Copying Games


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I own Unreal Tournament 2004, and the recent EA/Atari lawsuit against 321 studios has made me look into my rights in making backup copies.

Looking at U.S. Code, Title 17, Chapter 1 on copyright

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1)

that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

(2)

that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

And my UT2k4 EULA:

Restrictions:

(b) You may take a single copy of materials within the package or otherwise related to Licensed Works only a required for backup purposes. (seems like pretty bad grammer, I copied it word for word)

First, it seems to me that I am legally allowed to make a backup, even if the EULA did not allow me to (which it seems to allow). My question is, how can I copy it, because this requires copy-protection circumvention, explicitly illegalized by the DMCA.

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Yes, its strange. I believe I legally have the right to copy it. But to copy it would require a circumvention of copy-protection, which is also illegal under the DMCA, which means there is no plausible way of doing such.

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Heh, well the act still might be illegal. You never know, I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA did it. Don't see why the other evil corporations wont do it either ;).

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Its a grey area, would not worry at all. Go ahead make backups, nothing will happen to you in a million years :p

Just a note this game has Securom protection.

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Its not illegal for you to make a copy of your own legally bought stuff and they cannot sue you for that, but if they sue the people who make the software they stop you from copying it... Its tricky, Sneaky, but it will help combat people sharing games on P2P clients. Which is why companies are winning against 321 in DVD copying and Game Copying and so forth.

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Hmm...Epic Games is somewhat liberal with its policies, like their first patch removed the need for the cd to play. So even though my cd isnt at any imminent danger, I'm probably gonna make a backup just to flaunt the DMCA hahaha.

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