Ubisoft found Pirating the Pirates.

Have you ever bought a game, and then not managed to get it working on your machine? Have you ever had to resort to downloading a 'no-cd' crack to get it to run? I know I have, and I know that the games industry considers me a massive pirate due to buying their software, then running it in a way they don't like.

Which makes this thread over on the Ubisoft forums all the more entertaining. When faced with a version of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 that wasn't working on lots of machines, ubisoft did exactly what you would have done. They went and got a no-cd crack off the internet and released it as an official patch.

Here's the crackers code in the patch (apparently the name tag gives it away):

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I'm not condoning piracy, even when you're pirating the pirates, but what I do like here, is that I'm sure everyone here has "pirated" in the black and white eyes of Ubisoft. But you know what you did wasn't wrong. You know you're not a pirate just because you didn't want to put your disk in your machine to get your game to work.

And today, by stealing that code, Ubisoft have acknowledged that piracy, at least when it concerns them, does indeed have shades of grey.

All respect goes to neilthecellist for revealing the story and Oby for bringing it to my attention.

If you feel like it, DIGG THIS HERE

UPDATE 4:34 AM: I've some more info on what the crack actually was for. According to MD_Sennet:
The Reloaded crack was required so the Direct-2-Drive customers could apply the new 1.03 patch, since the vanilla version of the patch UBI has on their website will not work on the D2D installations of Vegas2.


2nd UPDATE: Monday; July 21, 2008, Arstechnica has a good editorial about all this.

20 comments:

Ben Jones said...

http://torrentfreak.com/ubisofts-no-cd-answer-to-drm-080718/

Might help get some intrest. Also asked Bryony Benoy at Ubisoft for some infomation, nothing yet.

MRx said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

They aren't "pirating the pirates". In order to "pirate" you must slew something to a consumer at a cheaper (or free) price. Ubisoft simply copied the crack. Pirating is not appropriate to describe their action in this case.

Anonymous said...

Actually, anonymous, that's the gayest understanding of piracy I've ever come across. The title is accurate, and precise. Do you know the difference between accurate and precise? Doesn't really matter now.

If you were ever a pirate(which you weren't), you would know the code. And the code is that you don't take another's crack and relabel it your own. That is the ultimate in homosexual taco slapping strap-on newbtardness. The second rule is if the software is any good, you buy it. If you take somebody else's crack/proggie without credit you get nuked in the real world. Really, it's called "nukeing" because you suck that much. And Ubisoft now sucks even in pirate circles.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Ubisoft is on very shaky grounds. Whoever wrote that nocd crack owns the rights to it. It's their intellectual property. Theoretically, they could even sue Ubisoft for taking it without permission, and using it commercially.

Of course, I really doubt this will happen for obvious reasons. The crack itself is probably a violation of the DMCA, so the author would be opening themselves up to litigation if they tried such a stunt.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the first anonymous post, this title is inaccurate! How is making a (apparently, no-cd?) crack for a game related to pirating? I guess the crack could be used FOR pirating, but their also good for legit users.

Either way, Ubisoft should really have taken the time to fix this themselves.

Unknown said...

To those of you that think this is pirating: I urge you to take a look at the EULA for the game. While I don't owna copy and am not familiar with the terms and conditions, many companies specify that any software designed to interact with their code (primarily by copy/editing data saved in memory, or by modifying the game's files) it becomes the exclusive property of the company.

Unethical and moronic? Undoubtedly. Illegal? Probably not.

Anonymous said...

Just a reminder: the EULA is not law. In fact, the whole concept of a EULA has never been proven in court. How can you agree to a contract when you are not allowed to see the contract before paying?

But that issue aside, what you imply is ridiculous. My operating system interacts with the game files by modifying them. Does Ubisoft now own Windows?

Anonymous said...

Actually, I hope that more of the complaints about/toward Ubisoft go less toward "Eww, you used dirty cracks, shame on you!", and more instead toward "See? Cracks can be very necessary, so stop condemning them if you yourself use them!"

This could make a very good case for people who use such resources in a responsible manner (namely, folks who pay for the game, or try-then-buy). Laws really do try to draw too hard-and-fast a line between "pirates", and people who are just trying the game or trying to get what they paid for to work. It's time it be re-examined, and this would be a perfect opportunity for just that.

I just hope enough folks commenting on this story (on this and other areas) will take that approach, rather than further demonizing "crackers".

The bottom-line: Ubisoft is disgusting for being hypocrites, not just for using a crack.

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