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The Lik-Sang Saga Continues
The sage of Lik-Sang has continued with Dan Gillmor's recent visit to the region. He and Alex Kampl met and talked for a while. The comparasions are good ones - and ones that are clearly enough drawn that everyone should see the loss of their rights.
The fact of the matter is, as long as there is a disabling technology (Macrovision et al), there will be a re-enabling technology (Macrovision Disabler) which renders this useful again.
The reason why there is so much money in piracy is because the entertainment industry is creating opportunities for piracy to make money. If DVDs weren't (a) encrypted, (b) so expensive, then there wouldn't be so much of a call for ways round the problem, and these semi-legal* systems wouldn't have to be made.
*semi-legal: Illegality under US law is constantly under doubt; such actions in other countries are often legal.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
The article talks compares this to auto makers authorizing repair only at specific places. Such a practice will be shot down immediately. But in case of the e-world, the big cartels have hyped this up as a specific domain where rules are different. And the law makers are also beginning to see this as such. Unless we break this mindset of the e-world as something different and obscure such practices will go unnoticed. This will keep happening until the common man, the silent majority does not start using infotech in daily life. For example if such a practice came in a budget automobile, there would be an outcry, because many many people use it, but in case of DVD, a small percentage of the users will ever go to Europe to Buy DVDs. We need to go a long way.. and going by the incresing restrictions on internet.. this will take a long time. No matter how hard the detracters try, this revolution will come and nobody can do anything about it :)
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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No one would make a significant profit on a modchip designed only for using Linux.
95%, at least, of modchips are used for backing up games/getting around regional protection/playing warez copies, and a defense for that type of usage (esp. warez) would not be feasible imho.
The Japanese software/hardware thing aside, there are other uses for cheat devices. Personally, when i buy a game (my favourite genre being RPGs), i play it as a challenge, an interactive story that desires my hand in completing it. However, once i've beaten the game, and got the satisfaction of completing it myself, i may want to play it again. When i play Final Fantasy VIII for the six hundredth time, am i playing it to relive the billion annoying random battles that i had to spend hours on defeating insignificant enemies? No, i'm playing it to relive the story. Using a cheat device here to maybe boost my attack strength, or give me all the spells, or give me quick level gain, is not disrespecting the developers. I paid my money, i got the satisfaction of beating it once. Now i want to relive the story, and i don't want to be bothered by the less-than-stellar parts of the game.
Besides that. This isn't the way i would do it it, but if someone felt so inclined to purchase a $60 video game and cheat the whole way through, fine. Let them. They paid 60 fucking dollars for it. Maybe the people that are ultimately "behind" the game will object, saying that that's not what it was intended for... but to Nintendo, Sony, Square, Sega, etc., IT'S JUST ANOTHER 60 DOLLARS.
As for piracy... there's two sides to this. Mod chips != piracy. More often than not, they do, yes. But this is like the whole RIAA thing and disabling CDs on computers and all that jazz. Just because some people rip the CDs that they buy and distribute them to millions of people doesn't mean the legit people like me, who rip their music to play on their PC because they don't feel like swapping through hundreds of CDs, should have to pay for that. The same goes for pirating. Just because there's a bunch of pirates out there ripping off Sony for their games doesn't mean i shouldn't be allowed to buy an import game and play it in my modded PlayStation. The money goes back to Sony anyway, why does it matter?
You've picked up some misconceptions about mod chips, ace. Not everybody is a bad guy.
It doesn't matter how it's marketed, it only matters how it's used. If the presecution can show that its' primary use is STILL warez then it can be deemed illegal. Ever wonder why you can't buy those handy lock jimmys the cops use? They can be marketed as an alternative method fo ropening your car when you have a brain fart and lock the keys inside it. They could also, and most likely will be, used mainly for stealing cars, hence their not being made avialable on the open market.
... but it doesn't. Companies have used their power over the legislative process to get the best of all worlds... for them. So now we can neither (legally) copy our own software/music NOR get the kind of backup and exchange service you mention.
So I think I can understand why the original poster was a little disgusted with licensing.
Sean
Ever wonder why people on /. just make shit up with no substantiation? There are multiple non-infringing uses for lockpicks, "Slim Jims" and the like. It certainly is not just the police who can own or use them. For example, you can buy one right here, long with other lock-defeating devices. It is not illegal to own lockpicks or a Slim Jim, it is just illegal to use them to aid in the commission of a crime such as burglary. Just like it should not be illegal to sell modchips, it should only be illegal to use if you are using it to play pirated games. There are substantial non-infringing uses, I hope the courts see that and allow the sale of the chips to continue.
Enigma
It would indeed be great to buy (the right to watch) a movie on a DVD, and for little or no extra cost, be able to copy it to video tape to watch elsewhere in the house. For such a future to exist, all your entertainment media systems would have to talk to each other to determine that any given "license" wasn't being used in more places in your house than you have licenses for.
Better yet, instead of multiple DVD, VCR and CD players around the house, have a central server that "checks out" a movie to the living room TV and won't allow it to play in the bedroom until it finishes, or stops, in the living room.