[Joe Forster/STA]

Hey DABhand,

Apparently, you need to learn a bit more about this topic - docs are lying around the Net...! Game publishers say they want to disallow "casual pirates" from copying original CD's/DVD's by introducing copy protection.

However, exactly "casual pirates" are the ones who are having major problems with the sophisticated and, as Starforce's example shows, sometimes very incompatible copy protections. Also, "mass CD/DVD duplicators", complete factories manufacturing pirated copies of CD's/DVD's in some countries, are not affected as they have enough money for their own means of defeating, circumventing or duplicating the copy protection.

Conclusion: With copy protection, trying to make the honest customer stay honest is similar to trying to make the tall customer not get shorter. (A not letter-by-letter quote from a conference about the pointlessness of DRM.)

[Edit] Damn, I forgot to mention that "casual pirates" are the usual people who might be asked to copy their original games for the neighbor, without knowing they break the law by doing that...

Joe