Difference between "legal" crack and illegal crack?

[Joe Forster/STA]

While moderating the BioShock threads, I start to understand what the original poster meant...

The no-CD patches that GCW hosts are meant to allow you to play the game without needing the original physical media (CD, DVD... floppy disk? ) because the media can be broken or the copy protection can cause the game to not work (properly) on your PC. That is considered "legal" to discuss on this forum, too. However, the following patches are "illegal" to discuss and, if uploaded to GCW, are removed soon:

- Turning a freely downloadable or leaked alpha/beta/demo/trial game into the full version, by whatever means: key/serial generator, missing files, EXE from full release etc. This applies to "digital download" games, too: if you bought the game without a CD/DVD then there's nothing to get broken so why would you need a no-CD patch?! If the "digital download" game doesn't work because of the copy protection then 1) complain at the publisher and 2) next time read our forum FAQ about why such purchases are not a good idea.

- Allowing to install the game without the original physical media, by whatever means: removing online activation or other copy protection. There's no need for that as you DO have the original CD/DVD and it only needs to be used once when installing it, right? If you manage to break it during this short session, well, you're so clumsy you should've asked the neighbor to do it for you anyway...

- Whatever else that I cannot remember right now.

In short, GCW is supposed to give you CD/DVD-free gaming experience - which, in our opinion, is the legal gamer's right - but - trying to save the forum and GCW from getting closed by gaming companies - NOTHING MORE!

Perhaps, some explanations should be added to the forum rules? Discuss!