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The Courts Government Entertainment Games News

Games X Copy Stirs Backup Controversy 160

Posted by simoniker from the sequel-to-xcopy-for-amiga dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for its article covering the unveiling of a utility called Games X Copy at this year's CES show in Las Vegas. This commercially-sold gaming backup option claims: "You no longer need to fear losing your expensive PC game collection to scratches, skipping, or freezing... Now you can simply back them up and put the expensive original in a safe place, and the backup will play on your PC just like the original." The maker of this soon-to-launch utility, 321 Studios, has faced lawsuits previously regarding its DVD X Copy software, and a prominently marketed, gaming-specific backup product is sure to cause sparks - the GameSpy article writer comments: "No matter how much 321 Studios claims that parents with the most honorable intentions are its target market, it's easy to see where it would be the perfect item for unscrupulous gamers to copy software to give to or trade with their friends. It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against."
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Games X Copy Stirs Backup Controversy More

Games X Copy Stirs Backup Controversy

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  • Piracy of all sorts (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rmull ( 26174 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @03:54AM (#7950646) Homepage
    No matter how suitable this product is to game piracy, I doubt many will be sold with that end in mind. Those who pirate games pirate all kinds of software. Frankly, I don't see how they're going to make any money at all.

    • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jakoz ( 696484 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @03:57AM (#7950654)
      On the other hand, they have by now had DVD X Copy as a test case, so they must be making something to bother continuing...

      • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NOspaM.gmail.com> on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:06AM (#7950687) Homepage
        One big difference: Relatively few people have DVD recorders while a majority of PC owners by now have a CD-R, and CDs are still the primary distribution method for big games. Second, slightly less-important difference: CD recordable media is dirt cheap while the price of DVD-/+R media is still significant.

        • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Goldberg's Pants ( 139800 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:17AM (#7951078) Journal
          The thing that pisses me off with the attitude of the gaming industry is the fact that NOBODY I know who gets "warez" copies them from other people. They download them all. I can't remember the last time any friend of mine got a game by copying an original disk. Christ, I think it must have been 5 years ago. This bullshit about casual copying is nonsense.

          As a parent to a two year old boy, I would be fully behind ANY product that let me back up my software that, under fair use laws, I should be able to backup anyway! All the Securom bullshit does on games is screw over legitimate consumers, while the game is still rampantly pirated.
          • really? almost everyone i know who has copied games recently has done it from friends. why? because the warez versions are hard to find one, and they are of lower quality. secondly since they rely on cracks, they are harder to update, whereas if you can get a working iso of the disk then you can load it with a virtual drive, which is as good as having the original. the other big means of piracy is installing from a friends cd and using a no cd crack, but this often does not allow for updates so it is not th

            • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:3, Informative)

              by Radius9 ( 588130 )
              I am a game developer, and I have to say, I hate SecureROM games. I hate CD keys, and I hate having to have the CD to play the game. I have 4 machines in my house, plus 2 laptops, and trying to keep track of all my game originals is difficult, much less remembering to take it with me when I want to play on a laptop. I can't recall the last game I have bought where I couldn't get a warez version before it was available in stores. People will copy the game, and people will not pay for it. There is little

              • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:2, Interesting)

                by orkysoft ( 93727 )
                That last bit of your post, about it being possible to use fake CD-keys (aka serial numbers) sounds to me like the developers didn't choose a good serial number scheme.

                For example, AFAIK, the serial numbers that come with Blizzard games, which you need to play online on Battle.net, are pretty damn hard to fake. You can find no-CD cracks for those games, but forget about keygenerators.

                I could copy and use my backup discs of Starcraft/Broodwar without trouble, leaving the originals out of harm's way, withou
                • Warcraft 3 uses Securom. With a recent patch, Blizzard started requiring the regular EXE file to play online, you can't use a no-cd crack anymore.

