In a ruling very similar to one handed down in Spain just last month, a French court has decreed that makers of Nintendo DS flash carts are not breaking the law.
French company Divineo was one of the defendants brought to court by Nintendo for making flash carts for the DS, which allow non-authorized games and media to be played on Nintendo’s handheld game system. The court ruled that the carts are legal and extend the usefulness of the DS, states MaxConsole.net.
The court also apparently took umbrage with Nintendo for “illegally” protecting its system and locking out users and developers, though it should be noted that the MaxConsole site, according to various sources, is owned by Max Louran, the same individual that heads Divineo.
This is not Louran’s first brush with console modification enforcers either: a 2007 GP story indicated some relation between Louran’s Divineo company and a firm (Supreme Factory Limited) at the center of a mod chip raid in Hong Kong.
Assentek, a fellow defendant in the case and also a manufacturer of console modifiers, was pleased with the ruling, but cautioned (Google translation):
However, in our view, this is probably a first episode in the general confrontation between France and Nintendo players in the world of gaming consoles including Assentek in particular.
|Via TechDirt|
Comments
Re: French Court Rules in Favor of Mod Chip Maker
Zip, you're missing the point. Regardless of the fact that you don't like the way the law is, piracy is any unauthorized sale, distribution or copying of media. That means that if I make a game, unless I tell someone they can give it out to people over the internet, they're breaking the law. You can't make any argument against that that actually makes sense. That's why pirates don't even try. They make up bullshit excuses to try to validate breaking the law.
As for your balance issue, you're the one who isn't willing to balance. You're assuming that the only bad guy is the corporation, when that's a fallacy. Like it or not, those corporations own - that's right, OWN - the rights to their respective IP's. That means it's theirs. Not yours or anyone else's. You're one of the people that says people should be able to do what they wish with what's theirs. Now you're also trying to say that corporations shouldn't. Sorry, Zip, but you can't have it both ways.
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He was dead when I got here.
Re: French Court Rules in Favor of Mod Chip Maker
I think you have his thoughts pretty much gathered.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
http://www.theeca.com/chapters_oklahoma
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: French Court Rules in Favor of Mod Chip Maker
One of the unfortunate side effects of the ruling will definitely be people who pirate gaining a sense on legality from this.
whether or not that constitutes the majority, well i'm not going to comment on that and start a dispute on backing up vs stealing.
Re: French Court Rules in Favor of Mod Chip Maker
This is just a nail in the coffin for the distribution model of data based on the distribution model of material goods. They are fundamentally different things, and you can't treat them the same way.
What companies need to start figuring out is how to make money on a product you give away. Subscription works in some cases, advertising/subsidy in others, however I doubt that those are the only working models, and we ought to explore the concept further.
Re: French Court Rules in Favor of Mod Chip Maker
This dose nothing to the distribution model, even they know sale it cheaper you sale more of it works better than monopolizing every aspect of it and then some to try and turn a profit.
For gaming the problem lies in development and mis management, half of all potential profit is lost to these two things due to idiot suits and development direction......
Until lobbying is a hanging offense I choose anarchy! Stop supporting big media and furthering the criminalization of consumers!! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
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