Denuvo DRM has had enough of Revolt Group and starts legal action with Bulgarian authorities.

[Gullerback]

ignoring all the other points as people are already debating it relentlessly.   personally I think this makes denuvo look weak, For as long as i remember they billed themselves as this ultimate in protection that will give your game a year+ of no piracy and now they are down to suing the people cracking their software because they can no longer compensate?  As a customer It makes denuvo look incredibly weak and no faith in their product

[mrthuvi]

2 hours ago, Okjoek said:

No good deed goes unpunished.

You call charging money for pirated copies good deed?

[ItsMitch]

Just now, mrthuvi said:

You call charging money for pirated copies good deed?

He never done that? 

[mrthuvi]

Just now, SC2Mitch said:

He never done that? 

He did offer exclusive denuvo bypass on his forum for donors only.

[alicskysareblue]

I think everyone hating on denuvo forget or was born after Star force or securarom those two sucked

 

Denuvo may suck but there is worse such  as tages

 

[Jito463]

1 hour ago, elderago said:

I think everyone hating on denuvo forget or was born after Star force or securarom those two sucked

 

Denuvo may suck but there is worse such  as tages

 

Actually, SecuROM wasn't too bad overall, but Starforce was the absolutely worst DRM to ever infect one of my computers.  I didn't have much interaction with Tages.

[Okjoek]

3 hours ago, mrthuvi said:

You call charging money for pirated copies good deed?

I'm not familiar with this "Revolt Group". Do they charge for the games they remove DRM from?

[ItsMitch]

Just now, Okjoek said:

I'm not familiar with this "Revolt Group". Do they charge for the games they remove DRM from?

They only take donations, I've never seen them once charge for removal of DRM, Hell they even made a video on how to remove Denuvo DRM. 

[Derangel]

9 hours ago, RuffRuffmcgruff said:

Dam right fuck them for protecting their product, when the protection they use is shitty and makes the run game like mud.

No, it does not. Games are incredibly complex pieces of software with dozens of different game engines interacting with each other. Anything new introduced can cause issues if the developers do not have the time, or skill, it properly implement it. Correlation is not causation.

[Amazonsucks]

Denuvo is a shitty rootkit. If a game has it i wont play it.

[mrthuvi]

7 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

They only take donations, I've never seen them once charge for removal of DRM, Hell they even made a video on how to remove Denuvo DRM. 

But they did offer exclusive bypass for donors only on their forum. So... pirated copies behind a paywall.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, mrthuvi said:

But they did offer exclusive bypass for donors only on their forum. So... pirated copies behind a paywall.

Even without that, it's still providing an illegal service and taking donations. 

 

It never ceases to amaze me how irate people will get with governments and large companies for hiding behind technicalities similar to this, but as soon as a pirate does it it's suddenly o.k.

[Barend Kunegunda]

9 minutes ago, mrthuvi said:

But they did offer exclusive bypass for donors only on their forum. So... pirated copies behind a paywall.

That was way before his proper cracks started to appear. He had to 'put them behind a paywall' only because a single legitimate game license can only be activated a maximum of 5 times per 24 hours.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Barend Kunegunda said:

That was way before his proper cracks started to appear. He had to 'put them behind a paywall' only because a single legitimate game license can only be activated a maximum of 5 times per 24 hours.

That doesn't change anything.  behind a paywall means he is making money from circumventing DRM. It is still  illegal and unethical. 

[Kompira]

If he is questioned by the police, they are pursuing matters in the criminal court. He doesn't have much to fear here in my opinion. Even if found guilty, if this is his first offense, he'll get a probation or a suspended sentence at worst and 1-2000 euro fine. People are getting suspended sentence for manslaughter here all the time. The problem is they can go to civil court next, and he may have to pay a lot more money then. It is not unusual to wait for the criminal court ruling to establish guilt and then filing a civil lawsuit.  

[Dash Lambda]

On 7/26/2018 at 9:45 AM, YedZed said:

Fuck that company that... Protects their IP? I don't get it.

They're not protecting their IP. If he were copying their design and applying it to games himself they would be, if he were distributing their code (which he might have been, I'm not sure, but that's not what everyone's talking about either way) they would be, but he was just removing it.

On 7/26/2018 at 1:16 PM, samcool55 said:

Revolt never attacked Denuvo directly but they did crack products that contained Denuvo.

Revolt published altered versions of games that contained Denuvo, but never stuff that ONLY contained Denuvo stuff.

Exactly. That's the point where I question Denuvo's case. They don't have any legitimate copyright dispute -The most applicable thing I could see them fighting about is loss of business, but I don't know how that area of law works.

On 7/27/2018 at 1:34 AM, mr moose said:

Regardless, you are not permitted to circumvent DRM. You can make a copy of any software you own, but you cannot circumvent DRM. 

