Is The Homebrew Channel Illegal?

Friends at my school think The HBC is illegal. ... Is it? Because I honestly don't know, and I would hate to break the law. :l

The Homebrew channel by itself is perfectly legal, but it can lead to illegal stuff. You purchased the Wii, and you have the right to modify it. You are not paying anyone to learn how to do it (hopefully), and you are not profiting off of it. Using user made games and programs is fine. The illegal part is piracy. Using ROMs or backups is considered piracy if you do not own the original disc or cartridge of the game in question.

I have had to explain this to friends at my school, so don't feel alone. As long as you understand and make it clear, everything should be okay.

The Homebrew Channel is unauthorized yes, but it is perfectly legal.

Well...

I don't think Nintendo shares your oppinion guys :)

In the End User Legal Agreement, it states that you never own the Wii your purchased, it will always be property of Nintendo, and any unauthorized modifications to it are illegal.

That's basically it in a nutshell. It's the same with books, TV shows on DVDs... you never actually purchase "The Wii". You never actually "own" the Wii. You only pay for the right to have and use a "copy" of the console in your possesion. A "License" if you will. But that's it really.

This is the exact thing I've always wanted to say to everyone I've seen on the net whine about how Nintendo frowns upon their piracy and illegal ways.

"But I payed for the Wii... so I SHOULD be able to do anything I want to it. But Nintendo keeps pushing out System Updates... and I HAVE to update, but then I can't play my backupz and wiiwarez and virtual consolezzz..."

Sigh...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2010 02:42AM by Magil.

Well I believe (in the USA, I apologize) that an EULA such as that is simply unconstitutional, because with that type of clause, Nintendo is simply saying it could seize your Wii at any time. It's bull
I have no problem with a strong position against piracy, but stuff like this, is just stupid...
Heres what I say "I bought my console, I should be able to do what I want with it, I load homebrew onto it that doesn't violate anyone's copyrights, I don't bother updating because you haven't put out anything worthwhile, all you care about is piracy instead of making more things that'll stop users from wanting to bother to pirate in the first place"

EULA isn't law. At best, its vaguely enforceable. There are very few court cases over EULAs, certainly successful ones, and only certain courts even bother to deal with EULA violations AFAIK. I completely disagree to the statement "You don't own the Wii, you own the right to use it": If this is what is stated in the EULA, then it is too late. At this point you have already bought and own the Wii console. You only agree to the EULA once you turn it on. What if you never turn it on? You haven't agreed to the EULA, so does that mean YOU own the console? In my book, if you pay for something, you own it, end of story.

As to whether HBC is illegal or not: Well, in theory no, but AFAIK there are portions of illegal copyrighted code in libogc, which is part of the SDK used to create most Wii homebrew (including HBC AFAIK), so... =/

But its not VERY illegal ;)

you own the console and the games you purchase from the store... you don't own the software on the wii... the EULA refers to the NETWORK SERVICES USER AGREEMENT as the part you "don't own" (access to internet chan, shop chan, virtual console, etc).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2010 01:27AM by mdbrim.

It's the whole 'it's not illegal in itself' argument, that applies quite broadly to a lot of HBC related content.

On similar lines I was curious about CleanRip and it being listed on here, despite firm anti-backup views held (a good standpoint, as mods have previously rightly stated it keeps out the constant 'TELL US HOW YOU MAKE COPIED GAMES LOL' brigade). Arikado posted a fairly succinct "There's nothing bad about it - It makes disc ISO's. It doesn't run them." before closing the thread, including:

"Long(er):

This functionality is extremely useful. For example, in order to develop a savegame exploit you need an ISO. Another example, this lets you easily rip your games so you can play them on Dolphin"

In terms of being relevant to the OP here about the HBC itself, I'm sure Nintendo would deem a program that duplicates their copyrighted software about as bad as you can get, whatever your intent.

Equally for the HBC - good for what we want to do with it, legal on paper but don't expect Nintendo to be sympathetic to any 'oh we use the HBC exploits for only nice things'

Yea I have the same problem too...I personally think You bought it You own so yea I think its perfectly legal (except for roms and emulators UNLESS you own the game well actully if you have an emulator and no rom it really wouldn't be illegal because you aren't doing anything with it)

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SifJar
EULA isn't law. At best, its vaguely enforceable. There are very few court cases over EULAs, certainly successful ones, and only certain courts even bother to deal with EULA violations AFAIK. I completely disagree to the statement "You don't own the Wii, you own the right to use it": If this is what is stated in the EULA, then it is too late. At this point you have already bought and own the Wii console. You only agree to the EULA once you turn it on. What if you never turn it on? You haven't agreed to the EULA, so does that mean YOU own the console? In my book, if you pay for something, you own it, end of story.

As to whether HBC is illegal or not: Well, in theory no, but AFAIK there are portions of illegal copyrighted code in libogc, which is part of the SDK used to create most Wii homebrew (including HBC AFAIK), so... =/

But its not VERY illegal ;)

Uh, what? Nintendo would destroy libogc and all of the applications created with it, if that was the case. :P

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Mathew_Wi

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SifJar
EULA isn't law. At best, its vaguely enforceable. There are very few court cases over EULAs, certainly successful ones, and only certain courts even bother to deal with EULA violations AFAIK. I completely disagree to the statement "You don't own the Wii, you own the right to use it": If this is what is stated in the EULA, then it is too late. At this point you have already bought and own the Wii console. You only agree to the EULA once you turn it on. What if you never turn it on? You haven't agreed to the EULA, so does that mean YOU own the console? In my book, if you pay for something, you own it, end of story.

As to whether HBC is illegal or not: Well, in theory no, but AFAIK there are portions of illegal copyrighted code in libogc, which is part of the SDK used to create most Wii homebrew (including HBC AFAIK), so... =/

But its not VERY illegal ;)

Uh, what? Nintendo would destroy libogc and all of the applications created with it, if that was the case. :P

It IS the case. But I don't think that's top of Nintendo's list of worries tbh.

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SifJar
It IS the case. But I don't think that's top of Nintendo's list of worries tbh.

The only proof I have seen you post for this is that some code looks 'dodgy' because it's not coded in a way you should code it.

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Daid

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SifJar
It IS the case. But I don't think that's top of Nintendo's list of worries tbh.

The only proof I have seen you post for this is that some code looks 'dodgy' because it's not coded in a way you should code it.

I haven't posted any proof, because I don't have any. However, marcan mentioned this on IRC in #wiidev and I believe him.

Since Nintendo SDK only comes in the form of plain header files (.h) and compiled libraries, the only things that could have been copy-pasted to libogc would have been type definitions, constant and function names. I have no idea if this can be considered as copyright infringement in regard of law but apparently, it didn't matter until now.

The disassembly and analysis of illegally obtained binaries (the outdated leaked SDK) might be illegal though, but since the source code and the output is not exactly similar, I guess it would have to be proven first in court that they didn't use publicly available code instead, which afaik is perfectly legal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2010 09:26AM by ekeeke.