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Ubisoft Steals 'No-CD Crack' To Fix Rainbow 6: Vegas 2
Ariastis writes "UbiSoft has long been against No-CD patches. Referring to them on their forums would get you warned or banned. But now, they have just officially released a patch for Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, which, when opened in a hex editor, can easily be identified as coming from the RELOADED scene group, not from UbiSoft programmers. A picture of hex analysis is shown in the story. See? Piracy isn't that bad! It saves you from having to code fixes for your own games! (Watch the drama on the Ubi Forums before it gets scrubbed clean.)"
Presumably the patch has been nuked for Stolen.Crack?
Stealing the intellectual property of these crackers that they so rightfully deserve -- how could Ubisoft do such a thing?
On a serious note, is Ubisoft actually legally allowed to distribute these cracked executables, because they are of their own product?
Mind, I don't get why, because they would have the original source code anyway.
Someone was either being very lazy or thought it was funny. I'm glad they didn't censor the forums to hell and back ala Apple...
Last post from the now locked thread:
It's entirely in the spirit of online freedom that all who use cracks live by. It's also a quiet nod to the expertise of those who wrote the crack.
I think we should all take this as a good sign of further co-operation in times to come.
Perhaps I'm a bit silly thinking this, but I have a lot of respect for the majority of the cracking scene.
Time and time again they've always proved just how talented and resourceful they can be.
I say props to them! At the very least, Ubi should sack whatever middle-manager that decided to release this as an "official" patch or lazy programmer that decided to submit this rather than build a proper executable and give THEM a job instead. I've had more "official" patches from both Ubi and EA (And a few others) break stuff than dodgy, pirate hacks.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Under which license is the crack redistributed? Does it allow including it in a closed-source project?
No, but if you then show off said artwork claiming it to be your own then it does make you a bit of a dick.
There is copyright. All copyrightable works are automatically protected by copyright, no matter if you display a copyright symbol or not. Registering your copyright can make it easier to prove your ownership, but is not compulsory for protection.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I can already see the torrent of people coming in to call all slashdot users hypocrites for calling this stealing but defending "piracy" as not stealing and all that, so I figure I might as well clear this up as soon as possible:
Thing the first: Slashdot is not one person, it is many people, so it's not inconsistent for vocal members of the community to call this stealing but piracy not stealing.
Thing the second: "steals" is still a bad word here. "Steals credit" would be better, if anything, but I still think the wording is bad anyway.
Thing the third: most pirates at least hold to the moral ground of giving credit where credit is due, which is clearly not the case here.
Hopefully this will head off those silly comments. Eh, who am I kidding, it's Slashdot. I'll probably wake up to 50 of them. Oh well, I tried.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
It's not that they stole it, it's more that they couldn't be bothered to make an official one. .exe and checked it for irregularities or they'd have noticed the cracking group's moniker and removed it. That, plus it would have been easier to recompile a new one from the source they have.
I mean, when you think about it - what if that crack WAS dodgy? What if it had a time bomb in it that wiped out your hard drive after a certain date? I don't think for a second that Ubi disassembled the cracked
Of course, I trust the group but I know full well that if it DID have something dodgy in it, I'd be fully responsible for it and have to accept that it was my fault.
But in this case, Ubi could have been under some serious shit if such a thing had happened.
There's really no excuse, it's sheer laziness on their part.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
This is a No-CD crack, which has a legitimate use. If you lose your CD for instance. The hacking group in question hasn't stolen anything of Ubisoft's.
Seriously. If there were no NO-CD cracks, I suspect companies like Ubisoft would make lots LESS money than they do now. I usually buy the game, download the NO-CD crack, and play. I'll never forget how the CD in my previous ThinkPad almost died from overwork before I saved it (and myself from going insane) with the NO-CD for HOMM IV.
It has come to the point that I do NOT buy a game until a NO-CD crack exists for it.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
...Why is that, Ubisoft?
(1) You're posting an illegal crack that violates YOUR OWN RULES on piracy
(2) You stole someone else's crack. Couldn't bother making your own? Sheesh. Now THAT'S French for you!
This french surrender business and now this "whatever is retarded is french" is so obtuse!
It's like saying all americans are morons and deserve Bush.
I'll change my sig when I have the time...
Of course, I trust the group
why? Do you know who they are? where they are from? know the personally? You know who are current members of the groups, and what their motives are?
Personally I do not trust anonymous groups of coders on the internet who cannot be tracked down to run exes on my machine. If ubisoft format my hard drive, I have legal recourse against a known company. The same if my company trashes your machine. Your defence against some random group of kids on the internet is basically fuck all.
I'm surprised how much risk people expose their PC's to in order to avoid having a CD, or (more often) to get free games.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
OK. But don't people accidentally post images/whatnot on public forums occasionally, only to find out they have no rights to it.
Yes. They've unintentionally violated copyright.
