{{Refimprove, date=March 2008 A No-disc crack, No-CD crack or No-DVD crack is an

executable In computing, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), instructi ...

file or a special "byte patcher" program which allows a user to circumvent certain

Compact Disc and DVD copy protection CD/DVD copy protection is a blanket term for various methods of copy protection for compact disc, CDs and DVDs. Such methods include Digital rights management, DRM, CD-checks, Dummy Files, illegal tables of contents, over-sizing or over-burning the ...

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 consists ...

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 comput ...

DVD-ROM The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

. This act is a form of

software cracking Software cracking (known as "breaking" mostly in the 1980s) is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software (software cracker), especially copy protection featur ...

. 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 Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

websites or

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

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

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 us ...

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 p ...

such as

Daemon Tools DAEMON Tools is a virtual drive and optical disc authoring program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. Overview DAEMON tools was originally a successor of ''Generic SafeDisc emulator'' and incorporated all of its features. The program claims ...

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 services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

(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 Windows Virtual PC (successor to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, and Connectix Virtual PC) is a Hardware virtualization, virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version f ...

VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by ...

, 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
/ref>

References

Warez Digital rights management circumvention software Copyright infringement of software

See also

References