I wonder if this were actually play out in a fair court wouldn't it be theft? At least in the US if I were to legally purchase the old game and create a patch for it to remove the DRM that's something I'm allowed to do. At which point I'd have a totally legal copyrighted work I could distribute. The crime isn't until someone uses it to patch an illegally owned copy of the game. So now Rockstar is stealing someone else's copyrighted work and distributing it?
I'm not a lawyer and have no idea if this applies to all civil torts, but there's something called a "clean hands doctrine" where you cannot sue for damages related to something you illegitimately gained in the first place. Brave Search gave me this:
The doctrine protects the integrity of a court and is used in U.S. patent law to deny equitable or legal relief to a patentee that has engaged in improper conduct, such as using the patent to extend monopoly power beyond the claims of the patent.
That said, I'm also fairly certain that removing DRM, legally or not, on a game you own does not make the resulting patched copy your own copyrighted work.
My argument is the patch itself is copyrighted work. It's essentially a mod and in many cases its legal to make and distribute patches. If I make a Skyrim mod with unique IP inside it, I can freely distribute it as I see fit as long as I don't include any Bethesda property as part of the distribution. Bethesda cannot confiscate and distribute it as a DLC though.
Yeah I'm grasping at straws for curiosity sake, I know there's no chance in Yell a judge would even attempt to look at it fairly.
Interesting video, but I don’t think it’s directly relavent to the situation. A more comparable example would be if Nintendo stole the code from the multiplayer BotW mod and incorporated it in an update/sequel. Similar to when they sold us pirated ROMs of their old games instead of just dumping them themselves lmao:
Assuming that you could find a court that would enforce the current laws on the books, sure. But then again, DMCA says that DVD manufacturers have to either allow most legal owners to legally make a copy of any disc they own or ensure that replacements can be had. They chose option 3: no copies, copying software is illegal, and no free replacements.
At least in the US if I were to legally purchase the old game and create a patch for it to remove the DRM that's something I'm allowed to do.
Removing the DRM from your own game is illegal in the U.S, even in your own home for your own use. The act of creating a patch to remove DRM that "effectively controls access" is illegal.
Only exceptions are handed out by the Library of Congress and they're only allowing game hacks for the sole purpose of preserving them in museums once the authorization servers are gone (not before) or if you are security researcher doing it for your job (not to play the game).
Removing the DRM from your own game is illegal in the U.S, even in your own home for your own use. The act of creating a patch to remove DRM that "effectively controls access" is illegal.
According to what law is doing this illegal? It's not my job to prove your argument for you, so please try to be as unambiguous as possible.
Only exceptions are handed out by the Library of Congress and they're only allowing game hacks for the sole purpose of preserving them in museums once the authorization servers are gone (not before) or if you are security researcher doing it for your job (not to play the game).
I very much doubt that, but I won't call you a liar just yet.
In that case DRM is considered an "Access Control" under 1201.
The way he worded it still sounds wrong somehow, so I wouldn't blame anyone for being skeptical. I have no idea how tested in court this is. The whole DMCA should be unconstitutional anyway.
I have a feeling that the courts are corrupt enough to uphold it, regardless of how stupid it seems. Thanks for the direct link. Very helpful to have the exact source on hand, so I'm definitely going to bookmark that one for the future.
The DMCA my dude. Seriously what rock did you crawl out from under? I'd accuse you or being Rip van Winkel but he was only asleep for 20 years and DMCA is 25 years old.
It's shockingly common for game devs to lose the source code and assets for their games over time. They probably can't patch it out of the source anymore and are too cheap to hire the talent to patch it out of the binaries themselves. So they steal other people's work.
Nintendo also was caught distributing their own games they obtained from ROM sites, as evidenced by the iNES rom header present in the files, despite it being 100% not part of the original data from the ROM chips.
Considering how unplayable most of the non-GTAV games are from Rockstar, this might be the only way to stop the endless tide of people refunding their shit and then just going find a crack anyway.
This actually might be the reason why they are so unplayable. The ones for sale got rid of the anti-anti piracy measures that were present within the cracked versions.
Meaning you suffer the full brunt of the anti-piracy measures if you buy these games.
I think I remember hearing about this before. Like back in 2012 or something like that. Some group had cracked securom on a bunch of older games. Then the publishers caught wind of it and just wholesale grabbed it and stuck that on Steam.
At the time some gaming journalism site contacted a lawyer, (could be different now, I haven't looked up the applicable laws) there's not much the cracking scene can do, as the lawyer said it's basically just modifying pre existing code, and adding or removing some as needed. So technically the code is still owned by the devs/publishers, there's no laws being broken in them just taking it and selling it.
20 years ago, rockstar sold a game with annoying hoops you had to jump through to “authenticate” its purchase (aka DRM, aka “anti-piracy technology”)
Now, when they want to sell the same stupid old game to us on steam, they don’t want to / can’t include the old anti-piracy code (maybe they stopped paying Denuovo, maybe the old code is glitchy and breaks some part of the game, who knows)
So instead of fixing their old ass garbage code, they’ve decided to grab a PIRATED version of the game, from the internet, which has already removed all the “anti-piracy” code, and they’re selling that to us.
