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."

Comments

Re:This is ridiculous...

[Red Flayer]

Even if the sale has taken place in a "nasty taxation" place like UK, Scandinavia, New York, etc, all taxation can be done in a place with lax taxation like Ireland in the EU or Texas in the USA.

False. Ever hear of use tax? If you use the good in NY, and its a taxable good, be prepared to pay use tax is the sales tax paid on the purchase is less than the sales tax in NY.

If it is a rent it cannot be depreciated and cannot count for capex. It is opex, period.

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.

The usual tax evasion practices of big software and hardware vendors are outright illegal and forbidden by law

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.