Question about the rules.

[Upisoft]

What does it mean "All Peer to Peer (P2P) applications"?

Does that apply I cannot discuss World of Warcraft here, as its updater makes use of a P2P?

 

[pgp_protector]

I'm guessing you're asking about these ?
http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=710987

I agree, quite a few of these "rules" fail to take notice of Fair use, and such.
Example If I have a Family DVD made from a DVD Camcorder (Quite Common Now), am I not allowed to ask how to Rip / Convert it from DVD to AVI so I can store it on my Zune ?
(Even Converting Legally Owned Movies for my zune is Legal)

P2P Applications are quite Legal also.
Modding Personally owned Hardware is also Legal.
Voiding a Warranty Is Legal, and Not Breaking the law.

But as given in the Last line, the "Staff" will decide if your post is valid or not (No Idea how they decide it though )

 

[Qyöt27]

I agree, quite a few of these "rules" fail to take notice of Fair use, and such.
Example If I have a Family DVD made from a DVD Camcorder (Quite Common Now), am I not allowed to ask how to Rip / Convert it from DVD to AVI so I can store it on my Zune ?
(Even Converting Legally Owned Movies for my zune is Legal)

Well, that depends on how stringently one interprets the DMCA. It does have a section which specifies it is illegal to circumvent DRM except in the interests of inter-operability, although such things have never been rigorously tested in court. Same with what 'fair use' entails.

Even without circumventing DRM, if you look on the back of practically any DVD or Audio CD, it has a warning which specifies 'Unauthorized copying, [etc.] is illegal/a Federal offense/whatever your wording of choice is'. I do seem to remember that a case did vindicate the idea of making a private backup of your own, but I don't know how long ago that was.

I agree that all those things should be legal, under the banner of Consumer's Rights, but Consumer's Rights and Fair Use are not very well-defined ideas, legally speaking.



Anyway, my guess about things like World of Warcraft is that it's ok. Just because a company utilizes X system to issue updates doesn't taint everything about their products. Linux distributions commonly use the BitTorrent protocol to distribute their ISO images, and that is perfectly legal, since the distributions which do so don't restrict that form of distribution from their usage ideals. The same thing applies to some music artists which put forth the effort to set up their distribution frameworks that way - the thing which can make using those networks illegal is not the network itself, it's what you're using it for.

I would assume the staff determines which posts are appropriate by the criteria of 'you cannot endorse using those networks to acquire music/movies/applications/etc. illegally, end of story'. Getting updates that are given out that way by the manufacturer themselves is legal, provided they have made that perfectly clear.

 

[Upisoft]

Thanks for the answers. Yes, I was asking about the rules for this forum. I was very surprised to see all P2P apps in the list of illegal things. For me it is just like saying that airplanes are illegal, because someone have done very bad things with them. It doesn't make any sense.

I'm sure that Blizzard use P2P protocol legally.

 

[pgp_protector]

Thanks for the answers. Yes, I was asking about the rules for this forum. I was very surprised to see all P2P apps in the list of illegal things. For me it is just like saying that airplanes are illegal, because someone have done very bad things with them. It doesn't make any sense.

I'm sure that Blizzard use P2P protocol legally.

Heck I use <removed> legally for downloading shareware.