The picture included has part of the code embedded by piracy group called razer 1911 in their cracked version of the game executable, you'd instantly recognize the name if you were into game piracy during the 2000s
I wonder if this were actually play out in a fair court wouldn't it be theft? At least in the US if I were to legally purchase the old game and create a patch for it to remove the DRM that's something I'm allowed to do. At which point I'd have a totally legal copyrighted work I could distribute. The crime isn't until someone uses it to patch an illegally owned copy of the game. So now Rockstar is stealing someone else's copyrighted work and distributing it?
Fair court is an oxymoron. The judiciary are tyrants who rule on pure whim.
I'm not a lawyer and have no idea if this applies to all civil torts, but there's something called a "clean hands doctrine" where you cannot sue for damages related to something you illegitimately gained in the first place. Brave Search gave me this:
That said, I'm also fairly certain that removing DRM, legally or not, on a game you own does not make the resulting patched copy your own copyrighted work.
My argument is the patch itself is copyrighted work. It's essentially a mod and in many cases its legal to make and distribute patches. If I make a Skyrim mod with unique IP inside it, I can freely distribute it as I see fit as long as I don't include any Bethesda property as part of the distribution. Bethesda cannot confiscate and distribute it as a DLC though.
Yeah I'm grasping at straws for curiosity sake, I know there's no chance in Yell a judge would even attempt to look at it fairly.
Oh that's an interesting argument. Yeah, the likelihood that a judge would ever consider it correlates with how many dollars have greased his palms.
Mods arent legal in the first place.
https://youtu.be/mo_AmQgSSqY?si=AdJR-q8zuHTxc-Va
Moon channel has a great breakdown on the legal caselaw of mods in and around the gaming space.
Interesting video, but I don’t think it’s directly relavent to the situation. A more comparable example would be if Nintendo stole the code from the multiplayer BotW mod and incorporated it in an update/sequel. Similar to when they sold us pirated ROMs of their old games instead of just dumping them themselves lmao:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zR1uEwjx7VI&feature=emb_title
Yeah, Rockstar could argue that them using stolen code from crackers falls under fair use/public domain because the crackers are a rogue entity.
Assuming that you could find a court that would enforce the current laws on the books, sure. But then again, DMCA says that DVD manufacturers have to either allow most legal owners to legally make a copy of any disc they own or ensure that replacements can be had. They chose option 3: no copies, copying software is illegal, and no free replacements.
Removing the DRM from your own game is illegal in the U.S, even in your own home for your own use. The act of creating a patch to remove DRM that "effectively controls access" is illegal.
Only exceptions are handed out by the Library of Congress and they're only allowing game hacks for the sole purpose of preserving them in museums once the authorization servers are gone (not before) or if you are security researcher doing it for your job (not to play the game).
According to what law is doing this illegal? It's not my job to prove your argument for you, so please try to be as unambiguous as possible.
I very much doubt that, but I won't call you a liar just yet.
I assume he's talking about the DMCA and this.
In that case DRM is considered an "Access Control" under 1201.
The way he worded it still sounds wrong somehow, so I wouldn't blame anyone for being skeptical. I have no idea how tested in court this is. The whole DMCA should be unconstitutional anyway.
I should have said removing DRM from "a game you own" instead of "your own game", but context should have cleared that up.
I have a feeling that the courts are corrupt enough to uphold it, regardless of how stupid it seems. Thanks for the direct link. Very helpful to have the exact source on hand, so I'm definitely going to bookmark that one for the future.
The DMCA my dude. Seriously what rock did you crawl out from under? I'd accuse you or being Rip van Winkel but he was only asleep for 20 years and DMCA is 25 years old.
It's shockingly common for game devs to lose the source code and assets for their games over time. They probably can't patch it out of the source anymore and are too cheap to hire the talent to patch it out of the binaries themselves. So they steal other people's work.
Nintendo also was caught distributing their own games they obtained from ROM sites, as evidenced by the iNES rom header present in the files, despite it being 100% not part of the original data from the ROM chips.
Considering how unplayable most of the non-GTAV games are from Rockstar, this might be the only way to stop the endless tide of people refunding their shit and then just going find a crack anyway.
This actually might be the reason why they are so unplayable. The ones for sale got rid of the anti-anti piracy measures that were present within the cracked versions.
Meaning you suffer the full brunt of the anti-piracy measures if you buy these games.
I think I remember hearing about this before. Like back in 2012 or something like that. Some group had cracked securom on a bunch of older games. Then the publishers caught wind of it and just wholesale grabbed it and stuck that on Steam.
At the time some gaming journalism site contacted a lawyer, (could be different now, I haven't looked up the applicable laws) there's not much the cracking scene can do, as the lawyer said it's basically just modifying pre existing code, and adding or removing some as needed. So technically the code is still owned by the devs/publishers, there's no laws being broken in them just taking it and selling it.
Still feels shady, though.
What does this mean?
Not sure I really understand your question, but:
20 years ago, rockstar sold a game with annoying hoops you had to jump through to “authenticate” its purchase (aka DRM, aka “anti-piracy technology”)
Now, when they want to sell the same stupid old game to us on steam, they don’t want to / can’t include the old anti-piracy code (maybe they stopped paying Denuovo, maybe the old code is glitchy and breaks some part of the game, who knows)
So instead of fixing their old ass garbage code, they’ve decided to grab a PIRATED version of the game, from the internet, which has already removed all the “anti-piracy” code, and they’re selling that to us.
That is exactly what I needed. Thanks.
The picture included has part of the code embedded by piracy group called razer 1911 in their cracked version of the game executable, you'd instantly recognize the name if you were into game piracy during the 2000s