Cracking was a 90s term for pirating software
Cracking is a method of removing undesired features or inclusions from software, often licensing controls, or other anti-consumer features.
Many many many people "cracked" their software who where not eganged in the act of copyright infringement, they legally owned the software but for a number of reasons has no desire to run the invasive software bundled with the game or content they purchased.
I've heard stories of them getting disconnected because they were bumped, and the whole unit goes dead five minutes later. At least it's not immediate.
'software fraud', 'software theft', 'forgery'... hmm well there's a reason I don't work in marketing obviously.
Do you not remember the ads? The "you wouldn't steal a car"?
Piracy is just what they were able to get. Should have hired the bank's PR managers, who turned "failing to do due diligence on a customer's identity" into the customer's problem.
Which ended up being quite funny, because I very much would download a car
Yes, many people. But not “many many many” people. You try to make it sound like cracking to pirate was minority use case.
It was a valid use case, sure, but as big as using torrents to download Linux ISOs.
Cracks helped to fix some serious usability issues (as DRM removal nowadays also helps with), but let's not rewrite history to pretend that was what majority of people used them for.
> A bookseller that seizes the copies or writings of other men without permission.
> PI'RATE, verb transitive To take by theft or without right or permission, as books or writings.
EDIT: I just got out my OED, and sure enough:
> 1668 J. Hancock Brooks String of Pearls (Notice at end), Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practice to steal Impressions of other mens Copies... [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/pirate#etymonline_v_16375
Anti what features? Piracy?
Like parent says, cracking and piracy pair well, but I've had to do it many times just for compatibility reasons, on software I had purchased.
All perfectly understandable to me. But from the perspective of the people designing the anti-something system, wouldn't they call it piracy?
We can argue if piracy is a charitable enough name for bypassing copyright protections but that's irrelevant in terms of whether or not that is the thing the software provider is trying to do.