Yes, he does. Telling someone how to something is not telling him to do it.

If you tell people that GOG games have no DRM and can be started without authentification, does that mean that you promote copying them? lol?

I was glad to get that information, I might convert some of my steam games to offline mode :)

But go ahead, report the thread if you think he does something that's against forum rules.

No, it's just discussing a product, which is fine (i'd think... it's up to the mods to decide). Advertising the tools and methods to break said authentication is promoting said behaviour.

Am I not welcome to give my opinion nor argue my case? I don't understand: is discussing a topic in General Discussion verboten?

And what's with this insistence that I report the thread? Three times already? Geez. How about you report it, since you're so insistent.

Apparently 'something' is verboten,

You are just wanna be forum police then, I see. How about applying as moderator? If you like so much telling people what they are allowed to post and what not, that would be a good job for you.

But seeing that you are not serious about this thread getting stopped, I'll return to the topic, if there's anything more to say about it.

If a software becomes unusable because of DRM, you can modify it so it becomes usable again. And you could argue that a DRM'd product is not usable. There are laws against piracy. Meaning that if you don't offer that modified version somewhere as a free download, and just do it for your personal use, there is nothing wrong with that. Even for disc based games that need it in the drive to function, I still use "cracks", which simply become no-CD/DVD patches at that point, to prolong the lifespan of it. I even have most of my owned Steam games torrented on the side, because they just work better and for the scenario when if I wanted to play them on an offline PC.

And as much as corporations want to make it seem that way, EULAs are not legally binding, especially in EU.

But he's NOT promoting piracy. Piracy is the acquisition of paid content that's not been paid for, or sharing it without permission with those who have not paid for it. He's talking about game modding for personal use for games he has already purchased. A crack in an of itself is not inherently good or bad, it's how it's used that matters. It can be used for personal owned game copy improvement and preservation, especially for older games with DRM that's incompatible with modern OSes, or it can be used to acquire and share unpaid content illegally, which is bad.

Emulators can be used for personal owned game copy preservation and improvement or they can be used to access and share unpaid content illegally, which is bad.

Heck, games purchased from GOG can be used for personal owned game copy preservation or they can be used to access and share unpaid content illegally, which is bad.

One of the ways Humble Bundle distribute their DRM-Free games is via BitTorrent.

No tool is inherently good or bad. It’s how it's used that matters. We should not let corporations block technological innovation and user personal-use-ownership with their greed and paranoid misunderstanding of technology. Way back when the music industry tried to ban MP3 players, thankfully they failed. Similarity, Craptendo should not be allowed to block emulators and the PC gaming industry need to de-stigmatise cracks. They are nothing more than community patches and modernisers. They can be used for good or bad, just like most things.

And just to make things clear, if it wasn't obvious already: I am against the use of cracks or emulators or GOG installers for the purpose of unpaid acquisition of games. I will also say that, at least for the moment, there is no need to remove Steam DRM, unlike with some older SafeDisc, SecuRom and especially StarForce DRMs.

For me it's a grey area. I better not crack any games at home if there are any policemen around. I would also avoid mentioning it to anyone but a friendly hardcore gamer. I can't disagree with you when it comes to DRM-preventing you from playing game you bought, the most notable example would be SafeDisc and SecuRom DRM not working under Windows 10 (and later?) and TRON: Evolution *situation* on Steam thanks to Disney, and I heard more are coming from Ubisoft. But I'm afraid that legally our rights are practically non existent.

The laws governing copying discs (for example) aren't universal worldwide. For instance: it's illegal in Australia to make a copy of a retail disc - encrypted or not. There is no "Fair Use" provision in copyright law to allow for backup copies of copyrighted material (without the copyright holder's permission).

The way copyrighted material is automatically covered as part of law would have me questioning whether even altering the code (cracking it, even if it's in your personal possession) of a copyrighted product is legal here. Somehow I doubt it, but I'm no lawyer. This is why assuming that one rule applies to all is dangerous territory. We're all living in different governmental jurisdictions with their own set of laws.

