Isn't Starforce Illegal?

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

Looking through the Licence_UK.rtf file on the SC:CT DVD-ROM there is no mention of starforce or any kind of copy protection. It never says that starforce will be installed with the game.

Computer Misuse Act 1990:

3.—(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a) he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer; and
(b) at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing—

(a) to impair the operation of any computer;

(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or

(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data.

This is exactly what Stafrorce does. It installs itself without you knowing and stops you using certain programs (CloneCd, Alcohol 120% etc). Definatly breaking the computer misuse act there.

I dont know about laws in other countries but Starforce is definatly illegal here in the UK.

[Luci]

well in my opinion i think it is why?
the reason you mentioned.
any writing on your pc without your permission(they don't say it)is illegal

[Monty Burns]

Yep, have to agree totally.
But, there isn't much you can do about it.

The only thing that I do, is not to buy sf protected games.....sometimes hard (I'd really like to get my hands on still life, e.g.), but I if available, I get a console version.

[Isis192]

SC:CT says "Please resart to install the copy protect drivers" or something in that way.

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

I dont remember seeing that. Heh, i probably just diddnt pay attention.

Even so, that's still after it's been installed and doesnt give you a choice as to whether to install it or not.

[billos]

Yep,

The latest starforce installation with some games is really a mess

I've made several trials with my hardware (Burner : NEC3520-A, Reader :
Toshiba MD-S1912) and the conclusions are that even if you use "sfclean"
program to remove starforce from your pc , all the later DPM extraction (that you
can do with Alcohol or with Blindwrite) are no more valid

One solution i've found is to install Windows on another HDD on which
i'll never install starforce protected games. When i want to extract DPM
info, i boot on this one and no more problem occur with DPM quality ...

Maybe we'll have an update of sfclean to resolve this point (i hope...)

Bye

[DABhand]

Unfortunately you did agree to install it, its in the EULA, and is considered part of the software you bought.

Thats how it is :\

[Monty Burns]

Yep, that is exactly what I meant.

[Megaschwanz]

Is Splinter Cell 3 the first game, that modify programs like alcohol 120 % ?

[Eagle]

StarForce sucks.

It doesnt allow me to play any SF protected game because I only have SCSI CD/DVD devices
Looks like some kind of discrimination .
'You have SCSI, you are bad! SCSI is only used for virtual drives...'

Even StarForce support apologized for that but still couldn't help me.
I would like playing SC:CT

[chaosmaker]

Unfortunately you did agree to install it, its in the EULA, and is considered part of the software you bought.

Uh, no it's not, nowhere in the EULA does it state that I am installing low level drivers, nowhere in the EULA does it state that I am installing starforce, and the next best question would be is. I have XP set-up to prompt me when I am installing drivers that aren't WHQL approved, now you tell me why starforce doesn't prompt me or warn me when installing their drivers, how is it bypassing a Microsoft security setting? Now this is questionable.

[puppeteer666]

Bottom line is to much pirating they had to come up with something I think this is just the begining things will get worse if all the release groups don't slow down.

[Killpuppy]

protection will get commonly heavier (PC and DVD both) but

more protection = more crackers = more jacked relese posisbilities
the industry is hurting themselves spending all the money they make on researching protection and hassling the BUYERS for useing no-cd cracks to simplify the load times, etc

[kendrick]

agreed I probably have 500+ cd's for games with 20 on at any time forget changing disks..

also has any one tryed to pull the disk from linux? i would suspect that would give a properly clean pull