Ubisoft ain't so Bad

[janh]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Whether morally right or not (I don't like it) most countries now have laws on the books forbidding you from modifying software of any type to defeat DRM. I choose not to break the law, so I wouldn't consider using the cracked exe file.

Strictly speaking, most copyright laws are probably much more specific than that, but therefore upon loopholes. I can speak for the German law text, but I assume many European formulations at least will sound quite similar. It forbids the "circumvention of a functional copy protection mechanism for the purpose of creating duplicate copies".

Now that offers two legal and accepted loopholes. (A) What is a functional copyright mechansims? This has been tested in law suits already, but it leaves it up to the judge to decide whether he considers a specific mechanism functional, or not. Mechanisms need to be enough sturdy to be functional (i.e. not easy to circumvent).
(B) "For the purpose of creating a duplicate". Now if you edit a easily modifiable text config file, you already have installed your copy -- so no duplication. So this law does not apply here.

In the German legal system, you would probably, or surely, not be prosecuted for editing that file. However, this would have to be tested in a case first to get a general judgement. Even if it would fall under the copyright infringement category, the punishment would be dependent on the damage you did (there will be a differentiation between a civil case for the damage reparation (if a software company would press it), and a separate legal one for the copyright infrigement).
For the damage reparation, the software company would for example have to proof that you caused lost sales, and would have to proof how many -- that would in case of proven guilt (besides the cost of the judge, defendant and case fees) be the penalty to pay. Most likely the judge would even correct that penalty down to match your income so you have a real chance to pay it off in a certain time frame. Now since you paid for your original already, and did not cause any external damage, there is no damage value. And state attorneys are too much in demand for bigger cases that news papers already print for years that they would not accept such a small case.