holes. Once you have paid for something it is yours.. simple

Now a days when you purchase anything it seems like there is some sort of liscense agreement that you must bide buy, may it be your new TV or Car stereo.

They like to tell you what you are alowed to do with your product once you have paid for it, simply becuse they have there name on. Now if you are copying CDs to sell them i will agree that is wrong, they took the time to produce, go through all the legalities and heart ache of making the product and you should not be able to make money off the copies. If you want to sell the original that is perfectly fine IMO.

But as far as making copies of games and letting people have them for free i do not see a problem with this because you are not making a profit from this, it is yours and you already paid for the humoungusly marked up price that they have made them selves. I personaly rip games and have them free for download. Also movies that are not even out of the theater, which is questionable.

I dont see a problem with this, you have paid for the product it is now yours.

[moose]

Originally posted by miko2d:
I am pretty ignorant on the subject of copy protection, so could you please elaborate what you've found ridiculous in that statement?

 miko

[ 12-19-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]

When I was in school, we didn't all 'pool our money' go out, and buy one copy.

I doubt that actually happens.

[Dinger]

Copy-protecting audio CDs strikes me as a proposition destined to lose.  What are you gonna do, make it impossible for computers to read audio CDs?  Ever since I blew a woofer, I listen to most of my audio CDs on my computer's Klipsches.  Put some sort of protection on there that requires some recognition chip on the CD player?  Change the format?  Uh, I don't think it will be compatible with my 1988 audio technology.  Guess I won't be buying it.
And in any case, even if they do copy-protect the particular CD, I can at the very least use some good cable and record a copy via an analog step with acceptable signal losses.

Hehe I remember spending an afternoon in the office photocopying and taping the SWOTL wheel so it became an easily-reproducible "code sheet".  Hell, I even used that when I bought the game.

[gavor]

Copying ANY protected PC game is ridiculously easy. I was gonna post some site to look at but I dont want people labelling me a pirate. I've perfectly legitamate copies of MY software in the past and I can tell you that it took only 20 minutes. Not 1 or 2 days, whoever said that. And yes, I own Op Flashpoint and yes i copied it in 20 minutes. Perfect copy.

CD Keys for some standalone games when played MP work just fine. Look at half life. Each person doesnt have to go to one server to play, each time a MP session is started the software goes and checks your key on a key auth server then you connect to the server you requested. Works fine, I dont know anyone who owns a non legal copy of half life and can play online. Of course, there really is NO way to stop the copying of standalone games. There really isnt.

[Gadfly]

You guys advocating pirating software are thieves, don't fool yourself about "corporations", just scumbag thieves.

And, oh yeah, Boroda, Mr. innocent, never stole software, need I mention FH?

When floppies were the medium(they went bad fairly often), and on downloaded games, you have a valid point about backups.  I have NEVER, EVER had a CD go bad, they won't.  If you use it for a coaster and it is ruined, it is your fault, go buy another copy, handsomehunk.


Thieves are a large part of why software is so expensive in the first place.

[Furious]

Thank you for that moral lecture.


F.