Yeah. Unfortunately there's a lot of grey area here. I have a vague recollection of reading about circumventing drm for the purpose of running software (games?) in an emulator, which IIRC was not deemed kosher. Only courts can decide, unfortunately. I might also argue that I should have the right to circumvent DRM in order to run a Windows game on Linux where the DRM doesn't work, but a court might just as well decide that trying to use a platform other than the one intended by the publisher (and stated in system requirements) doesn't entitle me to circumvent DRM; the expectation being that I should buy the intended device/OS. By the same token, they could say that not having a CD drive doesn't entitle you to circumvent DRM.. I could still buy Windows today, you could still buy an optical drive today.

Btw there is no "law against piracy" as such. There is copyright law, which grants authors certain exclusive rights (with some limitations, such fair use). Since we're both in Europe, the most relevant text would be 2001/29/EC. Specifically Article 6. "Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective." There is no general provision that permits circumvention for personal use, though member states are allowed to make exemptions for various reasons.

Also from the preamble: "When applying the exception or limitation on private copying, Member States should take due account of technological and economic developments, in particular with respect to digital private copying and remuneration schemes, when effective technological protection measures are available. Such exceptions or limitations should not inhibit the use of technological measures or their enforcement against circumvention."

DMCA in murica has similar text: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Again there are exceptions, but generally none that entitle circumvention for personal use.

its not a law here in Australia but yes it is a policy i.e, you should not tall about it online because it upsets people

yes you can make a copy of anything, music, game etc and in many cases that 'cracked' copy plays better than the old of date or just bad disc you started with and the only way you would be breaking an actual law would be to sell or "gift" that copy to some other person

Countries with such strict anti-user and pro-corporation laws should ban Valve, EA, Ubisoft, or any corporation that sells DRMd content from using the word "Purchase" in that case. "Lease (for an unspecified amount of time)" would suit their EULAs far more accurately. You lease access to a game, until they decide to yank that access from you for whatever reason and you have no rights as a customer.

People have a very specific understanding of the meaning of the word "Purchase". People would probably be a lot more hesitant to lease if stores used the much more appropriate word "Lease". They know that most users won't read the EULA, which states that they are leasing a product for an unspecified amount of time and then they use wrong terminology on the button for the sake of profit, which is incredibly dishonest and should be banned.

Only DRM-Free stores should be allowed to use the term "Purchase".

Of course that won't happen, because countries with such strict anti-user and pro-corporation laws are run by said corporations via lobbying.

Please, link me the site you researched this from. All the copyright act info I found indicates quite clearly that copying copyrighted material, be it CDs, DVDs, Games etc is illegal. As is keeping recordings of free-to-air television longer than "a reasonable period" to watch it. In other words: no archiving anything long-term.
*shrug* I never claimed it's a good thing. It sucks.

But if something is the law ... it's the law. We can of course fight to change it, but until then it's what we're stuck with, along with a terribly restrictive ratings system.

It's pretty bad when Australia is worse than the U.S. as far as laws heh.

For the U.S.
*Owner in this case is NOT the "copyright owner" but the one who purchased the program

What's interesting about this verbage is that here is a law that states that the user is the "owner" where everyone and their mother reading the Steam Subscriber Agreement is quick to jump all over you and they state that you aren't...... well here is a law stating you are (but not a copyright owner) ;)

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html#1201
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/28/2021-23311/exemption-to-prohibition-on-circumvention-of-copyright-protection-systems-for-access-control

Circumvention and trafficking of tools to do so is allowed when the DRM cannot be "effectively controlled" or "effectively protected", which in the case of no further updates, server being shut down, client no longer updated so server cannot be contacted, OS breaking copy protection so it no longer works, etc etc.

you want clause 6 [see image]
and thats available for download from https://www.copyright.org.au/browse/book/ACC-Copying-Services-INFO014/
along with other fact sheets designed to stop the bullshit you read from google

now stop and think about it a sec... why you think Gog is allowed to 'sell' to us here in Australia and why is all their game downloads basically a copy of the old disc files + a few extra bits?