So all someone does is buy this board, download and compile the kernel modules and then downloads the 'freely available' player images and extracts the player binary and relevant support files. What's the problem?
The problem is those quote marks -- the player code is copyrighted, which means that any copying or publishing of it, including putting it on a website, downloading it from a website, or copying it onto a device, can only be done by the copyright holder or by someone acting with the copyright holder's explicit permission. It's within the copyright holder's rights to restrict those activities to those necessary to use the software only with original car-player units.
In the US at least, they might also have a case that work, such as kernel work, done specifically to enable the use of copied car-player code, counted as contributory infringement.
These laws are dumb (in the sense that even those passed after copyrighted abandonware was recognisably a problem, do not attempt to solve it) but they do exist. And as such an endeavour would doubtless be carried on with extremely limited funds, there probably wouldn't be the money to defend a lawsuit, however bogus it actually was.
Could the serial number chip from our empeg be removed and place it in this theoretical Empeg? Then only allow it to run when it finds a valid serial number? This might help prevent the copyright owners from getting mad.
The serial number's in the flash chip, I think, but one trouble with that idea is that there's no way to tell "valid" serial numbers from made-up ones.
Peter
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