No Preserving Abandoned Games, Even for Museums and Archives

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by Predseda

fck ESA

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by modrobert

Making a 1:1 backup is not circumventing, it's just great, since you can load the backup without circumventing anything (as if original)

Yes. It's called copy protection for a reason. The DMCA is very clear about this - if you use any method to defeat copy protection - you know, the methods that the original publishers used to prevent you from making a copy - then you will fall foul of the law.

Using Kryoflux in and of itself is not illegal. Using it to make backups of software you already own is not illegal in the UK. Using it to copy other people's disks that you don't own is illegal under the DMCA.

End of.

D.

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Yes. It's called copy protection for a reason. The DMCA is very clear about this - if you use any method to defeat copy protection - you know, the methods that the original publishers used to prevent you from making a copy - then you will fall foul of the law.

Using Kryoflux in and of itself is not illegal. Using it to make backups of software you already own is not illegal in the UK. Using it to copy other people's disks that you don't own is illegal under the DMCA.

End of.

D.

If you actually manage to do 1:1 (perfect) backups you are not defeating anything since the copy protection itself also resides on the backup media, still within your legal right to make personal backups.

On the other hand, if you are backing up your media using a consumer product like a burner (or Amiga floppy drive), and you circumvent the protection in order to load this inferior backup (as it is not 1:1), then the law applies.

Granted, having people creating perfect 1:1 backups of their modern games would be the ultimate nightmare for ESA, especially since it is legal to do so.


BTW: Does the DMCA really apply in the UK? (If so, my condolences.)

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by modrobert

If you actually manage to do 1:1 (perfect) backups you are not defeating anything since the copy protection itself also resides on the backup media, still within your legal right to make personal backups.

Only if your local jurisdiction permits you to do so - this is AFAIK only allowed in some European states and the UK. In the US it's illegal.

This seems to be hard for some people to grasp:

If you make a 1:1 perfect copy, then you have circumvented copy protection. That protection is there to prevent you from making copies, and you have circumvented it. There's no way around it - under the DMCA this is illegal. It doesn't matter how you do it, if a method (such as cracking, using a Kryoflux etc) allows you to make a copy that the publisher specifically tried to prevent you from making then you are breaking the law under the DMCA.

How many more ways are there to say the same thing?

Edit: If the copyright holder exists in a country or state where the DMCA is enforced then it doesn't matter where you are - they can attempt to prosecute. Whether or not your home country honours the prosecution will vary - in the UK they will allow the prosecution to go ahead. In Spain they will not. It depends on the international relations between the two countries.


D.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by modrobert

If you actually manage to do 1:1 (perfect) backups you are not defeating anything since the copy protection itself also resides on the backup media, still within your legal right to make personal backups.

Sorry, but if you COPIED it, you circumvented COPY PROTECTION, that should be very clear.

[Bugala]

I wonder how those countries that have the idea of "if maker tried to protect from copying" would treat those old time copy protection things like for example Monkey Island 2 or F/A 18 - Interceptor had where you had this carbon disc which you were supposed to align in accordance to instructions on screen to find the password to type or something similar.

So while maker have put no copy protection to the disk itself, that you could simply use workbenck copy command to copy the whole disk, there however was copy protection inside the game itself which had been made by purpose of aviding game being copied.

edit: two more games came to my mind.

1. In Faerytale adventure there was this "Make haste, but take...?" and then the answer. Although these were available from manual, they were quite easy to figure out.
2. In Battletech you had to answer three questions right, which were such that it showed you some specific part of a battlemech, and you had to know what that part was called from (pick right one from list of part names). Basically you were supposed to watch from picture in manual, but hese were to some extent quessable again.

another edit:

Came to my mind example that could theoretically happen. Suppose this kind of copy protection would fall under the "maker tried to make copy protection" - category. It could become a situation where some museum for example would want to preserve all the games they can legally preserve. By other words, they would go through all Amiga games, and make copies of all the games they can using just workbench.

Then there comes faerytale adventure. It got copied nice, but... if you start the game, you see the copy protection. Perhaps museum does this and they notice it and dispose their illegal copy. But then comes the Battletech. You would actually need to play for a while before the copy protection comes, and especially if its just some summer help, he might not even realise it is a copy protection, but might think it is genuine part of the game, for it does make sense in every way it is there. After all, you are in Battlemech school, and you are taking another class of Battletech studies, hence you need to answer these questions right. Perhaps the answers are somewhere elsewhere in the game, and summer help stops playing. But. Now they broke the law.

[Dunny]

In-game copy protection, like on-disk protection enjoys the same protections under the DMCA. If you copy the disk, that's fine (actually, it's not, see below) - there's nothing there to prevent you. But if you then crack the game to remove the manual check... That's unlawful.

If you photocopy or otherwise reproduce (in other words, COPY) the wheel, manual or what have you for the purposes of playing a copy of the game, that also is unlawful.

The key here is that you, as a user, don't own the copyright unless it has been specifically released to you as an individual. Even if the game has been abandoned, no longer available, the author long dead... You still don't have the right to copy that game. That's law in all countries that signed up to the Berne convention (which is pretty much all of them).

D.

[saimon69]

[unnecessaryComment] All hail profit maximization [/unnecessaryComment]

[Kitty]

Don't Copy that Floppy!

[SaphirJD]

*lol* They should come and try me.. The day i would give up of old Games and Demos is the day the universe ends.. Until that, all that greedy industry m*r*ns should better leave earth.. better for everyone

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by Kitty

Don't Copy that Floppy!

[ Show youtube player ]

The bigger crime in that video than copying a floppy is using that daft crapple!

[Amicol]

I can't believe what I'm reading....
WHDLoad has kept the Amiga alive. Kill that and you kill Amiga

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Only if your local jurisdiction permits you to do so - this is AFAIK only allowed in some European states and the UK. In the US it's illegal.

This seems to be hard for some people to grasp:

If you make a 1:1 perfect copy, then you have circumvented copy protection. That protection is there to prevent you from making copies, and you have circumvented it. There's no way around it - under the DMCA this is illegal. It doesn't matter how you do it, if a method (such as cracking, using a Kryoflux etc) allows you to make a copy that the publisher specifically tried to prevent you from making then you are breaking the law under the DMCA.

I guess this is where people get confused with regional, and "other countries" law. Here in Sweden, it's been a court ruling, not that i can find it, some 10 years ago, that stated if you can copy a "protected" item, without actually doing anything more then inserting it to a regular device for copying, and get a working copy, then your golden. This means that by now it's legal to copy DvD's, since pretty much "any" burning software will copy these, but if memory serves me right, the ruling was over CD's that, when you put them in your PC used the autostart feature to load a driver making the CD become impossible to copy. People with autorun turned of, was unaffected, and if you wanted autorun on, just hold Shift when loading the CD, and you were still golden.

For the same reason most PSX games have to be legal to copy these days. However, you could only play them on a emulator, seeing as they wont actually run on the real playstation.

Again, local law vs where ever the heck anyone else is.
But the bottom line is that your not very likely to be charged with copying Amiga games, so somehow i doubt WHDload'ing will come to an end.

[solarice]

Originally Posted by Mr B

For the same reason most PSX games have to be legal to copy these days. However, you could only play them on a emulator, seeing as they wont actually run on the real playstation.

Not for much longer. PSIO is seeing to that.

I don't think many people will be wanting to backup the 5000000000+th release of fifa anyway.

Plus if they get their way it'll all be digital downloads, little to no discounts, preowned a thing of the past...you get the idea.

I'm ignoring the inevitable solutions people will come up with of course to bypass such things and preserve but still.