Ubisoft Violates Consumer Rights.

[thenerdguy]

Ubisoft released the promised Rainbow Six 3 : Raven Shield 1.5 patch yesterday, but they failed to mention their new copy protection scheme.
It turns out that Ubisoft implented code into the RVS 1.5 patch which checks PCs for ANY clone or virtual drive programs and then fails to launch the game if such devices or programs are found. What this has in turn done is disabled thousands of consumers who use programs like Daemon Tools, CloneCD or Alcohol 120% from playing their Ubisoft games even if they have their own physical cds in an actual drive.
After contacting a Technical Support Representative of Ubisoft, I was told that they feel that this is the wrong way to go about anti-piracy measures but they have no say in the matter. They did point out that Ubisoft management claims that they're covered under their EULA but the EULA does not state once that you are not allowed to have virtual drives on your system during play. It only says that you are not allowed to make back up copies.
Irregardless of what the virtual drives or virtual clone programs on your system are for, you will not be able to play Raven Shield with patch 1.5 unless you remove them completely off your system. Again, you can't even play when you have the retail cds in a drive unless those programs / virtual drives are removed. This is a violation of consumer rights - those programs are used for perfectly legal reasons especially at LAN cafes to avoid disc loss.

Link

 

[Lil' Timmy]

personally i couldn't give two shits about raindow six games, but ubisoft is releasing farcry.. yikes. this, unlike the longhorn discussions, if true is a travesty, because all of those programs have legit uses. i think other companies have tried to do similar things, and been shat on until they changed their tune. i imagine ubisoft will probably acquiesce and release another patch if people care enough to complain. or you can ust wait about 30 minutes and i'm sure there will be a hack out.

 

[Valleyman]

Originally posted by Lil' Timmy
personally i couldn't give two shits about raindow six games, but ubisoft is releasing farcry.. yikes. this, unlike the longhorn discussions, if true is a travesty, because all of those programs have legit uses. i think other companies have tried to do similar things, and been shat on until they changed their tune. i imagine ubisoft will probably acquiesce and release another patch if people care enough to complain. or you can ust wait about 30 minutes and i'm sure there will be a hack out.

Or buycot Ubisoft and download the games...

Suckers!

 

[iamironsam]

Just out of curiosity, what are legitimate reasons for having a clone or virtual drive? Or is that not the point here?

 

[Lil' Timmy]

well, for one, there are legit ISOs you can dl (e.g linux). backingup your CDs (since they are impermanent) is always a good idea. that's enough for me.

 

[iamironsam]

I understand that, but as long as you don't have an imaged CD in your drive you're straight right?

Oh, and backing up CDs is technically legal, but most companies don't condone it. They would rather send you a new CD if you need it than have you copy one.

 

[CyberSh33p]

yeah, not all the world is so profit driven. dtools could be used for many opensource apps that may require it.

or, you could be like most people and just be too cheap to burn your downloaded games.

but nevertheless, I think this a disgusting move. They should be smacked righteously.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

check the link above iron. here's a quote

"It turns out that Ubisoft implented code into the RVS 1.5 patch which checks PCs for ANY clone or virtual drive programs and then fails to launch the game if such devices or programs are found. What this has in turn done is disabled thousands of consumers who use programs like Daemon Tools, CloneCD or Alcohol 120% from playing their Ubisoft games even if they have their own physical cds in an actual drive."

edit: i mainly find this offensive b/c of how ineffectual it will probably be. how hard will it be to hack the program to not look for those? i'm pretty sure other companies have wasted time and money coming up with schemes like this, but this alienates legit users for no return, imo.

 

[iamironsam]

I understand what it does Timmy. So if you have a cloned CD in your drive, you can take it out before playing. So what it comes down to is what is the legitimate reson of having a virtual drive? I'm not siding with Ubi or condeming anyone. I'm just trying to understand.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

no, what i was trying to illustrate with the quote is that the "protection" disables the game if just the programs are detected on the computer (even if the cd in the drive is legit). that's my interpretation anyway.

 

[CyberSh33p]

it means if they find any virtual drive programs on your system, like daemon tools, or any cd cloning programs like clone cd, you can not play Rvane shield until you have uninstalled them completely, regardless of if they find a virtual game or copied game in the drives. You can not have them period.

 

[iamironsam]

Well, if you guys claim there are legimate reasons for having these programs then bad Ubisoft, bad. I've personally never heard of a legite reason for having them, so I was just curious.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

it has nothing to do with my claims. there are legit uses for programs like these. how often they're used in that fashion is a different issue, and something i don't have any idea about. the premise is the issue here: that you have a legal program on your computer prevents you from running a game you paid for. should having a cd-writer prevent you from playing games on your pc? and again, this was most likely a waste of time and energy on ubisoft's part, since it's probably trivial to bypass.

