IANAL, but legally speaking, when modifying code by cracking it, a "derivative work" is created. The copyright to the derivative work is jointly owned by the original author and the person(s) who modified it. However, this assumes that the derivation is copyright protected at all. If the modification to the original is insignificant, it may not meet the standards for copyright protection.
So, if the crackers just removed code and distributed the stripped executable, it's probably not copyright protected. If they, however, added code to the executable, it may very well be protected.
I don't think it's the same thing. A contract automatically becomes unenforceable if it requires breaking the law, but copyright is not a contract (legally speaking).
Also, depending on where you live, it's not illegal to write a crack, or distribute it, or own a copy of it, only to use it for certain purposes. Here in Europe, it's generally legal to break copy protection as long as it is necessary in order to play the material - for example, play a protected media file on Linux, where there are no "official" players.
When the Norseman Jon Johanssen cracked the DVD protection scheme, the US-American media corporations tried to get him apprehended for "data intrusion", which was ludicrous according to Norwegian law. It was perfectly legal for Johanssen to engineer a workaround for Linux users to be able to play protected DVDs.
But it would be awesome if they got sued for copyright infringment on the modified bytes. In an alternate reality it could happen...
It should be noted that cracking games, and distributing the crack itself is not illegal(*), since it has legitimate uses (for example, playing the game on a laptop without a CD drive). Crackers provide a valuable and legal service for free to the public, so suing the game makers for copyright infringement is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
I think you're talking about responsibility. Yes, the people have the ultimate responsibility for changing the government, because nobody else will do it for them (at least not to the better).
But I think it's also important to understand that unintended side effects occur all the time. A lot of people, from socialists to right-wing conservatives, believe it's possible to change a society by just deciding, politically, that it should be a certain way. It almost never works.
I think the tragady of the commons is only applicable if one person's use of a resource interferes with another's. The grand-grandparent argued that it was better to not play a game at all than to copy it illegally.
Regarding private copying in general, there are strong indications that it doesn't cause people to spend less money on media. The movie and game indutries keep on increasing their revenues year after year, despite high rates of private copying, and the decline of CD sales is offset by an increase in the sales of online music (which the record companies conveniently forget to mention every time they lobby for more legislation).
It is not necessarily so that people get the leaders they want. Being a politician means you are in fierce competition with other politicians, which tends to weed out the meek and promote the tough-skinned, greedy or power-hungry. In the end, the voters have a number of the latter to choose between.
The system itself creates secondary effects even if none of the individueals participating in the system ever intended them.
We have a proportional system here in Sweden, and I think it works relatively well. It means we have seven(!) different parties in the parlament who have to compromise with each other, but yet they manage to get things done.
I'm not sure the same system is optimal for different cultures and countries, though. For example, Swedes tend to be compromising and moderate to a fault.
The problem is, once the product is made today it is worthless. Just because it cost tens of millions to make Iron Man 2 doesn't mean I can't download it for free now. So why should I pay for it if it is being offered?
This is a perfectly logical argument. On the face of it, it would seem that NO ONE would pay to see Iron Man 2, when it's so easy and, in many countires, risk-free to download it for free.
And yet, Iron Man 2 (and other movies) make millions of dollars at the box office, both in countries with tough, and those with lenient, copyright laws. In fact, the movie industry's revenues have continued to increase year after year despite wide-spread filesharing.
Clearly, something is wrong in our assumptions here. Perhaps it's because people are willing to pay for seeing the movie early, before any good copies have reached the filesharing networks. Perhaps it's because they are prepared to pay for the better sound and picture available at a movie theather. Perhaps it's because people have a certain budget for watching movies, and the money they save from pirating one movie is used for buying the ticket to another. But whatver the reason may be, the effect of filesharing on movie sales seems to be neglible.
People think that restrictive DRM warrants an illegal download while the only legal solution to your problem would be to simply not play Civ V at all if you don't like the DRM.
If I'm not going to buy the game in either case, playing a pirated copy doesn't cause the producer any loss of profit.
You are under the impression you own the game; you do not. You own the, very limited, rights to play that game. These rights are not transferable to friends.
That is what the rightsholders (game companies, book publishers, etc) try to claim, but so far it hasn't held up well in court.
First, no matter what, you own a physical copy of the game.
Second, the rightsholder can't restrict your right to resell the game. In the USA this is called the First Sales doctrine.
Third, in my jurisdiction (Sweden) you do not need the rightsholder's permission to play the game (or to run any computer program, for that matter). The rightsholder only has exclusive rights to publish and to manufacture copies, nothing else. There exists no such thing as an exclusive right to run a computer program (or to read a book, or to watch a movie). Once you have a physical copy, you can do anything you want with it, except publish or copy it. Rightsholders often try to claim that the temporary copies created in the computer's memory when you run the softwaer constitute infringing copies, but the Swedish copyright law has an explicit exception for temporary copies that are created as a part of a technical process. I'm not sure how it works in US copyright law, but I doubt the rightsholder can restrict how you run a computer program without first binding you with a contract (license agreement).
