As you all know we all love having our custom roms on our HTC devices, it makes them much faster and has many more applications and content!
But the truth is, is all this legal?
I wanted to hear it out straight from the horses mouth so i went straight to the big guys, Google INCs Android.
Dissapointingly on their website thye have no Contact Us or e-mail so i just browsed about.
What i found out?
I found out that Android is a free, open source Os so any one can come in, get an SDK and develop some apps.
What i didn't find out?
What i did not find out is it flashing or creating roms is legal.
So i went up to the guys who gave Android a try, HTC!
I asked them exactly this:
Is flashing custom Android roms legal on the HTC Hero/HTC Android phones?
This is because Android is a free open soruce fully customisable mobile platfrm created by google INC.
Thank you
They said:, well Terry from HTC said:
Dear Blazr Thank you for your enquiry about Android devices This is how we keep these devices up to date and current. What happens is that google inc release these Roms to us and we make HTC Rom updates from them, so they are 100% legal. If these steps have not helped, please let me know by responding using the link provided and I will be happy to check again for you. Best regards, Terry Snelling HTC customer support team HTC Corp. Global Service Division http://www.htc.com/europe/CA_Hotline.aspx
Then i asked my question again:
No i am asking if flashing UNOFFICAL CUSTOM MADE ROMS are legal, not flashinggoogles, please can you reply
And they said this:
Dear Blazr Thank you for your enquiry about Rom updates If you dont update to rom from www.HTC.com, or your providers website, then this will be a illegal rom and will lose your warranty. If these steps have not helped, please let me know by responding using the link provided and I will be happy to check again for you. Best regards, Terry Snelling HTC customer support team HTC Corp. Global Service Division http://www.htc.com/europe/CA_Hotline.aspx
Well i aint sure if this helped but there you go,
They said that
1 Flashing a rom not from HTC or Google is ILLEGAL
2 And that it will ruin your warranty
So if youre someone who doesn't care but wants the best from his device, like me, then continue supporting custom rom makers.
But if you are someone, like my aint, who LOVES their warranty and hates hacking and 'this nonsense,' they say. Then stick with Android 2.0.
But What do you think,
Thats what i would like to know!
Please respond and give your opiion,
Regards
Sorry if this is long
This is nothing new, we know this for already years. They (MS, HTC, etc.) tolerate it.
Many will argue that as you have paid for the device it is up to you what you do with the device..
I very much doubt flashing a non-official ROM is illegal.. I know of no law that it breaks..
Meekel said:
Many will argue that as you have paid for the device it is up to you what you do with the device..
I very much doubt flashing a non-official ROM is illegal.. I know of no law that it breaks..
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I think the only thing it "breaks" is your warranty.
djn541 said:
I think the only thing it "breaks" is your warranty.
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Correct.. in addition, the email said an "illegal rom" not that it was illegal to flash a rom
Meekel said:
Correct.. in addition, the email said an "illegal rom" not that it was illegal to flash a rom
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Exactly. In the e-mail and "illegal rom" is a rom that does not originat from google itself, HTC (or other manufacturer), or your carrier. illegal roms, "cooked Roms" are only illegal in the sense that you will void your warranty. Not that you will go to prison.
lol, of course flashing an unoffical Windows Mobile ROM is illegal! From a legal standpoint, cooked ROMs are an intellectual property nightmare! That's why XDA has to remove links to ROM builds when they get a cease and desist letter. Otherwise, they'd go to court and lose the case because M$ is clearly within its rights to request the ROMs be taken down. Now, are you going to be imprisoned because you use a cooked ROM? Of course not. M$ is smart enough to know when not to alienate its best customers. HTC and M$ could take most of the software off this board in an instant due to all that software existing in a copyright gray area which favors them. However, they know when they should respect their enthusiast community and there's a defacto understanding between the device enthusiasts and them.
For Android, the situation's actually a bit different. Most of Android is open source, and licensed under an Apache 2 or a GPL v2 license. Flashing ROMs containing only the open source parts are completely legal (though warranty voiding because they're not from the OEM). However, Google includes some of their own closed source applications like YouTube, GMail, Google Maps, etc. in Android OS, and these cannot be redistributed as they are proprietary to Google. This ensures that only manufactures they approve can make Android devices with full functionality. The classic example of this is when Android ROM cook Cyanogen recieved a C&D letter from Google, because his custom firmware contained these applications and he was not within his legal rights to redistribute them with his ROMs. So, it can get a bit tricky with Android, but the short answer is yes, it's technically illegal to flash full cooked ROMS (i.e. with Google proprietary apps).
However, you shouldn't worry about the police taking you away or finding yourself with a lawsuit just because you flash a cooked ROM. The corporations usually don't mess with their enthusiast community, and usually the worst they do is have the offending software taken down. However, you should keep in mind that the corporations are almost always, in these cases, within their rights to issue a law suit or similar (though they always go for the big-time chefs and not the users, to make a point).
DaveTheTytnIIGuy said:
lol, of course flashing an unoffical Windows Mobile ROM is illegal! From a legal standpoint, cooked ROMs are an intellectual property nightmare! That's why XDA has to remove links to ROM builds when they get a cease and desist letter. Otherwise, they'd go to court and lose the case because M$ is clearly within its rights to request the ROMs be taken down. Now, are you going to be imprisoned because you use a cooked ROM? Of course not. M$ is smart enough to know when not to alienate its best customers. HTC and M$ could take most of the software off this board in an instant due to all that software existing in a copyright gray area which favors them. However, they know when they should respect their enthusiast community and there's a defacto understanding between the device enthusiasts and them.
For Android, the situation's actually a bit different. Most of Android is open source, and licensed under an Apache 2 or a GPL v2 license. Flashing ROMs containing only the open source parts are completely legal (though warranty voiding because they're not from the OEM). However, Google includes some of their own closed source applications like YouTube, GMail, Google Maps, etc. in Android OS, and these cannot be redistributed as they are proprietary to Google. This ensures that only manufactures they approve can make Android devices with full functionality. The classic example of this is when Android ROM cook Cyanogen recieved a C&D letter from Google, because his custom firmware contained these applications and he was not within his legal rights to redistribute them with his ROMs. So, it can get a bit tricky with Android, but the short answer is yes, it's technically illegal to flash full cooked ROMS (i.e. with Google proprietary apps).
However, you shouldn't worry about the police taking you away or finding yourself with a lawsuit just because you flash a cooked ROM. The corporations usually don't mess with their enthusiast community, and usually the worst they do is have the offending software taken down. However, you should keep in mind that the corporations are almost always, in these cases, within their rights to issue a law suit or similar (though they always go for the big-time chefs and not the users, to make a point).
