Game copiers for Nintendo DS ruled illegal in UK

[lloydi]

why not?

it's an exclusive club dont ya know

[{{909}}]

If everyone pirates their games, eventually game producers wont make the games in the first place. Im all for piracy but there can be too much of it and when stalls on markets and major online sites are freely promoting cards for piracy, its a step to far in my opinion. Especially when the cards themselves are stupidly cheap aswell.

[casio]

I must say I agree with {{909}}, the fact they were being pushed down the both nintendo and the game dev's throat on sites like amazon and market stalls was a bit much, While piracy has its place (and im a great supporter) when it gets too big (as happened to ondigital) it kills the golden goose

personally I have an r4 and I've used it occasionally but its never stopped me buying a game, if anything its made me buy a couple more than I would have without it, (the prof layton and the brain training ones spring to mind) I only bought the ds so I could play the new mario game other than that I was planning on selling it but as it is ive got 4-5 games that I wouldnt have had and still have the DS which I have used to watch video on a couple of times when I didnt want to murder my iphones battery I wouldnt have been able to do that without the r4

[lithho]

so you both advocate piracy but you feel that your the only people allowed to use or profit from it?

[casio]

That's not what I said at all m8, if anything I'm saying the opposite I've kept the ds and bought more games because of the r4, If I hadn't tried before I bought new games it'd have been sold to a m8 long ago,

The r4 is undeniably used mainly for piracy I'm not claiming otherwise but in fairness it's not it's only use, by adding and r4 you add to the ds's features legitamatly adding a media player, mp3 player and you can use the ds to send a deauth to a wireless access point to get some "interesting packets" when you test your own wireless security

Also how am I profiting from it? I buy the games I enjoy and I still have the ds?

[hoponbaby]

So "The court affirmed that game copiers first circumvent Nintendo's security systems before any non-infringing application can be played on Nintendo's handheld products," is declared illegal yet at the same time it's just been ruled as legal to circumvent Apples security to Jailbreak Iphones?

[casio]

im not sure but i think its because the jailbreak changes were made in america to their DMCA where as the ds ruling is in the uk. I dont think it was ever illegal to jailbreak it here but i could be (and frequently am) wrong

[Bald Bouncer]

im not sure but i think its because the jailbreak changes were made in america to their DMCA where as the ds ruling is in the uk. I dont think it was ever illegal to jailbreak it here but i could be (and frequently am) wrong

Correct although still yet to be tested/challenged in court as the rulings thus far stand it would be ruled illegal, other countries and courts have taken a different approach in that they are infringing on the rights of people to develop for their devices, region protection is market control and illegal under certain countries regulations and the American iphone and jailbreaking is interesting as I haven't seen it discussed if they now actively attempt to block it as the right has now been granted by the courts they would be attempting to block these rights.

This is the same with copy protection on disks as you have a legal right to make backups of certain types of media this makes copy protection illegal on this media but as you will never see them held to account for this it may well just be a mute point as the law only ever applies to the people not big business.

[casio]

I've got to say I wouldnt want to be the test case that gets the law clarified with regards to the flash carts, and as big a problem as piracy has become for nintendo (im thinking in regards to both the wii and the ds) its a shame to "criminalise" the home brew scene -im thinking of both the homebrew channel on the wii and the mp3/media player and even the wifi pen testing sw on the ds.

there is and there probably will always be piracy, and even though from time to time like most df's I have been know to partake; its the rubbing their face in it that I think they are objecting to.

I look at it like a library, If i go into the library I lend a book with out paying for it, i read it and take it back, if I enjoyed it I could buy it if not I get another book and start again, if I were going in taking the books and then going home then going back for more and more all without returning them they'd be pissed.

[Bald Bouncer]

The point as I see it is not the arguments of piracy but does the law as it exists make them illegal and on the second point they have manipulated it to fit the same way they talk about a "copy" in ram this is something not of substantial or material form, can't be reproduced and the act of copying is self destructive in itself due to the speed of change so to call it a copy is intellectually dishonest and the top copyright legal law book agrees it's the Judges that choose to ignore this and rule to fit the big business case.

If you consider what is in RAM a copy then you are breaching copyright every time you search the net, play a mp3 on any device, watch a film etc etc so what they are really saying is here is selective law to achieve what we want and we won't enforce it on our friends like M$ or Sony who produce a product that not only allows music to be copied to them but actively promotes it as a feature as in "play your own music while in a race game".

Look at it the same way as the MP's switching homes to avoid capital gains tax this was wrong, immoral and dishonest but that is not the gage, the gage was is it illegal and it wasn't the same is true here but they have manipulated the existing legislation ignoring the points that didn't back up their arguments to back big business.

You should also remember how much of the technology and ideas being used now by these companies was simply stolen from the homebrew community like with the Xbox360 games installed to the hard drive, media center, listings, menus etc etc we can all see what the homebrew community bought that has now been implemented and the thanks they get is being blocked, prosecuted and slandered as pirates funding drugs etc, well if you can't make a living selling smack and coke and need to sell pirate games to support it you really must be doing something wrong.

[markj]

like BB states this was a private civil matter. at this stage it has not extended to criminal law but there will be test cases with warrants being issued .