Computer/game software question

[Ichneumon]

Hi,

Well, I wasn't sure where to put this thread, so I just put it here as the gaming forum seems a bit of a strange place to ask questions.

Anyway, this is my situations: I have an Acer minilaptop I use quite extensively when I travel and am outdoors and when I'm not doing anything else I enjoy playing the first Age of Empires game on it (yes, you can call me old fashioned, but I truly love the game and it is the only low graphics game I have that works on my laptop:smallamused:).

My problem is that when I want to play it I always have to bring my usb-cdrom drive with me, which is almost half the size of my laptop, because the game doesn't want to play unless the cdrom is inserted and I don't usually plan on having time to play it so bringing the drive just in case feels stupid. Now, it would be really convenient if it would work without having to bring the cd-drive + cd with me each time I'm out. Is this possible and if so how?

I'm not sure if it would be illegal as the game is rather old and I'm not selling it or anything. If it would be illegal I ask the mods to close this thread as it then would be against the forum rules to discuss this.

Thanks for your help,

Ichneumon

[Erloas]

There are a lot of places where you can find no-cd cracks for games. They aren't always on the most trustworth sites, but you can find some that work. Even the older games should still have the patches around. Yes those are the same patchs that can help someone play the game if they didn't buy it, but its really only a legal problem if you didn't buy the game. Since you own the game, those sorts of user patchs generally fall under the "fair use" aspects of copyright protection.

[Tirian]

I agree that there seem to be ways to patch AOE so that they don't require a CD to play. But I don't agree that it is legal to alter your software in a manner that wasn't authorized by Microsoft, even if it is for your personal use. It might be closer to jaywalking than bank robbery as crime goes, but the CD check is a limitation Microsoft deliberately put on their software to reduce piracy and when you installed it you agreed to honor that.

As such, we'd get into trouble with the mods if we told you how to break the law. However, I will second the concern that piracy sites and their "warez" are a breeding ground for viruses and other malware, so keep your eyes open if you decide to walk down that road.

[Ichneumon]

So it's illegal. That's a shame. :smallannoyed:

I've heard about software which basically creates a fake cdrom-drive on your computer to trick the game that the cd is there. Would that be save? And would that be legal? I'm just asking in case it is.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Ichy!!!!!!!
I've missed you!
Now don't ever leave us again!
*duk-tapes Ichy to the playground*

And long live us old-school gamers! AoE is great.

[Ponce]

If you legally purchased the game, it is not illegal for you to use a no-cd crack (you will have to either download it via a torrent or a website, so you may get a virus, be careful).

Another option is to download one of several programs to create a virtual cd rom drive as you describe. Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% are good choices. You will then either have to rip an image of your game cd (Daemon tools can do this, I think Alcohol can as well) or you can just download an image. Note that you will have to store this image on your HDD (will take up about 700mbs, the size of a CD).

Both options are illegal if you did not purchase the game, the latter being a popular option for piracy. But since you did actually purchase the game, doing these things are not illegal.

[Ichneumon]

Ichy!!!!!!!
I've missed you!
Now don't ever leave us again!
*duk-tapes Ichy to the playground*

And long live us old-school gamers! AoE is great.

Haha, don't be afraid I'm not leaving again.:smallamused:


If you legally purchased the game, it is not illegal for you to use a no-cd crack (you will have to either download it via a torrent or a website, so you may get a virus, be careful).

Another option is to download one of several programs to create a virtual cd rom drive as you describe. Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% are good choices. You will then either have to rip an image of your game cd (Daemon tools can do this, I think Alcohol can as well) or you can just download an image. Note that you will have to store this image on your HDD (will take up about 700mbs, the size of a CD).

Both options are illegal if you did not purchase the game, the latter being a popular option for piracy. But since you did actually purchase the game, doing these things are not illegal.

Great, I'll try Daemon Tools.

[DanielX]

No-cd cracks of games are generally in a legal gray area - no one ever has been prosecuted for it, though they may be illegal in the US under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (or it may not; its rather vague). They also generally violate most software EULAs (End User License Agreements), though its questionable if these have any legal authority whatsoever.

Now, if you don't actually own a copy of the game, then a no-cd crack is piracy and is thus almost guaranteed to be illegal in most countries. So don't.