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Well said. Kudos to you
DaveTheTytnIIGuy said:
lol, of course flashing an unoffical Windows Mobile ROM is illegal! From a legal standpoint, cooked ROMs are an intellectual property nightmare! That's why XDA has to remove links to ROM builds when they get a cease and desist letter. Otherwise, they'd go to court and lose the case because M$ is clearly within its rights to request the ROMs be taken down. Now, are you going to be imprisoned because you use a cooked ROM? Of course not. M$ is smart enough to know when not to alienate its best customers. HTC and M$ could take most of the software off this board in an instant due to all that software existing in a copyright gray area which favors them. However, they know when they should respect their enthusiast community and there's a defacto understanding between the device enthusiasts and them.
For Android, the situation's actually a bit different. Most of Android is open source, and licensed under an Apache 2 or a GPL v2 license. Flashing ROMs containing only the open source parts are completely legal (though warranty voiding because they're not from the OEM). However, Google includes some of their own closed source applications like YouTube, GMail, Google Maps, etc. in Android OS, and these cannot be redistributed as they are proprietary to Google. This ensures that only manufactures they approve can make Android devices with full functionality. The classic example of this is when Android ROM cook Cyanogen recieved a C&D letter from Google, because his custom firmware contained these applications and he was not within his legal rights to redistribute them with his ROMs. So, it can get a bit tricky with Android, but the short answer is yes, it's technically illegal to flash full cooked ROMS (i.e. with Google proprietary apps).
However, you shouldn't worry about the police taking you away or finding yourself with a lawsuit just because you flash a cooked ROM. The corporations usually don't mess with their enthusiast community, and usually the worst they do is have the offending software taken down. However, you should keep in mind that the corporations are almost always, in these cases, within their rights to issue a law suit or similar (though they always go for the big-time chefs and not the users, to make a point).
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Well said man, well said. They wouldn't track you down cause you flashed a rom but if some how, what are the likes of this but, a clever police man checked out your phone then we may be introuble. But thats what i a saying cause Modacos rom has google applications in it i think..
Non the less, what they have said is that it is illegal to post custom roms with their applications in it, so its sort of legal to flash your own rom without the need of googles stuff.
djn541 said:
I think the only thing it "breaks" is your warranty.
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Exactly, if the thing breaks from manufactors defects then i cant return it and have tp pay to get it fixed otherwise i must say hello to insurance, which i aint sure how much it is on the Hero.
Meekel said:
Many will argue that as you have paid for the device it is up to you what you do with the device..
I very much doubt flashing a non-official ROM is illegal.. I know of no law that it breaks..
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True, it just breaks the manufactors agreement but they say its illegal, its like putting CFW on a PSP or Wii.??
Also if you piad 400 of your great british pounds or american bucks then you should be able to do what you like to it, when you like to it, (except be a stupid p!rate)..
blazr said:
True, it just breaks the manufactors agreement but they say its illegal, its like putting CFW on a PSP or Wii.??
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I disgaree with this statement purely on the fact that in the UK no one has been prosecuted for chipping/modding a games console.
They have only be prosecuted for selling these devices..
I understand your point though..
Meekel said:
I disgaree with this statement purely on the fact that in the UK no one has been prosecuted for chipping/modding a games console.
They have only be prosecuted for selling these devices..
I understand your point though..
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Maybe not, but I'm fairly sure UK law states that "circumventing protection" is a crime. Flashing a ROM isn't illegal, but HSPL/SSPL is as you're circumventing the protection which prevents you from flashing.
Distributing ROMs is also illegal as you are making/distributing copies of someone else's source code.
So I think that as long as you don't use HSPL/SSPL and don't distribute your ROMs it wouldn't be illegal. But then again, I'm no solicitor (lawyer for you yanks )
Blade0rz said:
Maybe not, but I'm fairly sure UK law states that "circumventing protection" is a crime. Flashing a ROM isn't illegal, but HSPL/SSPL is as you're circumventing the protection which prevents you from flashing.
Distributing ROMs is also illegal as you are making/distributing copies of someone else's source code.
So I think that as long as you don't use HSPL/SSPL and don't distribute your ROMs it wouldn't be illegal. But then again, I'm no solicitor (lawyer for you yanks )
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I agree that distributing ROMs is illegal as you would be using IP from whatever company it is therefore would be breaking the law..
Ack, it's a complicated issue ain't it..?
Your very right. Its a very complicated issue as it falls under many categories. And the fact that laws are very different in different countries. This issue can be compared with lots of cases.
I will try to resume it this way:
1) When you purchase an electronic device containing software, you own the hardware, but only are licensing the usage of the provided software. This means you cannot do whatever you want with the device, i.e. you may not reverse engineer the software (at least in most western countries).
2) Flashing offical ROM's, which are provided by the manufacturer to be used by customers are not illegal, or it would be the manufacturer's responsability if he did not license the software for distribution. If the customer bricks the device while flashing it, he way lose warranty.
3) Flashing unofficial ROM's: the legal aspect of it is not concerning the act of flashing, but the question if you are entitled to a valid license of all included software modules. In most cases you are not. Even if you are entitled to the software modules contained in the unoffical ROM, flashing it to the device definitly voids the warranty. The question is: can the manufacturer prove you used an unofficial ROM. In most cases he can't, specially if you flash back to an offical ROM prior to sending the faulty device in.
4) In practical terms: as long as you download the unoffical ROM without spreading it yourself (aka using a P2P client) and as long as you don't offer the unoffical ROM yourself, it is very unlikely that you risk any legal trouble. The reason being that the offense has a very small value compared to the difficulty to actually prove anything. No policeman has the knowledge and authority to check the firmware of your phone...
However, in case of malfunction, the manufacturer can always refuse warranty if he can prove that an unoffical ROM has been flashed to the device. Again, often manufacturers like HTC seem to be pretty customer-friendly. I have a Blue Angel that broke within warranty after I flashed a custom ROM (was conincidence and not the ROM's fault). I got a free repair, but the device was returned with the latest official HTC ROM. Fair enough.
5) What you should be carefull about: take care not to publish (or at least in a traceable way) unofficial firmware containing third party software which has not been licensed, i.e. using a cracked version.
6) Final thoughts: As has been stated here already, I believe that a forum like this one is probably monitored by people from Microsoft and HTC (both companies being the reason for this forum to exist in first place). Because it has been pretty clean and basically providing corrected ROM's to entusiasts, no real harm is done to either company and perhaps even quite the opposite: any problem you experience on an HTC phone, search for a resultion in Google and you end up here. I think this is the best support forum any company could desire, so why make a war against it...
Cheers,
vma
Well said vma
Deffinition of illegal,
1. not according to or authorized by law
2. not sanctioned by official rules
I think in the context we're discussing here #1 does NOT apply, but #2 does.
I don't think any law has been written that makes it a crime to flash a custom ROM to your phone. However according to some "official" rules it is illegal. But when you commit an illegal act that is a violation of rules, it is not punishible by law. No, the punishment is handed down by the manufacturer and that is the voiding of your warranty.
