Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam(twitter.com)
twitter.com
Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam
https://twitter.com/__silent_/status/1698345924840296801
256 comments
Many years ago, I worked on a product that provided a bunch of old emulated games. We properly licensed them, but many of the license holders no longer had the original ROMs, ripping the game data off of some of the really old consoles was quite difficult, and the only ROMs available publicly were cracked copies with demo's added. That was the birth of the demoscene, which was awesome, but bad for us trying to legitimately provide these games. So we ended up cheating. We used the cracked versions of these games, but we always loaded the games from a state just past when the demo would play, making them look normal and legit. Thank God all those early cracks put their demos only at the start and not, like, between levels 1 and 2, or we'd've been screwed.
It would be kind of sad/funny if one of the games had a bad crack and the game itself was broken and not caught by QA. For example, Earthbound has one final check that would cause the game to freeze and delete your save at the final boss.
There was an example of this reposted here just last week:
https://www.benshoof.org/blog/case-cracked
The crack for The Colonel's Bequest worked by hardcoding the RNG in the interpreter to always return the same number. This broke every random element of the game, which is undetectable on a single playthrough.
The crack for The Colonel's Bequest worked by hardcoding the RNG in the interpreter to always return the same number. This broke every random element of the game, which is undetectable on a single playthrough.
To me it happened the other way around.
The original game from Steam won't run on Linux but if I change the .exe for one that is cracked, it works.
I've been keeping that .exe for years.
The original game from Steam won't run on Linux but if I change the .exe for one that is cracked, it works.
I've been keeping that .exe for years.
[deleted]
This is the case for many "cracked" DOS games. You can find archives that say "we checked all the games to make sure they're really cracked", but I obtained a copy of Spaceward Ho! from such an archive, and the developers had pre-defeated this assurance measure by not invoking the copy protection until several turns into the game.
I think this was the case for one version of King's Bounty: The Legend on GOG (not the current version it sounds like?), which had a bug where you couldn't talk to an NPC at one point when you needed to do so to advance the game. At least, I recall someone mentioning somewhere when I looked after encountering the bug years ago that this was an issue of a random crack posted to the net that someone (the publisher I'm guessing, maybe GOG or the developer) had applied to produce the GOG version.
man that is absolutely brutal
Could we get some more context than this tweet (which doesn't really explain what's going on)?
The game shown here, Midnight Club II, required the CD to be in the drive to play it. With the advent of Steam and companies releasing older games on Steam, they needed a way to bypass that check. Bypassing a CD (commonly called No-CD) was a very common crack/DRM bypass back in the day. Rockstar didn't want to bring up old source code and find someone who understood it enough to remove the check, so instead they just installed a No-CD crack into the existing EXE and uploaded the thing to Steam.
This is a great example of how today's "piracy" is tomorrow's "only working copy left". I wish there were a more formal way to explicitly allow this, though I'm probably just pining for shorter copyright terms. This game was released 20 years ago, longer than the original U.S. copyright term of 14 years.
Disney lawyers, meanwhile, are looking to extend copyright to 50 years beyond the life of the author's 3rd generation descendant or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes last.
The way things are going, the death of Disney may come quicker.
Lolwat? Have you been to Disney? They take all your money. Have you watched a movie? Chances are Disney made it happen.
I want to know in what world a company like Disney goes anywhere and then send Microsoft and Amazon there.
I want to know in what world a company like Disney goes anywhere and then send Microsoft and Amazon there.
based on what? their stock is taking a hit but they're still a big, scary corp, and will probably win the fights with FL's a-hole governor.
Walt Disney share price declined 3.9% on Thursday to close at $82.47, its lowest level in nearly nine years, or since October 16, 2014. Investors expect more weakness in Disney shares in the next few months. https://www.livemint.com/market/stock-market-news/disney-sha...
[deleted]
"whichever comes last" got me haha
BearhatBeer(1)
Sounds like Razor could sue Rockstar for copyright infringement. That would be hilarious.
Former cracker for rzr here :) did not do this game unfortunately.
Oh, you "didn't" do this game, wink wink, nudge nudge. ;)
Question for you from the 17 year old me.
Why did you do this? Fame? Money? Challenge?
I didn't know enough to so it myself and no one would teach me.
Why did you do this? Fame? Money? Challenge?
I didn't know enough to so it myself and no one would teach me.
Having done similar (not identical) things at that age, a lot of it is quite literally for the LOLs, and more than a bit is for community identity.
Fame: Non-existent, since you don't tell people.
Money: Non-existent, you don't get paid.
In retrospect, I think a major drivers for teenagers for a lot of activities is a sense of identity. You feel like one of the role models in [name your favorite hacker movie]. It's the same reason why punks wore spikes and mohawks, goths wore black, and people might pick a genre of music (even if privately). I'd guess a lot of more negative things, like vandalism, are similar too.
You become part of a community too.
And ultimately, you contribute to it. As much as it might be illegal, cracking software helps other kids who can't afford that software. Few real engineers will use a hacked copy of AutoCAD, and literally everyone I know began to pay for music once they could afford it. On the other end of the bell curve are kids who can't afford those. Providing them with access is a community service. And it's going up against The Man. It's illegal, but by the code of ethics we followed at the time, it was very ethical.
Fame: Non-existent, since you don't tell people.
Money: Non-existent, you don't get paid.
In retrospect, I think a major drivers for teenagers for a lot of activities is a sense of identity. You feel like one of the role models in [name your favorite hacker movie]. It's the same reason why punks wore spikes and mohawks, goths wore black, and people might pick a genre of music (even if privately). I'd guess a lot of more negative things, like vandalism, are similar too.
You become part of a community too.
And ultimately, you contribute to it. As much as it might be illegal, cracking software helps other kids who can't afford that software. Few real engineers will use a hacked copy of AutoCAD, and literally everyone I know began to pay for music once they could afford it. On the other end of the bell curve are kids who can't afford those. Providing them with access is a community service. And it's going up against The Man. It's illegal, but by the code of ethics we followed at the time, it was very ethical.
I've done something similar in recent past on a large scale:
I did it because it was interesting, I wanted to prove DRM is a flawed concept and broken construct, and because the community which I built (as a result) was really great and a home to me when I didn't ever experience one.
It was never about money or fame, it was about providing something to people that had a value. People said the "thing" I provided was better than the "real thing", and that gave me a sense of pride: I'd never get hired by the company that made "real thing" to make their "thing" better because I didn't have the credentials on paper.
But at least my "thing" was better.
I did it because it was interesting, I wanted to prove DRM is a flawed concept and broken construct, and because the community which I built (as a result) was really great and a home to me when I didn't ever experience one.
It was never about money or fame, it was about providing something to people that had a value. People said the "thing" I provided was better than the "real thing", and that gave me a sense of pride: I'd never get hired by the company that made "real thing" to make their "thing" better because I didn't have the credentials on paper.
But at least my "thing" was better.
It’s a great way to learn - so challenge. There’s neither fame nor money here I think.
At least in the 90s there were lots of tutorials to learn how to crack/reverse engineer, from +orc’s documentation to fravia ´s fortress of reverse engineering - I’d expect similar tutorials to still be around.
Reverse engineering also happens to be a very useful skill as a regular software engineer ( debugging compiler bugs, figuring out why software X is behaving strangely and what it is doing etc ).
At least in the 90s there were lots of tutorials to learn how to crack/reverse engineer, from +orc’s documentation to fravia ´s fortress of reverse engineering - I’d expect similar tutorials to still be around.
Reverse engineering also happens to be a very useful skill as a regular software engineer ( debugging compiler bugs, figuring out why software X is behaving strangely and what it is doing etc ).
Exactly true. Was a teenage software hacker, reverse engineered many games mostly because I was a bored teenager with free time and many games I legitimately bought. Mostly it was to cheat a little, like tweaking player stats or number of lives in a save file.
All that reverse engineering experience gave me a particularly useful talent as a developer: an uncanny ability to sit down and grok other people’s code almost like magic.
Solid experience with reverse engineering really is a good skill to have.
All that reverse engineering experience gave me a particularly useful talent as a developer: an uncanny ability to sit down and grok other people’s code almost like magic.
Solid experience with reverse engineering really is a good skill to have.
Depends on when the people did this and how complex the mechanism were at the time. I do remember just learning about JMP in assembler and that you could bypass a lot of stuff by changing a true to false or vice versa. Not exactly rocket science. (Not saying this to downplay anything, but what seems magical to many non-techies was actually very easy to do if you knew the trick, and it already worked for like 30% of the games - I'm not talking about the real stuff later on, not even sure how complicated NoCD was.)
On the other hand, probably 15-20 years after I had last used a crack for a game I had to implement some basic protection like this into a piece of software (more like: make sure the customer will not run this demo version forever) and it was fun to discuss in the team what we all remembered from back then and which measures were adequate to implement.
On the other hand, probably 15-20 years after I had last used a crack for a game I had to implement some basic protection like this into a piece of software (more like: make sure the customer will not run this demo version forever) and it was fun to discuss in the team what we all remembered from back then and which measures were adequate to implement.
