Slashdot Mirror
Mod Chips Legal In the UK
An anonymous reader writes "Good news out of the UK! Techdirt reports that an appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling and has now said that mod chips do not violate copyright laws. The case involved a mod chip seller, who imported mod chips for the XBox from Hong Kong and would sell the chips or mod the Xbox's himself. He was charged with copyright infringement and found guilty by a lower court. The appeals court has dismissed all charges, however."
I couldn't find anything on a news site I trust yet, but from the defendants front page it looks like they are happy! Not that I don't trust slashdot or anything, but a little confirmation is nice...
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
More over,
DRM isn't copy protection, any one (with the tech) can copy/clone the disk physically and it will work just fine. It's playback protection.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
At the risk of being accused of trolling Microsoft have the right to decide whatever rules they like about access to Xbox live.
They own it and operate it, so yes I agree, they do.
Whether such bannings would be considered fair by anyone else is beside the point, they can do what they want. We are not under any obligation to use Xbox live.
Provided the modding crowd is sufficiently small, they can do it without even effecting the majority of the community.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Generally the modchip itself is not illegal (Well, me being in UK), but often to play copied games they use a modified version of the original bios/software/whatever which is the illegal part. As far as xbox modchips go I saw a general trend for them to be sold with the cromwell bios, which contained no proprietary code, and allowed various linux distributions to be used, but would not allow for the running of copied games (or even genuine if memory serves correctly). They also came with a simple way to reflash the chip and often instructions on how to obtain these other bioses from various sources.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
Of course, what the law says, and what a sensible person would expect the law to say are often two completely different things. Where the law is too complex for the average person to understand, then there is something wrong with it.
I think you're mixing two different things here:
1. The person has never read the law, only guessing on what he expects.
2. The person has read the law, but still don't get what it's saying.
The first one usually happens because there's a lot more cases to cover than what can be briefly summarized. For example you'd naturally assume copyright has to do with copying, yet for example public display doesn't involve copying at all yet it's one of the exclusive rights. I think it's rather presumptious to think that a person should be able to think up everything by themselves. Or if you want an example that something is legal instead of what's expected many people think the exclusive right to copy is absolute and final, not thinking up any "fair use" unless it's pointed out to them.
Neither of these are really a big problem with the law, it's rather that most people don't have time to be familiar with the entire body of law. Nor do you really have to be, I need to know stealing is illegal but not every detail about what's petty theft, armed theft, grand theft, robbery, armed robbery and so on. Nor to I need to know things like building codes unless I intend to build a building. The actual level of detail required to function like a normal citizen isn't that high.
The other issue can be a big problem, but usually it happens because the law is trying to be very, very precise which makes it full of definitions, enumerations and whatnot that reference each other and are made up of very awkward English. And that's just when they don't use terms with a specific legal meaning, which happens in all professional fields. Often it ends up being close to what the public expects, but it's hard to understand. It leads to gems like this (from the defintion of "Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works"):
"Such works shall include works of artistic craftsmanship insofar as their form but not their mechanical or utilitarian aspects are concerned; the design of a useful article, as defined in this section, shall be considered a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work only if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article."
Do you understand what it's trying to say? It's trying to deal with for example an engraved sword, and isn't unreasonable. I can understand people completely mind blanking when they hit a sentence like that though. Obtuse laws are actually a greater danger IMO than over-detailed laws. If a law leaves great room for interpretation, it will almost certainly be bent to be used in the most unreasonable ways. There's been quite a few examples of that pointed out there where "terrorism" laws are being used to deal with people that in no way are, or could even reasonably suspected to be terrorists.
If the law was to be easy tor the average person to understand, I don't think it could deal with the corner cases. In a court case, people don't sit together and reasonably discuss what a natural interpretation of the law is, it's one party bent on conviction and one party bent on not getting convicted. It won't be an academic discussion, it'll be SCOs legal theories and they need to be refuted point by point using precise definitions, which are inherently hard to understand.
I think the biggest issue is the distance between recognizing that a law is bad and being able to do something about it. Not many are going to flip-flop between democrats and republicans over single laws? In europe it's generally a litle better since you have more parties so with public pressure people move to "adjacent" parties, but then there's other concerns. For example, there have
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You have to keep up with times though, we are in the X360 era.
If you want use your X360 for something else than M$ approved software, you cannot use Xbox Live.
It is due to the regular and remote bios modifications done by Xbox live to your console so it is up to date for countering any software exploitation.
The convenience of using XBMC or emulators, then switching off the modchip to play on xbox live are a thing of the past as far as the X360 is concerned. A real pity.
Also, the reason you saw off the barrels of a shotgun is not soley to make it easier to conceal -- it also causes the charges to spread more. Under the DMCA in the U.S., it's illegal to modify an Xbox because it (potentially) bypasses DRM. I think what was being tested in the U.K. was a very similar law.
My blog
You sound pretty confident for someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. Capital leases are very common... that's when you have a lease (rental agreement) and you capitalize the asset. The stream of payments for the lease is amortized, and meanwhile you depreciate the asset and record your depreciation expense.
What are you talking about?
I'd also add that licensing != leasing, I think you're confused on the topic.
I guess, to sum up, I'd say that gettig accounting/finance advice on slashdot is like getting legal advice on slashdot. Some of it seems to make sense, but I'd rather have duct tape ripped from my scrotum than have to go before the courts or the IRS using advice from slashdot as my only source of information.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Sorry, but in the US, just having the PARTS to convert any firearm to a full-auto is a felony. It is most certainly NOT legal to do that one.
There is a case winding through the courts where a man was convicted because his rifle apparently malfunctioned due to mechanical wear and went full-auto. He was convicted.
It's not wikipedia mate. It was on an episode of Panorama about 8 years ago. Sorry if I can't give you more than that. You don't have to believe me, but you can find mountains of evidence of Bill's opinions over licensing/sale.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Before being so quick and harsh in responding read it carefully.
To me the poster is pretty correct with regard to the tax / VAT regime in the UK and how it applies in the EEC.
We don't have 'use tax' - that's a yank thing.
Every religion has good ideas and bad ideas. A stress on vocabulary building just happens to be one of Scientology's good ideas.
Disclaimer: I am not a scientologist, but used to work in an office full of them, including the president of the company.
In my experience, if scientology stresses vocabulary building, they definitely want it to be their vocabulary. Scientology literally redefines the meanings of a lot of words. I believe this to be a brainwashing technique. For example, if someone is being "reasonable", it means that they're making excuses.
In general, I agree with your view. Nearly all religions have good and not so good ideas. But please stop including scientology in that group. Scientology (and their associated business "tech") is not a religion, it's a scam.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.