It's hard to commit a truly illegal crime against yourself. Can you steal from yourself? Can you hit yourself in the head and be prosecuted for assault? The only one I can think of is suicide. But have you ever seen the crime of suicide prosecuted? (I'm not talking about assisted suicide here)
Interesting discussion, and just my 2 cents,
@dirkbonn:
Your line of thinking is wrong. I am by no means a lawyer or what so ever, BUT: the flashing of cooked ROM's is illegal because:
1) It required REVERSE ENGINEERING of software to be done. Defined in most countries as illegal.
2) It involves the use of unlicensed software. Defined in most countries as illegal.
3) It involves in many cases the removal of locks imposed by the operator. Again, this is illegal, because you accepted a contract in which you commited to refrain from doing that.
What some people don't seem to understand is: when you purchase the device, it comes with software which you only license for use. You do not own the software. Also, you are only granted to use the provided versions. You cannot assume that you have the right to use a more recent version or a version in another language. The right to decide upon that, belongs to the owner of the intellectual property of the software.
Again, debating about the logic of such laws will not change the law.
To change the law, you need to vote for the right politicians and pressure them to approve laws, you are comfortable with.
In my modest opinion, laws regarding the protection of intellectual property have to quickly be revised, in order to avoid having the whole population commiting offenses and crimes.
Cheers,
vma
Request to HTC
hello everybody. recently I asked HTC about this issue.
Question:
"Dear Sirs and Madams
I wanted to ask you if updating a HTC Touch HD from WM 6.1 to WM 6.5 with a downloaded ROM not from the HTC or Microsoft-Website is illegal or not. For me it is clear that if I do so, I lose my warranty on it, but am I allowed to do so?"
Answer:
"Thank you for contacting us. Installing non official ROM on your devcie will void your warranty . It may also cause problems in funcionality on your device. It is up to you to decide to install any ROM on your device. I trust that this resolves your query, please do not hesitate to contact us again if required."
best regards,
sblubb
Definatly not illegal. Will void your warranty BUT most of the things you get in your warranty are covered by your statutory rights, which you still have.
As an employee of Vodafone UK. I can confirm from a network operators POV, we do NOT refuse warranty exchanges on an Android device that has been rooted or custom ROM'ed as long as the fault is a hardware fault.
This is because Android is open source and it is illegal to try and charge or restrict it.
Windows devices however, we will not do anything if they are not running the stock image. That is because Windows is licensed software that the manufacturers have to pay to use.
Related
just dont buy their Vista! that should teach them something! never piss off thoses that supporting u!
netnerd said:
just dont buy their Vista! that should teach them something! never piss off thoses that supporting u!
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I never planned on it, what a rip off! XP will last another 3-5 years, then I am sure the next PC/MAC will have something better.
netnerd said:
just dont buy their Vista! that should teach them something! never piss off thoses that supporting u!
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OK....you got me....what does this have to do with upgrading your hermes.
maybe that you can not run upgrade software under vista
tco said:
OK....you got me....what does this have to do with upgrading your hermes.
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The pukes in Micro$oft's compliance and licensing department have demanded take down of all ROMs- source of the only stable, up-to-date WM versions of their piece-o-crap OS.
Palm did this to Shadowmite about a year ago after Cingular and Verizon started to complain to Palm. Basically MS is admiting that Gates is the carriers' *****- its a shame that sanctimonious prick elected to breed: conquers the computer world then surrenders it to Ma Bell, her children and their content providers.
Guess it's time to spread some pirated Office 2003 love....
I betcha what bothered them was the progress being made by the XDA Linux project- after seeing what Access released earlier this week M$ ought to be running scared.
I'm running SuSE Linux and have no problem upgrading my roms on my HTC TyTN.
and by the way.... all the little pretty pictures and how VISTA does multi windows with content.. Linux does too! XGL!!!!
This got me thinking.... can we load Linux on our phones?
This is annoying that M$ has to do this. They just cant leave anything alone.
Oh if Linux can do a ROM load then surely OSX can too then.
Yeah spread the good word on the process. In another topic of course(dont wanna de-rail)
This thread needs more LOLZOR1111!!!!
Seriously, wtf?
Don't buy Vista to show them what exactly?
Yeah, let's use a 5 year old OS with easily exploited security issues to teach them what?
The term cutting off your nose to spite your face comes to mind.
Also, they are protecting their legal intellectual property, and they are in the wrong?
What we do here has always been of dubious legal standing. We carry on as long as we are allowed, but we stop when we are told to stop, and that way nobody gets into trouble.
Get a grip on reality people.
Exactly well said. The trouble is instead of a nice comprehensive source of good ROMs made by people who know what they're doing. There'll be a proliferation of hacked-up images with random hacked version numbers scattered across the internet.
Will this result in fewer bricked phones and support calls?
AlanJC said:
Get a grip on reality people.
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I couldn't agree more.
Apparently a lot of people have problems with "reality" nowadays.
Yes, it sucks that the ROMs have to be pulled from the ftp servers.
Yes, Microsoft could do better and show a firmer stand regarding the carriers.
Yes, this online community is very valuable to Microsoft AND the carriers, if they realize it or not.
BUT: there are laws and if Microsoft demands the removal of the ROMs, it is their right to do so, like it or not. They could have used a more "aggressive" approach with their law department but they chose to use a more "soft" approach and this is a very wise decision.
However, Microsoft must realize that such unpopular decisions won't be forgotten and such actions will definetely not make their already bad reputation much better.
Calling for a boycott doesn't help much, I'm pretty sure myself that the carriers are behind the ROM removal, not necessarily Microsoft.
Maybe we should write a letter to the carriers, asking them if they're behind the pressure on Microsoft to have the ROMs removed. If the carriers are blamed instead and their decisions are out in the open, maybe they re-consider because trust me, I would NOT want to be a customer of a carrier who asked Microsoft to remove the ROMs. Definetely not.
personaly i'm not planning on getting vista untill maybe sp4
anyway
xp with 3th party software and no IE is safe enough
vista is mostly 3th party software functionality now as a std. ms thing
and fancy eye candy which linux and macos had for ages
but if ms see that vista is not selling as well as it should
and they connect the dots and form a picture that show that
their pull unoffical roms off sites
there is something wrong with their heads
Vista already not selling as well as it should - it started to show when it was released for volume (corporate) clients, and now its well clear that ordinary users dont rush to buy it despite all PR tsunami unleashed - maybe its "good, advanced, beautiful" and all the buzz, but even thick Joe User sees thats its somewhat lot of problems and complaints floating around.
The whole Vista thing was a reckless scheme - MS spent millions on development, but they lost the clear understanding of why exactly people will want it - on the latest stages it was more of make beleief.
Now they will have to transfer money from other branches, that is more profitable (namely being their Office branch, XBox being not profitable on their own). I think thats why they made it "WM6" (when it was clearly 5.2 originally and still 5.2 in matter of features and internal versioning) - for WM6 they can charge license fees from ODMs as for entirely new OS.
