Breath of the Wild and the ethics of amiibo hacking

What's a real stroke of genius though is that they make the packaging in a way so that you can't scan the Amiibo without unboxing it - therefore reducing it's monetary value. You end up with the real Nintendo fans feeling very compelled to purchase two of each - 1 for keeping boxed and 1 for actually using in games.

And these kinds of problems are great opportunities for learning, anyways; bonus points if you look at how other people do it and solder up your own amiibo spoofer with your new understanding.

Here are a few claims that I would make:

* The answer shouldn't turn on general availability or rarity of the required artifact. If I choose to create a painting and not make copies, that shouldn't grant a license to others to mass produce. There are a lot of ways to frame this aspect, but if you believe rarity changes the dynamic, then you are defacto granting the large entity with sufficient capital greater rights than the small creator who may not be able to mass produce a unique item in high demand. Granted these scenarios don't apply to Nintendo, but they are accurate, imo.

* Whether the software is already on-disc (or in the main download package). This is a harder question. It's not hard to understand that even a small extra download increases the seller's server costs. If it is a separate download, a strong (arguably) argument could made for computer hacking charges for downloading software for which one doesn't have a valid license. It's a much harder argument to make that one shouldn't be allowed to access software already in possession. It's also pretty analogous to any other software if the add-on download is freely available but only functions with the code. That just looks like plain software piracy. So I'd argue it does matter, and like opening the hood of your car you should be able to tinker with any code legitimately in your possession.

* The hacking difficulty. That is, where on the spectrum of plaintext "cheat code" to cryptographically secure+ does the mechanism lie? One thread made the claim that these devices are just fancy cheat codes that should be passed around without consequence. Even more extreme on the spectrum would be an honor system where the software asks you whether you "cross-my-heart" have the corresponding Amiibo in your possession (check a box for ownership). Is it ok to lie to such a system since they made it so easy to do so?

(+ for the sake of argument, I'm defining "secure" as really hard to break and needing special tools and know-how and not possible on a large scale, not automatable, etc.)

* The seller's purpose behind the collectibles / relative value of the code vs. collectible itself. Should it matter whether the code is almost an afterthought and the seller is really just creating cool tchotchke's? The reverse could also be true -- they could sell small identical tokens solely as the means to monetize the features. Clearly, I don't think the answer can turn on such an arbitrary and difficult define metric. Just because it was cheaply made or an exquisite piece of artwork in and of itself is just irrelevant, that is the relative value of the code vs. object itself.

* Impact on others. If the NFC codes were each unique and a central server tracked check ins (not the case here, evidently), forging your own codes would adversely affect a 3rd party trying to 'legitimately' use the same token. This is an objectively bad outcome, although an argument could me made that this is Nintendo's problem for selling an item whose value they couldn't guarantee, not the problem of the guy who generated someone else's code. But, if you were to buy an Amiibo, clone it, and then resell then clearly you'd be defrauding the buyer. Lots of intricacies here. This is one of the hardest aspects in theory in my opinion.

By the way, this last impact on others argument is a variation of the situation Apple recently had to address with regard to iPhone unlockers. They would desolder the hard drive from a locked (either stolen or from a device that was inadvertently not unlocked before being sold, thrown out or broken and then repaired by a 3rd party) iDevice, change the serial number by a digit or two until they found one that wasn't locked. Re-solder the drive and re-sell. Problem was that new serial was often in-use by someone else. Either of those users could effectively prevent (re-)activation of each other's device, although this wouldn't be immediately obvious to either. There were a lot of complaints from legitimate buyers of brand new devices that their device was locked with an email address they didn't recognize. Apple's response was to turn off the system where one could verify whether a serial number was unlocked, making it harder to find legitimate serial numbers. (Please let me know if I got any of these details wrong, but I followed the issue pretty closely and believe them accurate.)

In the real world we'd call this doping.

I understand gamer's frustration with paywalls and pay-to-win, but let's be real here. These are collectible figurines and fun cosmetics inside a game. No one is forcing anyone to buy these and Nintendo has every right to do limited runs on some Amiibos. That's half the fun if you're into collecting these things.

If it's understood that I will never have a skin/level/weapon because I didn't purchase something additional besides the game, I just weigh whether I want to make that purchase. Just because a feature can be unlocked via a code doesn't necessarily mean I have a right to it outside of purchasing that code.

This is hardly Destiny where you paid the same price for the game, but some of the userbase got access to more content based on their console and that content never got released on other consoles (not that I'm bitter or anything). Here, you pay if you want it.

And to top it off; you can't buy a key for the pro version!

It seems very similar to cracks that spoofs USB dongles to unlock pro versions of software. I guess you could argue the unlocked accessories are purely cosmetic but I don't think you can really get around the fact that the accessories are pirated.

My argument relies that beside the difference in functionality, the real separation between a basic and a pro version of a software is a license.

If we where to draw a parallel between basic/pro software and BOTW, then we have Nintendo producing a device that more or less gives anyone who touches it unboxed a license to use the pro version of the software, and is trasferable/resellable.

Now, this "license" might not grant right to copy and redistribute, but since it is not exclusive per se it should be equivalent to let a friend use it or "clone it" and send it to a friend, therefore reducing the piracy question to "is it piracy to use someone else's amiibo (with is consent)?". I think the answer to the latter is no.

Law should be based of morality, not the other way around.

Just because something is illegal does not mean it is wrong: Laws, and IP laws especially, have a bunch of side effects that were not anticipated when the laws were created because they were written before digital technologies enabled free and pervasive transmission of information.

Since patent law was created with the purpose of encouraging innovation, I'd argue that the author who teaches himself the skill of NFC spoofing is acting pro-socially, building his own human capital in an innovative way that encourages others to use technology to find new solutions to existing problems. (Arguably, the person who made the amiibo scanner is even more righteous, and the game maker who enabled this learning opportunity even more).

You also do that when you borrow your friend's Amiibo. Or borrow anything else, really.