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More on Microsoft vs. Lik Sang
Levendis47 writes "CNET's News.com is running an article on Microsoft's legal manuevers which have successfully shut down the Lik Sang ecomm store where they've been selling various game system mod chips including the OpenXBox Mod Chip. This leads me to two questions (and I'll admit my ignorance, faux or not, in order to get discussion on this topic): 1) When a customer purchases an XBox (or any game system for that matter) are you intrinsically "signing" an end-user agreement in the purchase that makes modding the device illegal? 2) Could a non-profit org setup an effort to have mod chips produced and "distributed" at the cost of production w/o legal repurcussions? (i.e. would not making a profit on XBox's hardware mods protect you from their wrath?) 3) I understand the whole DRM aspect of mod'ing for playing copied games, BUT, what about legit gray-hacks like the Mandrake Linux XBox project and such? It would seem to me that in the long haul, Microsoft would support such efforts because they could sell more devices (and potentially more software if they licensed an opensource validation library)... "
" Selling the hardware is normally a loss-leader..". html
Um, no. Read: http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02
What if it's a new car, and you modify it so that it fails to comply with emission regulations? Modding a car is not the best example - a modded car can be illegal to drive.. or worse, kill people. A modded x-box isn't likely to have such an extreme effect (unless, maybe, you play for 86 hours straight..?)
A man has been arrested to taking a sledge hammer to an Xbox after Microsoft said, "modification and disassembly of the XBox hardware is against the EULA"
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I no sign no agrement. No understand english. I live where english speak nobody.
People aren't moding Xboxes with bazookas.
Even though most microsoft products should be modded by a bazooka...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
You could probably get away with that.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
You make it sound like MS has a right to profit. That would be like saying I have the right to happiness. I have the right to pursue happiness, MS has a right to pursue profit, there are no guarantees.
If MS has a bad business model that is their own fucking problem, not the moders!
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
So if you can't do X, all you have left is a "box" - what's the point of that?
btw, I thought we haven't given in to the whole "hardware license" thing just yet, and maybe, just maybe, we can still buy something and do whatever with it, without the company telling us what we can and cannot do with something we supposedly own (and owning is something I like to do after I give away money)
sic transit gloria mundi
>The case in question is not frivalous. MS is
:)
>correct. The mod chips are illegal under current
>law. They are circumvention devices. They contain
>copyrighted code. The names probably even infringe
>on trademark.
I have an idea. Let's get Compaq to make a drop in replacement but non-infringing XBox BIOS chip. The user could have complete control over the whole XBox setup and security process.
They, Compaq/HP, would need to make getting into the BIOS easier though... I never can remember the exact keystrokes on a Compaq.
No really!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
The consumer should not be punished, i.e. limited in action and thought, because Microsoft took a risk and it is now losing money. They took the risk, not us.
This is an example of a company that is failing at something trying to use the might of the legal system to protect themselves. Why is it that so many people are upset over the perception that Microsoft's competitors are using the law to protect themselves(with the assumption that they cannot compete) yet many of those same people would support Microsoft doing the same thing(with the assumption that they cannot compete)?
Hypocrasy at its best.
Mike