No-CD cracks on steam

[Ben95]

Is it ok to use a no-CD crack for steam games? I emailed steam about it but they didn't respond. The reason is that I want to play on dual monitors. I use use a program called SOFTTH for this. It works great for most games, but I can't get it to work for dirt 3. People have got it working, but only after using a no-cd crack. I just want to know if this is legal for steam games. If I do use it, will I be banned? I mean, there's not cd anyway, right?

thanks for any replies.

 

[jaguarskx]

Don't know...

You didn't receive a response because "no-CD cracks" are considered piracy since they bypass copy protection. It doesn't matter if you bought the game. Do you really think Steam/Valve will response to your question if you are asking them if you can use a crack to play their games? Think about it.

As you mentioned, there is no CD or DVD involved when you purchase games thru Steam. A "no-CD crack" stops the game from checking to see if there is a CD/DVD. If there is no CD/DVD, perhaps the game uses a different form of copy protection, like....ummm.....Steam?

Asking about piracy on this forum is not allowed. It doesn't matter if you purchased a legal copy of the game.

 

[Ben95]

Ok.... I was not familiar with no-cd cracks before I saw you needed one for this to work. When I looked on wiki it said that is you own the disk then it is legal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-CD_crack
Is this not the case? I don't want to do anything illegal, so that is why I asked here to make sure. I can understand people not giving you help on how to pirate something, but is asking if something is legal really not allowed?

 

[Herr_Koos]

This is a controversial point, purely because cracks are used for piracy probably 90+% of the time. My gut feel is that if you try and play a cracked game via Steam, they will pick up on it and ban you. This is the same reason why I will never, ever try and fiddle with unofficial hacks for Blizzard games, because they can and will ban you from Battle.net.

 

[jaguarskx]

There is no harm in asking if something is legal or illegal. That's the only way to find out something if you do not know. Since using a No-CD crack is considered piracy you will generally recieve a response of "don't do that" in this forum.

Interpreting the law is outside my jurisdiction (ha, ha... get it?). What you linked to is generally referred to as "Fair Use" which in a nutshell means if you buy something you have the right to make a copy of it and keep the copy as long as you can prove you own the original product. So if your game DVD gets damaged you will technically need to keep the damaged DVD in order to legally prove that you own the game. However, if you loose the game DVD, then that's a different story. You no longer possess the original game DVD, at that point your copy is now illegal.

You need to read the user terms of agreement that comes with games. It usually pops up when you install the game. Most people simply check off the "I have read this...." and click continue to install the game. That agreement will basically state that you do not have the right to by-pass the copy protection that comes along with the game.

This basically results in a "gray area" between the Copy Right law and the terms of the agreement that you agreed to in order to install the game. Since game publishers can generally afford to hire expensive lawyers compared to the average gamer, the net result is using a No-CD crack is in violation of the terms of agreement.

 

[Ben95]

Thanks allot for the great info. But I found this:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1263556
Heck, steam didn't even notice that one of there games have a No-CD crack. Why would they care if someone installed one? I'm pretty confidant that I would not get banned after reading that. But, I hate piracy and don't want to do anything illegal. What do you guys think? Is this really illegal?

 

[benski]

Most software EULA's bar you from making any changes to it, so while it may not be criminally illegal it does give them the right to ban you or remove the game from your games list without refunding your money.

 

[Ben95]

Best answer selected by ben95.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey