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[Scelly9]

Hell, i can imagine somebody cracking a game for "fun" and then uploading it to show off their skills.

One reason DRM doesn't work. Heavy DRM makes people try to crack it as quickly as possible to show off their l33t h4x0rz skills.

But of course, nobody really cares.

Do the shit that Anonymous does, and I'll be impressed.

DDOS random crap? That's easy.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Sometimes they do SQL injections too.
That's like, at least third grade level.

[alway]

Sometimes they do SQL injections too.
That's like, at least third grade level.

This. Anyone who gets 'hacked' by Anon deserves it and worse for their crimes against good programming practices. SQL injections are only possible if you run any code your user gives you. Which is the easiest way of doing things, but also the absolutely stupid way, for obvious reasons. Companies 'hacked' by Anon should consider themselves lucky; at least then they focus on fixing their terrible websites (which have likely been compromised 10 times over by other entities with more malevolent intentions).

Even the HB Gary Federal hacking was just calling the admin on the phone and asking for the password.

[Frumple]

But I usually assumed that crackers waited until a game finished it's huge selling curve to release the crack. I've never seen a cracked game released on release date.

General term is "Zero day" releases or games, or somethin' like that. Stuff released on or before the release date. It's... fairly common, really. Never indulged myself with 'em, but I've seen quite a few in passing (There was a point I had a couple release sites RSS'd just so I could see what was coming out... cracking groups seemed more on top of releases than actual gaming new sites, a good chunk of the time.). Vaguely remember it being surprisingly ubiquitous with handheld (GBA, DS, etc.) roms, for some reason.

[Leatra]

It's a pride for a cracker to crack the game on it's release day before anybody else. It's quite common since every cracker group races to become the first one to crack the game. If it's DRM bonus pride points for the cracker and he also gains sympathy points for cracking a DRM game.

[Starver]

Sometimes they do SQL injections too.
That's like, at least third grade level.

It appears XKCD is relevant to everything!

(Yeah, I know it was the mother...)

[Nighthawk]

The whole purpose of roms (when you're not using them for pirating, which is illegal) is to keep all the games that you've already bought in one place as DATA rather than a bunch of disks, which are a pain to carry around. In fact, I'm pretty sure that as long as you've bought the game, it's completely legal. If you had a damaged copy of Skyrim and then you managed to get a rom for it (I don't know if that's even possible) it would still be legal.

[Telgin]

I think there's a technicality on that in that you're supposed to only own a ROM imaged from your media.  However it's probably impossible to tell for 99% of things if it came from a particular disc or not, unless there were unique IDs built into the image.

[fenrif]

In fact, I'm pretty sure that as long as you've bought the game, it's completely legal.

Depends where you live. It's illegal in the US. And Nintendo sure thinks they're terrible.

How Does Nintendo Feel About the Emergence of Video Game Emulators?

The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers.

Can I Download a Nintendo ROM from the Internet if I Already Own the Authentic Game?

There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a "second copy" rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.

I think there's a technicality on that in that you're supposed to only own a ROM imaged from your media.  However it's probably impossible to tell for 99% of things if it came from a particular disc or not, unless there were unique IDs built into the image.

You can copy your own games to other formats for your own personal use. But you can't bypass any sort of copy protection otherwise it's illegal (thanks DMCA). So unless you manage to find a fictional GBA, SNES, PSX, etc game with no copyright protection, you're out of luck.

[Frumple]

I think there's a technicality on that in that you're supposed to only own a ROM imaged from your media.  However it's probably impossible to tell for 99% of things if it came from a particular disc or not, unless there were unique IDs built into the image.

Precisely that. Copyright infringement is illicit copying more than anything else, and copying anything but data you specifically have bought (and then IFF it's for personal use, generally limited to backups) generally is just that. Technically, a rom acquired through any means but creating it from your personally bought and owned media is illegal.

Things get tricker when you consider the hardware needed to make roms off a lot of non-PC stuff (handhelds, older consoles, etc.) is itself illegal to sell or purchase. Technically, there, you're supposed to actually construct the stuff from the ground up by hand if you're trying to be completely in the clear.

Obviously some of the stuff there is pretty much entirely bullshit -- especially the sell/purchase thing on the hardware, which is illegal almost entirely due to lobbyists et al leaning on lawmakers -- but it is what it is insofar as the legality of it is concerned. And it may vary by country a bit, o'course.

Mostly ninja'd!

[GlyphGryph]

My rules for this our simple.

If someone makes The Product I Want and offers it for sale, I will purchase it.