                  What this has done is screw over customers like me who have problems running games with Securom. I own the game, but can't play it online anymore courtesy of Blizzard adding this new line of security. I guess maybe the exe can be hacked for cheating. If so, that's fair enough to add a CRC check to Battle Net, but if it's to stop people playing without a CD that's
                  • What this has done is screw over customers like me who have problems running games with Securom. I own the game, but can't play it online anymore courtesy of Blizzard adding this new line of security. I guess maybe the exe can be hacked for cheating. If so, that's fair enough to add a CRC check to Battle Net, but if it's to stop people playing without a CD that's just retarded, especially when so many people routinely have problems with Securom.

                    Local CRC checks and the like will never work anyway. Whate
                  • So use Undisker and Daemon Tools (Google for them both).

                    Undisker creates ISOs out of your CDs.

                    Daemon Tools lets you create "virtual" CD drives, connect the ISOs to them, and then you can "change" CDs in your virtual drives just by clicking a few keys. No digging through CD cases.

                    Some manufacturers have coded their games to not run if Daemon Tools (and the like) are running. I won't buy those games.

            • because the warez versions are hard to find

              What, are you living [suprnova.org] under a rock? [filesoup.com]

          • I use GameDrive For my games...It does burn a lot of disk space, but space is cheap nowdays. I like it alot, but it needs some userfriendliness...like automatically loading CDs when you click a shortcut or something...it's not kid friendly which makes it fustrating for "little people" use because they can't do it themselves...but I suppose you could burn off some drive letters keeping them all loaded at once.
          • Goldberg's Pants writes:
            "As a parent to a two year old boy, I would be fully behind ANY product that let me back up my software that, under fair use laws, I should be able to backup anyway!"

            Technically correct but misleading because you're only presenting one side of the coin.

            You have the right to back up the material. The maker of the product is under no legal obligation whatsoever to make it simple or even possible for you to do so.

            Don't get me wrong, I'm on the side of the consumer on this one, but t
        • Actually, you could get 4 700MB CD's for the price you get a single 4.7GB DVD-R. And it's as true in the States as it is here in Israel.

          I don't know what you're counting - amount of storage space or the quantity of plastic, but for those of us who're buying storage space, DVD-R's are roughly twice as cheap.

    • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zork the Almighty ( 599344 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:11AM (#7950693) Journal
      Anyone with kids will want to copy their own games. Kids destroy EVERYTHING.

      • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Kids destroy EVERYTHING.
        Not until later.

      • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:5, Funny)

        by Dr. Manhattan ( 29720 ) <sorceror171@nOsPAM.gmail.com> on Monday January 12, 2004 @08:12AM (#7951415) Homepage
        Kids destroy EVERYTHING.

        I don't know how my 1.5 year old knew the exact worst moment to yank the USB cable out while I was installing my new joystick, but he did. Took me two hours to get the thing running again.

      • Exactly. As soon as the game manufacturer decides to offer a replacement disc free of charge (because we are 'licensing,' after all), I'll complain about copying software. I won't forget when they sold me a broken disc of Riven and refused to give me a replacement because it took too long for me to get to the broken disc and realize the problem.
        • I don't think "free of charge" is fair to the manufacturer. There's the cost of producing the disc, plus the costs associated with keeping an inventory of excess discs. I think a fair charge would be about $2-5 plus shipping. I think a better solution is to allow customers to make their own copies.

      • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:4, Insightful)

        by trg83 ( 555416 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @12:58PM (#7954012)
        If the game industry wants to protect their IP while still not looking like the bad guy, they should just allow you to mail in a damaged original CD and they can priority mail you a new original as a trade. After all, if you're dumb enough to destroy or scratch up a disk, you deserve the punishment of not playing your game for a week or so. I have never had a CD become unusable--people I know who take the CD out of the machine and throw it onto a dusty desk have lost CDs. The CD case is there for a reason!

    • Re:Piracy of all sorts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:15AM (#7950702) Homepage Journal
      it's for people who are unable, unwilling, don't have the experience or for any other reason can't find the stuff online. If they would, they could have been doing this for several years with OTHER copying software, with cd drive virtualisation software or with cdfree cracks for the games.

      however, real pirates(_PROFESSIONALS_ that REALLY hurt the games biz) have factories for pumping out the cd's/dvd's(and as such are perfect copies, don't need modded consoles) so this hardly has any effect on that(copy protections of any kind hardly have had any effect on it, they just annoy the users to ever increasing new levels). It's just a nice wizard for cd cloning easily.
    • You're still working from the misconception that the game industry beancounters do: that anyone who is likely to copy the game will even see any form of copy protection.

