Okay. So, backing up isn't illegal.

But in order to play backup, I have to illegally mod my system?

Is it legal or not?

why? a product is a product. what's the difference. You buy content (book - game) on a physical medium (paper - DVD).
If he is afraid of losing access to purchased content, than from my point of view question is valid.

but as video games go. I play them since late 80. As of right now, my oldest game is from 1997 (Atlantis ). I played it last week, and gues what... it works. None of my games that were on floppy disks (Amiga), CDs (PC,PS1), DVDs(PC,PS2), cartridges (N64,DS) ever stop working. So all this fuss about making backup of your games because you are afraid of loosing them is quit absurd.

... just don't give them your dog to play with.

the actual backing up process is defenitly not illegal

Sony did not just make it convienient to do because otherwise people would just back up all their games and return them or resell them. The physical software market for new games would collapse.

I believe sony should do what microsoft has done with the xbox 360. You can fully backup your game on the hdd, but you have to put the disc in to play it. I have a few xbox games that are completly unplayable due to scratches(love when my parents have guests with little kids over...) that i can I can play because as soon as I got them I saved them to my hdd. Its not a completly perfect method. If you lose your game or somehow it breaks into pieces your out of luck. But its a nice compromise.

So, if I buy a book. I can't make a digital copy of it and read it on my computer? Regardless whether my dog might eat my homework book?

Allowing you to backup games also allows you, and others, to make many duplicates of games, which you can sell for profit or give away for free on the internet. Next question?

dump the game on the PC and play it via dolphin emulator.

Problem solved. unless you have a shitty PC that is.

isn't that for nintendo games?

yes and he wanted to back up and play these backed up Wii games without modding his console

It's not illegal, unless you circumvent DRM to do it and live in the US, in which case it violates the DMCA. But that's a stupid law, thankfully confined to the US for now, and really should be repealed.

I think it depends on the country you live in. In the UK for example it is illegal to even put your CD collection on your own MP3 player, phone etc.,

Copying (backing up) movie DVDs are also illegal.

I have no idea about games but if you can't do the above I am guessing in the UK you can't backup your games discs either.

In the UK modding is illegal .. I think, but in Italy, Spain etc, the general belief by their governments is that you bought the console therefore you can do what you want with it.. but that could have change recently.

In the USA I think modding is legal but not sure about game backups.

This is a good question but they seem to be many different answers that contradict each other, even from "reliable" sources.