@All
Forget about roms, we will find alternative way to store them, so this is just empty talk. There are free filehosting sites, and other p2p distributing variants, so what's the problem? Microsoft has the rights to ask for deleting the roms, everyone know that. We will continiue what we doing but with difrend way of distributing rom images, thats all. About vista is sucks, you have to confirm every action you do about hunderd times, it works slow even with effects shutted down, and on high end configuration PC, it randomly loose settings, cookies, passwords, favorites, software and other stuff, overall it is unreliable fo usage.
I love to hate MS as much as the rest of you, but everybody needs to step back and take a breath on this one. The reason MS is doing this has nothing to do with piracy, Vista, progress, Linux, taking over the world, Bill Gates, them being money-grubbing pigs, or your grandmother.
The reasoning is simple...under US intellectual property laws, if they are made aware that someone is distributing their intellectual property (like a ROM that contains MS software) and they make no attempt to stop it, they forfeit their rights to that intellectual property. I don't think I need to explain why giving up their rights would be a bad idea for them.
In my experience, companies try to ignore sites like this for as long as they possibly can, because nobody wants to attract the kind of bad press a takedown notice causes. Inevitably, however, things get too big...a site gets a mention in the news, or it becomes the defacto source for ROMs, or it gets frequent mentions in other forums like cingular.com, and the attorneys finally have to face the fact that they can't possibly claim in court that they weren't aware that their IP was being distributed.
All companies do things like this every day to a lot of great sites and forums, not because they are jerks, but because the US legal system requires them to.
In the meantime, we just have to move on and do what everyone else does--find somewhere else to keep the bits
The reasoning is simple...under US intellectual property laws, if they are made aware that someone is distributing their intellectual property (like a ROM that contains MS software) and they make no attempt to stop it, they forfeit their rights to that intellectual property. I don't think I need to explain why giving up their rights would be a bad idea for them.
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Actually that's completely untrue. I think you're thinking of trademarks which do behave in that way. That was the reason for the necessary recent legal cases by Linus over the Linux trademark. There's no such requirement for copyrights or patents.
Not being on the inside it's hard to know the reason for the action: Whether it's the OEM's complaining. I think their logic is that if they only provide updates with new hardware then you'll have no choice but to buy their new hardware. and that people making updates for their older devices are harming their sales figures. they really are that dumb.
The alternative is that MS are annoyed/worried about all the information leaking about WM6 before launch and they simply want to control the release situation.
ivorh said:
Actually that's completely untrue. I think you're thinking of trademarks which do behave in that way. That was the reason for the necessary recent legal cases by Linus over the Linux trademark. There's no such requirement for copyrights or patents.
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Not quite...the nature in which you forfeit rights is different between copyrights and trademarks, but due diligence is required for both. If a known copyright infringement is not pursued within the statute of limitations, implied license is granted, meaning the infringer can essentially distribute at will.
ivorh said:
Actually that's completely untrue. I think you're thinking of trademarks which do behave in that way. That was the reason for the necessary recent legal cases by Linus over the Linux trademark. There's no such requirement for copyrights or patents.
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Not quite...the nature in which you forfeit rights is different between copyrights and trademarks, but due diligence is required for both. If a known copyright infringement is not pursued within the statute of limitations, implied license is granted.
No offence guys but Microsoft or the Vendors wouldn't have given crap about the roms here if it wasn't for the idiots (yes you know who you are) pestering the vendors and Microsoft about support for yet to be released roms. Either bugging them with questions on why something doesn't work anymore, how to use something in the new rom (GPS....), or warrenty repair for f'ing up one's device. Not to mention how pissed they must be for the even bigger idiots who contact Vender A and tell them they installed Vendor A rom on Vender B device
Really what it comes down to is if it costs them money they are going to make a stink and handling service calls for hacked/unsupported roms costs them money. Not to mention how much it would piss off Vendor A to spend money enhancing their rom only to have news sites promoting the rom to other Vendor B devices and have people installing it on Vendor B's device.
That's really what this is all about so if there is anyone to blame in all this, don't blame Microsoft or the Vendors, blame those people because if it wasn't for them, the vendors and Microsoft would have given a sh*t and probably just let things be the way they should be.
Maybe an appropriate response would be to overwhelm MS and the Carriers support systems with complaints about slow, non functioning, unstable software and devices.
The Carriers who actually sell most of us our phones should be ashamed of offering such substandard products. The diference between an "XDA-Developers sourced ROM" and the stock ROM on my device at least is enormous. Yet it was achieved by unpaid amateurs, I mean no disrespect to ROM chefs with this statement.
With the Windows update features built in to WM6 maybe there is a mechanism for MS to offer timely updates/fixes direct to the user. These updates could have incorporated "XDA-Developers" inspired enhancements and bug fixes. Sadly I feel this will not now be the case.
Yes, I can understand the global motives of MS in protecting its intelectual property but I cannot perceive any benefit to MS by exerting its right/might in this case.
</RANT>
Just read another post where it was mentioned that technically the different ROM versions floating around on the site are illegal.
And WM6 for free? I'd say that's piracy. You do pay for at least to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista?
When you buy a new computer that comes with an OS, you can't assume that you are entitled for a free upgrade
to OS when ever one is released.
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In some sense I can see that this might be true! after all, its well known that this site won't tolerate warez... but its fine for beta/non-beta ROMS to be cooked and made freely available to anyone with compatible devices...
Don't get me wrong... I'm all for it and envy all of our cooks - if I could understand how to do it I would!!! I'm just wondering what the true legalities are?
Please don't shoot me
lots of views on the matter here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=294142&highlight=legal
"And WM6 for free? I'd say that's piracy. You do pay for at least to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista?"
this statement is not really true because ms sell vista and vista upgrades
nor ms or htc or any of the OEM's of the htc devices have ever sold upgrades ms stay out of it 100% htc (pre them selling themselfs) always just made basis roms and given them to the operators to customize and give users free
If it is being sold and we used it without buying, that's illegal, just like the computer situation.
In PPC situation, how can it be legal or illegal when it is not sold in the first place?
"True" legalities are simple: M$ has copyright on this material so though I am not a legal expert of any kind I am sure they will have no trouble proving in court that even simple redistribution of ROMs without any alteration by a non authorized party such as this site is illegal.
Then again, since neither M$ nor the OEMs (not jut HTC) don't bother with updates unless a given device is really unstable so they need to fix some bugs and you can never by a newer OS even if your device supports it I thinks this is basically "fare use".
After all it is a dirty commercial trick to force people to by new hardware at ridiculous prices just to keep the software up to date.
CWKJ said:
In PPC situation, how can it be legal or illegal when it is not sold in the first place?
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Violating patents is illegal,while they are not sold. Violating GPL is illegal, while the product covered by GPL is free. So "not sold" means nothing.
