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charcircuit 2 hours ago

This bypasses DRM which makes it illegal.

>for the purposes of game preservation and game emulation

Those purposes don't make breaking DRM legal either.

altairprime 23 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The legality is subject to the court’s opinion, and a court is not compelled to interpret the situation the same way you do. Their job is to interpret written laws using their opinions and available case law, and also to pass human judgments on laws that aren’t encoded in machine-parseable structures (such as fair use rights). Declaring this particular instance illegal this early requires more case law references than you’ve provided.

theandrewbailey 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This firmware is code, and code is speech[0]. Any law making speech illegal is unconstitutional. I'm puzzled as to why the DMCA (or this part of it) hasn't been overturned yet.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junger_v._Daley

charcircuit an hour ago | parent [-]

It hasn't been overturned for the same reason copyright hasn't been despite it restricting people's speech.

pirates 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We all do illegal things all the time, I’m fine knowing that this one goes in the “bad” pile. I’m sure something terrible will happen to me soon.

charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's not just you who you are affecting, but also all the people who worked on the game, Nintendo and Microsoft, and even the entire video game industry by doing things like this.

CursedSilicon 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Won't someone think of the multi billion dollar corporations?!

If peop- THIEEEVES can just download old games forever, how will these companies make money by selling new games? Or reselling the old games in their half-baked emulation offerings!

Truly the author behind this software deserves a special place in hell for creating such an evil!

(Obligatory reminder the above is to be taken as hyperbolic sarcasm. The very idea that someone would jump to defend corporations against software designed for cultural preservation is saddening)

cindyllm 9 minutes ago | parent [-]

[dead]

isidisjcisjcud 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, Nintendo AND Microsoft of all companies really do deserve all the pity they can get, seeing as they’re such pro-consumer, fan-friendly, not-at-all monopolistic, completely altruistic entities. Right?

whycome an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Continuing to play discontinued games and sharing that joy with new people and generations seems like a good way of strengthening an industry

ASalazarMX 42 minutes ago | parent [-]

Well, yes I guess, but will it create short-term value for shareholders? Mountains of it if possible?

theandrewbailey 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We already had copyright law for that. We didn't need to make some code illegal, too.

fortyseven 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh no!

tacticalturtle an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it actually breaking DRM? Or is it just creating a 1:1 copy of a proprietary format?

> Game consoles that are supported include the original Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Wii, and Dreamcast. Physical media from other consoles, such as PlayStation 3, 4, 5, and the Xbox One/Series consoles, technically work, but the content on physical media for these consoles is encrypted.

Breaking encryption is definitely “illegal” - but backing up a binary format is not. I can backup my GBA cartridges ROMs for personal archival use if I have a device that can read them.

charcircuit an hour ago | parent [-]

I would consider changing the format of a disc to prevent it from being copied by a regular drive to be considered a protection measure. The content is still encrypted so if not the disc, it would be the emulator decrypting it which would be the problem.