I did it for unlimited access to t3 zero day ftp sites
Thank you for your service o7
[deleted]
They could. They would lose, though
A No-CD crack might not be transformative enough to warrant copyright protection as derivative work in the US. But they could sue in a jurisdiction that is more likely to give them a favorable outcome. Handling of derivative works and the minimum threshold for copyright varies considerably between countries.
Most DRM crackers aren’t in it for money but to prove DRM is a flawed and ridiculous concept.
That was my scene back in the day when there was less risk of the Feds kicking in the door. At least back then most of us saw it as a learning experience.
That was my scene back in the day when there was less risk of the Feds kicking in the door. At least back then most of us saw it as a learning experience.
Likely Rockstar would counter sue for violating their original Copyright and the terms of use attached to them.
At best it would be a wash, there is a decent chance the damages for the countersuit would lead to a net loss.
At best it would be a wash, there is a decent chance the damages for the countersuit would lead to a net loss.
The can sue them for anti-circumvention statutes in the DMCA. But not for infringement, since the developers did not do the infringement, they only enabled it.
Do those statutes apply for interoperability? Which takes precedence?
This is basically how Rockstar used it - to make the game work on computers without CDs. So the actual rights holder has recognised that this tool or one like it is legitimately required for interoperability, between the game as a piece of technology and a modern computer. They won't work together otherwise.
Maybe I am being too tricky but that's how I see it. And if that makes it a legitimate work then it's funny to think about the consequences.
This is basically how Rockstar used it - to make the game work on computers without CDs. So the actual rights holder has recognised that this tool or one like it is legitimately required for interoperability, between the game as a piece of technology and a modern computer. They won't work together otherwise.
Maybe I am being too tricky but that's how I see it. And if that makes it a legitimate work then it's funny to think about the consequences.
Certain excemptions are provided in the DMCA, and have been established via jurisprudenence:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/28/2021-23...
Geeks often think that the law is some sort of blockchain-esque thing that is absolute, context-free and machine-interpretable.
In reality, many laws require 'guilty intent' (mens rea). This is why we have 'judges', who perform 'judgement'.
So the same tool called 'no-cd', marketed as a backup tool may be judged 'OK', where 'WaR3z HaCk.exe' published by a group of known software pirates will be judged 'anti circumvention'
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/28/2021-23...
Geeks often think that the law is some sort of blockchain-esque thing that is absolute, context-free and machine-interpretable.
In reality, many laws require 'guilty intent' (mens rea). This is why we have 'judges', who perform 'judgement'.
So the same tool called 'no-cd', marketed as a backup tool may be judged 'OK', where 'WaR3z HaCk.exe' published by a group of known software pirates will be judged 'anti circumvention'
NoCD patches are commonly distributed as an already-patched version of the executable, which would count as infringement.
How did the cracked game enter circulation, if the crackers didn't redistribute it?
In this very specific case, it's a no-cd patch, you can be a legitimate owner of the copy but for some very valid reasons that do not want load the CD every time you play the game. (Like disk and/drive wearing, or just don't like the hassle)
After some short searching online, looks like for copyright infringement litigation, the statute of limitation is three years.
I don't think people on HN understand what a derivative work is, considering how often I see it referenced incorrectly. You can't make a derivative work without a license. That's why it's derivative. It derivates from the copyrighted work and is therefore within the domain of the copyright and under the control of the copyright's owner.
A Harry Potter spin-off about Hermione (I don't know anything about HP, sorry in advanced) is a derivative of the original Harry Potter work. As I'm sure you are well aware, you cannot sell copies of your Hermione spin-off, because that'd be copyright infringement, because it is a derivative work.
A Harry Potter spin-off about Hermione (I don't know anything about HP, sorry in advanced) is a derivative of the original Harry Potter work. As I'm sure you are well aware, you cannot sell copies of your Hermione spin-off, because that'd be copyright infringement, because it is a derivative work.
You can skirt incredibly close, however - search Amazon for “unofficial Harry Potter”.
That just means they haven't been sued, there is no copyright czar that makes sure infringement never happens. Owners need to sue.
It won't happen, as factual details can't be copyrighted.
So I can't write a story with HP characters, but I can't be copyright struck for writing that there is a book called Harry Potter that has these characteristics.
(The above is in the USA, other countries have different policies and rights.)
So I can't write a story with HP characters, but I can't be copyright struck for writing that there is a book called Harry Potter that has these characteristics.
(The above is in the USA, other countries have different policies and rights.)
Harry Potter isn't a fact. A book about the fact that Harry Potter was written and it's about wizards is about as long as that sentence.
There are at least four books so far in the "unofficial" series, and if you believe that the companies involved wouldn't copyright strike it if they could, that's protected by the first amendment.
https://www.mugglenet.com/site/publications/
You can also find unofficial and unauthorized books in other settings, such as Minecraft, but you can argue that it's explicitly permitted as seen here: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/commercial-use-guide... - but you can ignore those in the USA in many cases - here's one already: https://www.amazon.com/Minecraft-Monarchies-UnOfficial-Story...
https://www.mugglenet.com/site/publications/
You can also find unofficial and unauthorized books in other settings, such as Minecraft, but you can argue that it's explicitly permitted as seen here: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/commercial-use-guide... - but you can ignore those in the USA in many cases - here's one already: https://www.amazon.com/Minecraft-Monarchies-UnOfficial-Story...
Okay, it's not "skirting incredibly close" to write those reference books, because they are in no way a substitute for the underlying fiction, which is why they would probably be considered a fair use.
>There are at least four books so far in the "unofficial" series, and if you believe that the companies involved wouldn't copyright strike it if they could, that's protected by the first amendment.
You have no idea what you are talking about. The first amendment isn't a defense to copyright infringement. transformative fair use with a de minimis copying is.
>There are at least four books so far in the "unofficial" series, and if you believe that the companies involved wouldn't copyright strike it if they could, that's protected by the first amendment.
You have no idea what you are talking about. The first amendment isn't a defense to copyright infringement. transformative fair use with a de minimis copying is.
> I don't think people on HN understand what a derivative work is, considering how often I see it referenced incorrectly.
Very true.
> You can't make a derivative work without a license. T
You can, but it is a copyright violation to do so unless an exception (like Fair Use) applies.
A derivative work is also a work eligible for copyright in its own right, and as such is copyright by the creator by operation of law when fixed in a tangible form, whether or not it also violates someone else’s copyright.
> It derivates
“derives”
> from the copyrighted work and is therefore within the domain of the copyright and under the control of the copyright's owner.
No, producing it is within the legally exclusive rights of the copyright holder subject to the limitations on those rights, but once created the copyright in the derivative is not under the control of the copyright holder of the original (though transferring or licensing back may be part of the resolution of copyright violation lawsuit over its creation.)
Very true.
> You can't make a derivative work without a license. T
You can, but it is a copyright violation to do so unless an exception (like Fair Use) applies.
A derivative work is also a work eligible for copyright in its own right, and as such is copyright by the creator by operation of law when fixed in a tangible form, whether or not it also violates someone else’s copyright.
> It derivates
“derives”
> from the copyrighted work and is therefore within the domain of the copyright and under the control of the copyright's owner.
No, producing it is within the legally exclusive rights of the copyright holder subject to the limitations on those rights, but once created the copyright in the derivative is not under the control of the copyright holder of the original (though transferring or licensing back may be part of the resolution of copyright violation lawsuit over its creation.)
I thought Pickett v Prince established precedent that you can’t copyright an unauthorized derivative work.
See 17 U.S.C. §103(a), which says that derivative works can be copyrighted, but that does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.
(not a lawyer but I did audit this class at a law school)
See 17 U.S.C. §103(a), which says that derivative works can be copyrighted, but that does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.
(not a lawyer but I did audit this class at a law school)
If the patch is distributed on its own, without the original binary, is it still a derivative work? Is the unique, creative work of writing "perform XYZ instruction at XYZ address," in lieu of the original executable, still derivative?
This is actually an unanswered/unproven question that comes up quite a bit in automotive tuning, where individuals and tuning companies modify OEM calibrations and create application software patches which, while they are unique and perform stand-alone functions, run on top of OEM ECU software.
This is actually an unanswered/unproven question that comes up quite a bit in automotive tuning, where individuals and tuning companies modify OEM calibrations and create application software patches which, while they are unique and perform stand-alone functions, run on top of OEM ECU software.
The history of General Computer Corporation's[0] arcade enhancement boards is an interesting example of this kind of "derivative" work.
GCC made an enhancement board for Missile Command and later for Pac Man ("Crazy Otto", which became "Ms. Pac Man"). Rather than employing simple "ROM hacks" as other enhancement board manufacturers did, GCC specifically built their enhancement hardware not to contain any code copied from the original game ROM. Their hardware patched the existing ROM only by overlaying their code onto the original ROMs, not by copying any of the original code[1].
