[gameprogrammer] Re: Enough, already!



Grant Hallman wrote:
i think what i need is a bit-for-bit, sector-for-sector, trach-for-track copy utility.
The issue here is that a lot of copy protection uses and checks for "damaged" sectors on the cd, which are "fixed" buy naive cd copying software - the same software that does bit-for-bit copying.
After a quick google, it appears that AOE II uses safedisc 1but I stopped searching after about 3 seconds. According to this wikipedia article : 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeDisc
safedisc 1 is "easy for home users and professional duplicators alike to copy".
I still think the best (but legally and morally murky - in New Zealand its legal to back up software, and I don't think there is any law that prohibits working around copy protection ala the american DMCA) solution to your problem is to obtain an already cracked and/or ripped version from bittorrent. http://www.torrentspy.com/ works fine for, um, my friend. Its a trade off of bandwidth and searching vs thinking and frustration.
I am not even sure if discussions on working around a specifics games copy protection - even for innocent and non malicious reasons - belong on a list about programming games, read by people who possibly their living from writing commercial software. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand your predicament, I agree with your observation that copy protection can be a blockade for many of us who have slightly different requirements for our games (IE playing it on more than one pc in perpetuity, rather than playing it for 6 months on 1 pc) and I /basically/ think that copy protection and DRM is stupid. FWIW I though the "copy protection" that q3a used was probably the best, the cd was easily copyable, the protection was stopping multiple users being online at once using the same cd.
Being a geek, I would enjoy a discussion on the moral issues around copy protection and drm, I would also enjoy - on a technical level - a discussion on various techniques and how one would generally get around them. A discussion about that may not even belong on a mailing list such as this one, unless one of our members wanted to implement some sort of copy protection in a game they are making :) 

--
Jacob Briggs
Systems Engineer

Core Technology Limited
Level 1, NZX Centre
11 Cable Street
Wellington
Phone +64 4 801 2252

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object doAnythingConceivable(string whatToDo, object whatToDoItWith) { .....



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