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General discussion (archive)U.S. government makes jailbreaking, unlocking and ripping DVDs legal(44 posts)(44 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 27, 2010
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Stuff: More info
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Red_Avatar: WOOO! SUCK THAT APPLE! *flips Apple the finger*
Does that mean that jailbreaking the PSP is legal now too?

Never was illegal for the PSP, I sent my CW PSP to Sony to be repaired and they just wiped the firmware on it back to 1.50.
Posted July 27, 2010
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Tantrix: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4811054957/m/6811098728?r=6481077478#6481077478
Oh lol

People eat his argument alive, if you read further. The quotes they posted make it clear to me that cracking DRM for my own personal use and security is now completely justifiable under the revised DMCA.
Posted July 27, 2010
Not going to bother looking at the ubi-forum, but I am pretty sure cracking Ubi-DRM is not covered by this, and that they are still within their rights to delete links to cracks.
The only part that is at all relavent is the following
(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and (ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

Which again, is for security flaws. As mentioned before, DRM is not a security flaw (in general, there ARE some specific cases where they do introduce flaws. Ubi-DRM isn't).
So unless you are testing and repairing flaws, you don't get to bypass DRM. Simple as that. Your own personal use is NOT covered.
Posted July 27, 2010
Correcting security vulnerabilities applies... a computer is more secure offline and Ubisoft DRM forces me to stay online and open my firewall to their servers.
Posted July 27, 2010
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Gundato: Not going to bother looking at the ubi-forum, but I am pretty sure cracking Ubi-DRM is not covered by this, and that they are still within their rights to delete links to cracks.
The only part that is at all relavent is the following
(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and (ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

Which again, is for security flaws. As mentioned before, DRM is not a security flaw (in general, there ARE some specific cases where they do introduce flaws. Ubi-DRM isn't).
So unless you are testing and repairing flaws, you don't get to bypass DRM. Simple as that. Your own personal use is NOT covered.

It's time for you to move your useless crusade concerning the definition of DRM to a useless crusade concerning the definition of security flaws.
Posted July 27, 2010
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StingingVelvet: Correcting security vulnerabilities applies... a computer is more secure offline and Ubisoft DRM forces me to stay online and open my firewall to their servers.

Which becomes a case of grasping at straws and will probably need a whole 'nother court ruling to decide on. :p If we are going to start going on technicalities and the "spirit" of the law, then the sub-commenty thing blows that argument out of the water, since Ubi can easily argue that the widespread dissemination of the shinies related to bypassing Ubi-DRM are done in a manner that facilitates copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law. Putting us back at square one.
That being said, if you read up on what those apply to (the rumor that Securom causes security flaws, and the apparently common knowledge that Safedisc was problematic) it becomes obvious that the courts were pretty specific about what they were making that rule for. There is nothing saying that Ubi-DRM couldn't be put up there, but the argument of needing to connect and authenticate with a server isn't that good of one in a day and age where we do almost everything online.
Now, I am no lawyer (but none of us are, so let's not let that stop me :p) but I think that this ruling DOES provide a loophole. But not for us. It provides one for the Warez Groups. From my reading of it, it sounds like it is a case of the age old "You can make a legal back-up of your NES game, but it is illegal to bypass the copy-protection on the cartridge". So theoretically, it is legal to use the crack. But it is probably not legal to obtain or mirror the crack anywhere :p. Not an exact parallel, but I think it gets the point across.
And I would suggest not trying to be the guy who goes up to try and get this to count for cracks. Look at everything, then look at clause 4. This pretty much reeks of being added on as a matter of fluff, and that the change was mostly for the purpose of jailbreaking phones and the like.
Posted July 28, 2010
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StingingVelvet: Correcting security vulnerabilities applies... a computer is more secure offline and Ubisoft DRM forces me to stay online and open my firewall to their servers.

ding ding ding
Posted July 28, 2010
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Gundato: Which becomes a case of grasping at straws and will probably need a whole 'nother court ruling to decide on. :p If we are going to start going on technicalities and the "spirit" of the law, then the sub-commenty thing blows that argument out of the water, since Ubi can easily argue that the widespread dissemination of the shinies related to bypassing Ubi-DRM are done in a manner that facilitates copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law. Putting us back at square one.
That being said, if you read up on what those apply to (the rumor that Securom causes security flaws, and the apparently common knowledge that Safedisc was problematic) it becomes obvious that the courts were pretty specific about what they were making that rule for. There is nothing saying that Ubi-DRM couldn't be put up there, but the argument of needing to connect and authenticate with a server isn't that good of one in a day and age where we do almost everything online.
Now, I am no lawyer (but none of us are, so let's not let that stop me :p) but I think that this ruling DOES provide a loophole. But not for us. It provides one for the Warez Groups. From my reading of it, it sounds like it is a case of the age old "You can make a legal back-up of your NES game, but it is illegal to bypass the copy-protection on the cartridge". So theoretically, it is legal to use the crack. But it is probably not legal to obtain or mirror the crack anywhere :p. Not an exact parallel, but I think it gets the point across.
And I would suggest not trying to be the guy who goes up to try and get this to count for cracks. Look at everything, then look at clause 4. This pretty much reeks of being added on as a matter of fluff, and that the change was mostly for the purpose of jailbreaking phones and the like.