There's some neat detail in the background slides here[2]. I'd love to hear that talk but I'm not immediately a recording of it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Computer_Corporation
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/class/sts145/Notes/3_game_business/...
[2] https://trilobyte.com/pdf/golson_ReplayFX_2015.pdf
GCC made an enhancement board for Missile Command and later for Pac Man ("Crazy Otto", which became "Ms. Pac Man"). Rather than employing simple "ROM hacks" as other enhancement board manufacturers did, GCC specifically built their enhancement hardware not to contain any code copied from the original game ROM. Their hardware patched the existing ROM only by overlaying their code onto the original ROMs, not by copying any of the original code[1].
There's some neat detail in the background slides here[2]. I'd love to hear that talk but I'm not immediately a recording of it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Computer_Corporation
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/class/sts145/Notes/3_game_business/...
[2] https://trilobyte.com/pdf/golson_ReplayFX_2015.pdf
> If the patch is distributed on its own, without the original binary, is it still a derivative work?
Yes, just as annotations are recognised as being a derivative work even without the original.
> Is the unique, creative work of writing "perform XYZ instruction at XYZ address," in lieu of the original executable, still derivative?
If you can convince a judge that, on the balance of probabilities, you were divinely inspired to write it with no connection to the original executable, then it's not derivative. But good luck with that.
Yes, just as annotations are recognised as being a derivative work even without the original.
> Is the unique, creative work of writing "perform XYZ instruction at XYZ address," in lieu of the original executable, still derivative?
If you can convince a judge that, on the balance of probabilities, you were divinely inspired to write it with no connection to the original executable, then it's not derivative. But good luck with that.
>you cannot sell copies of your Hermione spin-off, because that'd be copyright infringement, because it is a derivative work
But you can distribute it for free, as fanfiction.
Also, a no-CD crack does not contain any of the original work. It's akin to a program that you can use to modify, say, your legally-purchased Harry Potter ebook in order to change all instances of "wand" to "wang"
But you can distribute it for free, as fanfiction.
Also, a no-CD crack does not contain any of the original work. It's akin to a program that you can use to modify, say, your legally-purchased Harry Potter ebook in order to change all instances of "wand" to "wang"
Fan fiction is illegal, or at best in a deeply gray area, it's just that most people realize suing your super-fans is a bad move. There are exceptions of course, Anne Rice was famously super litigious over any attempted fan fiction of her characters which generated a lot of bad feelings online.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gqjz/anne-rice-really-hate...
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gqjz/anne-rice-really-hate...
Paramount suing Star Trek fan productions is another great example. They recently took down the Wolf 359 audio book project for example.
> But you can distribute it for free, as fanfiction.
Not legally.
> Also, a no-CD crack does not contain any of the original work. It's akin to a program that you can use to modify, say, your legally-purchased Harry Potter ebook in order to change all instances of "wand" to "wang"
Doesn't matter, it's still a derivative work, just as a translation or annotation that doesn't contain any of the original text is a derivative work.
Not legally.
> Also, a no-CD crack does not contain any of the original work. It's akin to a program that you can use to modify, say, your legally-purchased Harry Potter ebook in order to change all instances of "wand" to "wang"
Doesn't matter, it's still a derivative work, just as a translation or annotation that doesn't contain any of the original text is a derivative work.
I'm not sure about american law but in EU (at least Sweden) you def get copyright to detivative work even if you don't have a license. If I create a derivative work based on Harry Potter the result will be that I have copyright to the derivative work BUT not to Harry Potter (I wish) so while I own the rights to my work I can't produce (etc) the work (at least not in a commerical capacity) because JK rowling owns the Harry Potter rights. However JK does not have the right to use my derivative work without a license from me.
A maybe more clear example is music. Songwriting is covered by copywrite. Singing is also covered by copywrite. If A writes a song and B sings the song without A:s premission it can be copyright infringment. However, A can not take a recording of B:s song and copy and sell it without B:s consent because B has the copyright to the performance (even if the performance was a copywright infringment).
A maybe more clear example is music. Songwriting is covered by copywrite. Singing is also covered by copywrite. If A writes a song and B sings the song without A:s premission it can be copyright infringment. However, A can not take a recording of B:s song and copy and sell it without B:s consent because B has the copyright to the performance (even if the performance was a copywright infringment).
Because Rockstar is a huge company, or because the dev wouldn’t have a case?
I wonder if No-CD was released under a specific open-source license, that would be hilarious
What's the copyrighted work here?
Both the original game and the no-cd crack are copyrighted works.
Who owns the no-cd copyright?
Well, obviously the people who wrote it. They don't own the game, which they didn't make, but they own rights to the cracking code, which they did make.
Razor1911 was the cracking group in this particular case.
Heh. I recall their demos on the Amiga.
Probably Norway's most long-lived and industrious software export success. Founded in 1985.
Somehow I expected them to be founded since 1911, cracking those Analytical Engines.
It’s 0x777, making fun of all the l33+ 666 groups
666. My favourite error code to return when there’s a “wtf” error.
understated context here
That's hilarious. I wonder what the license model is for the crack that they used.
Did Rockstart have to license Razor1911's cracking software?
It would be ironic if Rockstar was in violation of Razor1911's copyright.
It would be ironic if Rockstar was in violation of Razor1911's copyright.
Are we sure they didn't just lose the source code entirely?
Probably unbuildable anyways without a lot of effort if you can't recreate the workstation that was building it.
These days you'd save a VM image, but if we all move off x86, what good will that do?
QEMU can run VMs that are a different architecture than the host. There's obviously a performance penalty to doing that, but it can be done.
These days you'd save a VM image, in case you need to rebuild the code in 20 years.
Then in 20 years you boot up the image and find you can't log in because your cloud Windows account was deleted 10 years ago for inactivity, your build toolchain is too outdated to download artefacts, the vendor of your text-padding library deleted it in a fit of pique, your code-signing certificates have expired, the guy whose cell phone is on the corporate account 2FA left the company 15 years ago, the OS vendor won't allow new releases to use those obsolete, deprecated APIs.....
Then in 20 years you boot up the image and find you can't log in because your cloud Windows account was deleted 10 years ago for inactivity, your build toolchain is too outdated to download artefacts, the vendor of your text-padding library deleted it in a fit of pique, your code-signing certificates have expired, the guy whose cell phone is on the corporate account 2FA left the company 15 years ago, the OS vendor won't allow new releases to use those obsolete, deprecated APIs.....
You'd hope not, but it could be backed on something like a tape drive: too much effort to retrieve and then access.
Did anyone at Rockstar ever confirm that it was an official decision?
I wonder if they did assign someone all that and they took a shortcut.
I wonder if they did assign someone all that and they took a shortcut.
One game I really loved as a kid, sim coaster, has a nocd crack floating around, sadly it blocks some needed features further into the game.
And I can't find any non-crack iso to load into the VM. (Can't rip it myself, due to not having a cd drive anymore)
And I can't find any non-crack iso to load into the VM. (Can't rip it myself, due to not having a cd drive anymore)
I think that if you had a twitter account you could click on something and see more context.
Linking twitter has become worse than your average paywalled site, which you can look up on archive.something if it seems interesting.
Linking twitter has become worse than your average paywalled site, which you can look up on archive.something if it seems interesting.
CameronNemo(2)
I didn't feel old today until I jumped on HN and saw someone who didn't know what 'cracked' means in the context of PC games.
He knows what cracked means. I think you misunderstood.
Not much room to misunderstand, and if he knows what cracked means what's going on should be obvious.
I know what cracked means, but this didn't communicate anything to me. It seems that you'd need to both know what cracked means and know who "RAZOR 1911" is in order to get what's going on here from context alone.
Not necessarily. You could understand that a cracked PC game means its copy-protection has been removed by someone illegally but not have a detailed enough understanding of the process to understand the tweet. Personally I'm not familiar with Razor1911 so I wouldn't have understood the significance of that string in the hexdump if it weren't for the context provided by other comments here.
This seems like a weird hill to die on? yes it's obvious that rockstar (apparently) uploaded a cracked version of their game to steam. It's not obvious why they chose to do that (ie "what is going on")
I'm not dying on any hill, I think that's a weird comment to make, let alone to make an issue out of my original comment at all.
The way the comment was phrased read as though they didn't understand what had happened, not that they didn't understand why. Especially since no one has an answer to that, so no one can offer an explanation.
The way the comment was phrased read as though they didn't understand what had happened, not that they didn't understand why. Especially since no one has an answer to that, so no one can offer an explanation.
[deleted]
paint(1)
Considering the rapid change in HN audience I suspect this person is simply uninformed.
Cracking was a 90s term for pirating software
pirating software (movies, and music) is a term from the 90's by the MPAA, Riaa, and Games industry in attempting to link the act of simple copyright infringement, a civil non-criminal violation of the law to violent robbery on the high seas...
Cracking is a method of removing undesired features or inclusions from software, often licensing controls, or other anti-consumer features.
Many many many people "cracked" their software who where not eganged in the act of copyright infringement, they legally owned the software but for a number of reasons has no desire to run the invasive software bundled with the game or content they purchased.