Law is simply morality that's been codified. We believe killing people is wrong, so we make a law to reflect our shared morality.
Some law is codified morality, some is not. For example, the fact that it's illegal to drive on the left side of the road is not a question of morality. It's an arbitrary convention needed to make traffic work. In fact, the vast majority of laws deal with procedures, technicalities and arbitrary conventions necessary to make society work, but which are not moral in themselves. Those parts of the law are just tools for society, not ends in themselves.
In the USA, copyright started out as a method to "promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts" by creating an economic incentive for creators - i.e. a tool, not an end in itself. It has subsequently came to be viewed by many as a sort of moral right. Whether it really is useful for society, and whether it really is a moral right, is up for debate.
This is why you should never ask Slashdotters for legal advice. Not only are they not lawyers, they overestimate their psychic abilities, and are willing to interpret a law based on a third-hand summary.
That's harsh. You almost make them sound like journalists.
There are even better reasons to draw sharp, arbitrary lines - to make the outcome of the law predictable. If the line between between old-enough-to-drink and not-old-enough-to-drink was fuzzy, or the court was required to decide if you were mature enough to drink, it would be almost impossible for the individual to determine when it was safe to drink.
?? Why on Earth did someone believe this was a troll?
I did make an error, though. If it ridicules or criticeses something else, it's called a satire. Only if it is supposed to be funny in itself, it's called a satire.
Slashdot Mirror
Reselling something for more than the nothing you paid for it is perfectly acceptable.
I agree. Too bad the copyright industry and the legislators don't.
You see, they have this weird notion that when you make your own copies and distribute them, it suddenly becomes illegal.
IANAL, but legally speaking, when modifying code by cracking it, a "derivative work" is created. The copyright to the derivative work is jointly owned by the original author and the person(s) who modified it. However, this assumes that the derivation is copyright protected at all. If the modification to the original is insignificant, it may not meet the standards for copyright protection.
So, if the crackers just removed code and distributed the stripped executable, it's probably not copyright protected. If they, however, added code to the executable, it may very well be protected.
I don't think it's the same thing. A contract automatically becomes unenforceable if it requires breaking the law, but copyright is not a contract (legally speaking).
Also, depending on where you live, it's not illegal to write a crack, or distribute it, or own a copy of it, only to use it for certain purposes. Here in Europe, it's generally legal to break copy protection as long as it is necessary in order to play the material - for example, play a protected media file on Linux, where there are no "official" players.
When the Norseman Jon Johanssen cracked the DVD protection scheme, the US-American media corporations tried to get him apprehended for "data intrusion", which was ludicrous according to Norwegian law. It was perfectly legal for Johanssen to engineer a workaround for Linux users to be able to play protected DVDs.
But it would be awesome if they got sued for copyright infringment on the modified bytes. In an alternate reality it could happen...
It should be noted that cracking games, and distributing the crack itself is not illegal(*), since it has legitimate uses (for example, playing the game on a laptop without a CD drive). Crackers provide a valuable and legal service for free to the public, so suing the game makers for copyright infringement is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
(*) At least in Sweden and many other countries.
I think you're talking about responsibility. Yes, the people have the ultimate responsibility for changing the government, because nobody else will do it for them (at least not to the better).
But I think it's also important to understand that unintended side effects occur all the time. A lot of people, from socialists to right-wing conservatives, believe it's possible to change a society by just deciding, politically, that it should be a certain way. It almost never works.
I think the tragady of the commons is only applicable if one person's use of a resource interferes with another's. The grand-grandparent argued that it was better to not play a game at all than to copy it illegally.
Regarding private copying in general, there are strong indications that it doesn't cause people to spend less money on media. The movie and game indutries keep on increasing their revenues year after year, despite high rates of private copying, and the decline of CD sales is offset by an increase in the sales of online music (which the record companies conveniently forget to mention every time they lobby for more legislation).
It is not necessarily so that people get the leaders they want. Being a politician means you are in fierce competition with other politicians, which tends to weed out the meek and promote the tough-skinned, greedy or power-hungry. In the end, the voters have a number of the latter to choose between.
The system itself creates secondary effects even if none of the individueals participating in the system ever intended them.
Ultimatelly, the state of governance ("corruption, greed, politics, and law") is determined by its people, by the society.
That's true in a sense, but the political system also tends to take on a life of its own, apart from the society it rests upon.