Yes all true, but again on the spirit of the law thing one could say I am not the person they are trying to stop. As talked about on the Ubisoft link, at roughly the same time this happened the 5th circuit court said that hacking the DRM in and of itself is not violating the DMCA, you have to do it with the intent of copyright infringement. I am not doing that, I just want to backup my damn games.
It's all sort of fishy in the end really, and was before this ever happened. I think the core thing is that if you buy the games and keep the content to yourself, no one is every going to storm your apartment with a SWAT team.
Posted July 28, 2010
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StingingVelvet: It's all sort of fishy in the end really, and was before this ever happened. I think the core thing is that if you buy the games and keep the content to yourself, no one is every going to storm your apartment with a SWAT team.

Which has always, and will always, be true. It is the same reason that them crazy Mormons (the technical term :p) can practice polygamy, teenagers can have sex with each other, and all the other fun stuff. As long as you are not actively flaunting/sharing it, nobody gives a crap.
That being said, Ubi was still fully in the right with their policy of correcting the misinformed and removing cracks from their forums. So Tantrix was still just demonstrating his ignorance when he tried to mock the community manager for enforcing things.
Post edited July 28, 2010 by Gundato
Posted July 28, 2010
Am I the only one who read 'U.S. government makes jailbaiting, unlocking and ripping DVDs legal.' <_<
Posted July 28, 2010
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StingingVelvet: It's all sort of fishy in the end really, and was before this ever happened. I think the core thing is that if you buy the games and keep the content to yourself, no one is every going to storm your apartment with a SWAT team.
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Gundato: Which has always, and will always, be true. It is the same reason that them crazy Mormons (the technical term :p) can practice polygamy, teenagers can have sex with each other, and all the other fun stuff. As long as you are not actively flaunting/sharing it, nobody gives a crap.
That being said, Ubi was still fully in the right with their policy of correcting the misinformed and removing cracks from their forums. So Tantrix was still just demonstrating his ignorance when he tried to mock the community manager for enforcing things.

I didn't really mean to argue against that, Ubisoft could do anything they want on their forum from forbid posts from racial minorities to closing it every Tuesday.
Posted July 30, 2010
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TheCowSaysMoo: Am I the only one who read 'U.S. government makes jailbaiting, unlocking and ripping DVDs legal.' <_<

Haha, I read it as that as well, and did have a 'WTF' moment. :)
Posted July 30, 2010
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Gundato: That being said, Ubi was still fully in the right with their policy of correcting the misinformed and removing cracks from their forums. So Tantrix was still just demonstrating his ignorance when he tried to mock the community manager for enforcing things.

I am not surprised you have such a negative view on me, nor do I care, but I want to clear out that I didn't mock the community manager, but the little quote "lol" suggested that I find it funny that Ubisoft had to react to the new policy rather rashly without giving any official statements through the CEOs or news sites, and that pretty fast.
As if they are afraid of something. Maybe of the truth?
Of course the way the other users are tearing his statements apart was amusing.
Post edited July 30, 2010 by Tantrix
Posted July 30, 2010
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Gundato: That being said, Ubi was still fully in the right with their policy of correcting the misinformed and removing cracks from their forums. So Tantrix was still just demonstrating his ignorance when he tried to mock the community manager for enforcing things.
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Tantrix: I am not surprised you have such a negative view on me, nor do I care, but I want to clear out that I didn't mock the community manager, but the little quote "lol" suggested that I find it funny that Ubisoft had to react to the new policy rather rashly without giving any official statements through the CEOs or news sites, and that pretty fast.
As if they are afraid of something. Maybe of the truth?
Of course the way the other users are tearing his statements apart was amusing.

What was "rash" about that? They deleted links to cracks, and they tried to inform people of the truth. Should they do otherwise?
Should they leave their forums completely unmoderated for a pretty black-and-white situation while they wait for the CEO to say "Guys, you are morons. This isn't saying piracy is legal. Read the article, not just the title"? :p
Actually, if Ubi's CEOs said THAT, I would send them one hundred bucks in the mail :p
It is almost as if you are afraid of something. Maybe of the truth? (See what I did there? :p)
Seriously, there is lots of room for this to open doors. But this in and of itself means nothing for us. It will take much lawyering and future crap for this to mean anything
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussion (archive)U.S. government makes jailbreaking, unlocking and ripping DVDs legal(44 posts)(44 posts)
(44 posts)