Cracking is a method of removing undesired features or inclusions from software, often licensing controls, or other anti-consumer features.
Many many many people "cracked" their software who where not eganged in the act of copyright infringement, they legally owned the software but for a number of reasons has no desire to run the invasive software bundled with the game or content they purchased.
That was the scariest term they could come up with? The romantic swashbuckling seafarer, antagonising empires and declaring his own rules? Surely they could have done better.
'software fraud', 'software theft', 'forgery'... hmm well there's a reason I don't work in marketing obviously.
'software fraud', 'software theft', 'forgery'... hmm well there's a reason I don't work in marketing obviously.
They did those as well, and they also paid for extensive marketing material to make it seem like buying a cracked game was directly contributing to a mafia that was planning on killing your granny.
Do you not remember the ads? The "you wouldn't steal a car"?
Piracy is just what they were able to get. Should have hired the bank's PR managers, who turned "failing to do due diligence on a customer's identity" into the customer's problem.
Do you not remember the ads? The "you wouldn't steal a car"?
Piracy is just what they were able to get. Should have hired the bank's PR managers, who turned "failing to do due diligence on a customer's identity" into the customer's problem.
Wasn’t it “You wouldn’t download a car”?
Which ended up being quite funny, because I very much would download a car
Which ended up being quite funny, because I very much would download a car
It was "you wouldn't steal a car". People on the internet rightly corrected it to "download".
[deleted]
> Many many many people "cracked" their software who where not eganged in the act of copyright infringement, they legally owned the software but for a number of reasons has no desire to run the invasive software bundled with the game or content they purchased.
Yes, many people. But not “many many many” people. You try to make it sound like cracking to pirate was minority use case.
It was a valid use case, sure, but as big as using torrents to download Linux ISOs.
Yes, many people. But not “many many many” people. You try to make it sound like cracking to pirate was minority use case.
It was a valid use case, sure, but as big as using torrents to download Linux ISOs.
I seem to recall that for some games the community recommended fix for performance problems was to install a crack so that the game wouldn't try to read stuff from the CD, which might be slow depending on the drive you have, and would be very slow if the CD has some scratch so the drive repeatedly attempted to read the same spot until it succeeded.
Sure, and I don't question that. But at the same time - 99% of people outside of western countries had pirated copies of games (because it was legal in many countries, plus paying normal price was often month+ salary for a single game). Tons of teenagers from western countries (main gamers back in the days) had pirated games, unless they came from a rich family.
Cracks helped to fix some serious usability issues (as DRM removal nowadays also helps with), but let's not rewrite history to pretend that was what majority of people used them for.
Cracks helped to fix some serious usability issues (as DRM removal nowadays also helps with), but let's not rewrite history to pretend that was what majority of people used them for.
The use of "piracy" to describe unauthorised publication of a copyrighted work dates back to the 18th century, it's not something the MPAA came up with.
You're right! Etymonline traces it back to 1706 (without a source) [0], and I found it in the original Webster's [1]:
> A bookseller that seizes the copies or writings of other men without permission.
> PI'RATE, verb transitive To take by theft or without right or permission, as books or writings.
EDIT: I just got out my OED, and sure enough:
> 1668 J. Hancock Brooks String of Pearls (Notice at end), Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practice to steal Impressions of other mens Copies... [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/pirate#etymonline_v_16375
[1] https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Pirate
> A bookseller that seizes the copies or writings of other men without permission.
> PI'RATE, verb transitive To take by theft or without right or permission, as books or writings.
EDIT: I just got out my OED, and sure enough:
> 1668 J. Hancock Brooks String of Pearls (Notice at end), Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practice to steal Impressions of other mens Copies... [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/pirate#etymonline_v_16375
[1] https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Pirate
The term "pirate" definitely predates the 90's and RIAA, etc. We used it quite liberally in the 80's BBS era.
my favorite use was for software that required a USB dongle. if you lost the dongle, you lost access to the software. there is not "back up" option. so the cracking community came up with a way to emulate those dongles. the obvious abuse followed. we used the software for legit 1:1 installs to physical dongle on blade servers where all of the dongles could not be installed
My favourite failure case of this is dongles on hardware devices, like lighting controllers. Especially when the dongle does in on an exposed edge of the device and can get knocked loose.
I've heard stories of them getting disconnected because they were bumped, and the whole unit goes dead five minutes later. At least it's not immediate.
I've heard stories of them getting disconnected because they were bumped, and the whole unit goes dead five minutes later. At least it's not immediate.
I nursed my Lightwave dongle through my early career as an animator. I've lost so many pairs of glasses, several wallets, a couple of phones, but I know exactly which drawer that usb stick is sitting in now. Not that I reckon I'll ever touch LW again.
Another alternative to cracking was to use something like DAEMON Tools to emulate the CD in the drive with an .iso so you could legitimately play multiplayer games without having to deal with stupid CD checks.
Daemon tools was the bomb
Cracking is about removing anti-features, typically copy protections.
It pairs well with pirating, but neither one strictly requires the other.
> Cracking is about removing anti-features
Anti what features? Piracy?
Anti what features? Piracy?
Anti-backup, Anti-I-don't-have-a-cdrom-on-this-machine, Anti-I-lost-the-stupid-dongle, etc.
Like parent says, cracking and piracy pair well, but I've had to do it many times just for compatibility reasons, on software I had purchased.
Like parent says, cracking and piracy pair well, but I've had to do it many times just for compatibility reasons, on software I had purchased.
The anti-what-word-is-on-the-17th-page-3rd-paragraph-of-the-handbook was a very common on for so many games.
> Anti-backup, Anti-I-don't-have-a-cdrom-on-this-machine, Anti-I-lost-the-stupid-dongle, etc.
All perfectly understandable to me. But from the perspective of the people designing the anti-something system, wouldn't they call it piracy?
We can argue if piracy is a charitable enough name for bypassing copyright protections but that's irrelevant in terms of whether or not that is the thing the software provider is trying to do.
All perfectly understandable to me. But from the perspective of the people designing the anti-something system, wouldn't they call it piracy?
We can argue if piracy is a charitable enough name for bypassing copyright protections but that's irrelevant in terms of whether or not that is the thing the software provider is trying to do.
And just anti-convenience! Nobody wants to swap CDs purely to tick a checkbox.
This is more common than you might expect.
The Windows port of Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents under Pressure being sold on Steam is the DEViANCE crack.
Open the game's exe in a hex editor and you can plainly see "DEViANCE".
The Windows port of Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents under Pressure being sold on Steam is the DEViANCE crack.
Open the game's exe in a hex editor and you can plainly see "DEViANCE".
System sounds *.wav files were also produced with cracked software at some point (no clue if this is still in Win10):
https://www.techrepublic.com/forums/discussions/windows-uses...
https://www.techrepublic.com/forums/discussions/windows-uses...
I'm impressed both that you had a nearly 20 year old link ready, and that this URL still works.
I seem to remember hearing that wrt roms on at least one of the NES|SNES|PS1 Classic systems.
Yeah same, although I think it was the ROMs distributed in the Wii Shopping Channel?
Nintendo used the same file format as used for pirated ROMs, so people assumed Nintendo simply used downloaded ROMs. As it turns out one of the people working at Nintendo for emulation previously worked on emulators outside Nintendo, so it's likely that just the file format was reused. The Nintendo leaks showed that Nintendo has extensive internal archives and the likelihood of them needing to download ROMs of the Internet is low.
There was more than that.
> Apart from where mentioned above, filenames seem to match GoodSMS names (commonly found on the internet) with almost all non-alphabetical character removed. This suggests that all of the ROM images were obtained from the internet rather than from Sega's internal archives.
https://www.smspower.org/Development/NintendoWiiVirtualConso...
GoodSMS is a community/pirate naming scheme for identifying the different ROM dumps.
> Apart from where mentioned above, filenames seem to match GoodSMS names (commonly found on the internet) with almost all non-alphabetical character removed. This suggests that all of the ROM images were obtained from the internet rather than from Sega's internal archives.
https://www.smspower.org/Development/NintendoWiiVirtualConso...
GoodSMS is a community/pirate naming scheme for identifying the different ROM dumps.
> This explains the myth of the retail MC2 crashing on Vista - the game is most likely innocent, as the demo works great out of the box. IT WAS AGAIN THE CRACK breaking it.
Myth? Innocent? That game was totally unplayable when it first came out (for 98/ME?) so I doubt Razor made anything worse. I'd get most of the way through any race before the game randomly crashed.
It would be funnier if it weren't so absurd, since I'd have to go through finding the opponent in the world, chasing them to the starting line and doing the race itself each time.
Myth? Innocent? That game was totally unplayable when it first came out (for 98/ME?) so I doubt Razor made anything worse. I'd get most of the way through any race before the game randomly crashed.
It would be funnier if it weren't so absurd, since I'd have to go through finding the opponent in the world, chasing them to the starting line and doing the race itself each time.
He commented on that comment, it wasn't the crack.
