Re: Jail for seller of illegal Xbox chips

["mark_harrison_uk2" <mph@xxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "Ian Lowe" <ian@w...> wrote:
> Unfortunately, trying to mobilise and motivate people to write
> to their MPs, express an opinion, or even to just simply *care*
> about this sort of legislation is difficult, despite the success
> of people like stand.org.uk

I think that part of the barrier to overcome is that even people who
DO care about this (like me) don't have any confidence that writing
to their MP will help in the slightest.

I have written to my MP once - that was in the last year - and wasn't
about anything HA-related. (It was about a specific matter relating
to this part of the world.) Six months later, no reply.

> The discussions in this group have been a perfect example of why
> this is a bad thing (tm) the XBox modchip discussions all focus on
> the cool HA uses of them. I don't think I saw anything other than
> a passing comment about not having to buy games, yet the
> legislation "to control piracy" is being used to prevent
people
> from using the device they have purchased in the way they
>  want.

I hadn't realised that the mod chips even INCLUDED copyright-
circumvention stuff. Probably I hadn't thought it through enough, or
it would have been obvious. (I didn't comment in the thread except to
ask some newbie questions.)

A question I'd like to ask - is there some kind of mod that allows
the running of OpenSource software such as the media player, but does
NOT open the door to piracy of Games? Is such a mod even required to
play networked DiVxs / MP3s?

MP3 is not inherently illegal, after all. There have been, to my
knowledge, no prosecutions of Sony for selling MP3 players :-)

Setting aside the question of whether media shifting of CDs to MP3s
for personal use is "fair trading", I do have a reasonable number
MP3s which are taken from the CD WITH THE COPYRIGHT OWNER'S
PERMISSION. Having been a director of the, small, very specialist
classical, record company that was the copyright owner helped :-).

For the record (if you'll pardon the pun), if I were still running a
record company today, then I would argue for our licence agreement to
specifically allow media shifting for personal use... Perhaps
another "activism" project would be to ask the existing UK record
companies to consider this - demonstrate to people like me that they
were for fair usage, while demonstrating to the ill-informed that MP3
did not have to equal piracy.

Regards,

Mark


PS - Most impressed by Greenspan's comments about Intellectual
Property - good to see that not ALL of the US Hierarchy are in the
hands of the RIAA :-)