ZipCrypto

[argv]

Actually, it does, since those materials aren't your 'personal' materials.

Are you accusing me of stealing them?

[zeland]

Could we settle on doing a Windows-N thing (Windows w/o IE). Code the program in such a way that in the absence of the datapak ZIP file, look for the datapak folder. The datapak folder will have just have blank place holder files in place of the copyrighted music.

Alternately, have a datapak folder with Basilisk owned assets and have all the copyrighted music in a musicpak ZIP file that the user can delete/rename for extra loading speed.

[argv]

I have the suspicion that the encryption isn't only there to protect third-party music. BW hinted at wanting to protect Basilisk Games' own assets as well. If this is the case, you'll get no such compromise.

Of course, he also hinted that it's exceedingly easy to find the key to the datapak, which would seem to suggest that the encryption is only there as a token gesture to satisfy Basilisk Games' contractual obligations for said third-party music.

On another note, I should point out that, if I recall correctly, the ogg music files in the datapak are not only compressed by the Vorbis codec, but are also compressed again with ZIP's Deflate compression. This will not save much space, but it will make decompression take much longer.

[Gorgon Rider]

Actually, it does, since those materials aren't your 'personal' materials.

Are you accusing me of stealing them?

Uh, no. But just because you bought the right to play the game doesn't mean you own the music that goes with it. That's the whole copyright issue right there.

Note: I'm not saying I agree with it. Just pointing out how it works.

[argv]

Copyright, as the name implies, concerns copying. Extracting datapak assets for my own use is not copying.

[AstralWanderer]

Actually, it does, since those materials aren't your 'personal' materials.

Not sure what the thinking is there, but copyright deals with one thing only - the right to make a copy. Once you have an authorised copy, what you do with it in private is outside the scope of copyright legislation (except for making further copies).

Which is why software programs come with EULAs trying to add additional restrictions on usage (which are often legally unenforceable or invalid but that's definitely another topic...).

[obiwan]

I need to side with argv here. Gorgon Rider: your argument makes little sense.

Copyright has little to do with this. It does not prevent you from using the music or any other part of the game in any way you like. It only prevents you from making duplicates. Especially if you are going to give them to other people.

Now, it could be that some software license claims to prevent us from doing something else with the eschalon binaries. However, i cannot remember agreeing to such a license. I do not even know where it is. Also, luckily i reside in a country where such licenses do not have any value anyway.

So as far as I am considered I own my own personal EB2 copy. And i am going to do with it whatever i want. Which is play it again

If you fall in the big media trap that you only pay for a loan, well, perhaps some countries indeed sank deep enough to have made this into law. But I suggest you stand up against that, that way lies madness.