It was the ESA who said out right "all hacking is illegal", not me, not the EFF. By that logic, this very site is full of nothing but hardened criminals bent on piracy and wrongdoing, and its very name is contraband. That's just plain silly.
Yes, they said "all hacking is illegal", and given the definition they're using for "hacking", that's a perfectly reasonable thing to claim. The real debate is whether modifying computer games counts as "hacking" under that definition. Debates just about definitions aren't interesting.
It bothers me that the very "hacking" that made video games even possible (modifying the console or computer system to do what it wasn't intended to do) is now being called illegal by the ESA. I maintain that there wouldn't be any video games to hack, morally or immorally, without old school hacking from the late 1940s through at least the 1980s.
The ESA are the ones trying to redefine the language to suit their pocket books. They are the ones trying to claim that "hacking" can only mean circumvention of copyright protection, when the word has a place in many different contexts and applications, and can be good/moral/legal or bad/immoral/illegal, or any combination. Even said circumvention can be for good or fair use reasons, as the EFF is arguing.
That is not what ESA is saying (they are saying a bunch of other dumb things), though it's understandable why you'd think that, because it's what EFF wants you to believe.
I was basing what I said off of the actual filing, not the EFF's pearl-clutching.
"Hacking video game access controls facilitates piracy and therefore undermines
the core anti-piracy purposes of Section 1201. As explained above, hacking the video
game access controls requires, by definition, hacking of the video game console or
similar device in order to play the hacked video game. Once the access controls for the
video game console are hacked, regardless of the purported purpose or intent of the
hacker, any content, including pirated games, can be played on a video game console.
What's more, console hackers may distribute their console-hacking solution to gamers
that have no intention of using it for the purposes stated in the proposed exemption. The
risk of piracy is even greater on personal computers and similar devices that do not
utilize device-based access controls to prevent the installation of unauthorized software.
The individual can use consoles to make and store infringing copies of copyrighted
games and other content and to distribute these unlawful copies online to a large
audience."[1]
They are equating hacking with piracy, full stop. They are saying "regardless of the intent of the hacker, the hacker is committing piracy". That's a scary precedent to set.
