06-18-2003, 09:58 PM
Quote:But that brings me to an interesting point I was pondering just the other day... If you can legally have a back-up copy of media for personal use, such as movies and music, wouldn't this extend to video games? And if this were so, wouldn't it be illegal to require the use of the CD in the CD-Drive to play the game, since any copies would then be rendered useless without the original CD in the drive, thus making copies for personal use useless? I'm not sure of the law in the area, but it seems like it could be argued in court in favor of the user, IMO.
I'm sure it varies from country to country, but my understanding of the law in the UK is that with any media of that sort, one is entitled to make 1 back-up copy for personal usage, of the few EULA's tht I've studied in detail, I remember a point sticking out about being allowed to keep one copy as a backup. Although IIRC this was actually on an office-y application rather than a game, I can't see it being different. Also, my understanding of this is that the backup may be on any media you wish, floppy disk, tape or, indeed your hard drive.
Quote:And if this were so, wouldn't it be illegal to require the use of the CD in the CD-Drive to play the game, since any copies would then be rendered useless without the original CD in the drive, thus making copies for personal use useless?
eh? I'm very confused, I'll assume that your saying that it would be illegal to make it impossible to make a working copy. To which I have no reply
Or, are you saying that making people use a disk therefore makes it pointless keeping a copy? no, unless you're a D2 addict and the disk's 'case' is your CD drive, it's quite worthwhile to make a copy of your disk, keep the original safely in its case, and play from the copy, thus when that wears out, you no longer have a backup and can make a new one to play from, saving you having to replace damaged disks, which can be costly. (how I wish I'd done that before I scratched my D2x disk last november). The part about a back-up doesn't usually stipulate which one you have to keep as the backup.
Of course the old-ish addage still applies: "you don't sue poor people" - unless you are using a method of keeping the data on a comp to play without owning a CD, and are doing it on a big scale, blizz are unlikely to give 2 hoots. Note i said unlikely, not won't. However, I've never heard them complaining about people copying their D1 CD's to HD to faster loading.
original poster:
are you playing classic? with the expansion, you can install all the files you need on your hard disk and only have the CD in the drive to play the game (and it loads the music, but the disk's in the drive anyway). I was under the impression a similar system existed with classic. Someone who actually played classic? can you confirm/deny?
Also, would I be correct in guessing that if one has 2 CD drives and keeps each disk in a drive at once, then the game will just look for the drive with the disk it wants - thus someone with 2 drives has an unfair advantage over someone with 1, this really just balances people out - particulalry in the area of WP-load PK'ing (do people do that in classic? [if indeed you are playing classic])
wait... this has created more questions than it has answered. :blink:
-Bob