      Put it this way - if you're going to copy games, chances are you got it from a mate who also copies games or you downloaded it (or you download a crack that lets you copy the CD and use the game with a backup cd). In either event, the stuff you download was probably ripped, cleaned up and uploaded to an ftp server within 10 microseconds of

  • Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:04AM (#7950675)
    It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against.

    So it's supports whatever the industry is fighting for?

  • Yep, it's really there... (Score:4, Funny)

    by benjamindees ( 441808 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:19AM (#7950712) Homepage
    It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against.

    Nice to see that these are the types of intellectual giants we're up against.

  • Double negation? (Score:4, Funny)

    by apocamok ( 196093 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:19AM (#7950715) Homepage
    "It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against."
    You would think this would be considered a good thing by the industry...

    Tricky double negations :-)

  • Game Copy X=Ripoff (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mrshowtime ( 562809 )
    O.K. there is a B.S. program that will copy any game disc perfectly. Yeah, right. Even with the plethora of of cd/dvd copying software out there it still is not an easy task copying some of today's games. Also, the game industry will always be ahead of these "all in one" copy programs. Irregardless of if you can actually make an "easy" backup of your game, it does not propagate rampant piracy as one would think. Look at Unreal Tournament. Think you are going to give your buddy a copy so you both can p

    • Re:Game Copy X=Ripoff (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rallion ( 711805 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:42AM (#7951144) Journal
      You realize that independent servers can bypass those serial checks, right? And that those servers can also allow the use of game executables that have the CD-check software stripped out? And, in fact, in a few increasingly rare cases, a really good image format and a virtual drive are all you need, the EXE won't be able to tell the difference anyhow!

      Trust me. It's really easy for anybody to do.
    • . Look at Unreal Tournament. Think you are going to give your buddy a copy so you both can play online? Wrong. You have to connect to the internet to play and it checks your serial number.

      FYI-Unreal Tournament doesn't check for a unique serial number when you go online. I believe half-life does.

      • Half-Life did/sort of does. Now instead of a CD-Key, you have a SteamID - basically the same thing. A unique identifier that says, you have paid, and can play. However, the nice thing now about Steam is that, I can now safely throw away my HL-CD. Its useless.

        Since I've signed up for my Steam account (requries a CD-Key), if I wipe out my machine, I just have to download the latest copy of Steam, and install it, log in with my username(email)/password and I can play. If I want to install another Steam-

    • For the love of FUCK, stop using the word 'irregardless'.

      And yes, you have the right to backup your games and movies even if you are a "laxy" slob. Also, there's this thing called the Internet. One of the neat things it lets you do is update software you own in case the software maker wants to add some new features or functionality. You should check it out.
    • Absolutely, you have purchased the right to have a copy of the game for the rest of your life. Your license never expires, transcends media and lives forever. The other end is that nobody has an obligation to provide you with new media should you lose yours.

      It doesn't matter how irresponsible you are with your media, you have the right to back it up (according to US copyright law) so that you can ensure that 20yrs from now you can use your license via an emulator. No matter how many times you destroy me
      • shaitand writes:
        "It doesn't matter how irresponsible you are with your media, you have the right to back it up (according to US copyright law)..."

        Technically correct but misleading because you're only presenting one side of the coin.

        You have the right to back up the material. The maker of the product is under no legal obligation whatsoever to make it simple or even possible for you to do so.

        Don't get me wrong, I'm on the side of the consumer on this one, but there is a distinction here.
    • mrshowtime writes:
      "Irregardless of ..."

      Isn't a word. Stop using it.

      "...if you can actually make an "easy" backup of your game, it does not propagate rampant piracy as one would think. Look at Unreal Tournament. Think you are going to give your buddy a copy so you both can play online? Wrong. You have to connect to the internet to play and it checks your serial number."

      Actually, it does. You've only shown that you can defeat a very, very small slice of the gaming market. Further, from what I'm told th
  • "It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against."