You might know that in modern world nobody sells software itself. They sell or give away licenses on its use. When you buy such a software, it is written on the envelope: "By opening blah-blah-blah" and you accept the license this way. It is not a case with my TyTN! I didn't have to accept a license before starting to use the software. Same with firmware of several devices on the market.
If there are no any contractual relationships between me and the owner of the rights on this software, I violate nothing by using it on a way of my choice.
Well, stolen betas is of different kind: the person who first started to distributed it violated NDA or something like. It is known. So I can't disagree it's illegal.
When you download a firmware update from the vendor, you amy have to accept a license. If you have done, then cooking from it may be illegal.
But I see nothing illegal when no an agreement was accepted.
I think the answer is not quite as simple. Is it legal? Well, technically it is not.
A lot of copyright law could and would defend this point.
However in this world of ours, not everything is about the law. Especially when money is involved.
Having MS and HTC simply say that if you want to taste WM6 that you have to buy a new gadget is not illegal. In fact as the owners and the licenser this is completely their right to do. Sh!tty? Sure! But why not? It is their right, and for us to use WM6 because we don't want to pay does NOT make it right.
The fact of the matter is the number of users who will be upgrading to WM6 through cooked ROMs is rather small and honestly not worth their trouble.
They know most people will buy the software legally. They know that most of their serious buyers will be corporations who will buy it legally. AND ultimately, they WANT people to work and spread their software as much as possible.
Sure they are loosing money doing that --very little in the large scheme of things-- but ultimately, they win because they (US) spread knowledge and we create future customers. Since eventually most of us will upgrade hardware and if when we do, we will most likely stick with WM rather than lets say go to Nokia's Symbian.
They are not stupid and this is why they have not tried to shut down XDA Developers outright for even hosting ROM cookers who are obviously working on leaked versions of their software.
the only skin of htc and ms's nose is that people may not replace their phones as fast
but then same would be true for pc's if they too were made not to have os upgraded
operators like orange and tmobile and the likes could not care less
sim unlocking a phone harm them much much more since that imply that you will stop using the service that they make money on
An interesting historical fact: back when home computer was a new concept and Apple and IBM just began their competition Apple made a tactical mistake: They prevented others from duplicating the BIOS of their machines (I don't remember if this was a legal or technical issue, it's been a while since I saw the documentary). They still do it afaik.
The result: "IBM compatible" clones popped up all over the place at a much cheaper prices then the original (in fact who owns "real" IBM today anyway?) which caused the PC architecture to spread and made MACs an endangered species.
It is the same with (desktop) windows: because there are so many cracked versions floating around ever since 3.11 (maybe even before) it gained so much popularity it became almost standard.
So basically M$ owns their success to piracy. After all some people will not by their crap - if they can't get it for free they will use something else, while the major customers (namely corporations, public facilities etc.) would still purchase it legally even if there were no protection measures.
P.S.
agovinoveritas: if you check the 'About' icon in your control panel you will find a nice fat copyright statement. And as copyrights are something you agree to automatically by using a software product (no need to sing / click or even have a warning on the box) MS still has a way of telling you what you can and can not do with the ROM of your device.
MS don't even need that copyright statement. Copyright isn't something that needs to be asserted, it exists regardless.
levenum said:
agovinoveritas: if you check the 'About' icon in your control panel you will find a nice fat copyright statement. And as copyrights are something you agree to automatically by using a software product (no need to sing / click or even have a warning on the box) MS still has a way of telling you what you can and can not do with the ROM of your device.
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Yes, old news. Everybody who is a tech-head in here knows this. But how is that relevant to my statements?
For those savvy people, you know that by the mere fact that you created something, technically you are protected by intellectual copyright law.
However we are drifting from the main point.
The current state..
The last few days have been difficult. What has become clear now is that the Android Open Source Project is a framework. It’s licensed in such a way so that anyone can take it, modify it to their needs, and redistribute it as they please. Android belongs to everyone. This also means that big companies likes Google, HTC, Motorola, and whomever else can add their own pieces to it and share these pieces under whatever license they choose.
I’ve made lots of changes myself to the AOSP code, and added in code from lots of others. Building a better Droid, right?
The issue that’s raised is the redistribution of Google’s proprietary applications like Maps, GTalk, Market, and YouTube. These are not part of the open source project and are only part of “Google Experience” devices. They are Google’s intellectual property and I intend to respect that. I will no longer be distributing these applications as part of CyanogenMod. But it’s OK. None of the go-fast stuff that I do involves any of this stuff anyway. We need these applications though, because we all rely so heavily on their functionality. I’d love for Google to hand over the keys to the kingdom and let us all have it for free, but that’s not going to happen. And who can blame them?
There are lots of things we can do as end-users and modders, though, without violating anyones rights. Most importantly, we are entitled to back up our software. Since I don’t work with any of these closed source applications directly, what I intend to do is simply ship the next version of CyanogenMod as a “bare bones” ROM. You’ll be able to make calls, MMS, take photos, etc. In order to get our beloved Google sync and applications back, you’ll need to make a backup first. I’m working on an application that will do this for you.
The idea is that you’ll be able to Google-ify your CyanogenMod installation, with the applications and files that shipped on YOUR device already. Or, you can just use the basic ROM if you want. It will be perfectly functional if you don’t use the Google parts. I will include an alternative app store (SlideMe, or AndAppStore, not decided yet) with the basic ROM so that you can get your applications in case you don’t have a Google Experience device.
I’ll have more updates soon as I get all the code hammered out.
Thanks for all the support thru all of this.
http://www.cyanogenmod.com/home/the-current-state
The stuff Dreams are really made of....
I knew! Where there's a will there's a way! You can't keep a real boss down! Cyanogen I look forward to playing with this new stuff in the works. Rage on brother rage on, I for one honestly didn't want to leave android really, but I will continue to research back-up plans in case Google has anymore monkey wrenches laying around itching to be thrown...Good luck Cyanogen. We all owe you donations...real recognizes real! Dueces
This is great news Thank you!
fkn awesome!
this exactly what i thought and hoped would happen. everyone got in a tizy over nothing. so we have to back up before we flash which is just another way that the basic moder like myself can better understand the phone.
Does this means we need to wipe every time we flash a new rom?
tomvleeuwen said:
What do you guys think of sharing the 4.0.4 version over p2p networks?
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Everyone already has it.
Great
This sounds good, there is more than one way to skin a cat. I think they got upset when the new market app was released before they could get it out. They had to do something, but I think it will die down.
don't go there
tomvleeuwen said:
What do you guys think of sharing the 4.0.4 version over p2p networks?
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Cyanogen is doing his best to respect Google's legitimate copyrights, so suggesting that XDA get involved in distributing proprietary applications without a license only serves to undermine what is going on here. Mods: please remove.
ei8htohms said:
Cyanogen is doing his best to respect Google's legitimate copyrights, so suggesting that XDA get involved in distributing proprietary applications without a license only serves to undermine what is going on here. Mods: please remove.