If no one makes The Product I Want, but someone else offers it as an illegal download (by having changed A Product I Don't Want into The Product I Want, somehow), then I will rarely download it. As an example here, the Pokemon ROM I was using for my hacks in the Bayomon thread. Nintendo does not sell a Pokemon ROM with edit tools that I can use on my computer. It is not a product they offer. So it may be copyright violation, but since copyright violation is literally the only way to acquire the product, in fact the only way for the product to exist, it's literally that or nothing - and I don't see how choosing "that" is stealing from anyone.

I would be willing to bet this is the real reason a LOT of people pirate stuff - and why Steam has put such a huge dent in piracy. After all, Steam offered The Product People Want when most other video games companies refused to even consider the idea, telling people they would be the product offered or nothing, whether the want the product offered or not.

To this end, the recent tendency in games and other software products to turn Products I Want into Products I Don't Want in the interest of "combating piracy" hasn't exactly worked so well on folks like me...

(As an example of what happens when a company makes Products I Want, I have bought no less than 4 copies of Fallout. Every time I lose or destroy one, I go to the store or online and find... I can buy a copy of the Product I Want!)

[dei]

I pirate games that are either not copyrighted in the United States, are no longer being produced in the United States, are no longer being profited upon by the original developers, or are only available for digital download from some service that I don't want to use.

The exception was that time I pirated The Sims 2 back in 2007 because my brother broke my discs and I wanted to play it. However I did pirate Fable: The Lost Chapters, Recettear: An Item Shops Tale, Princess Maker 2, Fallout and both countless Japanese visual novels/eroge and countless NES, SNES, GBA and Sega Genesis ROMs.

I believe that data is a form of information and that information should be free. Combine that with my old-fashioned desire for having a hard copy and outside of the stuff I pirate and various freeware I only pay for games that are currently being sold as a hard copy or have an incredibly affordable used hard copy available.

I believe the last used games I bought were Knights in the Nightmare, Brain Age and Capitalism II. The last new games I bought were Harvest Moon: A Tale of Two Towns and the complete collection of Baldur's Gate. This was back when I had the money to do such a thing, before I realized that in order to deal with this stressful environment I live in I had to spend my money on comfort food and stimulants. Even with what I said I pirate I mostly do it now because I don't have the money to go out and buy nice things at this time.

Oh well. I might be able to buy nice things again sometime soon. Then perhaps I can refrain from piracy for a while and not pirate games and such. Then again the only games I really want to buy right now I would require a modern PC or a XBOX 360 to play. How I long for Oblivion, Skyrim,  Fable II, Fable III, The Sims 3, Record of Agarest War, Deathsmiles and BlazBlue. They genuinely sound like fun to me. For the time being though I am content with both pirating games I can play and playing games I already have, with Morrowind being at the top of my list.

I bought the Game of the Year Edition out of curiousity in my late teens simply because a magazine had said that there was a nude patch. I am most certainly glad I did not pirate that game outside of a NoCD patch for thousands of reasons more than just the eye candy that lured me in. But I digress for now I am ranting and thus should probably sleep or perhaps play Morrowind. Thank you for a lovely chance for me to express myself and rave about my opinions and paradigm.

TL;DR - I find piracy to be acceptable in some cases more than others, namely when it's something not readily available in your locale and/or you're dirt poor.

[Tack]

I usually don't pirate:

Games
Anime

I usually do pirate:

Television Series
Movies


Whatever justification I can give for that, who knows.

But the only games I've really ever pirated were the Supreme Commander series, and that's because I'd heard enough good stuff to make me intrigued, but not enough for me to attempt to track it down and buy it (I checked EB at the time and it was already too old to be there). So my curiosity got the better of me and I downloaded them.
They're ok.

[Guardian G.I.]

I pirate all the games I play, even the indie games that I'd surely love to buy in order to support the developers.
Paypal doesn't work in Belarus, Steam, which accepts Russian e-currencies such as Webmoney, doesn't accept Webmoney accounts located in Belarus, and the Russian localized licensed copies are usually poorly translated and extremely expensive.
Everyone in Belarus who has a sufficiently fast Internet connection downloads stuff from torrents or other file-sharing networks.

[Guardian G.I.]

So... move away from Belarus if you can?

On the other hand, the Belarusian government doesn't care about file-sharing at all. None of those pesky copyright guardians are present in Belarus (they don't know where it is located, apparently) So, you can download as much as you want without any threat of lawsuits from copyright holders.
Those who doesn't care about translation can just buy Russian licensed boxed copies of video games (which work perfectly in Steam)