"Ok, first off, are you really into knowing about laws and such ExCyber?"
I prefer to try to figure out what I can rather than merely take someone else's word for it - there are plenty of oft-referenced "laws" that are misunderstood or even completely imaginary.
Unfortunately, the way law works in this country is such that my opinion on what's legal or illegal doesn't really count unless the judge agrees with me, but I suppose that's the way it's got to be for it to work. I just wish I knew of a good free site for researching case law. In any case, I'm not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination.
"However, like many others on the board here I can understand Nintendos position on this matter."
As can I. They have every reason to want to stop piracy, and copyright gives them that right. I think the truth is, though, that they don't actually want to go through the pre-existing legal channels (i.e. suing individuals for actual direct infringement) because it would be too expensive and time-consuming, and might make them look bad. But they've got to do something, so they go after the distributors of the tools.
I still want to know why nobody seems to go after the release groups, as that seems to be the best target for "damage control" - are they really that well-organized? It seems like I hear about one big bust every few years, but it's always for PC stuff rather than console...
"And at the same time I get really pissed off when other people seem to have it so easy and just pick a side."
For the copyright/piracy debate, I can't stand that either, mostly because said people are more interested in name-calling than discussion. Like I said, I'm biased on the anti-circumvention thing because the "sides" I see to it are:
1) Corporations that control software/media platforms
2) Everyone else
I really fail to see how this balances anyone's rights (including authors) with the priviliges granted to those in control of the platforms.
"If my livelyhood depended on something that fragile, I'd grab whatever I could to ensure I got something for it."
On this note, I'd *really* love to see some stuff based on
Street Performer Protocol (skip to page 5 if you don't want to read the background info and justification), and I've even considered trying to put something together to release under that type of system, but I'm kind of busy with other stuff, so it keeps getting pushed aside. In a lot of ways it seems like the perfect way to compensate authors while making "piracy" a non-issue, but I suspect that consumers would be too confused by it to try it, and the big publishers would obviously have no part of it because it completely undermines the current business model for published works.
"hopefully this lets you know how nintendo (and other console compines) view things like this "
You're saying nothing I haven't heard before, but what they think should not determine what is allowed, otherwise websites would be shut down if they accused Nintendo of merely rehashing Pokemon over and over to milk the kids, or published a bad review of the latest Rare game. They have to play by the same rules as everyone else. IBM didn't originally want PC clones either, you know...