> This gets better - Razor's crack is fine, the reason both Midnight Club 2 and Manhunt crashed when these cracks were in use was the fact that Steam DRM included a .bind section that was code not marked as code - thus tripping Data Execution Prevention
> This gets better - Razor's crack is fine, the reason both Midnight Club 2 and Manhunt crashed when these cracks were in use was the fact that Steam DRM included a .bind section that was code not marked as code - thus tripping Data Execution Prevention
There's probably an even stronger claim. It is not that Razor is not making things worse, rather a release from a reputable group is a strong indication that it works and that it will continue to do so many years in the future after activation servers are long gone/DRM methods are deprecated/etc. Quality and reliability is probably the reason why Microsoft used DeepzOne's Sound Forge [1] and Turner Classic Movies used subtitles from Karagarga [2] :-)
[1] https://boingboing.net/2006/07/19/windows-xp-sounds-cr.html [2] https://torrentfreak.com/turner-classic-movies-airs-a-film-w...
[1] https://boingboing.net/2006/07/19/windows-xp-sounds-cr.html [2] https://torrentfreak.com/turner-classic-movies-airs-a-film-w...
Related story, I remember years ago as a kid I bought a Prince of Persia PC game at a yardsale (on a CD), but early on in the game there was a riddle where you needed a password to get through this door, it was some cryptic message of a few numbers.
I don't remember the exact format but it turned out the riddle was instructing me to go to page X, line Y and character Z of the manual for the game!
I remember being so sad that I couldn't play anymore because I didn't have the manual but in retrospect I wonder if this was an anti-piracy strategy
I don't remember the exact format but it turned out the riddle was instructing me to go to page X, line Y and character Z of the manual for the game!
I remember being so sad that I couldn't play anymore because I didn't have the manual but in retrospect I wonder if this was an anti-piracy strategy
Yes, this was a common copy protection in old games!
There's a big list on mobygames here: https://www.mobygames.com/group/9360/games-with-manual-looku...
There's a big list on mobygames here: https://www.mobygames.com/group/9360/games-with-manual-looku...
GTA IV has something similar, if you play a cracked copy eventually the camera starts to wobble and it makes it impossible to play, and it makes it look like a bug. I remember thousands of players asking in the forums why their camera was shaking without knowing they're telling everyone they had a pirated game. Hilarious move from Rockstar.
For those wondering, yes it happened to me, it was absolutely infuriating like "man this fucking game is full of bugs", lol.
For those wondering, yes it happened to me, it was absolutely infuriating like "man this fucking game is full of bugs", lol.
The original Settlers 1 game, released in 1993, had ingenious copy protection built in. It had multiple levels of copy protection, that would activate, if the copy protection was attempted circumvented, i.e. cracked. It would not let you complete levels due to some characters missing/never appearing and the likes, if you used a cracked version of the game. Much like you describe with GTA IV, users thought this was a buggy game, while in reality it was a buggy crack.
It was common as well to use these things called Code Wheels:
https://archive.org/details/code-wheels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_wheel
https://archive.org/details/code-wheels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_wheel
> https://archive.org/details/code-wheels
Oh dang, these are fun, I remember the classic Monkey Island "Dial-A-Pirate" wheel [3]
FYI you can use these without downloading the whole collection:
- Under Download Options, click "SHOW ALL" to see the list of files [1]
- Find the zip file for the game you want and click "View Contents" [2]
- Click the "HTM" file listed [3]
Kudos to the kind soul who took the extra effort to package them as single-file self-contained html docs!
1: https://archive.org/download/code-wheels
2: https://ia904503.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22...
3: https://ia904503.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22...
Oh dang, these are fun, I remember the classic Monkey Island "Dial-A-Pirate" wheel [3]
FYI you can use these without downloading the whole collection:
- Under Download Options, click "SHOW ALL" to see the list of files [1]
- Find the zip file for the game you want and click "View Contents" [2]
- Click the "HTM" file listed [3]
Kudos to the kind soul who took the extra effort to package them as single-file self-contained html docs!
1: https://archive.org/download/code-wheels
2: https://ia904503.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22...
3: https://ia904503.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22...
Sim Earth had the same thing! It would ask you a question like "How many moons does Saturn have?" and the manual had some fact sheets at the end with all the numbers. Wikipedia was not around yet, and their fact sheets having slightly different numbers than encyclopedias due to different sources and publish date (moon counts change often, and measurements in meters for anything astronomical have randomness due to imprecisions).
I remember when I was young getting a game from my older sister's college boyfriend. Gave me the game on disks, and also a photocopied manual just for this same purpose. Used to be super common for games to use these kinds of checks for anti piracy. I thought it was super funny though, because the game was pretty old, and I was confused why this guy didn't know how to find a cracked version of the game to avoid having to pull out a 60 page manual just to play.
This was even more confusing for me, because the versions of those games I played were usually already cracked and accepted any input. So I was wondering what's the point.
I remember doing this for the original X-COM: UFO Defense. Actually I wonder how the Steam versions of these games work? Do they just include a PDF of the original manual?
>I wonder if this was an anti-piracy strategy
Totally, and exceptionally common. It was popular in the '80 and the early '90.
Totally, and exceptionally common. It was popular in the '80 and the early '90.
Note that, as mentioned later in the twitter thread, the executable in the screenshots (testapp.exe) is not used. It was briefly used like a decade ago but has since been replaced; they just haven't removed it from the distribution, for some reason.
This is not new: https://torrentfreak.com/ubisofts-no-cd-answer-to-drm-080718...
I don't have examples handy, but I'm pretty sure I recall something similar being done for some CD-ROM re-releases of games with floppy-based copy protection.
https://nitter.unixfox.eu/__silent_/status/16983459248402968...
Who could have thought what a company with billions of revenue would use the cracks from RAZOR1911 for IP they are selling to the end users?
Shocking!
Who could have thought what a company with billions of revenue would use the cracks from RAZOR1911 for IP they are selling to the end users?
Shocking!
Anyone a little savvy would have guessed that.
I'm betting even at the time of the game's release, it was so fragile that someone breathing wrong on the build machine would cause the build to fail. Any time the Windows machine displayed the numeral 1 in the systray, it would be unbuildable. And on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays it would just fail to compile. That there were only 3 employees who could get it to work at all the last 3 months of development... and they all quit years ago.
Now? Now it won't build on Windows 11, or even on the old XP machine they dug up. It's so riddled with Denuvo or whatever, that they'd have to spin up a team of 12 for two months just to delete that, and only for them to discover it won't build afterwards.
And, whatever else, they sure as hell don't have anyone who's good enough at assembly and IDA Pro to crack themselves. Probably too cheap to even get the single seat license for IDA Pro.
I'm betting even at the time of the game's release, it was so fragile that someone breathing wrong on the build machine would cause the build to fail. Any time the Windows machine displayed the numeral 1 in the systray, it would be unbuildable. And on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays it would just fail to compile. That there were only 3 employees who could get it to work at all the last 3 months of development... and they all quit years ago.
Now? Now it won't build on Windows 11, or even on the old XP machine they dug up. It's so riddled with Denuvo or whatever, that they'd have to spin up a team of 12 for two months just to delete that, and only for them to discover it won't build afterwards.
And, whatever else, they sure as hell don't have anyone who's good enough at assembly and IDA Pro to crack themselves. Probably too cheap to even get the single seat license for IDA Pro.
Does RAZOR1911 have a legal way to have a share of revenue since they are using his hard work?
Razor1911 is a cracking group from the mid 80s on... but it would be fantastic wouldn't it? :)
At least some did. CD Projekt Red got started as a cracking and translation group. At the time (Poland before the fall of the iron curtain) there wasn't actually anything illegal about what they were doing; copyright wasn't really a concept in their legal system at the time, particularly for software.
> At the time (Poland before the fall of the iron curtain) there wasn't actually anything illegal about what they were doing; copyright wasn't really a concept in their legal system at the time, particularly for software.
They were successful because they actually stopped when it became illegal and started calling game publishers offering localization and distribution services.
They were successful because they actually stopped when it became illegal and started calling game publishers offering localization and distribution services.
They disbanded some years ago :*(
They are not entitled to anything. Rockstar can use their crack as much as they want.
It's actually kind of like a bizarro version of open source: someone or some group may be the initiator of a project but some of the community that grows around the project also contribute back to it, making it a symbiotic relationship. Just, in the bizarro version, there's an even more complex ecosystem filled with people who get to play a game where they hunt down some of the members of this community and make angry faces at them and sometimes put them in jail.
could the NoCD crack author do a DMCA takedown on these games now? Would it even need to be the author issuing such a request?
You need to either be or represent the copyright holder. I'm 99% sure most warez groups have no interest in exposing themselves to any legal systems when it comes to what they do.
In Russia, developers of a Minecraft crack called TLauncher have targeted other developers of other Russian Minecraft cracking projects with takedowns and trademark complaints. How did they do it? They registered a company in the Seychelles islands to protect their identity. And of course, they're relying on the fact that the Russian government is uninterested in protecting the intellectual property of Mojang.