    Hooray! It's a good thing it doesn't go against everything the industry's been fighting for - then they'd really be in trouble.

  • Not really new or revolutionary. (Score:5, Informative)

    by WhiteBandit ( 185659 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:29AM (#7950746) Homepage
    There are a few programs that do just this already.

    Alcohol 120 [alcohol-software.com]
    Blindwrite [blindwrite.com]
    CloneCD [clonecd.net]

    They all do pretty decent jobs making 1:1 backup copies of software. Granted, there are some copy protection schemes they have trouble with (I believe Alcohol 120 had problems with Safecast2 for awhile. Not sure if they've fixed it yet), but all of them are being actively developed and reasonably priced if you're looking for that sort of thing.
    • As long as they can do a proper raw dump of the formats, Daemon tools [daemon-tools.cc] is a very nice piece of software to emulate the copy protection schemes. I am not sure how the linux side of things are, but lots of games require windows to run well at this point..
      • On Linux it's built into the filesystem, mounting a CD image is exactly the same as mounting a CD.

        Not that most Linux games bother with copy protection anyway ;)
        • With the one exception that I don't believe the CD image mounting will emulate bad sectors and other protection schemes. However, like you said, that's generally not an issue under Linux.

          It has to be said, though: Daemon Tools is a windows user's best friend. I always write ISOs instead of straight to disc for my more complex disc types, so that I can test the image before wasting a blank. I also use it for a lot of my games-- I've got all three of the UT2003 discs sitting on my HD right now, though I almo
        • For example... copy a disc [sourceforge.net]

          Using dd or standard inferfaces will only get you the standard data session, error corrected. You need to use this lower level tool to get at the more esoteric features, or to make a working copy if the system uses copy protection.
      • Most Linux games I have played do not require the CD. NWN and UT2k3 come to mind. You install, patch, then enter your CD-KEY. From that point on, the CD can stay in the box.

        Daemon tools is entering a 'cold war' with Safedisk. I went out to get SW:KOTOR. I do use Daemon tools so I don't have to find the CDroms for my games. KOTOR installed fine, but then refused to run. I went back and installed from the actual CDROMs. This time, the game refused to load. Why? The error message reported that 'Disk
    • If your drive can't properly copy the errors or write them back to a cd, this whole argument is moot. Lots of families still have old computers lying around with old cd writers that can't copy things like Safe Disc 2.xx. Oh well, maybe they'll get a refund.
  • It's obvious: copy protection on games only hurts the paying customers. Things like SafeDisc adversely affect system performance, forcing the paying customers to fetch no-CD cracks in an effort to get the best performance. When paying customers get worse performance than the pirates, it tends to make them wonder just why they are paying in the first place.

    People are always going to pirate games. It's just too easy to copy 1s and 0s. I think the solution is the opposite of what the game industry is doing: Sell me more than the disc. I want physical items that are worth more to me, such as a big thick manual, maps, posters, maybe even a player's guide, right in the same box with the shiny disc. I would imagine I'm not alone on this and that if gamers received something more tangible than a disc with their $50, perhaps they would be more inclined to purchase.

    This post is not meant to advocate piracy. It's meant to advocate customer rights. Remember when the customer was always right? Now the customer is a consumer, and the consumer is a lying dirty pirate who needs his entertainment sufficiently crippled to prevent him from stealing. Well, this attitude is exactly the sort of thing fueling the pirates.

    Really, the best way to stop piracy is to actually make the game worth $50. Like I said, give us more tangible items in the box, give us the freedom to copy the disc without special hardware or software hacks, and don't cripple the software we purchase with things like SafeDisc.

    I could rant on, but I'm preaching to the converted here anyway, I'm sure.

    • Re:Copy Protection Only Hurts Paying Customers (Score:4, Interesting)

      by smcv ( 529383 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @05:18AM (#7950904) Homepage
      Exactly. If I can find one, I always apply a no-CD crack to any game I install.

      Back in the days of 3GB hard disks and smallish games, when you installed a couple of hundred megabytes and streamed the music, video and some of the sound from the CDs (see: Jedi Knight), it was reasonable to have to put the CD in the drive before playing.

