The US Copyright Office has upheld the legality of jailbreaking phones, but rejected appeals to extend the same protection to tablet computers. In its triennial review of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Federal Register says that since the category of tablets is difficult to define it would be dangerous to issue a blanket exemption — for instance, it could theoretically apply to e-readers and portable game consoles. This may be so, but with the ever-increasing size of phones it seems arbitrary to make the distinction based on whether a device has a radio and earpiece or not.
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Why the hell wouldn't they? Tablets are just thin and small computers and you can install whatever the hell you want on a PC, why can't you on a tablet?
It also goes on to say that the office rejected an appeal to make video game consoles an exemption alongside phones, and instead lumps them in with tablets because "video games are complex."
What this means is that modifications of video game consoles such as those that allow for homebrew development is not legal for closed OS devices such as the Wii.
*waits for people to mention there is ways around jailbreaking tablets that is actually jailbreaking but isn't jailbreaking...
at least not technically.*
Also, I like how the US Copyright laws against jailbreaking on smartphones is more tight than against video game consoles. Seriously, if someone mods a game they paid for with external items (like legal software) and it doesn't effect someone online, is it really hurting anybody=???
Why is this posted here? This is not Nintendo news...
Hee hee.
Will be interesting to see if this ever gets changed.
@sonic7877
The article specifically mentions "video game consoles." I don't know why RMC didn't use that paragraph in the preview, but it's very relevant to anyone who has used homebrew or plays imported games on a region-locked system like the Wii (which I have).
Also relevant is the part where it mentions that backing up DVD's you already own is not legal, which further shoots down the arguments of everyone who has ever said it's ok to play roms/iso's of games you own, even if the file came from your own discs. I'd like to think most people knew that was illegal already anyway.
@StarStabbedMoon
Oh ok. I see it now.
@StarStabbedMoon that makes no sense you can back up games and rip roms from them and that's perfectlly legal but a disk based format isn't? that makes no sense the only difference between roms and isos is the format....
@Jirachi
Which is why they're both illegal.
Because what the US Copyright Office says makes using the Homebrew on the Wii U to allow gamers to play games from Japan, Europe, and etc. illegal.
Edit: StarStabbedMoon beat me. Damn it!
I really don't get why playing games from other regions is illegal, especially if nobody is willing to take those games and bring them to your region. It frustrates me greatly! There are some games that I really want to add to my collection but by them not being available in my region I get screwed. Why is it that I can watch foreign movies and listen to foreign music without any stupid legalities but for video games, a form that I can only purchase a copy of (I can't just watch or listen to it) and I'm willing to throw down the high royalties for, I can't just buy and play? It's absolutely ridiculous that I have to jump through such hoops and bounds for this one media form.
Like @derula said, it is legal to buy a console from a different region like PAL (Europe & Oceania), NTSC-J (Japan), and etc. and buy games that are only released in Japan and/or the PAL regions. That is legal.
However, the only thing that is illegal is to hack the Wii U via Homebrew to either change the region code of your Wii U, so that you can play games from other regions or to allow the Wii U to play DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and etc. That is illegal as stated by the U.S. government.
I hope this helps.
@derula@LegendofZelda1996
The problem with this is on the Wii at least, there are games in both PAL and Japan that I want to play.
In example, Enclave: Shadows of Twilight is only available in PAL where as Disaster Day of Crisis, Pandora's Tower, Another Code R, and Project Zero 2 are in English because they were brought to PAL but not NA. Then you have games like Toshinden Wii, Naruto Shippuden: Gekitou Ninja Taisen Special, Earth Seeker, One Piece Unlimited Cruise ep 1&2, Captain Rainbow, Bleach Versus Crusade, and Takt of Magic only available in Japan. Do they expect us to really buy a separate system for every region? It seems like a major failure by today's standards and technology to ask people who are interested in buying the games new and supporting the developers to do this.
@derula
From what I understand here in the US, the DMCA basically makes all unintended and circumvented access to copyrighted tech, devices, and data illegal until exempted by the UCO, which the article gives an update on.
The weird thing is that this law is never really enforced against personal use of copyright violations even though all these exemptions seem to be about personal use. That makes me wonder why they even bother to make the exemptions except to have rights we should already have officially in writing somewhere. That's the problem a vague all-encompassing law like DMCA creates when it essentially says "everything is illegal until proven otherwise."
Commenting for future reference
"Isn't it legal to copy computer and video games as a backup as long as you own a legitimate copy?
U.S. Copyright laws permit making a "backup" copy of computer programs for archival purposes. However, the right to make backup copies of computer programs for archival purposes, as embodied in 17 U.S.C. Section 117(2), does not in any way authorize the owner of a copy of a video or computer game to post or download a copy of that game to or from the Internet or make such copy available to other people for their use. Section 117(2) only gives the owner of the copy a right to make an archival copy of the actual copy that he/she legally possesses, not to make a copy of the ROM that someone else legally possesses, nor to post an archival copy of his/her original copy for distribution. The law clearly does NOT provide any right to sell "backup" copies. In fact, Section 117 is quite explicit in stating that any archival copy prepared under Section 117(2) can only be transferred to another person if, and only if: A) The original copy is also transferred, and only with the authorization of the copyright owner, and B) The transfer is part of the sale of all rights in the program."
http://www.theesa.com/policy/antipiracy_faq.asp so yeah roms are perfectlly legal as long as you rip them yourself,and don't give your copy to someone else
@Jirachi
That's interesting. Though it appears to conflict with DMCA. It might depend on how those backups are viewed in their copied format. The faq mentions backing up games for archival purposes, but I wonder if using that copied data to actually play it would be a violation of DMCA.
It's such a dumb law and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it actually conflicted copyright law. Alot of these laws are untested in cort and many ESA members including Nintendo, ironically, try to maintain that backups are illegal.
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