UK court rules ‘game copiers’ illegal
BBC News reports that a UK judgement has ruled what it calls ‘game copiers’ for the Nintendo DS illegal. This means under British law the import of the likes of the R4 is now no longer legal. The court noted: “The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence”, adding that “game copiers first circumvent Nintendo’s security systems before any non-infringing application can be played on Nintendo’s handheld products”.
This is a pretty interesting judgement, and one that will go a long way to giving the fair-use brigade a solid kick in the teeth. Got an R4 and use it to carry multiple games with you that you own a copy of, because you don’t want to cart around £200 of DS games and leave them on a bus by mistake? Tough. Use your R4 for emulation and homebrew? Tough.
And how long before this judgement creeps into other areas of digital media? If R4s are now dubbed ‘game copiers’, are CD-Rs ‘music copiers’, and DVD-Rs ‘movie copiers’? Perhaps it’s time to ban paper (‘magazine copiers’) too, along with hard drives (‘everything copiers’). And good luck, iOS device jailbreakers and ‘hackers’ of other consoles—if the R4’s now illegal because it circumvents a system’s security, it’s only a matter of time before other media giants clamp down on anyone who has the audacity to want to fiddle about with a piece of tech kit they’ve paid out money from their own pockets for. The bastards.
Also illegal, cars (Or “speeding devices”), Paint (or “Graffiti devices”), Mobile Phones (Or “Organising illegal activities devices”) and indeed Computers.
We’ve been here before, with “copy” and “cheat” cartridges in the 1980s. And you could make a distinction between using a piece of hardware that gives you the ability to play pirated games, and allowing freedom of software use on a hardware device… but ultimately I see the jail-breaking legislation being watered down or amended long before the R4 judgement is reversed.
I personally bought my R4 for homebrew.
Interesting piece here – http://bit.ly/atlmDz – that clarifies the position on the jailbreaking suit in the States. You CAN jailbreak your phone (or remove DRM) PROVIDED it does not lead to illegal activity.
The US enjoys better fair-use laws than the UK. Here, even basic music format-shifting is illegal. On jailbreaking, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to (although I also think it’s fine if companies then say ‘tough’ if your device bricks during updates, as long as updates aren’t specifically designed to brick).