France Agrees With Spain In Saying Modding Nintendo DS Is Not Illegal
from the good-for-them dept
We had just recently written about how a Spanish court had ruled against Nintendo, saying that a company making "flash carts" for the Nintendo DS -- basically alternative cartridges that can be used for non-authorized games -- was not breaking the law. The ruling basically said that since the flash carts extended the utility of the Nintendo DS, it should be allowed. The reasoning is that Nintendo should not be the only one who can extend the functionality of its devices. This was a nice surprise, but not a huge surprise, since Spain has a good track record of reasonable copyright law decisions.However, what is surprising is this story, sent in by a few folks, with reader "Sauce" getting it in first, noting that there has been a similar ruling in France, the inventors of the infamous "three strikes and you're out" form of copyright law. The court there seemed to have a problem with Nintendo purposely locking developers out of its device, and even suggested that it should be required to be more open to developers, like Windows. Fascinating to see European courts recognizing the rights of individuals to have a "freedom to tinker."
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Filed Under: copyright, france, modding, nintendo ds
Companies: nintendo
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Moose
I really don't think games fall in to the movie/music catagory of 'should be available for free as a hook for alternate revenue.' The games take a fuck load of people several years to make and provide up to 30+ hours of gameplay...I'd say that's pretty worth the asking price.
Plus the 'alternate revenue' would fuck it up - you'd have to pay for each gun upgrade, costume change, new level, individual live tournaments, there'd be advertising in game everywhere...actually that's not far from the truth now...
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Re: Moose
As you can see, in the uk we have to pay double as much as you do in the us to get the same content.
How is that a fair asking price?
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Re: Re: Moose
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Re: Moose
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/21/ps2_mod_chip_win/
http://www.techdirt.com/art icles/20091111/0206596891.shtml
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Re: Moose
It would be one thing if they just did that but they are also removing functionality of the Xbox when it's banned. There are things that can be done strait out of the box before connecting to live that cannot be done after the ban.
There are so many reasons to buy the real version of the game and I have no problem with people getting banned from XBL for pirated games (Banned not bricked, pirated not backed up), but pirating games isn't a problem for the Xbox. How many games, one after another, have broken that first day sales record? First Halo 2, then Halo 3, then GTAIV, now COD MW2. Piracy should be the last thing on developers' and Microsoft's minds. In fact, it should be the last thing on Nintento's and Sony's minds as well.
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Re: Moose
But its not a question of what you think, (BTW, I agree with you, but...), its a question of what the market will tolerate. You create the greatest whiz-bang gaming system and the coolest action game ever, or the greatest film, or the best music tracks, but if people won't buy them, FOR ANY REASON, be it changed in technology or what have you, but you still want to create these things (you poor sap, you should have gotten you PhD in Chem), you really don't have a choice. You need to create value beyond the creation.
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"three strikes and your out" ???
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In the U.S. no mods are allowed.
If you bypass or "circumvent" in any matter you have to hope and plea for forgiveness because the guy who put the protection scheme in place even if the protection is lame have the power to make your life miserable.
ACTA probably would transform this in a global law.
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I wonder
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Way to go...
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In the Xbox case, even though I've never cared to own one, what I find unacceptable is that Microsoft had a "backdoor" that allowed them to download and run code on the consoles without the consent of the owners, and the code checked the hardware and sent back data about *specific* consoles so they could be banned. I don't care if they did it to stop piracy or to stop cheating, I just don't like how they did it.
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Re:
We bought a full lab's worth of PS3's a little over a year ago but they are now bricks from our point of view. The graphics hardware is not accessible to program (unless you pay megabucks to become an official developer) and without that they are no better than the PS2's we had before (in fact they are worse). So now our students will not be taught to program them and all the Sony studios will continue top complain that they can't get enough programmers!
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You Bought it You Own It
If you can customize your car, you should be able to customize your game console.
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It's not modding
If Nintendo was smart, they'd release a card that would allow for homebrew software to run on it, but not the 'illegal' ROMs. That way they can point to that, as an "approved" alternative.
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Logical
On the contrary the big content lobbies are not only strong but friends of the government, so the 3 strikes stupidity. But that's changing: instead of the usual know-nothing consensus, there's infight in the socialist party over the 3 strikes thingy, not everybdoy aggrees :-)
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Re: Logical
Mike, are you from Vermont?
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Re: Re: Logical
1) Socialism is not equal to communism.
2) Can you give examples of Mike's views bordering on the 'communistic side of things'?
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Re: Re: Re: Logical
No, but its an equally stupid idea. Thank god only the idiots in Europe practice that nonsense.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Logical
So are roads.
You should stop paying your taxes and using those communist roads right now.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Logical
Except when it comes to big businesses, which are "too large to fail", so they need financial help from the government, to help them pay their exorbitant bonuses on the backs of the hardworking Americans.
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Re: Re: Re: Logical
2) Almost any thread where Mike says people don't have rights to control what they make, and they have no right to profit from their investments. Anywhere that he says that everything should be open, with no restrictions.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Logical
Not after they sell it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Logical
If you sell me your rare stamp collection, I could use it to send letters, and you can't do anything about that.
If I buy a games console, it's MY property, and I can then modify it, to suit MY needs.
If I want to gut my Wii and make its housing into a tiny garden... Nintendo has no legal legs to stand on to stop me.
If I want to add a little tiny chip to the Wii so that I can play homebrew games, Nintendo doesn't have a say in that matter as well, as it's MY property. I did not rent the Wii from Nintendo, I bought it at a store.
Same holds true for the DS, in that case, I don't even alter the hardware, but instead use a software cartridge to play homebrew games. I bought the DS, and I bought the cartridge. That cartridge can indeed also be used to play copied/illegally obtained videogames (roms), but that doesn't mean the cartridge itself is illegal.
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Modding may now be legal in the US!
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