"Knights of Honor" by Black Sea Studios/Sunflower contains a copy-protection that seems to remove the file daemon.dll from our harddisks. This file is part of the DAEMON Tools software, an application with which you can emulate certain copy-protections. Futuremore, the game requires a "burning software clean" system. So what does this mean for us? Is it legal to force customers to uninstall software? What will come next?

As I started the game the following pop up appeard "Conflict, please deactivate or uninstall BlindWrite/CopyToDVD Patin-Couffin driver". After I uninstalled Patin-Couffin 24 (I"m using BlindWrite 5.2.5.138) I had to unlock DAEMON.DLL otherwise the game won"t start. I unlocked it and was finally able to play the game. After reboot I got this error message "C:\Windows\daemon.dll error", after checking the directories daemon.dll was gone.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10603


--Welcome to a permanent lifetime boycott Black Sea Studios/Sunflower, you have just as much right to violate my PC as you do to take away my guns.

I would have returned the disc as 'defective' and got a refund.

This is just complete bullshit and I refuse to put up with such nonsense.

I also suggest bombarding Black Sea Studios with complaints about such a practice.

"I would have returned the disc as 'defective' and got a refund."

Try it over here. the dumb wankers in GAME and HMV won't let you return any PC game for any reason.

If it happens with Dawn of War, I'll be pisssed that I've spent £35 for a trio of targets.

Why not spread this news around like the gas boycott was? sent it to every message board possible, and even news stations!

It's one thing for a program to refuse to install if other burning software is present, but it's most likely illegal to covertly corrupt other applications.  
This game should be blacklisted as malware in virus definitions!

Wasn't there a computer misuse act passed? It was to stop staff from doing damage or deletion to files on a pc.  If so, isn't this company in violation of the law?
That driver (daemon.dll) can be used for legitimate reasons as well. Something is not right here, and the company should eventually get into a lot of trouble for doing crap like this. In the meantime, I'd avoid their products like the plague!  

We should send this info to CD and DVD burning application makers and let them fight the game makers; they have the money we consumers do not. Or even use the US gov't since their action may be illegal.  

Such copy protections are the reason honest people have to resort to pirating games!
With a proper crack, you can have any cd burning app installed and no other program files will be affected.

Also, for those that must install this game, you should use a tool like VMware to run a virtual clean windows install and this game. Then the game can delete any files it wants, and won't matter to the real OS (which will keep all .dll files remaining intact) -- isn't that right, goldenpi?

[Note: all of the foregoing points have been made in other forums.]

Always pay by credit card, and if the merchant will not refund your money, dispute the chatrges through the credit card company. You usually win with defective product claims.

I would return the product as defective. The packaging should have told you to delete files, or it will prior to installation. Just on principles, I'd return it anyways, and let everyone else know about your problems with the software.

This is amazing. Software that behaves in this manner is generally considered malware.

I agree, we should boycott this company. And yes, I would consider software that damages the computer it is installed on to be defective, and I would demand a refund.

Company info, including postal mailing address (they're located in Bulgaria), email
address and phone numbers can be found here: http://games.ign.com/objects/616/616552.html

Anyone belonging to Slashdot? It would be
a good idea to post an article there. The
unwelcome publicity from such a linking
would probably effectively DDoS them off
the web (the Slashdot effect as it is known.)

"With an effective 'crack', you can have any cd burning app installed and no other program files will be affected."

And if there ever was justification for a 'crack' to modify software, this is a prime example.
In the case of the product we're disussing, it shouldn't even be called a 'crack' -- it would be a 'workaround'!

What's the name of this software "protection"? Anyone know the names of the programs that deny access based on a CD/DVD burners prescence?

Can anyone drop a lawsuit on them because it "interfres with legal software". Imagine: What would happen if some program deleted windows dlls? That´s right, it would be called a virus or a "malintentioned" program. So why not take these Black Sea Studios to court on this?

Someone check with the EFF on this...

This sort of thing is one of the problems I have with games that are coming out now. I will no longer buy a game by EA. Simply there is spyware within the game.

The spyware has a funny iniate file name starting with a ~ symbol. The firewall asks if it is ok to run this file. I always say no, only to have it go ahead anyway.

This sort of thing I don't appreciate. We are talking a game that was paid for and you come home to run it only to find this inside. I particularly hate spyware. I refuse to fund EA to do such and have it run on my computer.

Had the same sort of thing with Kodak and a picture program that came with the camera. No where does it mention that such is in the program, only that you can't alter their program is in the ULA. Fine, I don't use the program now that I know it is there. It was a bitch to remove from the computer once it was installed.

As far as I am concerned these are damaged goods. Had I known this was in those before installation, simply I would not have put it on the computer. Nor would I have purchased either the camera or the game. I would have purchased something else from another maker.

Because it is not mentioned, you can be sure it is known that it is on there and it is also known that it is a shady way of doing things.

I won't do business with such folks when I know about it, anymore than I will fund the RIAA's little terror war...

And the more the news gets out, the better.

Wet1, what game was it? I have quite a few of EA's games and have never heard of what you speak of. Perhaps you have a virus?

There will soon be a new entry on my website, detailing this particular system and with a great deal of complaining about the company.

Given time like the RIAA, someone will send DoS attack to this kind of companies that do this.

It works both ways

Far Cry has a similar problem. It refuses to work with disc imaging software and keeps on asking for the original CD (the one that's already in the drive) if you have software like Blindwrite on your computer.

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War isn't that bad but also has issues running depending on what burning software is open at the time you try to start it.

This is (1) annoying if not dowright unacceptable (2) an incentive to apply "noCD" patches to the games you own, making you seek and learn tricks used by pirates. I think it's a great policy to force people to learn how to "pirate" your games. Maybe next time, they won't buy the CD...

Last but not least, most stores don't accept returns for open games. I wonder what the options are if you cab't get it to work on your computer. I've never heard of annyone returning such a game directly to the company that made it. Or someone suing them the same way records companies are being sued in Europe for making copy-protected CD that don't play in any standard CD players (something the logo "CD" on the disc implies).

dream@blackseastudios.com info@blackseastudios.com

Send your hate mail now.

I don't play many games, but this sorta practice is sick. Go get em folks! Slashdotting it is a great idea.

In other words, these companies could be shut down under the Induce Act because they're inducing us to get a crack for our legally purchased software, which is still considered illegal by some twist of logic.

Yeah, it's so very true that stores will NOT give you a refund on games, not even Wal-Mart. They make you get an exact copy of the game in question, then throw up signs asking you to make sure you meet the system requirements just to get around that little problem. And some stores instruct their employees to unwrap the replacements just to prevent you from going to another store (of the same chain) and getting a full refund. I know, I used to work for one such store.

A new list should be created for these "corrupted" games so that these companies can be avoided. And if you ask me, it sounds like these companies could be sued for malicious conduct in the form of unwanted removal of files from ones system.

My post above was for Sfolivier for far cry.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=1&u=/ap/20041006/ap_on_go_co/internet_spyware

Apparently Congress doesn't like spyware, either, except what ththe fbi and their "friends" use. I can't believe they only had 60 bad files, though.

ugh. the fbi...