When an author uploads a torrent, is that file considered to have entered the public domain?
No, not anymore than if an author gives a free copy of a book away, that book enters the public domain. Authors (assuming they haven't sold their rights away) are allowed to distribute their own work as much as they want, and in whatever form they want. When someone else does it, they're in violation of copyright (unless they are licensed or copyright has been explicitly waived).
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I think you might be wrong, in that the patch is just that - a patch. If you write a book, and I publish sonething telling people to skip chapters 3,5, and 9, and replace them with something I wrote in order to make the story flow better, then that's not illegal. Someone needs to have copies of both the book and the patch to have the modified version.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is the very definition of Irony. I wonder what the press release is going to say about this.
But TBH I have a feeling this was a decision from the higher ups in the organization, there has to have been a programmer that was aware of this but wasn't listened to.
Or you could just rip the cd to a .iso image, mount it in a virtual drive and install/play it from there.
It's not stealing if the original programmers were not deprived of anything. Whether the good guys ("pirates") do it or the bad guys (the "content industry") do it, unauthorized copying is not stealing and never has been.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
It is a real shame that Game DRM hasn't gotten the same bad publicity and force for change movement against it that music has.
mp3's have, despite the music companies best efforts, proven to be what buyers want - not "you can only listen to this track on 2 machines" DRM files. That has been enforced by media coverage and scrutiny - pointing out and badgering the music labels that people don't want DRM junk.
This unfortunately hasn't happened with PC games - I guess they are less "mainstream" as far as media coverage is concerned.
I used to buy a lot of games, and enjoy playing them - but the situation has deteriorated very badly in the last 4-5 years. Games not only have the usual "key & cd/dvd in the drive" requirements, but I have encountered a number, which I paid hard money for, that refuse to install if I have CloneCD installed - others that refuse to install if I have Daemon Tools installed - both programs that I legitimately use (and not for games, just to avoid having to take tens of cd's around with me).
I bought HL2 - but haven't been able to play it for a couple years as I am behind a tight firewall and so can't register it. Consequently I haven't bought Ep2 or 3.
The games companies have to wisen up - I used to by 3-6 games per year - I now haven't bought a single one in the last 2 years - I can't be bothered with games I paid hard cash for treating me like I am a criminal. I am not interested (nor should ever need to) apply the various circumvention cracks to get around the DRM just so I can play a game I have bought.
The farce from Ubi-Soft only reinforces the situation - the same crackers who they decry as "destroying the games industry" are the ones they rip-off when they can't be bothered to write a patch (for a bug caused by all their neurotic DRM crap). Ubi-soft better hope there were no trojans in the crack - or they could find themselves on the end of a hefty lawsuit.
It's actually not that easy.
Writing a program that has the capabilities of altering another program can be legal under certain circumstances. Our copyright says specifically that you may reverse engineer software and change parts of it to "establish interoperability". It's also a right you cannot waive, i.e. an EULA telling you you must not is void. You may of course still not distribute the altered version, but distributing a program that automatically alters a piece of software is something different.
Now, I doubt anyone ever tried to defend this in court, but technically, "cracking" is not illegal here. Other countries may have similar rules, so it depends entirely on where that RELOADED group resides, i.e. what place of jurisdiction is applicable.
Simply copying a program and claiming it as your own is illegal, though. So, depending on jurisdiction, they could actually win.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They created the no-CD patches to coincide with their "Blizzard Account" system which allows you to buy their games online and then download them. I'm assuming they wanted a consistent platform for all their users, and it doesn't exactly make sense to have someone purchase and download a game and then have to wait for the CD to arrive in the mail just to start it up.
Additionally, if you already own the game, you can enter your CD key on the site to gain the ability to download them directly from Blizzard.
Hold it right there!
UBIsoft not only distributed someone else's work without their permission. They didn't just go and do what the usual release group does, taking someone else's work and publish it. At least crackers usually have the decency to keep the producer's name on the product. I can't remember any cracker group claiming they actually made some game.
Looking at it this way, what UBIsoft did was even worse. They didn't only violate copyright and distribute someone else's work without compensating the original author (granted, it would first of all be hard to find him and second, it is distributed for free anyway, so there is no immediate loss for the author), but they didn't even give him credit! This is the problem here, not that they distribute someone else's work. As stated above, this work would have been distributed freely and without any benefit for the creator anyway. They refused him the acknowledgement!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Except if you RTFA(I know,but I got bored) you'll see that they are selling the game Direct2Drive which means you DON'T GET a disc. And now that they have removed the crack it means anyone who buys the game Direct2Drive is getting a non-functional product. I smell lawsuit! Maybe NYCLawyer could weigh in on selling a product that you can't actually use without breaking the DMCA. Would it be fraud or just theft? And as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Shame on you, Ubisoft! This kind of rampant IP theft is what is killing the PC game pirating industry!