 

[Shuzer]

Originally posted by iamironsam
Well, if you guys claim there are legimate reasons for having these programs then bad Ubisoft, bad. I've personally never heard of a legite reason for having them, so I was just curious.

The only legit use I can think of is making an ISO copy of your games and permanently mounting it with Daemoon Tools as a means of not needing to put your CD in the drive to play games that require the cd to be in, that's what I use it for. As much a waste of HD space it is, I hate inserting CDs to play games. And no-CD cracks are annoying and don't work with updates.

Edit: I can't tell you how much of a turn off (lol) for playing games it is for me to HAVE to put the CD in. Often times I'll play a different game because of this. This is why I prefer mounted drives, saves time and annoyance

 

[iamironsam]

I totally agree with that. BF1942 required you to put in the corresponding CD of the game and each of the two expansion packs depending on the map.

That's still not exactly legitimate though, cause it's a violation of EULA. Not that I've got anything against it.

 

[Shuzer]

Originally posted by iamironsam
I totally agree with that. BF1942 required you to put in the corresponding CD of the game and each of the two expansion packs depending on the map.

That's still not exactly legitimate though, cause it's a violation of EULA. Not that I've got anything against it.

Well, as long as you're not distributing the ISO to people I see no harm in it I own any games I currently have mounted (WC3, SC:BW, Quake 3 [Q3 is only mounted because my CD is scratched and when I attempted a full install I'd get an error, so I did a minimal read from CD install] and Trespasser). I had plans to play Trespasser, but it turned out more to be a one time thing

Anyhow, I guess while not completely legit, it's as close as you're going to get.

 

[smwScott]

Well, I can think of many legit uses for it. Take Linux for example, as someone else mentioned. Or every single software program out there that doesn't say you can't back up your CD. It is a legal program. Honestly, if that's the way it is then I would just say to hell with the games that have that, I use those programs a lot and am not going to get rid of them because of some stupid policy.

Although I think your wrong about it scanning your HD though. If it works like the one in KOTOR does then it only scans for background applications and emulated drives. So if you turn it off and deactivate the virtual drive then you're set.

 

[Shuzer]

Originally posted by smwScott
Well, I can think of many legit uses for it. Take Linux for example, as someone else mentioned. Or every single software program out there that doesn't say you can't back up your CD. It is a legal program. Honestly, if that's the way it is then I would just say to hell with the games that have that, I use those programs a lot and am not going to get rid of them because of some stupid policy.

Although I think your wrong about it scanning your HD though. If it works like the one in KOTOR does then it only scans for background applications and emulated drives. So if you turn it off and deactivate the virtual drive then you're set.

I'm not arguing here, or anything.. but.. what would be the point of mounting a Linux CD to a drive letter while running Windows?

 

[smwScott]

You're right, you wouldn't need to. But that's besides the point. Every single program that doesn't explicitly say you can't backup your disc can be used legally with Daemon Tools. And there are thousands of programs like that. In addition to this some people may develop their own software (not more, nor do I use Linux). The point is that the program is legal, and therefor should not be targeted by anti-piracy companies (unless it's found to be running the image at the time I guess).

 

[Letters]

Edit: I can't tell you how much of a turn off (lol) for playing games it is for me to HAVE to put the CD in. Often times I'll play a different game because of this. This is why I prefer mounted drives, saves time and annoyance

Haha... so I'm not the only one! It's always so NICE not to have to put that CD in then hear it moo-ing and crap during the game and then when you forget to take it out and are just opening 'my computer'...

 

[Snakebyte]

There are a lot of legitimate uses for virtual drive programs.

-Many people simply use them so they don't have to deal with CDs, or so they won't get lost or damaged.

-Cybercafes use them to keep CDs from getting stolen, damaged, lost (also so the users don't have to switch CDs constantly).

-People with laptops may not have a CD-ROM drive to run the CD from (like if it's being used for extra battery).

-I've seen people saying that their drives won't run the game (or crash it) so they HAVE to run it from a CD image.

-Here's another example (quoted from spire3660 from that link):
"I make and author home made DVD skate movies of my friends. Before I burn the disc I test it in Daemon-Tools to make sure that it was authored correctly ans play it in Power DVD. Does this make me a pirate?"

 

[[Matt]]

they just released a 1.51 patch

"Ubisoft will be releasing a fix to the recent Raven Shield 1.5 patch.
This fix will address the virtual drive issue that was a result of the
newest version of Safedisc implementation in the 1.5 patch. The problem is
being rectified by reverting to the version of Safedisc that has been on
previous Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield software and patches. We were unaware
of this problem with Safedisc and this is why we made no mention of it in our
Readme.txt file."

seems like they fixed it?

 

[AudioRage]

Or we are lying sacs of shit and don't want to get sued.

Either way, I don't care :naughty: