LOL, yeah Origin is pretty stingy with their free stuff aren't they.
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The current promotion is Red Alert 2, but it looks like they had to temporarily take it down so they're repeating Theme Hospital as a placeholder promotion for now. Good for those who missed it the first time, I guess.
Wow, you guys are loving Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ On the House! The demand is so high that we need some time to cool down our servers. Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ will return to on the house very shortly. Thanks for being patient!
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It would be peculiar to run out of immaterial, digital copies of their own game. More likely is that they have a limit on the number of copies to give away for free.
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Or its possible they had limited 'keys', since older games did have unique CD keys.
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Nah, don't think so. It's their game and it's their platform, I doubt they even need keys to associate a game with an account.
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Some games require a key. There have been games removed from Steam in the past for that reason, Prey being one of them (and a permanent removal from the store as new keys couldn't be generated), and another was a Star Wars game during one of the sales (this was only temporary as the company was able to send more into Steam later that week).
Even if EA own the game, that doesn't mean the game won't need new keys, and that will take some time to get the new keys added. It makes sense since the removal is supposed to be temporary.
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Like I implied below, removing a key-check from an executable is not exactly a big deal.
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Not all publishers do that. Heck, agreements with the developers could even make it difficult for them to make changes without someone coming after them for whatever.
Just understand, this is a likely reason for the temporary removal, and most publishers aren't going to include a scene crack to bypass such.
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I still don't think it would be a big deal, one way or another, but I meant my contribution to this topic to be mostly tongue in cheek and not a strenuous defence of my positions. So... :)
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Unimportant with the point I'm trying to make. There can be requirements in contracts that can limit the publishers, even if they currently own the development team.
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...and most old games have a no-CD crack available that publishers can... borrow. ;)
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It would probably be both, as both parts did something illegal. That is, unless the group comes from a country that does allow you to modify code like this, but still does not allow it to be distributed this way (if my memory serves, it was for a long time allowed over here in Sweden, as long as you did not distribute it yourself, though I'm no legal expert, so I don't know to what an extent you were allowed to modify things to bypass copy protections for personal use only, but you were allowed to make copies of say music CDs and VHS tapes, and bypass any protection they had). And if they do come from a country that allows you to modify code like this, then clearly Rockstar would have done something illegal, but then they would also have to prove that MYTH themselves were distributing it, and that it was not someone who nabbed a CD that they had with the code on, or something like that.
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I am not too sure they committed a crime... They distributed a version of something they own (the executable for the game) as illegally modified by a third party. I don't think the third party can claim intellectual property on their modifications, so I'd say Ubisoft only made a fool of itself.
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Ubisoft still does not own the code that someone else made, even if it was made illegally, and this is one of the cases where the law is quite clear in regards to what you can and can not do. Basically, the author of the code has the same rights to it as the author of any other bit of code, or heck, if you take a photo of something and upload it to the internet you have the same rights to it as the author of the code. It would be just as illegal for Ubisoft to use the code as it would be for them to use your photo in one of their games. If you make it, it's yours.
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Not a lawyer and IP law is a complicated, irrational field. This said, I think I disagree. So you're telling me if a take a DVD of Pulp Fiction and recut it in chronological order (something a warez scene group did back then) I have rights over my creation? I don't think so. It's completely derivative and unauthorized. Also, what rights would I have? The moral one of attribution or material rights of selling, licensing, renting my work? Consider that there's no cumpulsory licensing model, so what would I owe to Miramax, Tarantino and so on? Nothing? You see how implausible that is? Sure, a picture of a Coke can is yours, but this is just not the same.
Also, we were originally talking about a binary file that has been patched, there's no source code to speak of.
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You are confusing different things here. If you re-cut scenes, all you've effectively done is re-shuffled something (and actually, if you're able to get it to count as "fair use", then you own the rights to this re-cut), but you've not created anything of your own.
If you on the other hand were to splice in some scenes of your own, then those scenes would be yours. The company that made the movie would not be allowed to re-release its movie with your scenes in it, even if you're not allowed to spread your copy, because it contains content that someone else made. Basically, your version can only be spread if you and the company that made the original movie, agrees to it.
And creating a crack for a game is like splicing in scenes of your own. You're adding code to it.
Also, we were originally talking about a binary file that has been patched, there's no source code to speak of.
Does not matter, it's still code. Code owned by someone.
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Derivative work doesn't automatically enjoy copyright protection. When it does, yes, the rights on the work are shared and an agreement is needed. I don't think a no-CD crack would be considered derivative work, without even considering it's the product of an illegal action (generally speaking illegal actions do not grant rights).
Also, I am not sure a patch replacing bits in a binary file is code that someone owns, but I might be wrong.
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maybe we ll create a new topic like free keys or somethimg ?????????
and everyone will add there information of rfee titles ?????
not creating a new theme !??!?!?!!?!??!
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Ahh love this game! I played it when they gave it away last time. Definitely worth picking up if you didn't get it before :-)
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I hope after running out of C&C:Red Alert 2 keys, EA will think about why the hell did they kill C&C with that C&C 4 abomination, and they lost a lot of $$$ by not releasing that frostbite engine based C&C. (i hope EA will someday stop being a moneyw.ore and will let their devs do awesome games again.)
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Did you actually read the text on the page?
Wow, you guys are loving Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ On the House! The demand is so high that we need some time to cool down our servers. Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ will return to on the house very shortly. Thanks for being patient!
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Yeah I think they just had to load in more keys for it.
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Actually I am pretty happy i saw this :)
Since i am looking for this game for a long time :D
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https://www.origin.com/en-ie/store/free-games/on-the-house
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