Rydian said:
First, that assumes that flash carts themselves are illegal. This has never been shown to be true of the devices as a whole, just certain brands.
Secondly, an EULA doesn't magically make something illegal (such as purposely damaging hardware) into something legal, please read my post again.
If I put "you will let me have sex with your 7 year old son" in an EULA and then tried to hold you to it, that would NEVER fly in ANYTHING resembling an actual court.
You're taking it to extremes. There's a
huge difference between something that can be described (and waved off) as "incompatibility issues" and
raping a 7-year-old. Wanna exaggerate?
Your complaint about Nintendo destroying your flashcard is like complaining that an airline company impounded your C4. So let's not get into strawman arguments here.
The EULA is a legal document that's been registered with the court. As such, it can't contain any pedo rape clause in the first place, and what it
does contain is deemed applicable, reasonable,
and you agree to it.
Now, about flashcards. The only reason flashcards aren't illegal is the fact the legal system is horribly slow, there's no general laws on them (the legislation on intellectual property is a Kafkian nightmare), and Nintendo has to go after flashcards with civil lawsuits against every individual manufacturer, and any legal action regarding flashcards is taken on a case by case basis. And oddly enough, the court has ruled in Nintendo's favor in the vast majority of these cases. "Flashcards as a whole" aren't illegal, but every individual device
is.
Still, the thing is, if anyone tried to protest that Nintendo destroyed their flashcard, Nintendo would have no trouble proving in court that flashcards are infringing on their intellectual property and that you shouldn't be using one in the first place. That's half your complaint out the door.
As for the "destroying your property" claims, they can't
physically destroy your card (well, they
could, in theory, but that's not what OP suggested), so you can't sue them for "destruction"; they can overwrite the firmware and brick it, which goes under data loss and guess what?
They can't be held accountable. In a civil lawsuit it's all about the phrasing, and don't think Nintendo's law team wouldn't be able to describe overwriting your flashcard's firmware as "data loss due to incompatibility issues"
that they had warned you about. Big deal, half of the code on that flashcard was Nintendo's IP in the first place. And you know what? They're not damaging your
hardware.
Again: you were using a not-exactly-legal, unlicenced third party device to circumvent their copy protection? There's no way you could paint that as your "civil right". And as for "damaging your hardware"? Well they didn't. There's no
physical damage. You wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
That doesn't stop people from suing everyone and anyone, though, but the fact similar lawsuits exist
doesn't mean they are valid complaints (or even sane).