“the steam registration is very anoying but it is the only solution against piracy”
Hmm, I don’t know anything about Steam, but I am continually surprised at the things companies do to try to prevent piracy (not just video games, also videos, music CDs, etc). It takes weeks or months for the company to devise a new system against piracy, and it takes a day for a hacker to crack it and spread it around. Anti-piracy schemes only make it more annoying for the legitimate user to use the product, and the cost of developing such schemes is of course passed onto the market price as well. In today’s saavy-technology world, anti-piracy schemes stop very few people who have the intent to pirate something.
I don’t mean to go off-topic, but I am intersted in the subject because of what some major labels are doing to music CDs these days. They use a scheme called “copy control” to prevent ordinary ripping software from making MP3s of the CDs. Not only that, but you have to install software on your computer to play them in your computer CD drive. Well I use my iRiver MP3 player as my main listening device and I copy my legitimately-bought CDs onto my computer, then to the player, so I can listen to them. I don’t share these MP3s after I’ve copied them. Well, it took me a couple hours but soon I found software and certain settings to be able to copy these CDs just so that I can listen to them. I don’t have a regular stereo, and I’m not about to install more junk software onto my computer. Philips told these labels they cannot display the CD logo on these CDs or the cases they come in, because these CDs do not meet Philips’ specs, and I think that’s pretty cool that Philips is standing up to this ridiculous stuff. If you have one of these CDs, look inside the case on the part that holds the CD, where there are usually two CD logos, and there won’t be any!
Here’s another interesting one. I saw in a Gameboy Advance cartridge manual the other day a copyright notice that said, you may not make a copy of this product for any reason, including for backup purposes, basically, it is not legitimate to make a copy for backup purposes and it said something to the effect of “there is no reason to make a backup copy.” Presumably if my cartridge fails, they will replace it. I don’t know what the legal on this is, but what if my game fails in 10 years. Nintendo is not going to replace it then.
Well, rant over. By the way, I in no way condone piracy. As a legitimate user I am just disgusted, like you, at this kind of stuff.