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I posted this in another thread but it would seem to be pertinent to here too:
Loccy said:
Let's face it, strictly speaking, all ROMs are warez.
Personally I'm surprised that it wasn't the Hero devs who got into trouble first, but this was all just a matter of time. I never understood the bizarre fixation that cropped up recently with QuickOffice and everyone going "omfg it's warez can't include it in romz!!!111!1one!". Why QuickOffice and not, say HTC_IME, or Work Email, or any number of other binary blobs that ROM cookers include as a matter of course now that have been "acquired" from non-orthodox source?
The Hero ROMs, let's face it, give people a means of "turning" their old phone into the latest and greatest HTC device. Each stable Hero ROM on the Dream/Magic potentially means a Hero device purchase lost. HTC are being far more hit in the pocket than Google are here - which is why I'm surprised the cease and desist wasn't directed at them.
I do think, however, this site and the people who run it are going to have to pick a side at some point. Either the position is "this is a site for developers, and as long as copyrighted material is not hosted on here in a fashion that would make us liable*, we will not suppress the work of individual devs". Or, their position is "no copyrighted material in any form, be that in the form to links to offsite storage repositories (eg. Rapidshare), or any other method". XDA doesn't *need* to do this in order to ensure the site does not get into legal hot water. I suspect they *might* do it, however, as some kind of misguided moral stance (and in my view the QuickOffice preoccupation was an example of just this). But in my opinion if they choose the latter then XDA is over as a site for realistic Android ROM development (and indeed, Windows Mobile and other OSes, if they apply the same standards across all their boards).
* elaborating on what I mean here - if people attach zips directly to their posts, and those zips are stored on the XDA servers, then XDA as a site is potentially liable. Alternatively, if instead people give a URL or a search string whereby people can find a ROM, but those files are not physically stored on XDA, they are not - any more than Google is liable for the many copyrighted MP3s you can find links to via their search engine.
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The bottom line is that if ROM devs decided they were going to respect ALL legitimate copyrights, there'd be no Hero ROMs, no Windows Mobile ROMs, in fact no ROMs apart from barebones AOSP ROMs which do less than a stock ROM.
ei8htohms said:
Mods: please remove.
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And I'm sorry, that's just ignorant. Just because you don't agree with a sentiment doesn't entitle you to demand the mods remove it. If the mods want to remove it they will (and in my view that would indicate which "side" they were choosing.) Personally, I don't know what it's like elsewhere around the world, but here in the UK one is at least allowed to speak freely, if not necessarily act freely.
kudos to cyanogen!
Loccy said:
If the mods want to remove it they will (and in my view that would indicate which "side" they were choosing.) Personally, I don't know what it's like elsewhere around the world, but here in the UK one is at least allowed to speak freely, if not necessarily act freely.
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I think common U.S. practice is: if you speak freely, you get called names by people until you either cry or shoot them, thus proving to everyone that your original point is invalid.
But XDA has always had a policy of "if it doesn't get the site admins in trouble, it's probably ok." If memory serves, the site is in the Netherlands, and is subject to EU laws as to copyright, etc. I think that's important to remember when it comes to such things, since the EU laws as to intellectual property are in flux and not quite the same as those in the US or UK.
But the official policy is available in one of the toplevel forums here:
Flar said:
Hi Everybody,
We noticed that there is some confusion when it comes to posting sensitive material on xda-developers.com and mostly about what can and can't be posted.
We would like to clarify our point of view through this post.
Since the start of xda-developers this has always been a site that once in while has some sensitive material online, through the years this site has grown so big it's no longer possible to check every file on our servers or every post on the board, we also feel it wouldn't benefit the community if we did.
However with increased popularity comes an increased amount of legal complaints when sensitive material is found on our servers. Which is the reason why we have been more careful lately. Recently some sensitive material has shown up on the servers and we received legal complaints from companies who have the copyrights for this material, although we all feel this is very interesting and valuable material we cannot risk the future of xda-developers by ignoring the legal requests we receive, therefore this material has been taken offline.
We understand that maintaining the balance between legal and illegal is sometimes confusing and/or difficult but that is unfortunately how it works.
When it comes to posting sensitive material there are a couple suggestions we can make:
- if possible do not post the files on the xda-developers servers.
- use your common sense (if you feel something might not be legal it probably isn't).
- always keep in mind when posting software of any kind, that we will take it offline if there is a legal complaint from the copyright owner.
Warez is in no way accepted and will be removed upon discovery.
I hope this post will serve as a clear and valuable guideline.
Greetz,
Flar
Site admin.
P.s. When you have any questions you can always contact me or one of the moderators.
Last edited by Flar; 17th January 2007 at 10:14 AM..
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Everyone has an opinion, and they have, or should have, the right to decide for themselves what is correct. I am on the side of Cyanogen. I do not think what he did caused any harm or loss of revenue to anyone. We can not always have our way though, and I think that's the case here. I don't know him, but I do think he's smart enough to keep doing what he is EXTREMELY good at without putting himself in a bad position. It's just a stumbling block to get past. We are puting a lot of effort into pointing fingers and throwing around ideas, but if we placed this much energy into finding a fuctional solution, we might get past it a whole buch faster. A good army fights the war, not the battle.
Warez is in no way accepted and will be removed upon discovery.
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But every single ROM on here is warez to some extent or another! Certainly (just for example, I'm not picking on anyone specific here) Drizzy doesn't own the IPR for the contents of his Hero ROMs. I'm pretty sure the WinMo ROMs aren't being posted by Microsoft. If the policy is that "warez is in no way accepted and will be removed upon discovery", they're not doing much of a job, are they - every other post is "warez", if you take a strict interpretation.
I suppose I'm saying that "warez is in the eye of the beholder". I fully endorse the attitude "if it doesn't get the site admins in trouble, it's probably ok" - but I can't help thinking that relaxed attitude has been firmed up of late for whatever reason, given the QuickOffice oddness. I'm pretty sure no-one who own the IPR for QuickOffice was ever in touch (although do correct me if I'm wrong), so why the odd fixation recently?
Bottom line: stick to the attitudes and approaches that have made this site what it is, please don't start getting over zealous when there's no reason to.
Honestly did this need another topic though? I mean I'm all for good news like this, but add it on to one of the many topics that are out there. -.- (ready for flaming)
easy now
Loccy said:
The bottom line is that if ROM devs decided they were going to respect ALL legitimate copyrights, there'd be no Hero ROMs, no Windows Mobile ROMs, in fact no ROMs apart from barebones AOSP ROMs which do less than a stock ROM.
And I'm sorry, that's just ignorant. Just because you don't agree with a sentiment doesn't entitle you to demand the mods remove it. If the mods want to remove it they will (and in my view that would indicate which "side" they were choosing.) Personally, I don't know what it's like elsewhere around the world, but here in the UK one is at least allowed to speak freely, if not necessarily act freely.
