[mambodog]

The crack protection described in the article was based on the game code being modified... most PC games these days don't need to be modified to be pirated, they are just duplicated accurately enough to appear identical to the original media (usually through drive emulation, ie. daemon-tools). Additionally, modern copy protection also usually incorporates a black list of drive emulation utilities, but these have always been circumvented by pirates. When a new copy-protection tech comes out it often takes a few months to be overcome (eg. starforce) but it is not feasible to bring out new copy protection tech for every game, so if its 'off-the-shelf' chances are its as good as cracked.