| Normchacho said: Bunch of entitled brats...It's theft, and I hate the idea that some people think they should just get to have something without paying for it. |
Actually, modding a console is not theft. Neither is copying software, or any other content. And even European courts agree, only American courts disagree due to heavy lobbying from interest groups like RIAA, and then try to muscle and force their jurusdiction onto rest of the world.
EU courts have ruled that purchasing a console constitutes transfer of ownership, and whatever is done to the console afterwards is sole discretion of the buyer. You can paint it, break it, tear it apart, insert new chipsets, remove features and of course mod it. It is yours.
EU courts have also ruled that copying content is not illegal, as long as a person does it for personal use, and receives no payment from other people. Therefore, you can download a game from the net, burn it onto your dvd and play it without any legal reprecussions. Our government in turn imposes a small tax on all blank media (discs, flash drives, hard discs...), which is then pooled into subsidies for content producers.
Of course, Sony, Microsoft and whoever else have a complete autonomy on banning you from their servers, and can request anything in their EULA. By signing it you enter into a contract with the company, and that contract can of course include many limitations that are not illegal according to the government. Banning modded consoles is an example.
EDIT: Links --
http://www.mup.hr/93636/1.aspx (sorry, this one is in Croatian - from Croatian Ministry of Police) but if you google translate the bottom part (below bulletpoints) you can read what I've written above.