      Now that games don't let you play from the CD, partly for performance reasons and partly because the game is on several CDs anyway (like Unreal Tournament 2003 and its 3 CDs, of which about 2.5 CDs of data are copied to the hard disk and the last half a CD consists of optional mod tools and Linux binaries), I don't see any reason why I should be required to dig out the correct CD every time I play the game, just to reassure the game that I have a legal copy of it.

    • Copy protection hurts paying customers and the providers. I don't play many games ... actually I don't play any anymore. The last three I have purchased wouldn't run on my computer, and in all cases it came down to issues with the copy protection.

      I think the book idea is a good one. A lot of old role-playing games used to do this ("You see a box. Read paragraph 230."), and it was pretty effective at making people buy the original.


      • I remember back in those days, doing one of two things to get past this:

        downloaded a file from a local BBS that had an answer to all those questions

        or, have a xeroxed copy of the instruction manual (or the required pages)
      • Once I went and bought a value pack of like 5 CD games, one of which being an Ultima game (couldn't tell you which one). Whoever published this value pack lacked the foresight to include the manuals for any game, so when I hit one of those anti-pirate questions, I was out of luck. If I had downloaded it, or even gotten it from a friend, I'm sure I would have gotten the manual exerpt with the answers.
    • People are always going to pirate games. It's just too easy to copy 1s and 0s. I think the solution is the opposite of what the game industry is doing: Sell me more than the disc. I want physical items that are worth more to me, such as a big thick manual, maps, posters, maybe even a player's guide, right in the same box with the shiny disc. I would imagine I'm not alone on this and that if gamers received something more tangible than a disc with their $50, perhaps they would be more inclined to purchase.
    • Really, the best way to stop piracy is to actually make the game worth $50.

      Or you could just wait a few months until the price drops. When you're paying $50 for a game, you're paying for novelty of having the latest, "greatest" game.
    • Dead on, but becoming even more so due to the prevelance of ultra-portable laptops. I don't like having to connect my external cd drive to play games.

    • Re:Copy Protection Only Hurts Paying Customers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:32AM (#7953074) Homepage
      I think the solution is the opposite of what the game industry is doing: Sell me more than the disc. I want physical items that are worth more to me, such as a big thick manual, maps, posters, maybe even a player's guide, right in the same box with the shiny disc.

      Perfect example...the Ultima series. I copied Ultima 6 from a buddy of mine, until I realized how much I wanted the cloth map, the Compendium, the stupid little black gem that came with it, etc. Ultima really gave you your money's worth, giving you items that made you feel like you were a part of the game.

      Another form of copy protection that I actually liked was using a code wheel. I remember Bard's Tale III had one that we were able to copy, but it was a pain in the ass. You were also able to play the first level until a certain point where it would ask you about the password. Good idea from those guys.

      --trb
    • I agree with everything you say here whole heartedly, but you also have to understand the other side of the coin. The publishers are fighting against people who think it's their divine right to have anything and everything free.

      There are people who I stop lending my music CDs and DVDs to because I know that the first thing they do when they get them home is fire up a ripper. I spent good money on my collections, just to have a mate rip the shit for nothing.

      They look at me strange when I recommend buying s

  • It's all the same (Score:5, Informative)

    by HRbnjR ( 12398 ) <chris@hubick.com> on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:38AM (#7950773) Homepage
    Game producers, music producers, movie producers, anyone distributing digital content, these people all need to realize the same fact:

    If you can read it, you can *copy* it.

    Period.

    It's all just varying levels of difficulty beyond that. If people want it bad enough, it will happen (even of they have to run a wire to each pixel of their DHCPv4 enabled LCD or whatever). Any copy protection to be viable over the long term needs to be based not on media based protections, but on real cryptography. Smart companies know this, hence, Palladium.
    • you started right.