I think everyone is missing the point. Ubisoft,by selling the game Direct2Drive,is selling a product that you CANNOT use thanks to their DRM. Now that the crack had been removed from the Ubisoft forum the ONLY way you can USE the product you paid for is by breaking the law,in this case DMCA. So what I want to know is why isn't someone demanding that they quit selling the game by Direct2Drive? Why isn't anyone looking at busting them for fraud,since they are selling you a product that they KNOW that you can't actually use? That would seem to be IMHO the more important questions here. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Reloaded has existed for quite a while and as far as I know they've never put malware in their cracks. While it's obvious there is always a risk involved when you run an executable (no matter where it came from), I'd say you are reasonably save using their cracks. Probably more safe than running DRM'ed software, since that software tries to hook itself into all kinds of important parts of you operating system.
I wonder if the programmer responsible for the crack and the patch is the same individual? He probably just submitted what he'd already written as his own work. That's a much more likely scenario than the idea that Ubisoft downloads a NoCD crack off the web and releases it as a patch. This Slashdot story won't be good for him, if so.
They should send UBIsoft's ISP a DMCA takedown ;)
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
...had to call up a car thief to open it for you.
That happened to my uncle.
A cop showed up seeing him trying to break into his own car, hollered at some kids sitting in the grass by an overpass, and told them they wouldn't get in trouble if they unlocked the door. It was open in about 30 seconds.
"What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!" Doctorow
Reloaded has existed for quite a while and as far as I know they've never put malware in their cracks.
No cracker groups of any consequence has ever put malware in anything as far as I know, it's 99% others using a virus-adding tool and distributing their own trojaned version of their cracks. Still, it's not easy to tell one from the other.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"Two wrongs don't make a right, dude."
Two wrights made an airplane!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'd personally trust many of these "scene" hackers more than I'd trust Sony to not to try to pwn my machine.
I would trust a random stripper more than Sony.
Except with software, you get told to fuck right off.
You get NO support from local stores, you get told to contact the developer or publisher, even for refunds.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Ubisoft, apparently.
This poo is cold.
I don't usually have any trouble with viruses when downloading from www.megagames.com or www.gamecopyworld.com. Still, I always scan the files first, and I'd suggest that anyone else do the same. Torrents are probably a pretty good place to look nowadays as well. Find the pirated game, but only download the crack. ;)
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
They should really sign their packages.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
that someone in the coding department is going to be fired. If you're going to steal/use someone elses code - COVER YOUR TRACKS FOOL!
Ave Molech Setting
As has been said many times here over the years, if you don't like a product, don't buy it. Video games aren't medical care or food, so you sure don't need to buy them (hint: consider buying your family a book, or better yet, getting them outside to exercise). And EA didn't mislead, you knew they had DRM on it. So you are hostile at someone not misleading you trying to protect their product?
I've used no-CD cracks simply because I could. But cursing a company for trying to stop piracy? Waste of energy and misguided hostility. Vote with your pocketbook.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
.
The German occupation of Belgium set the pattern for what was to come. The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War 1
The Zimmermann Telegram was authentic:
January 16, 1917
On the first of February, we intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep the United States of America neutral.
In the event of this not succeeding, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and make peace together. We shall give generous financial support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details of settlement are left to you.
You are instructed to inform the President [of Mexico] of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence with this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Japan and ourselves.
Please call to the attention of the President that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England to make peace in a few months.
There is much of interest here - not least the talk of an alliance with Japan.
The historical background:
April 22, 1915
The German Embassy publishes this warning which will appear below a New York Times marine add posting Lusitania's schedule:
NOTICE!
> TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY
May 7, 1915 Luistania torpedoed without warning. 1200 die.
August 1915 A Bavarian metal worker stamps out 500 or so back-dated commemorative medallions of the sinking -- which British propagandists will replicate in the hundreds of thousands for sale through British wartime charities.
August 27, 1915 The Kaiser restricts attacks on large passenger vessels.
September 18, 1915 Unrestricted submarine warfare ends
The key is not to download cracks if you can help it. Instead, download mini images (on gamecopyworld.com as "fixed images"). These are disc images for the games, with copy protection intact, that are only a few megabytes large as they only have the crucial bits. Then, use a program like Daemon-Tools to mount the image, and you're set. This works for online games like Battlefield 2 as well, where cracks usually fail.
And as an aside, I actually had to do this to run Battlefield 2, as the copy protection apparently doesn't agree with my DVD drive (even though other EA games work). I emailed EA support and never received a response.
So basically ubisoft had broken their game with the CD protection DRM, something that nearly all games companies include, but I haven't the faintest idea why this is still a sane thing to do..
So now they have to use an "illegal" (or so they keep telling us) third-party crack to break their own DRM.
Or more likely, someone else's DRM that they purchased for a large sum of money, only to introduce bugs into their game and annoy their customers.
Sounds like great value for money to me! :)