{{Refimprove, date=March 2008 A No-disc crack, No-CD crack or No-DVD crack is an executable file or a special "byte patcher" program which allows a user to circumvent certain Compact Disc and DVD copy protection schemes. They allow the user to run

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

without having to insert their required

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both com ...

or DVD-ROM. This act is a form of software cracking. No-CD cracks specific to a variety of games and other software distributed on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM can be found on the Internet from various reverse engineering websites or file sharing networks. No-CD cracks have legal uses, such as creating backups of legally owned software (a user right by law in many countries) or avoiding the inconvenience of placing a CD or DVD-ROM in the drive every time the software is being used, although they can also be used to circumvent laws in many countries by allowing the execution of full versions of non-legally owned applications or time-limited trials of the applications without the original disc. In addition to cracked executable files or byte patchers, CD protection can sometimes be thwarted by producing a

mini image A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is usua ...

containing only enough of the software's CD-ROM contents needed to bypass protection. This image can then be mounted with a

disk image emulator Virtual disk and virtual drive are software components that emulate an actual disk storage device. Virtual disks and virtual drives are common components of virtual machines in hardware virtualization, but they are also widely used for various pu ...

such as Daemon Tools to "trick" the user's computer's

Operating System An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

(OS) into believing that said disk image is a physical optical disk inserted into a physical optical drive attached to the computer. As a side benefit, data from mounted disk images generally load much faster than a real disk would because the data is stored on the hard drive. Some programs, however, attempt to discover such disk image emulators and will refuse to work if one is found. Other programs exist that attempt to hide the presence of disk image emulators from such protected software. However, if some of the software was running in a virtualization suite such as Windows Virtual PC or VirtualBox, the guest OS will further be confused into thinking it is the "physical" disc. See the below excerpt from United States Copyright Law in regards to computer software.

§ 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs (a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. — Not withstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful. U.S. Copyright Office - Copyright Law: Chapter 1
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References

Warez Digital rights management circumvention software Copyright infringement of software

See also

References