Hacking Is it illegal to hack a Wii and play backups?

[Haloman800]

I want to know if soft-modding your Wii (like installed the HBC) is illegal, and if playing backups (like off an HDD) is illegal as well.

Thanks.

 

[Selim873]

It's only illegal if you don't own the original copy. They're called "Back-Ups" for a reason.

EDIT: Basically, it's perfectly legal to hack your Wii, you bought it, you can do what you want with it, but remember that hacking it voids your Wii's warranty. Also, I have friends asking me this, if it were illegal to sell a game you previously owned, then making a back up. That would be illegal, now if a game was stolen from you, I really don't have an answer for that. But if you have the original copy with you, backing up that game is legal, to keep it simple, use your USB loader to copy your game to your HDD (Wii games only).

 

[XFlak]

in some places of the world it's even illegal to make backups of the games you have legitimately purchased. I can't remember where this law applies... England I think, and prolly other places too

 

[cearp]

in some places, yeah, making the backup is illegal, since you need to 'circumvent copy protection' to make the backup, so, (in some places) even if having a backup IS legal, it may not be illegal to make it so yeah, catch 22

 

[Rydian]

The US is one such country, the DMCA makes circumventing DRM illegal except for listed exceptions.

Here's the most recent list, and Wii games don't apply.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2010/Librarian-of-Congress-1201-Statement.html

 

[Haloman800]

@Rydian, By "Wii games don't apply", do you mean it's legal then, to create backups as long as you own the original?

 

[Haloman800]

(Sorry for double post)

..Because the backup of a Wii game isn't circumventing the DRM, since (to my knowledge) it keeps everything the original has..

Not like a DVD rip, which removes all the warnings and such, which I assume to be illegal.

 

[Terminator02]

he means that wii games don't apply to the exceptions, it is illegal, but there isn't any way for them to find out other than raiding your home

 

[Fishaman P]

It's perfectly legal to hack your Wii, rip your games, and play them off backup discs or a hard drive.

If your game is stolen, I'd say it's still legal to do the above, but it's less of a gray area if you still have the box, manual, and optionally the receipt.

 

[Nathan Drake]

As previously stated, soft-modding your Wii in itself isn't illegal. It totally voids your warranty, so it will be a no go trying to get help from Nintendo if anything breaks. If you use any kind of illegal software though via soft-modding, you are responsible for any charges if by some fluke, you get caught.

It has been said that in the U.S, making a back-up of your own copy of the game is legal. It may be a bit of gray area, it's unknown. Nobody has said that it isn't OK though that is important enough to take seriously, so we are gonna assume that it's fine, or at the very least, not totally illegal.

Losing the original copy for a back up though puts you in a place where you can no longer have that back up. It would be like backing up your games, then giving them away. That is not okay. You have stumbled into an area where you might as well have pirated it, which is very illegal.

 

[Rydian]

Last I checked in order to backup your game you need to bypass DRM, so the DMCA makes it illegal because you're bypassing DRM.

It doesn't matter if it's yours or not, you're still not allowed to do it.

And yes this seems stupid, but it's US law.

 

[Dr.Aqua]

Depends on the country.
Generally speaking, Backups no. ROM/ISO/WADs download off the internet? Yes.