EFF Seeks to Widen Exemptions for Jailbreaking, including consoles

[Rockym]

Looks like the EFF wants to officially make it allowable for Game Consoles to be jailbroken, just like iPhones.

https://www.eff.org/...dmca-rulemaking

Hope it happens, if only to spite Sony for their rough treatment of jailbreakers.

 

[Thesolcity]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

I agree, Homebrew is pretty major, but why would that make anything tricky?

 

[heartgold]

Nice, best news I've heard all week.

 

[Thesolcity]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

I agree, Homebrew is pretty major, but why would that make anything tricky?

Aye.....had something long typed up, decided to delete it. Long story short, if homebrew is being distributed as it is now all the companies behind the products are going to see is money flying around....but not into their pockets due to it being able to be unlicensed. Do the math, are corporations going to idly sit by as their cash cow runs dry or will they fight this with all the power potential-profit greed will allow?

 

[Rydian]

I can get behind the cause mentally, but I'm not holding my breath.

With the cell phone issue there's other factors, such as unlocking, multi-vendor support, network freedom, stuff like that. You don't have those issues with consoles and handhelds nowadays (though the 3G version of the Vita might fall under the current ruling?).

 

[Dimensional]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

I agree, Homebrew is pretty major, but why would that make anything tricky?

Aye.....had something long typed up, decided to delete it. Long story short, if homebrew is being distributed as it is now all the companies behind the products are going to see is money flying around....but not into their pockets due to it being able to be unlicensed. Do the math, are corporations going to idly sit by as their cash cow runs dry or will they fight this with all the power potential-profit greed will allow?

They will see a lot of money flying around, but there are other factors. Someone might make a piece of homebrew software or a feature that a corporation really wants. For example, when the Windows Phone 7 was first jailbroken, Microsoft flew that team out to their headquarters, gave them a bunch of T-shirts, and talked about this. The jailbreak of that phone gave it more features. Did Microsoft see money flying around? No. These features were later incorporated into the official os. They got free/cheap code, instead of spending thousands of dollars for their own tech to make the code for those features. Microsoft utilized the open source community to increase the value of their own product.

It's not companies wanting money in their pockets. It's control. If they wanted money, then Music companies would have listened to the research studies showing that they would have made money from file sharing sites like LimeWare, if they tried to instead made it a paid for service, instead of trying to shut it down. So they don't want the money. They want full control. Only a few corporations actually see the real picture, like Microsoft. Fight the world, and you lose. Embrace the world, and you'll have gold flying out your...... ***s. (FYI: that's ears, not the other word. )

 

[Jamstruth]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

I agree, Homebrew is pretty major, but why would that make anything tricky?

Aye.....had something long typed up, decided to delete it. Long story short, if homebrew is being distributed as it is now all the companies behind the products are going to see is money flying around....but not into their pockets due to it being able to be unlicensed. Do the math, are corporations going to idly sit by as their cash cow runs dry or will they fight this with all the power potential-profit greed will allow?

There's nothing in the Jailbreak exemption that says Apple can't block the exploits etc. It just says they can't sue people for doing it because its legal. They'll fight it, of course, but it would be nice to know I can't be prosecuted for my homebrew enabled Wii. I know nobody has ever been but its a big legal grey area. Admittedly the exemptions only affect America (I think) so here in Britain my jailbroken iPod is in the grey.
I doubt its going to happen but if Jailbreaking iPhones is allowed, why not homebrew-enabling consoles?

 

[Ultymoo]

If they do allow this, I will laugh heartily. Companies have every right to protect themselves, but the way I see it a product belongs to the buyer once it's out the door. Now sure, if the buyer is disrupting online services or something, then by all means do something to prevent that. However, if I feel like playing someone's awesome homebrew game that makes some sweet usage of the system's capabilities, that's outside the company's jurisdiction. It's like if I were to give someone a piece of paper and a crayon for X amount of currency, and they drew a picture in pencil instead. Then I'd take the paper back, erase the picture, and shove the crayon in their face again. I'd have no right to do that once I gave them the initial tools for their money, would I?

 

[notmeanymore]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

I agree, Homebrew is pretty major, but why would that make anything tricky?

Aye.....had something long typed up, decided to delete it. Long story short, if homebrew is being distributed as it is now all the companies behind the products are going to see is money flying around....but not into their pockets due to it being able to be unlicensed. Do the math, are corporations going to idly sit by as their cash cow runs dry or will they fight this with all the power potential-profit greed will allow?

What's stopping companies like Sony and Nintendo from hiring homebrew developers? Microsoft already offers the XDA Indie Games program, which unfortunately costs like $100 a year or some rediculous number, but it's still money in both the dev's and M$'s pockets.