We have a proportional system here in Sweden, and I think it works relatively well. It means we have seven(!) different parties in the parlament who have to compromise with each other, but yet they manage to get things done.
I'm not sure the same system is optimal for different cultures and countries, though. For example, Swedes tend to be compromising and moderate to a fault.
Come to Sweden. If you get a job and work here long enough you can be naturalised.
The problem is, once the product is made today it is worthless. Just because it cost tens of millions to make Iron Man 2 doesn't mean I can't download it for free now. So why should I pay for it if it is being offered?
This is a perfectly logical argument. On the face of it, it would seem that NO ONE would pay to see Iron Man 2, when it's so easy and, in many countires, risk-free to download it for free.
And yet, Iron Man 2 (and other movies) make millions of dollars at the box office, both in countries with tough, and those with lenient, copyright laws. In fact, the movie industry's revenues have continued to increase year after year despite wide-spread filesharing.
Clearly, something is wrong in our assumptions here. Perhaps it's because people are willing to pay for seeing the movie early, before any good copies have reached the filesharing networks. Perhaps it's because they are prepared to pay for the better sound and picture available at a movie theather. Perhaps it's because people have a certain budget for watching movies, and the money they save from pirating one movie is used for buying the ticket to another. But whatver the reason may be, the effect of filesharing on movie sales seems to be neglible.
Banks use static passwords where you live?
My bank requires me to enter a new number each time on a small keypad, and it produces a unique response, so a keylogger won't do much good.
People think that restrictive DRM warrants an illegal download while the only legal solution to your problem would be to simply not play Civ V at all if you don't like the DRM.
If I'm not going to buy the game in either case, playing a pirated copy doesn't cause the producer any loss of profit.
You are under the impression you own the game; you do not. You own the, very limited, rights to play that game. These rights are not transferable to friends.
That is what the rightsholders (game companies, book publishers, etc) try to claim, but so far it hasn't held up well in court.
First, no matter what, you own a physical copy of the game.
Second, the rightsholder can't restrict your right to resell the game. In the USA this is called the First Sales doctrine.
Third, in my jurisdiction (Sweden) you do not need the rightsholder's permission to play the game (or to run any computer program, for that matter). The rightsholder only has exclusive rights to publish and to manufacture copies, nothing else. There exists no such thing as an exclusive right to run a computer program (or to read a book, or to watch a movie). Once you have a physical copy, you can do anything you want with it, except publish or copy it. Rightsholders often try to claim that the temporary copies created in the computer's memory when you run the softwaer constitute infringing copies, but the Swedish copyright law has an explicit exception for temporary copies that are created as a part of a technical process. I'm not sure how it works in US copyright law, but I doubt the rightsholder can restrict how you run a computer program without first binding you with a contract (license agreement).
I download cracks for legally purchased games in order to play them on my netbook, which doesn't have a CD/DVD drive.
In fact, I download cracks just to avoid swapping in and out the original, legally purchased disks on my desktop computer.
Law is simply morality that's been codified. We believe killing people is wrong, so we make a law to reflect our shared morality.
Some law is codified morality, some is not. For example, the fact that it's illegal to drive on the left side of the road is not a question of morality. It's an arbitrary convention needed to make traffic work. In fact, the vast majority of laws deal with procedures, technicalities and arbitrary conventions necessary to make society work, but which are not moral in themselves. Those parts of the law are just tools for society, not ends in themselves.
In the USA, copyright started out as a method to "promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts" by creating an economic incentive for creators - i.e. a tool, not an end in itself. It has subsequently came to be viewed by many as a sort of moral right. Whether it really is useful for society, and whether it really is a moral right, is up for debate.
not yet :)
Well, you may have better journalists where you live. Here, a large portion seem more or less indifferent to fact checking.
They were happy together?
This is why you should never ask Slashdotters for legal advice. Not only are they not lawyers, they overestimate their psychic abilities, and are willing to interpret a law based on a third-hand summary.
That's harsh. You almost make them sound like journalists.
I take back the above, after someone explained below that the fees for un-encrypted data are only applied if the data is actually stolen.
That's why you get others to declare you a guru :)
"Micromanagement" would be to specify a particular technical approach.
They specify encryption, as opposed to, for example, physical security, which IMHO is specific enough to be called "micro-management".
There are even better reasons to draw sharp, arbitrary lines - to make the outcome of the law predictable. If the line between between old-enough-to-drink and not-old-enough-to-drink was fuzzy, or the court was required to decide if you were mature enough to drink, it would be almost impossible for the individual to determine when it was safe to drink.
?? Why on Earth did someone believe this was a troll?
I did make an error, though. If it ridicules or criticeses something else, it's called a satire. Only if it is supposed to be funny in itself, it's called a satire.