Great to see you can eat crow like a man Androo, lots of people here have murders of uneaten crow flying around, and beeing a nOOb is no problem at all as long as you live to learn.

Yeah I wish there was a real 100% mod chip out but for that to happen someone would need to get the internal Wii security Bios code and I hear its near impossible to unlock it, same thing happend to the 360, the Bios is protected like Dick Cheney in Bagdad, but one thing people learned form the Gamecube was that if you can´t Hack the consoles Bios (which then lets you do everything you whant) you can still Hack the Drive Bios and make the Console Bios think Discs are origonalls or from a a certain region. Unfortunatly some Wii games (20%-40%) can´t be imported without hacking the console bios. Paper Mario for example worked (but bricked some Wiis that didn´t have the latest firmwhare, gotta watchout for that) Big Brain Academy didn´t work... all we can hope for right now is that all the big three are compatible come to Pal regions fast, or that someone gets his hands on the Wii code (we could whatch DVDs then) but thats very unlikely.

If anything changes I´ll let you know , rumor going around in the mod scene is that there will soon be a PS3 softmod through downgrade much like the PSP, but wheather this is true or not will stay a mystery for a while, softmods mostly come out very late since you can´t really make any money of them so there is little money for research, what would be interesting for pennypinchers is that then in theory you could dump games on your HD and play them from there (originals of course, so loading time are smaller) everything else is uninterestin for modders since blueray burners are very rare and expensive as are blueray discs.

There are a few well though out replies in here -- especially Katilian. I stand by my assertion that, at least in the U.S. (and quite a few other industrialized nations), Intellectual property laws were put in place to augment larceny laws to protect property of the mind. While the ideas surrounding intellectual property are indeed quite convoluted and complex -- (patents, trademarks, copyrights, program code, and so on are all are included in the IP category) the basic tenet is that it is, in fact, the property is solely controlled by the owner of said property and anyone using it, reproducing it, sharing it, etc. without permission is theft.  There are a myriad of statutes, definitions, burdens of proof and other hurdles to jump over when it comes to identifying clear IP ownership, but they are definable, measurable, and most certainly enforceable.

There are numerous arguments that always center around the following:
-I wasn't going to buy it anyway so I'm not stealing.
-It is no longer available, published, in stores, etc. so I'm not stealing.
-If I try before I buy, I'm more likely to ultimately buy it - piracy increases sales.

All of these have been tried and debunked. Napster and its users tried these and other defenses but still got sued and lost. Pretty much everyone has lost in their battle against the RIAA. Why? The ownership of the IP was clearly measurable and definable.

To the poster above using the hypothetical "Jesus" story. Give us a break. You can't use something that isn't possible in today's society to provide a what-if as a defense.  What if Aliens landed and stole it. Are they subject to U.S. or Federation of Galaxies copyright laws? What if there are no extradition laws on their planet?

so many misconceptions in this thread it's simply incredible.

first thing, modchips are primarily designed for playing burnt games. while they offer homebrew & import functionality they are used to play burnt games. there is no point in arguing this.

for the most part i haven't seen people deal with a couple important points
- if i owned a certain NES or SNES game as a kid and want to enjoy it again, am i seriously to be expected to pay again for the same game that i payed $105 for back in the early 90s? would it be that offensive for me to download a rom to play the very game i already paid for years ago, burn it on a disc with snes station (snes emulator for ps2) and enjoy myself?
- piracy of intellectual property will never end. throughout our world there exists a underground network that exists to reproduce video games, movies and music for those who know wanting their goods and who know where to look. i would compare it to the drug trade in the availability respect. as long as there is a demand, wether it be a modchip company or someone slanging burnt wii games on a private internet forum, someone WILL provide.

on that note, keep in mind that despite the ps2 being fully cracked years ago and people playing copied games on it since shortly after its debut, it is still one of the most successful systems of all time.