EFF takes comments on your experience with the DMCA

Ever tried watching a non-US DVD in a US DVD player and weren’t able to? Ever been blocked by a copy protection scheme with your own software or media? Let the EFF know! My comments:

I bought a copy of Unreal Tournament 2003, a video game for the PC. It comes on 3 CDs. After you load it onto your computer, in order to play it, you need to insert the 1st CD. Every time you want to play it you have to shuffle through your CD collection to find that 1st CD.

* You can’t disable this CD check without using a “no-cd crack” program, which is illegal under the DMCA.

* Using a “no-cd crack” program prevents you from being able to update the software because the update mechanism checks to see if you’ve modified the original binaries.

I play a lot of games, and a lot of them have similar “cd checks” built into them. It is EXTREMELY annoying to have to search through my CD collection whenever I want to play a game, however I would be breaking the law if I modified a game that I owned to not check for the CD upon startup.