Import gamers fucked on

[Ginger]

This week a decision was finally made about the legality of mod chips, and they aint legal no more. This struck me as odd, since mod chips do have two very valid uses, the first is it allows import gamers to play import games without having to shell out the massive amount of money to own more than one of the same console, so they can play the hundreds of great games that don’t get a PAL release

The second point is when u buy a game u are buying the right to privately enjoy the intellectual property of that game, the disc is just a way of delivering this. So owners of the disc are perfectly entitled to backup their game and play the backup. This means u don't have to shell out another £40 quid if your CD stops working (This often occurs in the form of taking much longer to load, or music stopping) due to general wear and tear (something that has happened to a lot of my most played games)

(It also allows bedroom coders to play around with their own games on their consoles)

Ok so it does facilitate piracy, but it also has other valid uses. Look at guns they have no other use than to kill things but it is still legal to own one. If someone decides to use it in a way that is illegal the consequences are much more serious than piracy yet we see no movement to illegalise them. Y, because the bottom line is if some dude shoots another dude it has no major effect on lining some fat -cats pocket. But as soon as something which has valid uses begins to effect the lining of pockets of those fat cats governments bend over backwards to accommodate them.

[MrHoatzin]

This has gone too far. I think we should take to the woods and create our own society.

[MrChlorophyll]

Woods have ticks.

I vote we take over Hawaii. Or any other applicable tropical paradise of goodness and/or fun.

[Chris]

It's another example of things like music piracy. It surely CAN be used for legitimate purposes, but the enormously vast majority of people use it for illegal purposes (my friends are constantly telling me they got a friend to "do this thing to their PS2 so they can play burned games!!! yeah!!!"), so it eventually is determined to be illegal overall. By the way, before anyone starts yelling at me, I'm not making a judgment call either way, but I am saying that this certainly doesn't surprise me.