      If the content is meant to be read, it will be copied, regardless of the scheme used. the instructions for what the protection scheme is looking for to determine authenticity of the media are right in the executable. you've handed the map to your stash right to the treasure hunters - it's all a matter of time.

      the only situation that can get you around this, and even then it's largely temporary, is if the software has to be 'enabled' by a central authority to operate each time. Eg. CD

  • Old news (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @05:15AM (#7950895) Homepage
    There is already a 3.5mb shareware program that will copy any and all games. Google Alcohol 120%. CloneCD is crap, i've seen it fail on numerous games, whereas Alcohol 120% never fails to make a perfect copy. I doubt even this overpriced Game X Copy program will even match it. There were better free DVD copying programs around on the internet long before DVD X Copy came out. Google Gordian Knot, by the way.
    • Speaking of old news, and admittedly a bit off-topic, but does anyone know where I can find a crack for the original Microsoft Flight Simulator? The one that's Copyright 1982, 1984 Bruce Artwick/Microsoft. Yeah, I know it's old -- I've also got Pro 2002 and the new 2004, so I'm not stuck in the past -- but the original had some interesting, um, flaws which were pointed out in the books 40 Great Flight Simulator Adventures (c) 1985 and 40 More Great Flight Simulator Adventures (c) 1986. I enjoy these enough

    • Re:Old news (Score:3, Informative)

      by limekiller4 ( 451497 )
      Tuxinatorium writes:
      "There is already a 3.5mb shareware program that will copy any and all games. Google Alcohol 120%. CloneCD is crap, i've seen it fail on numerous games, whereas Alcohol 120% never fails to make a perfect copy. I doubt even this overpriced Game X Copy program will even match it. There were better free DVD copying programs around on the internet long before DVD X Copy came out. Google Gordian Knot, by the way."

      Careful. Much relies on the ability of your CD burner's ability to write subch
  • Okay, with the MPAA already on their back, they just invited every PC (And some console, I would guess) game publisher to hate them as well. What's next? MUSIC X COPY and KARAOKE X COPY to piss off everyone else?
    • Music and karaoke CDs should be, barring any music cds with explicit protection, be easily copied using existing cd copy tools. I bet CloneCD would handle most protected discs without a second thought as it is, but you'd really probably want to strip the protection rather than copy it since it's intrusive during playback attempts.

  • Copying (Score:3, Interesting)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @07:27AM (#7951262) Journal
    It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against.

    I suppose it also generates registration numbers and hacks into MMORPG accounts too does it?

    Most games are heading towards an online model where the ability to copy the game media is often encouraged.
    • I purchased a copy of Unreal Tournament 2003 on clearance from Target. The thing was, it lacked a valid registration code. It must have fallen out of the box. After a few minutes googling around, a CD keygen that worked was found and I was off.

      Except that I wasn't. The server wouldn't accept the key for multiplayer. After hours of searching, no key, keygen, or crack online could be found that would allow my machine to communicate with Epic's servers. I was very effectively locked out.

      I'm not saying
      • Cracked servers to the rescue. [nforce.nl]

        But I agree, central CD-key protection is both fairly easy to set up, fairly consumer friendly and the only vaguely effective copy protection. Of course it only works for multiplayer online games. It does that fairly well, though: although pirates can play the game, their community must be split from the "legal" community which plays on authenticating servers.

  • Also in the news... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @08:47AM (#7951606) Homepage Journal
    Copy II PC Stirs Backup Controversy

    Posted by ConceptJunkie on 83-05-31 3:51

    Thanks to Byte magazine for its article covering the unveiling of a new version of its utility called Copy II PC at this year's Comdex show in Chicago. This commercially-sold floppy disk backup option claims: "You no longer need to fear losing your expensive PC software collection to bad or erased floppy disks... Now you can simply back them up and put the expensive original in a safe place, and the backup will work on your PC just like the original." The maker of this soon-to-launch utility, Central Point Software, has faced lawsuits previously regarding its Copy II PC software, and a prominently marketed, software backup product is sure to cause sparks - the Byte article writer comments: "No matter how much Central Point claims that users with the most honorable intentions are its target market, it's easy to see where it would be the perfect item for unscrupulous people to copy software to give to or trade with their friends. It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against."

    We see how much illegal copying has devastated the software industry so far. No one could ever make a hundred-million-dollar company in such a crook-friendly climate. Besides, selling replacements discs is a legitimate means of revenue for companies. I had to pay $5 for a replacement copy of Autoduel for my Amiga. It's my fault the floppy was damaged.

