Back in 2010, Autodesk didn't have a free "Fusion 360 for Hobbyists" or "AutoCAD LT for Students." Your choices were:

Furthermore, by 2012, Autodesk had learned its lesson. They introduced the patches that specifically blacklisted the X-Force algorithm. Updating AutoCAD 2010 to Service Pack 2 would often brick the crack, forcing users to roll back or find a "hardcoded" DLL patch.