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I often use cracks on legally purchased software. Particularly on games purchased on disc and others with any annoying DRM. For me it's become almost as routine when installing games as the near obligatory updates and new drivers that come with any new releases. It often tickles me that the only people who don't have to deal with all the anti piracy measures and the problems they cause are pirates.Not to mention those stupid unskippable warnings on every DVD I buy. They drive me mad.
As for the morality of it, it's just a mod to me tbh. No-intro, no-dvd, better textures, new guns; whatever. I'm using free third party software to improve my gaming experience. Nothing more, nothing less. If games companies don't like it, tough. If they gave me the paying customer what I asked for, and remember us customers are always rightI wouldn't need to do it in the first place.
Another thing I've noticed about DRM. It's net effect on the groups that provide such cracks; Entertainment. Seriously, all DRM is to them is a fun little puzzle someone spent 6-7 figures making just for them to figure out. They take great pride in being the first to pick the new lock and there is fierce competition for the accolade, normally before the game is even out it's done. I personally don't think there's a better example of exactly how ineffective DRM is.
As fir the ubi incident that was Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. I remember because I actually used that crack in the method described above and the whole fiasco tickled me greatly. It was actually released as a fix for ubi's own screwup http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008...aving-a-crack/
On the point of music, I often listen to many tracks on youtube before buying a CD/MP3, in the strictest sense, that's copyright infringement. Barring the few authorised uploads by the labels, which a few times I've come across with DMCA infractions on(the left hand obviously doesn't talk to the right). Is it wrong? Good question with more than one answer IMHO. Many times even the artists and their representatives cant agree with each other on the right answer. I've heard stories of artist's personally apologising via youtube to people hit with the DMCA hammer for giving them what they saw as free publicity and seen others screaming for anyone who uses so much as a fraction of their work in any way without explicit written permission be strung from the nearest tree.
I think for we a need to step back and have a frank discussion about the internet and copyright, in particular with the loudest voices being the artists and their paying customers, and it needs to be done on a global scale because the internet is a global culture, but we haven't even agreed to stop murdering and torturing each other on a global level, so I doubt this will happen any time soon and for the foreseeable future we will be limited by big labels' stuck in their ways and the armies of lobbyists who push their agenda to every government in the world.
If it wasn't for those old thought processes and an almost maniacal need to keep control even to the detriment of the products they are selling and the artists they represent. The internet could have been the biggest boon to the entertainment industry since the camera and will probably still be eventually and in fairness some companies are realising this, albeit a decade after everyone else. It still seems to be treated like the boogeyman by many in the entertainment industry though. The second they see is something to be embraced that ridiculous piles of cash can be made from and stop treating it almost as an enemy that must be defended from, the whole landscape of this discussion will change for the better.
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