Student uses Shift key, gets sued 9 October 2003 19:42 by dRD
Yet another prime example of this lovely New World Order: an American PhD student called Alex Halderman is being sued by copy-protection company SunnComm.
SunnComm and BMG released the first major copy-protected audio CD in the U.S. recently and Mr Halderman was studying the CD to find out how the copy-protection actually works. The disc can't be copied in Windows by normal means, SunnComm's press releases stated before the launch, and before Halderman's findings.
SunnComm's "advanced copy protection mechanism", called MediaMax CD3, actually simply had the autorun.ini added to the audio CD. This auto-ran then a small installer that installed a driver which claimed in its EULA text to be necessary in order to use the CD under Windows operating system. In reality, the driver itself was the entire copy protection.
So, Halderman's big finding was that the copy protection can be "bypassed" by holding down the shift-key when inserting the CD in a CD-ROM -drive. As most Windows-users already know, the shift-key instructs Windows to ignore the AutoRun feature found on the disc. When the autorun-feature is skipped, the driver installer never runs.
Now, SunnComm claims that Halderman's findings and the fact that he published his findings, have damaged SunnComm's market value by at least "0M and that he has violated against the DMCA law that makes it illegal to distribute instructions and tools that would allow circumventing copy-protection mechanism (as Linux doesn't launch autorun.ini anyway, does it mean that Linux is a tool that allows breaking the law as well?).
SunnComm stated: "SunnComm intends to refer this possible felony to authorities having jurisdiction over these matters because: 1. The author admits that he disabled the driver in order to make an unprotected copy of the disc's contents, and 2. SunnComm believes that the author's report was 'disseminated in a manner which facilitates infringement' in violation of the DMCA or other applicable law". Stolen from - http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/4569.cfm
that's fricken stupid on behalf of the company :?:? any good half nerd will know that about autorun.ini, and so should the people employed at the company. Pfft, like to see that stand up in court...
That'll teach them for coming up with useless, easily bypassable "copy protection" in an effort to make millions off of illiterate billion dollar corporates who wouldn't hesitate to cough up the cash for what was being sold as "advanced copy protection mechanism".
HL2 and DOOM3 are using Starforce v.3. So I doubt there will be anyone cracking those games anytime soon after its released... now THATS a good protection thinggy-ma-jigg
donno, but a aus hip hop CD 'someone' did, all they needed to do was to copy it real slowly. they made it so there were fake scraches, mp3ing it slowly took ages, but there were no falts
I dissagree Pala, do you know how hard Starforce is to crack, its top notch shit, and apparently illegal for them to use it too for some reason i forgot, but DEViANCE can't find a way through Starforce (Version 3 anyway) not as yet anyway... No one can crack V8 Supercars 2/TOCA Race Driver 2/DTM Driver 2/ Whatever else...
Starforce uses some special bullshit compressed exe file or something, we know what the file is that protects V8 supercars, but we dont know how to get around it, grrr so annoying.
Except for the other crap that D3 does to your system when you install it... to prevent you from being able to copy it (like disabling virtual drives - or so I've heard).
I can live without virtual drives, since I also have the game cds. I like the benefit of not having to take my cds to a LAN but I can live with having them in a cd case at the LAN.
Far cry does the exactly the same thing with virtual drives.
farcry didnt affect anything i use, daemon tools alcohol 120... everythign still works perfectly.
but honestly Jeat, would you rather leech a game and have it cracked and play it, and not pay a cent, or pay "00 or whatever it is now, and blah :S I would rather leech and crack :P
I can't stand the time wasted waiting for something to leech off the internet. If I leech it is only to play a game at DGA/Freedom and then I get it from the FTP at the LAN venue server. I played a little CoD and JO:TR at the Lan and deleted when I finished.
All online game playing I do, I have legit copies for. As for the not paying for the software bit, I guess i grew out of it. This happened once I started working for a living.
So I get to test a game at the LAN and if it is worthwhile I buy it. C&C:Generals/Zero is getting bought for this weekends LAN. It is a matter of supporting the people that create the games that you play and enjoy.
If its a good game, I'll buy it, no problem, but I would like to be able to at least TRY the full version first. Demos are all nice and good, but they just aren't the same. On a cnosole you just walk into the shop and ask to try a game, you cant do that with a computer.
Another thing, When I go to a LAN, I don't want to have to carry my entire CD collection with me in case I feel like playing more than 1 game. If Doom 3 disables virtual drives, I'd think that would be boardering on illegal. No-one has the right to stop you running that software, its not illegal in anyway. Sure it can be used for illegal purposes, but so can CD burners, should they be disabled too?
As for starforce 3, will be awhile I think. It has a 24 bit code that is burnt at 3 random points on the disc, the only way to make a copy at the moment would be to replicate these points on the disc perfectly. They would have to appear in EXACTLY the same spots on the copy disc, which is impossible to do. Also it rules out virtual drives because it does a spin test, and as such recognises a virtual drive over a real one.
Also starforce 3 is technically illegal, it installs itself to your system without your permission, and when you uninstall the program that uses it, it remains on your system and there is no way of uninstalling it. That fits the legal description for spyware. Granted it doesn't send out info or and stuff, but still, it makes you think.
I got no problem with buying games, I do reguarly, I'm just pointing out the issues with it.
Quote from Knight Of Nih: Yeah i agree. It wont be very long before its crackable. and i've just noticed doom 3 available for download. so have twenty thousand other people judging by the tracker statistics.
Edit: Holy Crap, in the last 2 hours about 5 new torrents have gone up on suprnova and it appears the game has been cracked already :eek:
And before anyone gets on the anti-piracy high-horse, no I'm not downloading or advocating pirate software, just stating what I noticed :p . For the sake of 2 days, I'm gonna wait. :D