that can change at any time if Valve bothers to patch it
Sure. And DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch too
it’s technically piracy
No it's not. It doesn't even legally count as copyright infringement. You are legally allowed to crack your own legit copy of software. The only thing possibly in the way is the EULA of the software (almost all of them have a possibly-illegal no reverse engineering clause)
it takes effort the average person isn’t going to do
The average person isn't going to be backing up their games in the first place.
DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch
Only if you download the update for that game.
The patch to the Steam DLL could impact every game, and it still requires the user to patch the binary. Steam updating the binary to patch out the fix has a much bigger impact than a game adding DRM later.
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
And yes, the average person does "back up" their games by having a copy of the installer in a Downloads directory or maybe a separate drive. They're probably not going to use a NAS or cloud service, but that's probably still more likely than applying a patch to a binary.
Sure. And DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch too
No it's not. It doesn't even legally count as copyright infringement. You are legally allowed to crack your own legit copy of software. The only thing possibly in the way is the EULA of the software (almost all of them have a possibly-illegal no reverse engineering clause)
The average person isn't going to be backing up their games in the first place.
Only if you download the update for that game.
The patch to the Steam DLL could impact every game, and it still requires the user to patch the binary. Steam updating the binary to patch out the fix has a much bigger impact than a game adding DRM later.
I'm pretty sure you're not, though there's potential for some gray area. Here's 17 U.S. Code § 1201, (a) (1) (A):
And yes, the average person does "back up" their games by having a copy of the installer in a Downloads directory or maybe a separate drive. They're probably not going to use a NAS or cloud service, but that's probably still more likely than applying a patch to a binary.