http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_escalation#Jailbreaking
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/10/dmca-exemptions-rejected/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411465,00.asp
http://www.ps3news.com/playstation-...cts-exemption-rules-jailbreaking-ps3-illegal/
Recently, the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office (do those offices seriously have any authority what) changed a few rules and confirmed a few others concerning the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Apparently they re-look-over the rules every 3 years.
This time around they (seemingly arbitrarily) decided that jailbreaking phones shall be legal, but jailbreaking tablets shall not (wut?).
They also heard some testimony about jailbreaking videogame consoles and decided that we shouldn't be able to jailbreak them either. Why? Because you can run pirated games on them. Nevermind the plethora of pirated games people play on their phones, nor the legitimate, otherwise legal ways homebrewers and the like use jailbroken(?) game consoles (RNG research springs to mind).
Now, as far as I understand this discussion, Action Replays don't qualify as "jailbreaking", but anyone can feel free to correct me there. But honestly, who knows? If it's illegal to download a program that changes your game console's OS, why wouldn't it be illegal to stick a black, plastic, little thingy in your DS that allows you to do pretty much the same thing? Not exactly the same thing, but it looks pretty close to the layman.
Now, I for one understand these companies' and organizations' need to protect their work. I don't emulate games. Well... not regularly. When B/W came out I got a flashcart and slapped a JPN copy of Black on it so that I had some place to store my mons I RNG'd on my legit JPN White until ENG White came out (SHAME!). I haven't used it since. But obviously I can see how they would lose money if people hack their consoles and download all their games for free.
But is that reason enough to outlaw jailbreaking? What about legitimate uses, or where this could go next?
It seems kind of like outlawing all guns because we have a real, honest murder problem. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That kind of thing.
Thoughts?
[edit]
The title is a joke. This is a discussion about whether or not jailbreaking your console should be illegal or not, and why.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/10/dmca-exemptions-rejected/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411465,00.asp
http://www.ps3news.com/playstation-...cts-exemption-rules-jailbreaking-ps3-illegal/
Recently, the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office (do those offices seriously have any authority what) changed a few rules and confirmed a few others concerning the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Apparently they re-look-over the rules every 3 years.
This time around they (seemingly arbitrarily) decided that jailbreaking phones shall be legal, but jailbreaking tablets shall not (wut?).
They also heard some testimony about jailbreaking videogame consoles and decided that we shouldn't be able to jailbreak them either. Why? Because you can run pirated games on them. Nevermind the plethora of pirated games people play on their phones, nor the legitimate, otherwise legal ways homebrewers and the like use jailbroken(?) game consoles (RNG research springs to mind).
Now, as far as I understand this discussion, Action Replays don't qualify as "jailbreaking", but anyone can feel free to correct me there. But honestly, who knows? If it's illegal to download a program that changes your game console's OS, why wouldn't it be illegal to stick a black, plastic, little thingy in your DS that allows you to do pretty much the same thing? Not exactly the same thing, but it looks pretty close to the layman.
Now, I for one understand these companies' and organizations' need to protect their work. I don't emulate games. Well... not regularly. When B/W came out I got a flashcart and slapped a JPN copy of Black on it so that I had some place to store my mons I RNG'd on my legit JPN White until ENG White came out (SHAME!). I haven't used it since. But obviously I can see how they would lose money if people hack their consoles and download all their games for free.
But is that reason enough to outlaw jailbreaking? What about legitimate uses, or where this could go next?
It seems kind of like outlawing all guns because we have a real, honest murder problem. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That kind of thing.
Thoughts?
[edit]
The title is a joke. This is a discussion about whether or not jailbreaking your console should be illegal or not, and why.