If you OWN the software and you can copy it, why can't you alter it? That's like 'warranty void if removed' stickers. I own the damn thing, they have no right to tell me what to do. They can take what I did into account if I come back and ask for help, and they can take action if I start blatantly copying their work and selling it, but they can't take any action against me for screwing with my own property.

 

That's why software is so commonly sold under a license nowadays. They make sure you don't own it, you merely own the right to use it. Really, the whole industry would be better off if they just realized that they essentially design a product. Once it's on a computer they have no right to tell the user what to do -The only thing they should be allowed to fight is people copying and distributing their work. You should be able to break the DRM, change the models and audio files, add and remove features, whatever the hell you want.

 

As an aside: Yes, I am against piracy, but only when you can buy the game. If the game is no longer being distributed by the publisher, all bets are off.

[ItsMitch]

22 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

You should be able to break the DRM, change the models and audio files, add and remove features, whatever the hell you want.

 

Isn't the latter part just modding? (Which violates some part of a publisher ToS)

[Dash Lambda]

2 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Isn't the latter part just modding? (Which violates some part of a publisher ToS)

Yes, that's the point. Breaking the DRM is modding. Distributing the software on the side (when the publisher is still distributing it themselves) is not.

[Sauron]

On 7/27/2018 at 4:45 PM, Gullerback said:

ignoring all the other points as people are already debating it relentlessly.   personally I think this makes denuvo look weak, For as long as i remember they billed themselves as this ultimate in protection that will give your game a year+ of no piracy and now they are down to suing the people cracking their software because they can no longer compensate?  As a customer It makes denuvo look incredibly weak and no faith in their product

Then again as a customer you gain nothing from Denuvo's "protection" - at best it doesn't make your experience any worse, at worst it does. From a consumer's perspective DRM is only negative.

9 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

Yes, that's the point. Breaking the DRM is modding. Distributing the software on the side (when the publisher is still distributing it themselves) is not.

There is a big difference between a mod and a crack - a mod doesn't modify game executables, only assets and configuration files. A crack modifies the executable(s) to remove DRM. The latter, if redistributed, is copyright violation. Mods may violate some (generally unenforceable) terms of service, but they aren't against the law.

[alicskysareblue]

On 7/27/2018 at 1:33 PM, Jito463 said:

Actually, SecuROM wasn't too bad overall, but Starforce was the absolutely worst DRM to ever infect one of my computers.  I didn't have much interaction with Tages.

I hated securorom it installed itself on my computer and  the cd keys were a pain

 

then again that was back when I pirated games alot (I dont anymore cause disposable income)

[Dash Lambda]

38 minutes ago, Sauron said:

There is a big difference between a mod and a crack - a mod doesn't modify game executables, only assets and configuration files. A crack modifies the executable(s) to remove DRM. The latter, if redistributed, is copyright violation. Mods may violate some (generally unenforceable) terms of service, but they aren't against the law.

But either way you're modifying the game. There is no reason to draw the distinction at what file you're changing.

I can't imagine that none of the 'usual' types of mods ever have to change the executable.

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

There is no reason to draw the distinction at what file you're changing.

There absolutely is - especially when your intention is to redistribute it for free (or worse, for a price). Configuration files exist to be changed and they aren't considered intellectual property as they generally don't contain any code - they are just a list of parameters. They are not what the developers have worked hard on and they can't work without the original executable. Assets are subjected to copyright, but most mods don't directly redistribute the game's assets; they often give you their own version of said asset, starting from scratch. And even then, assets don't have the same commercial value of the executable - you can't do much with the textures of a game.

10 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

I can't imagine that none of the 'usual' types of mods ever have to change the executable.

And yet they don't. Changing the executable without the source code is very hard and crackers usually only change a small part of it to remove DRM calls. Changing it to alter gameplay would be impossibly hard without years of reverse engineering. Executable files are binaries with machine code and they are generated by a compiler, which doesn't care if a human can read what it writes as long as the code is fast and does what it should.

[Jito463]

35 minutes ago, Sauron said:

There absolutely is - especially when your intention is to redistribute it for free (or worse, for a price).

Except that Dash Lambda already made the distinction between modifying it for personal use versus distributing it.

1 hour ago, Dash Lambda said:

Yes, that's the point. Breaking the DRM is modding. Distributing the software on the side (when the publisher is still distributing it themselves) is not.

The question was whether we should be allowed to strip DRM for our own personal use, not whether doing so would permit or lead to piracy.

[sof006]

Take 1 down, 5 more spring up.

[Zodiark1593]

I would find it hard to believe if the defendant here didn't have some contingency plan for others to continue his work, or has otherwise already protected any potential evidence (via encryption) in preperation to take on this case and make the lawsuit as expensive for the plaintiff as possible.

 

If one is working with extremely incriminating data on their computers, it would be very brazen, or very dumb to not have everything encrypted before even a hint of a lawsuit turns up.