I won't suggest going either way, given legal issues. Personally, I would not go for a no-cd crack solely for convenience - only if some sort of DRM problems or technical issues outright prevents me from playing a game I purchased. But that is only my own opinion, and not yours or from anyone with any authority. I also cannot say anything about the legal circumstances in other nations.

Certainly, you should ALWAYS take extra care to scan anything you download from "warez" sites with anti-virus and anti-malware software.

This is also a reason to support open-source games, licensed under permissive or copyleft licenses. Now, I'm very much guilty of enjoying commercial games myself, but there are some good games that you can do whatever you want with.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I agree that there seem to be ways to patch AOE so that they don't require a CD to play. But I don't agree that it is legal to alter your software in a manner that wasn't authorized by Microsoft, even if it is for your personal use. It might be closer to jaywalking than bank robbery as crime goes, but the CD check is a limitation Microsoft deliberately put on their software to reduce piracy and when you installed it you agreed to honor that.

As such, we'd get into trouble with the mods if we told you how to break the law. However, I will second the concern that piracy sites and their "warez" are a breeding ground for viruses and other malware, so keep your eyes open if you decide to walk down that road.
Wrong. You're allowed to do anything you want with the software you have as long as you don't distribute it. Including making as many copies as you wish (as long as only one is actually running at the time) or installing no-cd cracks.

It does violate most EULA's but who says what's written in the EULA's is necessarily legal?

[Tirian]

It does violate most EULA's but who says what's written in the EULA's is necessarily legal?

In the United states, it is the United States Copyright Code (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html) that says that it is illegal. "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

Now, if you dig further into that section, you'll find there there is an exemption for overcoming no-copy protection for non-profit archival purposes (which I understand to mean "backups"), but there doesn't seem to be an exemption for enhanced non-profit portability. Microsoft copyrighted a piece of software that deliberately restricts its use to a computer with a CD player, and the law will protect their right to have that restriction.

[Crispy Dave]

I use DAEMON Tools and use CD-images to do that if you do own the game(well the license to play it) I see no problem why you shouldn't use it just to make life easier.

[Jack Squat]

In the United states, it is the United States Copyright Code (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html) that says that it is illegal. "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

Now, if you dig further into that section, you'll find there there is an exemption for overcoming no-copy protection for non-profit archival purposes (which I understand to mean "backups"), but there doesn't seem to be an exemption for enhanced non-profit portability. Microsoft copyrighted a piece of software that deliberately restricts its use to a computer with a CD player, and the law will protect their right to have that restriction.

There's also the "Fair Use" clause, Section 107 (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107). I'm not a lawyer, but the layman's version is basically what's been stated before. You're allowed to make as many copies of it as you'd like, but you can only use one at a time. You can also alter them so long as they're not distributed.

You're interpretation of that section is almost right. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much saying you can circumvent them so long as you don't distribute it to anyone. Archival really applies to libraries and archives more than personal use, which falls under "Fair Use."

In any case, I don't see anyone getting taken to court because they altered their game (not permanently, seeing as how the game still exists on the disc in its original form) so they could play it on their computer, which lacks a CD drive.

[Player_Zero]

Ichy!!!!!!!
I've missed you!
Now don't ever leave us again!
*duk-tapes Ichy to the playground*

And long live us old-school gamers! AoE is great.

Yes, I'm sure early-teenage gamers are amazingly 'old-school'. I mean wow, they remember when the N64 came out.

[Jack Squat]

Yes, I'm sure early-teenage gamers are amazingly 'old-school'. I mean wow, they remember when the N64 came out.

Yes, but it's also likely they were into gaming before it stopped being nerdy (I see that line being around Y2K, around when SOCOM and HALO came out, but the actual point is up for debate).

[Mando Knight]

Yes, I'm sure early-teenage gamers are amazingly 'old-school'. I mean wow, they remember when the N64 came out.

Actually... early-teenage would be the earliest possible for being alive when the N64 came out... the 64 came out in September almost 13 years ago.

My first one was two and a half years later, as the first games we got for it were Star Wars Episode I: Racer and the original Smash Bros. (However, since I was only 10 at the time and the second oldest by about a year and a half either way, my family wasn't ready for the series at the time and my mom traded it in for Mario Party... which is just as bad when trying to avoid over-competitiveness...)

