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DRM Software Company Takes Legal Action Against Cracker
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Friday July 27 2018, @01:12PM (8 children)
TFAs are missing any sort of detail. What is the guy charged with?
- On the one hand, if he's selling (or giving away) copies of the game itself, he's up for copyright violation, theft, etc.. That would be stupid.
- On the other hand, if he simply provides a product that allows other people to remove DRM from their legitimately purchased games, then his activities should be entirely legal.
So: is he stupid or smart? Anyone have further information?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by unauthorized on Friday July 27 2018, @01:33PM (2 children)
Patched binaries only I believe. Still copyright infringement, but worthless without a copy of the game data itself.
Anyone who can crack a modern DRM is a very intelligent person. Ignorance =/= stupidity.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 27 2018, @01:50PM
Note that I have any great amount of the latter.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @02:44PM
Re. patched binaries - what I don't understand is why don't these crackers release tools which modify original binaries, instead of releasing the changed binary itself? Or even source code which builds into a tool to modify the original binaries. Or maybe a python script which does such modifications. Wouldn't that defeat all arguments of copyright infringement, IP infringement etc.? They're only distributing what is then 100% their own original work, no content from whatever they're targeting. Then at most I see this could only devolve into a DeCSS-type situation, the legality of which seems to vary from country to country.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Friday July 27 2018, @01:33PM (1 child)
From the various sources available Reddit, TorrentFreak etc we can conclude that he had very poor opsec for doing what he did. He was not a hard man to track down apparently.
From your suggested and given two options he did both. One can argue over the finer details of what is a "crack" etc if what he did is just a bypass or circumvention. After all he never actually removed the protection, as far as I know nobody has been able to remove the protection at all but they are all just various form of circumventions preventing it from triggering. But he did do that and he did share his works. But he also did the second part, he shared his knowledge about how he did it, he even made a few tutorials where he went into detail about it and uploaded those to Youtube (I have not checked if they are still around). But as far as I know he didn't share his tools or gave tools to others to do it, even tho others have done that for previous versions of the Denuvo protection scheme.
As to what exactly he has been charged with is still somewhat unknown, but it should be a fairly easy thing to find out for the various news sources since Denuvo (and their new parent company) filed some kind of claim against him. But it's probably going to be some for of copyright violations. If that sticks one would assume that people that might have bought and used Denuvo for their games that he cracked might pile on at a later stage. Not that they might get that much money out of a 21 year old man from Bulgaria but just to make an example out of him.
He is probably well and utterly fucked for life.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday July 28 2018, @04:08PM
> One can argue over the finer details of what is a "crack"
Why? For legal arguments? Better that the laws be made sensible.
> as far as I know nobody has been able to remove the protection at all
DRM is always breakable, no matter how much IP advocates wish otherwise, and try to befuddle the public with propaganda to that end. It's inherent in the concept. It has to be unlocked so that consumers can use whatever it is "protecting". Once seen, it can be copied. If necessary, the copy can be created by writing a clone from scratch, employing reverse engineering if practicable.
> Not that they might get that much money out of a 21 year old man from Bulgaria but just to make an example out of him.
Yes, just like MAFIAA terrorism.
> He is probably well and utterly fucked for life.
The MAFIAA and IP terrorists would like everyone to fear so, and while he is in some trouble now, he'll probably be okay. But it would be good to help. One counter is to put some fear in the terrorists. Best defense is a strong offense. Disbar Denuvo's lawyers if, as might well be the case, they've vastly overreached. Also sue Denuvo, for false advertising and selling a product that can't work. DRM is a dark fantasy that fortunately is impossible to implement. Might as well sell perpetual motion or cold fusion.
Ideally, I'd like to see the issues settled once and for all, bring a permanent end to patent trolling and copyright extremism. Freedom of Speech and Religion are widely accepted principles. The Freedom to Copy should be also.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 27 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
I readily agree that they should be legal, but are they actually legal in Bulgaria?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @02:07PM (1 child)
If nothing else, this case will be a litmus test for whether Bulgaria is under rule of law or rule of capitalism.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Friday July 27 2018, @03:18PM
I'm going to guess that the answer to that question is "no".
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin