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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."
After I buy something, it is _mine_ ! Case closed. I can do whatever I want to do with it. If I had stolen it then I am guilty. I don't see a case otherwise.
Don't expect them to give up. Just like Bush was recently lost his third case in the US supreme court for the third time over Gitmo prisoners, they keep coming back and is considering new legislation to "solve" the problem.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
At least, not by any sensible person's definition or understanding of the term "copyright". That is, there may be some legal jurisdictions where a piece of hardware can be considered a violation of copyright law, even if that hardware is not in and off itself a violation. (If you know what I mean.) However, in no sensible place could it be considered to break copyright, anymore then region free DVD players could be considered tools to break copyright.
(I believe in Australia both are perfectly legal.)
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. (Resists temptation to explain why all laws are wrong, complex or not.)
I wank in the shower.
Did anyone suggest it would?
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.
At the risk of being accused of trolling Microsoft have the right to decide whatever rules they like about access to Xbox live.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Does this establish that the whole idea of it being a crime to provide a service that allows others to circumvent copyright is going to fall apart?
i.e. will they still be shutting down sites like tv-links.co.uk which was only linking to copyright infringing material, not providing it?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
So modifying hardware that you own is legal.
It is probably still illegal to modify it to do something illegal. I suspect if I modify my car to fire rockets that even though I may never do it I would probably fall foul of the police.
I guess dual purpose (back-ups/pirate copies) gets around this though?
Well, if you look at it, the only thing modding does is well, modifying hardware you personally own which noone can say is wrong in any way. It is as if it was illegal to change the fuel-injection system in your car so it would be able to run on a different fuel (well maybe slightly illegal fuel). Now this case is not related to software copyright in any way and to sentence this man for copyright infraction (is it the right word?) is laughable.
And i don't say this to upset anyone, it's my personal opinion.
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
... or WILL, when it comes to all this "copyright stuff".
:(
The EU is just preparing more and more ridiculous legislation. Prepare for impact
It's overboard to dissalow GNU/Linux to fully use the hardware you bought by default. Mod chips are here to insure proper balance. Actually, I think explicit locking of hardware with an OS is illegal in many countries. Maybe mod chips are part of their business model: they say mod chips are bad, but behind the scene if you look carefully, they actually sell them! Because at the end, that makes people spending more money on their hardware...
To be fair to MS they have never, to my knowledge, banned anyone who runs a modded xbox OFFLINE but connects it online to xbox live only as a "pure" xbox.
By this I refer to switchable mod chips. As long as you NEVER connected to live with it on they didn't ban you, even though it would have been simple to put a random check into every new game to send the "I hacked my box" packet next time they connect.
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.
From what I've heard, EULA's aren't very proven in court (in the US specifically, but also elsewhere). While it may be more applicable, it could be very dangerous-- if EULAs were held to simply be invalid, then a lot more than mod chip litigation is screwed over. Copyright is more proven, and indeed, cases like this are more likely to be won, or can be lost without as much devastation (copyright in its entirety will not be thrown out over such a case). It actually was won, of course, so the logic for copyright did have some foundation (even if not as much as using the EULA and contract law)-- just not enough for the next-higher level.
-Devin Jeanpierre
Mod chips dont pirate games, people do.
EULAs are routinely invalid at least in German, because with buying something the only contract you have is the one with the seller. The EULA thus ist a contract with a party that was not part of the sale and thus not enforceable. The German term is "Erschoepfungsgrundsatz", and means about the same as the First Sale Doctrine.
It is different if the EULA is already part of the AGB (Allgemeine Geschaeftsbedingungen, General Business Conditions) of the seller. But then the seller has to prove that the EULA was known at the time of the sale to be valid. It is different with downloads, because there you deal directly with the manufacturer of the software or hardware in question. Those EULAs might actually be valid contracts.
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Well, of course it won't. They said it's illegal, not that it's so incredibly legal that Microsoft have to bend over and take it up the arse from everyone who breaks their warranty by installing one.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Copyright is different. A photocopier, a camera, a computer and in fact a brain,hand and piece of paper are all that are needed to violate copyright. These are all long established to be legal pieces of equipment. The same applies to contract law. If it was illegal to possess a piece of equipment that facilitated allowing you to break a contract, we would have to get rid of our brains as well as our computers.
