[citation][nom]swamprat[/nom]It's more like you making a sandwich, someone stealing it and putting it in their own cling film (I'm not sure how much effort was required for the crack thing, I assume that when compared to the effort for making the games it was comparable value as cling film is to a sandwich, rather than being like a nice sandwich box compared to a sandwich) and then you taking the sandwich back, still in its cling film. Taking the cling film is wrong, but somewhat less so than taking the sandwich. Yes I know that breaching intangible rights is not directly comparable with theft of tangible things, before anyone starts on that.BWMerlin - you seem to be overlooking the comparative values of what was copied; other than that, yes fair point. As it is, the 'loss of income' for the writer of the crack should be more than amply covered by the damage they caused / aided in the first place.Actually - has anyone checked in the EULA to see if the publisher retains all rights to any modifications made to the software? If that's the case then it wouldn't actually be illegal to use the work as their own - stupid to do, but not illegal.[/citation]
Well, I didn't mention the NoCD crack, I mentioned the music only.
So let's have a more relevant comparison.
It's as ridiculous as Paul McCartney being charged with theft for downloading the White Album.
His, he wrote it, he owns the rights to it, probably still has the master disk in a frame in his living room - doesn't matter if it got uploaded to a torrent site or not he can do with it what the hell he pleases.