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First off, I'm not demanding anything. I politely requested that the mods remove a suggestion that clearly seeks to circumvent the policies of XDA: We won't distribute warez. The poster knew the suggestion was specifically aimed at getting around the XDA policy, otherwise there would be no reason for a P2P distribution alternative in the first place.
A key component of intellectual property and copyright laws (at least in the US) is that the holder of the copyright must act to defend the copyright to some reasonable extent (no, I'm not a lawyer and I don't know what this entails exactly). Now that Google has acted to defend their copyrights in these instances, the line is clear. Google apps are paid apps (licensed to the handset manufacturers or service providers) and are not free to distribute without a license. Consequently, there shouldn't be much further debate about the fact that these are warez and are not to be distributed on or through XDA.
I'm not trying to attack anyone (the original poster, ROM devs or certainly yourself), but I am interested in XDA maintaining the high ground here and continuing to operate in a respectful and respectable manner.
Perhaps we should stay on topic?
te5ter said:
Perhaps we should stay on topic?
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Fair point. Maybe we should take the "warez is in the eye of the beholder" debate to this thread. I do actually think it's a fascinating debate, personally. Oh, incidentally, just re-read my earlier post, and want to apologise to ei8htohms - I didn't mean to come off quite so brusque.
First, I'm very happy that there seems to be a workaround that Cyanogen feels comfortable in using.
However, I see it as a band-aid to a much larger problem. Yes, it addresses those few apps that Google specifically mentioned. But there seems to be potential future conflicts that could adversely affect this whole Android community.
What about all the other apps in there? The Camera/Camcorder/Gallery app for instance. The UI? Other HTC bits? And the biggie, the Search component? Does Google also lay claim to unified search, the widget, the particular framework involved in that?
I don't know the answer to that, I'm just asking. So much is left unanswered, I just feel this is only the beginning. For now, I guess it may be enough. But it still leaves so much up in the air.
Now the 2nd major issue: Cyanogen should be commended for taking the high road here and doing his best to adhere to Google's current request. I think we all know that there was never ever any question that no one saw this coming. It came from left field and shocked everyone beyond belief.
But will other rom devs be as diligent as Cyanogen? Will theme developers adhere to this? And with all of these added steps required to get a functioning "Google Experience", consider the flood of newbie questions this forum is about to endure. We all thought "brick" and "hardspl" questions were tedious at best ... prepare yourselves for the onslought of mass confusion. That fun has just begun.
I still believe the burden lies with Google to make this right. I'm not saying they should make their apps open source by any means. I'm just saying that there must be a way for Google to allow the inclusion of their apps (perhaps a different license or maybe some encryption trick that protects the apps from modification <I don't know, I'm not that smart>). Google needs to step up to the plate in this. They also need to save-face and stifle this PR nightmare. Android does not need this, Google does not need this, HTC does not need this, carriers do not need this, Cyanogen does not need this, and users do not need this. Growth of the entire Android project is simply too important. I see this as speed bump. They just made the bump too big and it needs to be shaved down some so everyone can get it over without damaging anything else.
this is great news indeed. can't wait to see what is to come!
People are constantly modifying stock ROMs, taking drivers from leaked builds, putting apps in their ROMs, ect... And it makes me wonder, is any of this technically illegal? Maybe not "directly" illegal, I'm thinking "indirectly" illegal. For example, the way installing OS X on a hackintosh is illegal cuz you violate some of Apple's rules or whatever. Get what I mean? Are we breaking the rules and violating a ton of companies' work?
Is there anything wrong with all the ROMing and rooting that goes on with Android?
Edit: Oops, this thread is probably in the wrong place. Sorry. It might belong in "General" or something
Well,I think that flashing roms by itself isn't illegal,as Android is open-source.Messing with locked bootloaders could be considered illegal,and as punishment we are deprived of our warranties.I also think that porting close-source stuff(UIs etc like Sense) that are the property of companies is also illegal,but they do have a way to protect that stuff well enough...
tolis626 said:
Well,I think that flashing roms by itself isn't illegal,as Android is open-source.Messing with locked bootloaders could be considered illegal,and as punishment we are deprived of our warranties.I also think that porting close-source stuff(UIs etc like Sense) that are the property of companies is also illegal,but they do have a way to protect that stuff well enough...
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Hmm. That sucks. Basically every ROM out there is probably using something illegally taken out of some stock or leaked ROM or whatever. Doesn't it seem that way?
Yumunum said:
Hmm. That sucks. Basically every ROM out there is probably using something illegally taken out of some stock or leaked ROM or whatever. Doesn't it seem that way?
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No, not really. I think that the whole android system is based on open source (AOSP), including "stock" roms.
There are tons of roms developed directly from google's aosp source, taking nothing illegally- on the opposite- contributing to the project...
You can google or look in wikipedia for more info about android open source project.
Why, do you see any problem?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk
Im calling the Police!!!! Your Going Down Town to Google Jail!
mattfox27 said:
Im calling the Police!!!! Your Going Down Town to Google Jail!
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Lol, my concern isn't anything like that. I'm not afraid of getting "caught" or whatever. It's morals. And that's a whole different discussion, I'm not going to get into it ;P
Stuff that is used in custom roms that comes from paid work is ILLEGAL in any way.
Drivers as sample:
- a lot of guys working in company's where the code is done by paid work - used in custom roms is illegal because the small letters from the law
- how to get these cooks by the law. It is hard but the evidence is sampled every day, believe me.
- every cook who is using leaked or stock stuff without the permission from the owner is illegal. Oh s**t XDA has to close a lot of threads very fast, because it is illegal .
Sense is the next sample:
ok HTC is doing nothing at the moment, because they have a profit on that. But in nature it is illegal in any way
Also the Samsung leaked stuff:
Samsung has a lot of profit in that way, but wait for the day when they are bigger or equal as Apple, they will go against that.
Apple:
is the best sample. Ok Apple's politics is s**t in my eyes, but they have the right on his site. Every jail break as sample is illegal in any way.
At the end, i had asked my lawyer about all this leaked and stock stuff, modding and cookking (not a local small one, a big player in our world company). He shows me some facts and normally we all use illegal stuff in the eys of the law. And a normaly good froum, so as XDA, can't change anything on that.
mike2nl said:
Stuff that is used in custom roms that comes from paid work is ILLEGAL in any way.
Apple:
is the best sample. Ok Apple's politics is s**t in my eyes, but they have the right on his site. Every jail break as sample is illegal in any way.
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not in usa jailbreaking is legal,downloading paid apps for free,that's another story
Illegal or not once you buy the phone its up to you how you use it
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
If you buy a phone, it is now yours and you can do everything with it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app
Jay794 said:
Illegal or not once you buy the phone its up to you how you use it
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Dennisalex said:
If you buy a phone, it is now yours and you can do everything with it.
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When you buy a phone then you are right, but what is with the millions of people who has a contract with her provider and a locked phone, or a phone gift or a phone with the quarter of the price....