If I say I represent such a group, then; is it likely that anyone will disagree? DMCA cases seem to be about who has the scarier looking letterhead anyway.
To whom would I have to prove or disprove my standing to take Rockstar games down, I wonder? Does Steam have any right to refuse such a request just because it's patently absurd?
To whom would I have to prove or disprove my standing to take Rockstar games down, I wonder? Does Steam have any right to refuse such a request just because it's patently absurd?
>DMCA cases seem to be about who has the scarier looking letterhead anyway.
This is only true of Youtube, where their "DMCA" process is entirely extralegal, which is why there is no penalty for an incorrect takedown request.
If you file a DMCA, and Valve ignores it, you have to take it to court, where a judge will decide whether you prove you are the rightful copyright holder. As in the case with google, a company is free to take down content for any reason, including for bogus DMCA claims.
This is only true of Youtube, where their "DMCA" process is entirely extralegal, which is why there is no penalty for an incorrect takedown request.
If you file a DMCA, and Valve ignores it, you have to take it to court, where a judge will decide whether you prove you are the rightful copyright holder. As in the case with google, a company is free to take down content for any reason, including for bogus DMCA claims.
Imagine you did this and ended up in court. If you admit you lied on the DMCA request, you'd be admitting to perjury. If you continue to claim to be the cracker, Rockstar could sue you for damages from IP theft.
Perjury is only if you make a statement under oath knowing it to be a lie. The DMCA doesn't require you by statute to tell the truth. As long as you tell the truth under oath on the witness stand, if it got that far, then you'd be fine from a criminal prosecution perspective.
Of course, you'd probably get counter-sued for a number of civil torts for being a fuckhead.
Of course, you'd probably get counter-sued for a number of civil torts for being a fuckhead.
What you said is not true. The text of the law specifically clarifies that a false DMCA takedown request is perjury.
It does. Each DMCA requires “A statement that the information in the complaint is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.”
Especially do note that you could lie on all the other parts of the complaint, such as the issue whether the violation actually occurred, but the one thing that's under the penalty of perjury is whether you're actually representing the copyright owner.
> If I say I represent such a group, then; is it likely that anyone will disagree? DMCA cases seem to be about who has the scarier looking letterhead anyway.
If you say you represent them, all the scary letter heads will go to _you_.
If you say you represent them, all the scary letter heads will go to _you_.
You could say you wrote the source code for the cracker, but you did not distribute the pirated software, that was someone else.
You need that in the sense that it would be a legitimate notice.
No requirement such as that is part of the DMCA, and there is no penalty in statute for making illegitimate notices.
No requirement such as that is part of the DMCA, and there is no penalty in statute for making illegitimate notices.
Razor 1911 ! I had completely forgotten about them. They cracked games in the 1990s, and if memory serves well, there was a nice ascii art logo that came with games.
Apparently they’ve been active again since 2010, but in my ( much older ) mind, steam has made piracy mostly obsolete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_1911?wprov=sfti1
Apparently they’ve been active again since 2010, but in my ( much older ) mind, steam has made piracy mostly obsolete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_1911?wprov=sfti1
I think the appeal of cracks is still there for the technically minded. Learning reverse engineering, understanding how to circumvent technologies.
That seems to be the real point for these groups. Reputation from reverse engineering. I certainly enjoyed my time writing them. I don't know of any group that does this and doesn't support the developers of the IP in question. You still end up buying the software.
That seems to be the real point for these groups. Reputation from reverse engineering. I certainly enjoyed my time writing them. I don't know of any group that does this and doesn't support the developers of the IP in question. You still end up buying the software.
As good as Steam might be, it’s still required for the games you purchased to run, and that doesn’t align with some people. You own your games on Steam as much as you own your music on Spotify. So priacy is still alive and well, and a lot of the arguments I see for it is stripping DRM and ownership.
I prefer Steam over other platforms because multiplayer is effortless, with a friend or at a LAN party that means means more time actually playing the game. But if it’s not on Steam or not everyone can afford it, we’re probably playing a cracked, portable copy.
I prefer Steam over other platforms because multiplayer is effortless, with a friend or at a LAN party that means means more time actually playing the game. But if it’s not on Steam or not everyone can afford it, we’re probably playing a cracked, portable copy.
[deleted](1)
Maybe Rockstar has former, maybe even current members of Razor 1911 among their staff.
I mean, the scene is not a reliable way to pay the bills. You need to find a "real job" at some point, and the skills you get by cracking software and making demos could find good use in the video game industry.
I mean, the scene is not a reliable way to pay the bills. You need to find a "real job" at some point, and the skills you get by cracking software and making demos could find good use in the video game industry.
Once again Razor 1911 shows up as an important part of the software archival ecosystem. Good people.
Modified or not, legally R.S. Games owns it anyway.
They don't own the no-CD crack. So technically, they are selling software they pirated.
They are not shipping the crack. They are shipping their own binary that has been modified by the crack.
Those modifications have a copy-right they do not own...
I've been waiting for ~23 years for the copyright system to grapple with the implications of 1. having a copyrighted work A 2. taking someone else's "patch" (mod/crack/whatever, I call it "patch" as a general term) B and 3. combining them on your local computer to produce a final work C. We techies have been arguing about who has what rights, who can block who from doing what, who's responsible for what, etc. in that situation for at least that long, when the mood strikes us. I'm still unaware of any really clear precedent on this and I'm pretty sure legislation remains utterly oblivious that such a thing is even possible, or how powerful it is. I've been on the lookout for even a hint of this for a long time and there's hardly been anything.
I guess the economics just haven't worked out to produce a true showdown. Game mods are in my opinion the clear favorite for where this would finally rise to a court-level problem, and clearly there's been a lot of conflict in this space, but nobody yet has been foolhardy enough to build a large enough business on selling some mod that when the owner tries to shut them down they actually go to a full-on, precedent-setting legal battle. (After all, economically, when you get to that level of capability, why not make your own game that you clearly own? That path has been trod many times.)
So, my best answer to your question is, honestly nobody really knows what kind of rights Razor may or may not have to the final product of their crack, especially since it is not the crack itself being distributed.
I guess the economics just haven't worked out to produce a true showdown. Game mods are in my opinion the clear favorite for where this would finally rise to a court-level problem, and clearly there's been a lot of conflict in this space, but nobody yet has been foolhardy enough to build a large enough business on selling some mod that when the owner tries to shut them down they actually go to a full-on, precedent-setting legal battle. (After all, economically, when you get to that level of capability, why not make your own game that you clearly own? That path has been trod many times.)
So, my best answer to your question is, honestly nobody really knows what kind of rights Razor may or may not have to the final product of their crack, especially since it is not the crack itself being distributed.
The general principle of copyright law is that copying/distributing work that combines multiple copyrightable parts requires the permission of every author/copyright holder. Copyright law does not attempt to establish a single owner for any given work, it's perfectly fine with multiple parties having copyright protections over a single work, in which case any of them has a practical veto to doing anything with the joint product, as permission to use 99% of the work isn't sufficient.
For a very common example, let's look at a translated book. Copying and distributing such a book requires separate permission from both the author of the book and the author of the translation; the translation is a derivative work, it's covered by the copyrights of the original book and the author, but the translator also holds independent copyright on the translation in addition to the author's interest.
IMHO a derivative work of a program patched with someoone else's code (no matter how small, as long as it meets the very low copyright law bar of 'the slightest touch of creative input') is quite similar.
But the specific case of Razor 1911 might be disqualified by US copyright law section 103a which says "[...] but protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully."
For a very common example, let's look at a translated book. Copying and distributing such a book requires separate permission from both the author of the book and the author of the translation; the translation is a derivative work, it's covered by the copyrights of the original book and the author, but the translator also holds independent copyright on the translation in addition to the author's interest.
IMHO a derivative work of a program patched with someoone else's code (no matter how small, as long as it meets the very low copyright law bar of 'the slightest touch of creative input') is quite similar.
But the specific case of Razor 1911 might be disqualified by US copyright law section 103a which says "[...] but protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully."
Yes, as I said, many people have many opinions. I think you'd find you're in the minority on HN (and the Internet armchair lawyer's favorite cry of "Fair use! Fair use!" which means next to nothing the way it is typically used) but probably with the majority of copyright laywers.
However, it hasn't actually been settled. I've been watching. The question of whether you can bypass the matter of distribution by distributing a patch you definitely 100% solely own, but then the end-user is the one doing the combining, is not established.
However, it hasn't actually been settled. I've been watching. The question of whether you can bypass the matter of distribution by distributing a patch you definitely 100% solely own, but then the end-user is the one doing the combining, is not established.
A much better analogy would be how writing code in an open source editor, compiled by an open source tool chain does not make the resulting binary open source.
A compiler author does not own the output of the compiler.
No, but any other source (eg. headers) used during the compilation process might be owned by a third party.
A crack does not compile anything, but even if you go that road, it will be argued anyway that the patch which is applied is copyrighted.