You can get through your entire life without ever needing access to a rocket launcher or a gun, (My grandfather, a Methodist, was in a reserved occupation during WW1 and lived to 90 without ever so much as holding a shotgun), but it is now extremely difficult to get through life in a modern society without ever using a photocopier, camera, or a computer. Since a computer can be used to violate copyright or break a contract out of the box, it is hard to see how modifying it to change slightly the ways in which you could potentially do so would be illegal.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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.
Who's the idiot that labels everything 'suddenoutbreakofcommonsense'?
Maybe it was funny a year ago (to him at least), but come on...stop abusing labels, they aren't that useful to begin with, don't make it even worse!
when you buy something, you own it and can modify it or pay to have it modified. Unlike in the USA where if you buy something the company that made it owns it and takes away your freedom to modify it or have it modified.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I seriously doubt that I care. I didn't buy it for xbox live, I bought it for XBMC and emulators.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This may be good for Psystar Corporation with there open mac as they are use a software like mod to make osx work on there systems.
That's . . . . great. They never banned consoles that they had no earthly way of knowing were modded at all.
But yes, if you connected for a split second to Xbox Live with a modded console that was actually running a detectable mod chip, then goodbye forever. That said, I didn't really care (nor is my Xbox even banned, since I never connected to Live since I owned it). My main use for my Xbox mod chip was for XBMC.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
How about "suddenoutbreakofpithytags" instead?
When the copyright holder finds that photograph and sues them for using it without permission... ;)
It seems pretty simple to me. I have a 3 year old at home that seems to find it funny to throw DVD's, CD's etc. For me, a mod chip is simply a way of safeguarding the original copies of the games for my Wii by only using copies of the games that I own. I am only copying games that I legitimately own and I have a good reason for doing it. Am I a criminal?? NO!!!
Apostrophes are NOT used for possessive pronouns or for noun plurals, including acronyms.
Not quite true. According to the Oxford Manual of Style (IIRC: i don't have my copy with me) an apostrophe may be used for a noun plural where the noun is either an acronym (particularly if it ends in "S", e.g. "SOS's") or a number (e.g. "80's"). I'm sure many other style guides include similar advice. See here for more info.
Isn't it some kind of EULA infringement rather than a copyright one ?
First of all, the guy was charged with a criminal offence. EULA violation isn't a criminal offence; only Microsoft have a claim against him for EULA violation, and from all appearances they haven't been involved in this case at all.
Secondly, to get him for an EULA violation, they'd have to prove first that he'd agreed to the EULA. And seeing as he was modifying other people's Xboxen, it would be kind of tricky to show there was any reason why he would have done so.
I have an old xbox with a broken hard drive that I brought - or is that 'licensed' secondhand ;) to use as a media player.
Little did I know when I got it that Microsoft had decided to LOCK each xbox's harddrive to it's individual hardware and as a side effect the hard drive cannot be user replaced. The only way to replace a drive for old hardware like that is to use a modchip.
Nice to know I'll be able to put it to good use again now rather than it being resigned to the dump.
If there was no ability to mod our routers, wii remotes, pda's etc. when we'd fast turn into a 'black box' culture of throwaway crap, rather than having the opportunity to re-purpose it for a better afterlife.
I donno, I appreciate humorous tags on slashdot far more than "useful" ones. They're akin to the commentary on Mystery Science Theater, when the article itself is boring, sometimes the tags add interest.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Or want to prevent unauthorized use of the system and it's a side effect they are prepared to live with as it's only of concern to the customer and not the company.
The Atari ST line died a nice death due to the lack of software, which in turn was due to the lack of copy protection;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST#Software_2
http://www.mevagissey.net/atariads.htm
It is in the best interests of game consoles to protect their copy protection so that their content creators will continue to support the console. If they get scared off by a large mod chip community, they might quit making products for that console.
So Microsoft, Sony, et al will fight this. As they should. Just because it is not illegal doesn't mean it is moral.
Just because I buy an AK47, made for killing, doesn't mean I am justified to use it for it's intended purpose of killing. (Killing != illegal btw.) Buying a now legal mod'ed Xbox doesn't make it justified to play pirated (copied) discs/games.
Some of the nastiest copy protection was for software on the Atari ST - much worse than the 680xx machine that won the battle, the Mac.
Great machine, excellent price, but except for music and maybe games, you are right that there was never enough software for it. But it had NOTHING to do with copy protection or the lack of it - just that there wasn't room for 3 680xx machines and the hardware/software geeks preferred Amigas and Macs...
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