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Denuvo-Protected Games Rendered Unplayable After Domain Expires

torrentfreak.com

1–10 of 87 posts

Re: Denuvo-Protected Games Rendered Unplayable After Domain Expires

#3

This should immediately make it legal to apply a crack in my opinion. I hope this is the case.

You don't own the game, you own a license to play it for however long the publisher wants. Whether or not it is legal really shouldn't matter, it should just be done as a matter of course for such games.

Re: Denuvo-Protected Games Rendered Unplayable After Domain Expires

#5
post #3

This should immediately make it legal to apply a crack in my opinion. I hope this is the case.

You don't own the game, you own a license to play it for however long the publisher wants. Whether or not it is legal really shouldn't matter, it should just be done as a matter of course for such games.

Wouldn't that depend on local laws? My assumption is that it would be covered by the recent EU court ruling that allows reverse engineering to fix bugs[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28809559

Re: Denuvo-Protected Games Rendered Unplayable After Domain Expires

#6
> After sending a set of questions to two of our usual contacts at the company, we received a pair of automated emails stating that our correspondence was “undeliverable”, that the messages had been “bounced by administrator” and as a result had permanently failed.

Wtf? What ever happened to journalistic principles like protecting your sources?!

Re: Denuvo-Protected Games Rendered Unplayable After Domain Expires

#8

> After sending a set of questions to two of our usual contacts at the company, we received a pair of automated emails stating that our correspondence was “undeliverable”, that the messages had been “bounced by administrator” and as a result had permanently failed. Wtf? What ever happened to journalistic principles like protecting your sources?!

These are likely PR people, not anonymous sources.

Re: Denuvo-Protected Games Rendered Unplayable After Domain Expires

#9
post #3

This should immediately make it legal to apply a crack in my opinion. I hope this is the case.

You don't own the game, you own a license to play it for however long the publisher wants. Whether or not it is legal really shouldn't matter, it should just be done as a matter of course for such games.

(Not a lawyer) You could probably sue in some jurisdictions, since a main aspect of the contract was not clearly advertised.

If it has a buy button for game xyz you should assume you’re buying the game, not a license, even if the fine print says otherwise. For multiplayer games it would probably be ok to not perpetually run the servers, for single player the server isn’t an aspect that is crucial to the functioning. There may be an issue with how long ago the purchase was though.

Re: Denuvo-Protected Games Rendered Unplayable After Domain Expires

#10

This should immediately make it legal to apply a crack in my opinion. I hope this is the case.

In the United States, the 2021 DMCA anti-circumvention exemptions do include this case[0]:

> (17)(i) Video games in the form of computer programs embodied in physical or downloaded formats that have been lawfully acquired as complete games, when the copyright owner or its authorized representative has ceased to provide access to an external computer server necessary to facilitate an authentication process to enable gameplay, solely for the purpose of: (A) Permitting access to the video game to allow copying and modification of the computer program to restore access to the game for personal, local gameplay on a personal computer or video game console;

However, these rules are currently renewed every three years, instead of being permanent, so it could not be the case in the future.

[0] https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2021-23311.pdf

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