Now, of course, it's another thing to prove that the patch may indeed be copyrighted...
A crack does not compile anything, but even if you go that road, it will be argued anyway that the patch which is applied is copyrighted.
Now, of course, it's another thing to prove that the patch may indeed be copyrighted...
They can copyright certain sequence of bits though, like console makers did a while ago to enforce licensing (e.g. can't boot this rom without these sequence of bits, but this sequence of bits is actually a nintendo logo which cannot be distributed unless you have nintendo's permission).
Is that always the case, or does it depend on the compiler's license in the end?
They are also (arguably) selling software written/designed/intended for the express purpose of bypassing copyright protections, which as I understand is in and of itself a no-no under the DMCA regardless of underlying ownership.
I ANAL of course.
edit: per the sibling comment the crack might not be included, so this might not apply.
I ANAL of course.
edit: per the sibling comment the crack might not be included, so this might not apply.
a no-no under the DMCA regardless of underlying ownership
The "regardless" part is wrong. It is permissible for the owner of the software to include software for the express purpose of bypassing the protections they themselves placed on their software. Why would you think that the software owner isn't allowed to do that?
The "regardless" part is wrong. It is permissible for the owner of the software to include software for the express purpose of bypassing the protections they themselves placed on their software. Why would you think that the software owner isn't allowed to do that?
It would be permissible, if the "software for the express purpose of bypassing the protections they themselves placed on their software" was their own software.
It's not permissible for them to make available other people's "software for the express purpose of bypassing the protections they themselves placed on their software" without the express permission of those other people.
Neither statute nor case law sets a lower limit on the size of software that is protected by copyright... but if there were a lower limit, then it is clearly down towards the hundreds (or even dozens) of bytes. The crack certainly doesn't sit underneath that lower limit.
It'd be like purloining just one source code file, including it in your commercial software and relying on the defense "hey, it was only a few hundred lines long".
It's not permissible for them to make available other people's "software for the express purpose of bypassing the protections they themselves placed on their software" without the express permission of those other people.
Neither statute nor case law sets a lower limit on the size of software that is protected by copyright... but if there were a lower limit, then it is clearly down towards the hundreds (or even dozens) of bytes. The crack certainly doesn't sit underneath that lower limit.
It'd be like purloining just one source code file, including it in your commercial software and relying on the defense "hey, it was only a few hundred lines long".
without the express permission of those other people.
That is false. They simply have to use the other software, i.e., the crack, within the terms of its license.
In this case, the crack was distributed widely with a permissive use license. My hazy memories of that era specifically mention giving them credit and nothing else. There was definitely no commercial use restriction.
That is false. They simply have to use the other software, i.e., the crack, within the terms of its license.
In this case, the crack was distributed widely with a permissive use license. My hazy memories of that era specifically mention giving them credit and nothing else. There was definitely no commercial use restriction.
There is the matter of enforcement, however. If something is completely unenforceable, such as in this case where the owner is using a pirate groups bypass, then it may as well be permissible. It's not expressly permissible, but the perceived breach is also not enforceable, so the argument becomes a moot point.
Also, the patches typically had no license terms attached to their usage, or if they did it came in the format of attribution. The implications here is debatable, but we again come back to enforcement to close out the otherwise circular argument.
Also, the patches typically had no license terms attached to their usage, or if they did it came in the format of attribution. The implications here is debatable, but we again come back to enforcement to close out the otherwise circular argument.
I'm pretty sure that the lack of license terms doesn't make it a free-for-all, instead it means that there is no possible licensed use at all.
If you pick up a copy of Photoshop and can't find the license for it, you don't get to go down to the street corner and sell bootleg copies. That defense won't hold when you're in district court fighting to stay out of federal prison, anyway.
And while it's true that this will never be enforced, if there are no principles here, then there can be no guilt from illegally copying these games.
If you pick up a copy of Photoshop and can't find the license for it, you don't get to go down to the street corner and sell bootleg copies. That defense won't hold when you're in district court fighting to stay out of federal prison, anyway.
And while it's true that this will never be enforced, if there are no principles here, then there can be no guilt from illegally copying these games.
Practically (since no prosecutor is going to take this up on their own), you'd need someone dumb enough to affirmatively say "that's my circumvention tool that's illegal under the DMCA" in order to show standing for a civil case.
So even if there was a no commercial use license somehow, it feels kinda like jury nullification where it's not explicitly legal, but de facto legal because of structure of the rest of the judicial system.
So even if there was a no commercial use license somehow, it feels kinda like jury nullification where it's not explicitly legal, but de facto legal because of structure of the rest of the judicial system.
Even if the crack was included it wouldn't apply.
[deleted]
Good, they shouldn't have been DRMed in the first place, then they won't need to be cracked.
The copy protection wars were a blast back in the day. A decent number of games had methods of copy protection that were more interesting than the games themselves. I still remember the Wizardy IV copy protection (Mordor Charge Card). The game came with a book of thousands and thousands numbers printed on very dark brown pages that were difficult, if not impossible, to legibly photocopy on the machines of the day. I still have the book, and it takes a very bright light and (in my old age) a magnifying glass to make out the numbers for the copy protection challenges (which only come after completing a somewhat challenging first level).
This reminds me of a (popular) iOS game that had a little bug. I reported it hoping for a quick fix and they replied that the developer was no longer available to fix it, but they can refund me the app price..
Honestly, it's fair game. I don't expect every studio to have the source code handy and someone who knows how to build and modify the game anymore. If the crack does the job, I can empathize.
Inversely, it's not like the crack was made just out of educational curiosity. At one point it might have hurt sales... now somehow it helps.
Not like the group would have a moral high ground to claim their copyright was violated. Though the idea is fun.
Inversely, it's not like the crack was made just out of educational curiosity. At one point it might have hurt sales... now somehow it helps.
Not like the group would have a moral high ground to claim their copyright was violated. Though the idea is fun.
Rockstar owns the copyright, they can do whatever they want with their games.
It is rather odd however, and paints Rockstar in a very negative light as a trustworthy purveyor of binary distributed software. Do you want to receive l33t warez when paying for software?
I expect reproducible binaries produced by a controlled toolchain from a responsible developer. Linux distributions have higher standards for binaries they distribute for free ffs.
It is rather odd however, and paints Rockstar in a very negative light as a trustworthy purveyor of binary distributed software. Do you want to receive l33t warez when paying for software?
I expect reproducible binaries produced by a controlled toolchain from a responsible developer. Linux distributions have higher standards for binaries they distribute for free ffs.
> I expect reproducible binaries produced by a controlled toolchain from a responsible developer.
I would estimate the number of videogames published for Windows PCs matching all of these critera to be roughly 0.
I would estimate the number of videogames published for Windows PCs matching all of these critera to be roughly 0.
It's not like windows game developers are universally incompetent. They have their source so they can reproduce their binaries at will. They understand the risks of malware and how embarrassing it would be to unwittingly ship some, so they should know better than to be shipping releases built using their personal machine they also browse the web with.
For Rockstar to be shipping pirated cracked binaries as their own demonstrates a profound lack of responsibility and professionalism as software developers.
But I'm sure there's a non-zero amount of windows game developers being careless/sloppy in general too.
For Rockstar to be shipping pirated cracked binaries as their own demonstrates a profound lack of responsibility and professionalism as software developers.
But I'm sure there's a non-zero amount of windows game developers being careless/sloppy in general too.
Reproducible builds and controlled toolchains are not really things you are going to realistically have, shipping games for Windows - even in 2023. That does not necessarily mean the final build is coming out of Mikes office PC, however.
You're taking what I said to mean a very pedantic definition of "reproducible builds" that even Linux distros largely only aspire to achieve.
By reproducible I meant they can recreate their binaries from source code, not necessarily bit-for-bit.
There's zero reason to ship a Warez group's cracked version of a game when you're the copyright holder in possession of the source and ability to simply build an executable without the copy protection crap the crack is bypassing.
It's pathetic on Rockstar's part.
By reproducible I meant they can recreate their binaries from source code, not necessarily bit-for-bit.
There's zero reason to ship a Warez group's cracked version of a game when you're the copyright holder in possession of the source and ability to simply build an executable without the copy protection crap the crack is bypassing.
It's pathetic on Rockstar's part.
> a very pedantic definition of "reproducible builds"
That's not a pedantic definition, that is the definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducible_builds
> simply build an executable
One does not "simply" build an executable of a ten year old game codebase on a modern system. Of course it might be worth putting the build system - by which I literally mean the hardware and software - in storage. Realistically though, with all the churn happening in the games industry, studios getting closed/moved right after the game ships, it's often just not happening, especially if the game is not a big success.
> It's pathetic on Rockstar's part
It's actually exactly the kind of "fuck the police" attitude that I expect from the studio responsible for a game like GTA. Groups like Razor1911 also have their own ethics, they're doing a good job, creating a version of the game that is better than the one that actually shipped.
