Actualy, there is some Gray law involved in XBox modification.....
I baught the XBox...I own it. I can't make an Xbox because I would be infringing on copyrights of Microsoft but SINCE I baught the XBox I can do what I want...
Turn it into a toaster...
Clean the guts out and make a fish tank outta it...
Solder 12 wires to specifice nodes all around and about the mother board and wire in a chip specificialy designed to by pass certain functions of the device...
Gray law:
I can't by-pass the Bios and load my own operating system on the XBox product because of end user aggrements and contracting developed by microsoft...BUT it IS my property. Microsoft can't really stand up in court with this but they sure could make you spend a lot of money arguing the legalize with them.
LAW:
Reproduction of copyrighted materials in any form with out expressed authorization of copyright owner is AGANST federal law (Copying games or DVD;s to an XBox is illegal)
Law of the digital age:
this gets very complicated the Major componants of copyright law where developed before the printing press and big chunks where added specific to addressing rePRINTING stuff. the problem with this is that the core of copyright law never had the incling of digital transfer... ANY digital transfer of date (copyrighted or not) inatly makes a "copy". Copywrite law worked well when you considered the diferance between owning a book and lending it to someone else. they have the 1 copy and I don't so there is no copywrite infringment. but I can't email a friend an eBook, because I still retain a copy and now they have one..(actualy worse then that, the email archive server on my side may retain a copy and ANOTHER copy on they're email server, up to 4 Copywrite infrigements right there)
even funnier is something like Bit-Torrent, depending on the server and the number of hosting users one completed transfer could be achived utilizing thousands of COPY's of an item
Its all very confusing but the end point is that current copywrite law is there to make sure that owners of something nice actualy get credit for they're work, either finacial or just abstract. The digital age and all the differant ways to spawn copies of information and products makes this a crazy set up.
I guess we will see how this all pans out...until then...
I guess I'll just stick with the fact that I may have understood how to modify an XBox and I may have the capabilities to copy games and media to it but I would not want to break any laws by doing so...but if I did it would be a kool thing to have and I'd play with it all the time.
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I can't really back up anything I say....
Last edited by Voltas; 06-17-2005 at 02:24 PM..
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