Then it is illegal, because you don't are the owner of that phone. You have to pay for it with the contract. At the end of that contract the phone is yours not earlier.
The same thing is when you buy a second hand phone with all this stuff, it is illegal and you have to format it (in simple word *lol).
@xxmarkosxx:
that was new for me that amercia has given it free and that by the power of Apple. I will ask the american lawyer of our company and will come back for that. In two weeks i am there and then i will ask.
The most active illegal activity in custom roms is people porting closed-source vendor apparently like Sony Walkman or HTC Keyboard to other brands. Any kind of reverse engineering on these closed source files is a breach of license.
Sent from Xperia Play (R800a) with Tapatalk
Sorry to say, not all the time. Because i know what i have written and what is payed and what not. But in some cases you are right Dan.
In some images i have added special code to see back my work. So some things can be illegal
mike2nl said:
Sorry to say, not all the time. Because i know what i have written and what is payed and what not. But in some cases you are right Dan.
In some images i have added special code to see back my work. So some things can be illegal
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There's no such thing as owning software unless you created it yourself from scratch. Even if it's free/free (libre, as in free beer) open source, you don't own the software. You still have to follow the laws of the license. And even if you did create the software yourself, you are still bound my the license agreement of whatever IDE('s)/SDK('s) you used to write it. (E.g. it is illegal to sell software, or use software in a commercial environment, if it was created in Microsoft Visual Studio Express).
This goes the same for apps that are not open source, e.g. Xperia S Launcher or HTC Keyboard, and many apps on the Play Store. When you bought the app/device, you do not own the software, but you are legally permitted to use the software as defined in the license agreement. 95% of closed-source license agreements deny the permission to reverse engineer these files, so as soon as you use APKTool on an APK that is not open-source, you've breached copyright law.
With that said, most OEM's don't seem to care too much about XDA and various other website developments about porting proprietary vendor packages to other devices. They just don't have time or resources to chase these people down and try to sue them (I mean, they're not Apple heh) - it'd cost more money than they'd feasibly get. OTOH, some developers, such as Xiaomi (MIUI ROM creators from China), actually congratulate and share public releases of their closed-source packages being ported to non-MIUI devices and ROM's.
If you do your research, there is no argument to stand against it being illegal - it's a fact. But that's not to say it's wrong, and not to say the OEM's are too bothered about it. After all, they get a bit of publicity about it (some time ago, I switched from a HTC to a Sony device because I was much more impressed with Xperia's UI and stock apps which I used on a hacked HTC device).
Regarding bootloader/unlocking/rooting, not all manufacturers demonize it. Sony provide an official means to do it - as long as the provider has not blocked bootloader unlocking (which then requires specialized service - as said, this is usually in the case of a plan because you don't actually own the phone yet).
With that said, I will answer the original question -
It is not illegal to install a custom ROM on your phone if you own the phone. However, there are two points to consider - firstly, do you actually own the phone or does your carrier? Secondly, if it includes Google Apps, it is illegal. CyanogenMod project had to remove Google Apps from their ROM's some time ago because of a license breach (the OEM's have to pay Google to release a phone with Google Apps preinstalled).
So the only 100% legal ROM is Cyanogenmod without Google Apps, or your own AOSP compilation without Google Apps. So obviously, Google and the OEM's don't care too much about custom ROM's - because techically, 90% of them have actually broken the law somewhere. It's just not worth their time to enforce these laws, especially since these devices we buy usually have Google Apps pre-loaded already (so it's a legal grey area really, they can't prove anything in the end).
Short info..i don't write any software for XDA. I am from a company who pays for work.
Having an argument with a friend, please settle this for us.
Would it be legal for a firm X to buy device Y, flash stock Android and GAPPs on it and then re-sell it? I've been looking for a related read on Google and elsewhere with little to no luck. if you can't be arsed getting into the specifics, could you at least point me into the general direction of such information?
Thanks! :laugh:
Amarali123 said:
Having an argument with a friend, please settle this for us.
Would it be legal for a firm X to buy device Y, flash stock Android and GAPPs on it and then re-sell it? I've been looking for a related read on Google and elsewhere with little to no luck. if you can't be arsed getting into the specifics, could you at least point me into the general direction of such information?
Thanks! :laugh:
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This could definitely depend on your jurisdiction. Are you in the US?
Amarali123 said:
Having an argument with a friend, please settle this for us.
Would it be legal for a firm X to buy device Y, flash stock Android and GAPPs on it and then re-sell it? I've been looking for a related read on Google and elsewhere with little to no luck. if you can't be arsed getting into the specifics, could you at least point me into the general direction of such information?
Thanks! :laugh:
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Stock android yes it would be fine but you would not be able to include gapps without google's permission. The same reason the CM team was told to remove gapps from their roms as they had not agreement with google.
zelendel said:
Stock android yes it would be fine but you would not be able to include gapps without google's permission. The same reason the CM team was told to remove gapps from their roms as they had not agreement with google.
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Yeah, I'm aware of the CM C&D ordeal, but I thought that has more to do with the fact that it was included along with the ROM itself. Isn't it more like a grey area everytime we flash GAPPs on our own? Strictly speaking, we shouldn't, but we do just fine anyway?
And would it still be considered illegal, if the aforementioned device ran Android/GAPPs already?
Cheers for your time.
P.S. I'm EU based.
Amarali123 said:
Yeah, I'm aware of the CM C&D ordeal, but I thought that has more to do with the fact that it was included along with the ROM itself. Isn't it more like a grey area everytime we flash GAPPs on our own? Strictly speaking, we shouldn't, but we do just fine anyway?
And would it still be considered illegal, if the aforementioned device ran Android/GAPPs already?
Cheers for your time.
P.S. I'm EU based.
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The cease and desist CyanogenMod got was a copyright issue. Basically, Google does not technically release their apps for free, instead they are included as a perk within a manufacturer licensing agreement. Think of it like this, Swype came for free with a lot of phones a few years. But, did that give you the right to distribute it for free? No. It was a payed program, and anytime it was installed on a phone Swype expected to get payed. Google applications are in the exact same category, even if manufacturers do not (always?) pay for them directly. When CyanogenMod distributed them, they were in violation of law by not having a license agreement.
As for reselling a device with modded firmware, I do not know of any law that prohibits this. Up until October of last year there were some manufacturers trying to claim jailbreaking was illegal in the USA, but they had very little in the way of legal precedent to back them up. Then, the Librarian of Congress specifically allowed it under the DMCA exeptions.
If you have not broken the law while installing your firmware I am pretty sure you would be completely free to resell that device in your jurisdiction. The only exception I have ever heard of would involve EULAs. If your device comes with a EULA stating that it cannot be resold, or that if it is resold it has to come with factory settings and software, then it gets murky. Not all jurisdictions allow EULAs to take away or modify basic consumer rights. However, at times (especially in the States) courts will uphold the EULA because the user "agreed" to it.