That's not a pedantic definition, that is the definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducible_builds
> simply build an executable
One does not "simply" build an executable of a ten year old game codebase on a modern system. Of course it might be worth putting the build system - by which I literally mean the hardware and software - in storage. Realistically though, with all the churn happening in the games industry, studios getting closed/moved right after the game ships, it's often just not happening, especially if the game is not a big success.
> It's pathetic on Rockstar's part
It's actually exactly the kind of "fuck the police" attitude that I expect from the studio responsible for a game like GTA. Groups like Razor1911 also have their own ethics, they're doing a good job, creating a version of the game that is better than the one that actually shipped.
> That's not a pedantic definition, that is the definition.
Right, of the term I quoted when saying you're pedantically applying the definition of a phrase I didn't even use.
I had originally said reproducible binaries, which meant to say they have the source, and can modify + recompile the damn thing. "Reproducible builds" is an industry term with a specific meaning, and I didn't say that.
Right, of the term I quoted when saying you're pedantically applying the definition of a phrase I didn't even use.
I had originally said reproducible binaries, which meant to say they have the source, and can modify + recompile the damn thing. "Reproducible builds" is an industry term with a specific meaning, and I didn't say that.
The game is old and recreating the tool chain required to rebuild the game might be a massive work investment.
It probably is even less save, because the builds differ and perhaps behave differently and you might even need a full QA cycle. The likelyhood of an old crack working more flawlessly is higher.
It probably is even less save, because the builds differ and perhaps behave differently and you might even need a full QA cycle. The likelyhood of an old crack working more flawlessly is higher.
Ironically the leet warez often are more well behaved pieces of software than the average crap app on the store of popular mobile OS manufacturers.
People had standards at the time, which wasn't that long ago either.
People had standards at the time, which wasn't that long ago either.
30 years ago, when I worked at a computer shop, the manager had an original Atari ST game with a bad disk. He didn't want to throw it away, so I reformatted the disk and copied a cracked version of the game onto it using XCopy on Amiga. The cracked version didn't have any intro btw... lolz
Ubisoft has done this too if I remember right. They stole the cracked exe, what could the haxors do, sue them?
Didn't Microsoft published a Word document from a "pirated" Word release in the past?
Wouldn't it be just easier for everyone not to include DRM in the first place? Waste of money, vast majority of zoomers dont use cracks anyway.
(I am talking with the context of current games using denuvo, not this specific case)
(I am talking with the context of current games using denuvo, not this specific case)
Does this mean, then, that their integration to Steamworks or whatever client-ensuring integration... is missing?
One could presumably then archive the directory and go DRM-free
One could presumably then archive the directory and go DRM-free
> One could presumably then archive the directory and go DRM-free
Bypassing Steam DRM requires just replacing a single DLL in the game directory. There's even whole full-featured Steam Emulator DLLs that you just drop in and get to play the game for free with working online play over Valve's servers.
Bypassing Steam DRM requires just replacing a single DLL in the game directory. There's even whole full-featured Steam Emulator DLLs that you just drop in and get to play the game for free with working online play over Valve's servers.
Interesting, didn't realize it was quite so simple :)
I was thinking that since the binary seems largely unchanged... that the presence of DLLs and such wouldn't really matter.
The cracked version wasn't aware of Steam, so I wonder if it's even checking
I was thinking that since the binary seems largely unchanged... that the presence of DLLs and such wouldn't really matter.
The cracked version wasn't aware of Steam, so I wonder if it's even checking
I take it from this that we're not likely to see any of rockstar's games showing up on gog.com any time soon.
I think Razor should sue Rockstar for IP violation, Razor obviously owns the IP to unprotect the binary ;)
Fans did the work for them, likely illegally, and it remains within Rockstar’s right to use it
analogous to free work-for-hire
analogous to free work-for-hire
It’s nice to see gaming companies finally figuring out what users have known since the 90s.
Kind of mind blowing to see a name (Razor1911) from my C64 days make an appearance again 0.o
They've been a consistent name in cracking since then!
I wonder if they're like the Bourbaki group in mathematics – an anonymous group where members elect other members, with a trivial amount of cloak-and-dagger secrecy from the public.
That's exactly so. Many of the groups know each other, have their private comm channels, and select insiders that release things out to the broader public. There's obviously drama around people leaking releases, stealing cracks, etc. Fun little sub-culture!
Would be funny if the hacker sued rockstar for profiting off his work.
Razor should sue rockstar for IP theft.
At least its not DRM copies....
razor1911 never started owning it when they made the crack, so, fair.
While not too big a deal on its own, if the binary was doing something it wasn't supposed to (which was/is common with cracked games from untrustworthy sources) it would open Rockstar up to a mountain of liability.
I'm guessing this is some subcontractor taking shortcuts rather than an official company policy approved by legal.
I'm guessing this is some subcontractor taking shortcuts rather than an official company policy approved by legal.
Why is this hex dump being used as a verification rather than just showing the two (supposedly the same) hashes of the entire executable themselves? Should be a quick 20 minute job for whoever call themselves "journalists" today.
I suppose it's possible for that particular string to get into the binary by some other means. Maybe failed anti-circumvention that checks for known strings in its own directory or something similar?
I suppose it's possible for that particular string to get into the binary by some other means. Maybe failed anti-circumvention that checks for known strings in its own directory or something similar?
First problem: You presume this person has another executable of provable provenance to check against.
Second problem: There could be many different official executables for this game. Each would have a different hash. Provenance proving applies here too.
Third problem: Two hash values doesn't communicate the actual story as well as what this person (who may or may not be a journalist, that appears to be your assumption) chose to do.
Second problem: There could be many different official executables for this game. Each would have a different hash. Provenance proving applies here too.
Third problem: Two hash values doesn't communicate the actual story as well as what this person (who may or may not be a journalist, that appears to be your assumption) chose to do.
First solution: Yes, finding the PC CD for this game took me like 20 minutes, both new/old in even my country for something like 20 EUR. If the author wanted to, I'm sure they could have found it equally easy.
Second solution: Not really, when you do CD releases you have a "gold master" which is the final burned CD that the other CDs are copied from. That's the one you use as the official one, as that's the one most people on PC actually have.
If the game had multiple regions (something PC games usually don't), you have multiple executables. But this happens mostly for console games, but again wouldn't be difficult to acquire a specific one for one of the ~4/5 regions there is.
Re third problem, you're probably right about this. But I'd still argue that verifying information after a finding would add more credence to the story itself and cement it better, it wouldn't take anything away from the story (unless it proved that there isn't actually any story).
Second solution: Not really, when you do CD releases you have a "gold master" which is the final burned CD that the other CDs are copied from. That's the one you use as the official one, as that's the one most people on PC actually have.
If the game had multiple regions (something PC games usually don't), you have multiple executables. But this happens mostly for console games, but again wouldn't be difficult to acquire a specific one for one of the ~4/5 regions there is.
Re third problem, you're probably right about this. But I'd still argue that verifying information after a finding would add more credence to the story itself and cement it better, it wouldn't take anything away from the story (unless it proved that there isn't actually any story).
What responsibility do you feel this person has to you to spend money to validate this in the specific way you would prefer?
> Not really, when you do CD releases you have a "gold master"
This is an oversimplification. In the late 90s / early 00s when 3D APIs were more fragmented than they are today, many games had different releases built to support different GPUs. There's also versions distributed with hardware that include checks that the PC contains the specific hardware.
MC2 had separate NA and EU releases, there is at least the chance of multiple versions from internationalization.
> Not really, when you do CD releases you have a "gold master"
This is an oversimplification. In the late 90s / early 00s when 3D APIs were more fragmented than they are today, many games had different releases built to support different GPUs. There's also versions distributed with hardware that include checks that the PC contains the specific hardware.
MC2 had separate NA and EU releases, there is at least the chance of multiple versions from internationalization.
I don't know why I have to write this comment but not every twitter user is a journalist...
I don't see any reference to them being a journalist, anywhere? Why are you expecting some random person who saw and got frustrated with something and shared it, to be a journalist?
Are you a journalist because you're frustrated that this person isn't being a journalist...? That's kind of the same logic.
Are you a journalist because you're frustrated that this person isn't being a journalist...? That's kind of the same logic.
The location of the string is pretty telling: right after a 256 byte header, and occupying the first few bytes of a long run of zeroes. This isn't how you'd expect to find a constant embedded by a compiler or linker as part of code implementing a check for the presence of a crack.
That's a pretty good point actually.
First time I hear someone suggest that hashes might be a superior form of journalism. The cracking group signature is a smoking gun. Hashes would only show that the steam binary isn't bit-wise identical with the original release, which any solution to "steam release can't require a CD check" would imply.
(well, "smoking gun" in quotes, because I don't really see Rockstar doing anything wrong here. Would it have been better if they had zeroed out that string?)
(well, "smoking gun" in quotes, because I don't really see Rockstar doing anything wrong here. Would it have been better if they had zeroed out that string?)
why not use the hex dump, it says the name of the cracking group, that's more easily verifiable than comparing hashes to files you might not have