Among the first games I remember playing were the Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Commander Keen episodes IV and V on the PC...

[ericgrau]

If you are a legal owner of the software, I'd just use Daemon tools and make a CD image from the CD. It shows up and is used exactly like a CD drive, making it the easiest option by far. If you ever want to reinstall the game (on that same machine), that'll be an easy option too. I've seen plenty of hacks that are more trouble than they're worth. Just use Daemon tools.

As for legality, I dunno if it is. But I do know that no one (including Microsoft) is going to care enough to even give it a moment's thought. I've actually met people who were proud that they didn't jaywalk, only to do other, worse things like sit in a car with too many people without buckling their seat belt. Yeah, get over yourselves. Not even the police care.

[Douglas]

As mentioned, Daemon Tools and Alcohol 120% can provide a fake CD drive to fool the game into thinking the iso of the CD on your hard drive is actually the real CD, but I have heard of games that attempt to detect these tools and refuse to run if you have them installed. I think Warcraft III did that at one point. Whether such a game can actually succeed in detecting the latest version (it's a bit of an arms race) and whether any of your games even try are other matters.

Alternatively, you can download a no-cd crack specific to the game you want it for. Make sure to back up the game's exe before replacing it with the cracked version, and you will probably have to change it back before applying any future patches. There is one web site I consider a trustworthy source of such cracked executables. This is a legal gray area, however, and I'm not sure how the mods would view posting the address of that site publically. It ostensibly exists to allow legal owners of games to make their backup copies actually work, but it's also a very useful tool for software piracy. Since you do have a legal copy of the game, PM me if you decide to try that route.

[FdL]

So it's illegal. That's a shame. :smallannoyed:

No, it's not illegal. It's only a way to use the software you've paid for. Copy protection schemes are really more annoying than effective, and it really feels like a sort of bizarre punishment when you buy a game to have to do such stupid things as inserting the cd for checking whether you bought it.

Which becomes really apparent in case like yours when you have to resort to crazy things like carrying an external cd drive just to play the game.

Do the crack thing, you're not doing anything wrong.

And the classic "virus" scare of these kind of programs/sites is not really true. Just don't be stupid and scan every executable file you download and you'll be safe.


Yes, I'm sure early-teenage gamers are amazingly 'old-school'. I mean wow, they remember when the N64 came out.

I laugh at that concept of "old school". I remember when the C64 came out.

[Dispozition]

I haven't read most of the posts so far in this thread, so sorry if I'm repeating something...

Patching games to require no CD is illegal to my understanding. Using an image disk to emulate a CD is not so long as you legally own the game as well. Using a program such as Daemon tools you can mount artificial CD/DVD drives and make your computer think it has them. On those artificial drives you can mount CD/DVD images that are essentially the CD/DVD they're based off but in purely digital format. I would advise taking that course of action, I do it with Halo for example.

[Erloas]

No CD cracks are legal so long as you already own the game. The grey area really only comes in if someone really wants to press the "fair use" aspect of copy protection... you know where they try to claim you can't even make MP3 of CDs you own and listen to them on MP3 devices... which is what the music industry was trying to claim for a while. Its pretty much accepted now that "the absolutely no modification to the media" sort of thing some companies were pushing for just isn't right. Since the no-cd cracks can be used for legal uses of the software that is why the sites that provide them are still around and aren't/can't be shut down like the did with Napster (originially) and the likes.

If it were illegal to modify a programs code in any way then pretty much every user made mod to every game would be illegal, and we know that isn't the case. Given a number of modes don't change the executables at all, but it was fairly common before companies started to embrace user made content.

[Yarram]

So it's illegal. That's a shame. :smallannoyed:

I've heard about software which basically creates a fake cdrom-drive on your computer to trick the game that the cd is there. Would that be save? And would that be legal? I'm just asking in case it is.

Not necessarily. Running mods along with a game isn't illegal, so why should using a crack be? As long as you aren't editing the main game file, if yo download a crack that will run the game without a CD you're hardly breaking the law.

Alternatively, you could turn the CD into an ISO and run DAEMONTOOLS. I'm not quite sure of the ethics of that though.