    Plus ca change, plus ce la meme chose.

  • What are people complaining about? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheLink ( 130905 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @09:18AM (#7951812) Journal
    The target market for this software is more likely to put it to legitimate uses.

    Coz the others won't buy Games X Copy, they'd copy it instead, or just use other CD/DVD copying software. Doh.

  • regsub (Score:2, Interesting)

    by violent.ed ( 656912 )
    No matter how much 321 Studios claims that parents with the most honorable intentions are its target market, it's easy to see where it would be the perfect item for unscrupulous gamers to copy software to give to or trade with their friends. It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against."

    No matter how much Smith & Wesson claims that parents with the most honorable intentions are its target market, it's easy to see where it would be the perfect item for unscrupulous gangsters to rob

  • cut and paste and see how silly it is (Score:3, Funny)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) * on Monday January 12, 2004 @09:38AM (#7951978) Homepage
    No matter how much Louisville Slugger claims that athletes with the most honorable intentions are its target market, it's easy to see where it would be the perfect item for unscrupulous individuals to hit people or break car windows. It goes against everything the industry has been fighting against.
  • The funny part about this is, buying a game is a much worse deal then pirating one. Ok, say I want to buy Unreal Tournament 2004. I have to wait for it to come out, go to the store, hope they have a copy, bring it home, install it, put in a serial number, hope the serial is right, then play. Any time I want to play after that, I have to make sure the CD is in the drive, and if I lose the original I am fuxored. Plus if the game sucks, I've lost $50

    Now say I pirate the game, I have no waiting in line, no
  • I am all for a product that will help me backup my games. I have a couple that I can't replace if I wanted to(they're close to 6 years old and unavailable anymore). Regardless, those who will use this or any other product for pirating games will find another way if this one is not made available. You have to figure that if they really want to steal it, they'll find a way.

  • At least... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @10:12AM (#7952190) Homepage
    At least the game publishers don't have to worry about Games X Copy actually selling. Most will just pirate it.

  • CD protection (Score:2, Interesting)

    by elrick_the_brave ( 160509 )
    While I support the games industry.. because without the money.. there wouldn't be one. I hate the fact I need to have a SLOW CD in a drive waiting for a machine to recognize it and boot up the game. I recently broke my Empires CD while on vacation. I ended spending fully 50% of the cost of the game to replace it because I had to send to the United States from Canada. This sucks. On top of that, due to moves and my lack of diligence I've lost two games either because of jewel cases going missing or on

  • Fine, get rid of the backup software (Score:3, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @10:51AM (#7952583) Journal
    I'll support the industry in their efforts against this copying software, as long as they start using scratch-resistant lacquers on their cd/dvd surfaces, and/or promise to replace my original purchase disks for postage costs when they become so scratched they don't work anymore.

    As long as they are going to assume I'm a pirate, and I *have* to stick the cd in the drive for my game to play, then I'd like them to cover the replacement of legitimately-purchased cd's damaged due to normal wear & tear. (If you have kids that use the computer, you know that those are usually the first ones to fail...)

    I have at least 30 game cd's (out of maybe 300) that won't work anymore due to scratching, and the 'cd resurfacers' don't work as well as they claim. If I was smart, I guess I'd just pirate the games off Kazaa, but I don't want to do that. :(
  • God forbid I give a friend a copy of my game. He might even install it on his computer! He might spend an hour downloading the patch that fixes the bugs! And then he might get so frustrated by the fact he still needs a CD key, a codeword from a random page in the manual, a parallel-port dongle, and a fingerprint verification in order to start the damn game!

  • They'll never learn ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:01AM (#7952690) Homepage Journal
    Way back in the 90's, the makers of lots of commercial and business software did the same sort of thing. They had "NO COPYING ALLOWED" clauses in the license. They had anti-copy gimmicks in the files.

    The reaction of many businesses was "We back up our disks periodically. If a license doesn't permit copying, it will not be installed on any company computers. End of discussion." Lots of companies rigorously enforced this, on the advice of their lawyers.