Edit: Thinking on that, maybe that's why I've never heard of 360 homebrew. Because its not needed...

 

[Fear Zoa]

Unless I'm wrong Sony was the only one who acted....dickish once their console got hacked

 

[Foxi4]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

Since when is the Hacking scene limited to the U.S? As you may or may not know, Europe, Asia, Australia, Southern America and the North of Northern America (Canada) as much as it seems silly, are not states in the United States of America, thus they are not affected by DMCA whatsoever. It's safe to assume that unless the Earth is struck by a massive meteor, starting the second Ice Age and shifting continent positions, it will stay that way.

Once I bought something, be it a console or a phone, I own it. It's mine, 100%, and if I feel like setting it on fire, I am entitled to do so, thus I can also jailbreak, blend and bend whatever hardware I own. Because I own it. Makes sense, right? Ah, America... The land of "freedom".

You can be glad that EFF tries to legalize what's supposed to be legal in the first place and change idiotic rulings.

 

[Foxi4]

Unless I'm wrong Sony was the only one who acted....dickish once their console got hacked

Microsoft remotely fried hard drives that were tampered with, they later on changed their minds due to bad press and replaced affected units - the saves are gone though and noone will give you back the lost time. Even today, XBox360'ties are banned when modifications are detected, no matter if they are used to play illegal copies or not.

Nintendo added "malicious but not quite" code to some of their Wii updates, making them stop half-way through the update if the Homebrew Channel IOS was detected, effectively bricking consoles. Oddly enough later updates did not brick modded Wii's at all - these only deleted Homebrew Channel. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Yeah, Sony's really dickish about suing a few guys who posted decrypted firmware files online, which constitutes "industrial espionage" and is a federal crime, y'see.

EDIT: Huh? No Auto-Merge? Weird... Sorry for double-posting then.

 

[Kioku]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

I agree, Homebrew is pretty major, but why would that make anything tricky?

Aye.....had something long typed up, decided to delete it. Long story short, if homebrew is being distributed as it is now all the companies behind the products are going to see is money flying around....but not into their pockets due to it being able to be unlicensed. Do the math, are corporations going to idly sit by as their cash cow runs dry or will they fight this with all the power potential-profit greed will allow?

What's stopping companies like Sony and Nintendo from hiring homebrew developers? Microsoft already offers the XDA Indie Games program, which unfortunately costs like $100 a year or some rediculous number, but it's still money in both the dev's and M$'s pockets.

Edit: Thinking on that, maybe that's why I've never heard of 360 homebrew. Because its not needed...

Even though you're extremely limited to what you can do? You're only allowed games or the occasional "Vibrating Controller" app... You can't do much, and the games aren't always great.

 

[notmeanymore]

I don't think I've ever seen a homebrew console game that's any better than Xbox Live Indie Games.

 

[Rydian]

I have to agree with the fact that it's about control. It's almost always been about control, with straight-up lies about piracy often being used to try to get other parties (legal or corporate) against the users.

Just look at the actions of Valve and Mojang versus the actions of Sony and Apple (apple in particular since it seemed to take a specific DMCA exception to get them to stop suing people over this).

It's kinda' funny, because Microsoft actually seems like one of the companies that's not a total jerk about stuff, relatively.

 

[Gh0sti]

im excited for this about time someone sticks up for us who want to be liberated from stupid DMCA and their old rules i really hope this gets passed

 

[SifJar]

Eh if it happens......I don't think anyone should expect any full-blown CFW at all. Consoles are tricky ground, given that their use is only 1 major one. If anything, it may be a small completely restricted SDK available to anyone at a high price tag. But I could be wrong.

I don't think you quite understand: It won't force companies to "allow" this sort of thing, or help in anyway. It won't change anything in reality. It'll just make (some of) what already happens legal and stop companies being able to sue over it.

cf: iPhone jailbreaking - it's not like Apple suddenly started shipping iPhones with Cydia, nor is it that they released tools to help devs, it is simply no longer illegal (in USA) to jailbreak [DMCA of course only applies to USA]

In other words: This ruling would make almost zero difference to end users. It would stop stuff like the Sony lawsuits happening again (possibly...again, these laws are only valid in USA) and would give hackers less to worry about when hacking and developing exploits etc. Of course anything (potentially) leading to piracy would still be illegal. Maybe more exploits etc. would be released. But as I see it, most important stuff gets released anyway.

 

[Gahars]

An interesting idea, but I seriously doubt it is going to go through. Honestly, this seems more like a publicity stunt or token gesture than anything else.

 

[SifJar]

An interesting idea, but I seriously doubt it is going to go through. Honestly, this seems more like a publicity stunt or token gesture than anything else.

Perhaps. But most people (myself included) would have doubted the jailbreaking exemption would get passed, and it did. It's certainly possible.