    After a while, the software makers caught on, and now most of them allow backup copies. Even the tech-challenged dummies in the US Congress caught on, and they passed a law that explicitly permits backup copies of software.

    Most personal/home computers aren't backed up, for various reasons. The biggest is probably that historically backups have been done mostly to tapes, and a tape drive as big as your disk has either been not available at all, or if it's available, it costs more than the computer. But this is changing. Backup to DVD is now not only possible, but cheap, and a R/W DVD drive isn't that much more expensive than a read-only drive. Backup over the Net is becoming easier, and there are companies around who will do it for you cheaply. Or you can get a 200-MB USB disk drive for not too unreasonable a price.

    So people are going to start backing up their own stuff. It's already happening with people who have gigabytes of digital photos that they don't want to lose. Many people have their personal financial records on their computer, and are backing those up (for when they get audited 8 or 10 years from now ;-). And while you're doing that, why not just back up the whole disk? The DVD will hold it all.

    A "no copying" clause in any commercial product is rapidly becoming a block to retail sales, just as it did in the business environment. I don't want to become a criminal just because I have the sense to back up my disk. One by one, every other computer owner on the planet is going to realize the same thing.

    So I'm going to be looking for such clauses, and if I see them, I'll likely decide to wait until I can find something equivalent that I can back up.

    Or maybe I'll just get a "pirate" copy. If I'm going to be labelled a criminal, I suppose I might as well be one.

    They're shooting themselves in the foot. Nothing new there, I guess.

  • Seeing as how OSDN is happy to host various hacker tools [sourceforge.net] on sourceforge, why don't some of these 'illegal' utilities open the source and host there? Clearly the people who run sourceforge have no morals. Heck, at least Games X Copy has some redeeming value.

  • In Todays World Product Makes No Sense (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @12:22PM (#7953635) Homepage Journal
    Yes 5 years ago this would of been nice with all the games that required to have the CD inserted to play but nowdays that's just not the case anymore. Most games nowdays install completely to your hard drive and then you just stuff it back in the box and put it on a bookshelf.

    On the flipside it is also much harder to just copy a game and give it to a friend. With keys and internet play and phone home features those who share their keys risk getting their keys disabled.

    • Re:In Todays World Product Makes No Sense (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What games are you playing? With the rare expection of a game or two even with a full install of several gigabytes you still need the CD inserted into your CD-ROM to play.

      The major game genre that doesn't require this are MMORPGs to due them requiring a key, and the monthly charge to the subscribers. If your making $10-$15/month off 1,000,000 or more people, why worry about them having the disk in their drive?

      While I don't like it, I still buy games. The one thing I do though is immediately download a
    • Really this is a problem! I mean they waste upto 1.5 Gigabytes of disk space and still require the CD, that's stupid. If they're going to require the CD, make a game that doesn't need patched so often and then run from the CD like a console...PC CD-roms are faster, and have more memory to use than consoles and a HDD for swaping...why do we need to install to our HDD. Or if they don't like that argument, install to the HDD, get the authorization by 1-800 # or internet and get it over with.

      That said, I

  • Why doesn't the industry... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cymen ( 8178 ) <cymenvig.gmail@com> on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:49PM (#7957579) Homepage
    Why doesn't the gaming industry put it's money where it's mouth is: give absolutely free exchanges of good discs for damaged discs. At a maximum, a shipping fee would be paid. The burden of supporting the rest of the activity would be placed on the manufacturers. A 3rd party exchanger, authorized to provide replacement discs at anytime for at least a decade, would also be a workable solution.

    You want to fight piracy? You don't want devices like this? Well make it so they aren't needed.
  • ...because I have three younger brothers who just got a new computer and want to play all of 'Shawnee's games. Now, do I want to hand them my original FF VII PC CDs? How about Diablo 2? Or perhaps one of the nice games I bought myself for Christmas? I don't want to play them... I'll just let them leave it on the stand, then on the floor, then in spilled soda, etc...

    Maybe, just maybe, this isn't a bad idea in and of itself, and we just need an implementation with disc authentication (ie, disc is encrypted,

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