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Chip a Playstation, Go to Jail
perogiex writes "A man in Ottawa was
convicted of selling and installing mod chips out
of his computer store. Sony is overjoyed, man is less than thrilled. This is the first time such a case was tried in Canada." From the article: Garby said he didn't know he was committing a crime and would have never gotten involved in selling mod chips if he had known the law. Update: 07/24 21:53 GMT by M : Headline corrected; it's clearly mod chips for the original Playstation, not the Playstation 2.
This guy was selling a line of 413 pirated games and didn't know what he was doing was illegal? It sounds like he deserves what he got.
The article states that he was selling pirated games alongside the mod chips. Maybe the charge of copyright infringement related to the illegal video games being sold (as Sony did not design the mod chips, it is unclear of whose copyright he would be violating).
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
It sounds like he was also selling pirated games. I wonder if they would ever have cracked down on him if all he had done was sell and install mod chips. The article seems to downplay the fact that he was selling pirated games as well.
Even though I think selling mod chips shouldn't be illegal, I don't have sympathy for people who are selling pirated software!
No, but putting a chip in a PS2 to play Japanese games isn't morally questionable, but just as illegal.
Assuming he reported his earnings to the CCRAn that fine doesn't leave him much to pay for his overheads, let alone make a profit.
He wasn't just selling mod chips, he was also selling pirated games. Not sure if they would have just busted him for the mod chips or not though.
Xaotik Designs
Here's a scenario. You bought a rad new PS2 game, you want to make sure that if it gets scratched, eaten, etc. . . you can still play your game, so you burn a copy, and use the mod chip to play the game. You paid for the game once, right? What's wrong with that.
If you ask me, aside from the selling pirated games, this guy had a case.
--What, you ain't know about them country fried sessions?
Ignorance of the law is no defense.
That said, I'm interested to find out which part of the Criminal Code specifically makes installing mod chips, and presumably other circumvention devices, a felony offense. It sounds rather DMCA-like. I wonder if Parliament passed something DMCA-like with almost no fanfare. The article makes it sound like the mod chip conviction is the important one for being the first of its kind.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
He was convicted of selling 413 pirated video games and Playstation mod-chips.
How do I know this? Well, first, I read the article; second, I know that there aren't 413 GAMES available for the Playstation 2!
Also, the PS/2 is a computer from IBM, and does not require mod chips to play pirated games. Sony doesn't call their Playstation 2 the PS/2, perhaps because they don't want to get sued. Does slashdot want to get sued? Well, it'd be nice to have some penalties for irresponsible journalism...
Finally, considering the facts of the case, it is disingenuous for the writers of this article to call it a conviction for selling mod-chips, since that wasn't all it was.
In conclusion, all you journalists are lazy, illiterate, and incompetent. If you don't agree with me, prove me wrong by writing something accurate, intelligent, or interesting.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
>>selling mod chips shouldn't be illegal?!?!
>Do you also have a hacked cable box? It is theft of service.
You miss the point so badly:
If you OWN something, it's YOURS. Not only do you NOT have the right to take away people's freedom, but you also have no right to even KNOW what people do with their property.
I'll give you a quick lesson in right & wrong:
RIGHT: You decide to paint your car YOU OWN, a color other than what it was manufactured.
WRONG: You LEASE (or steal) a car, and repaint it without the owner's permission.
If everyone is expected to know all the laws and what they mean, then why are there so many lawyers? Our law systems are so confusing and complex that we have to hire special people to interpret and find laws that will help defend us and prosecute others. So it's not suprising that someone might not know there's a new law saying something is illegal.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
If you OWN something, it's YOURS. Not only do you NOT have the right to take away people's freedom, but you also have no right to even KNOW what people do with their property.
Not that I disagree with your point at all, indeed I heartily agree. But try telling that to the BATF if, for example, you make a minor mechanical modification to a legally owned semi-automatic rifle that converts it to fully-automatic (ie a machine gun), or cut the barrel of your legally owned shotgun down to less than 18 inches.
If you thought DMCA enforcement was tough...
-- Alastair
In general this wouldn't be necessary because journals have an obligation to present the facts and correct themselves as needed. Slashdot rarely reflects these practices, however, and many other online equivalents of pen-and-paper journals are sorely lacking in their journalism.
However, people and organizations can still be sued for slander and libel, even under the First Amendment. I think that organizations that purport to report the News have an obligation to report the facts accurately, and should be held to a higher standard than are individuals.
I'm arguing that the headline is negligent and misleading, and should be corrected. Every minute that goes by when it isn't misleads and confuses another person who might have expected news or accurate reporting. Many people have come to expect this sort of inaccurate reporting from slashdot, but that doesn't excuse it.
Perhaps they could have an "editor" on duty whose job it is to "edit"?
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
If we are going to be vocal on the unfairness of legal roadblocks to fair use in the cases dealing with DeCSS and proposed DRM legislation, we have a responsibility to be equivalently vocal in cases where technologies we advocate and claim rights to are being used illegally. If we want DeCSS to be legal despite its "side effect" of decrypting DVDs, we have to denounce those who exploit that side effect for illegal personal gain.
If we want mod chips to be a legal and accepted use of our own hardware for playing legally purchased Japanese games or burned backups of others we own, we have to speak against pirates who want to make money using mod chips and CD/DVD copying technology illegally.
Neil
"There are thousands of types of people in the world: The type of people who think there are two types of people in the world, and the thousands of other types."
fully automatic weapons and sawed off shotguns are illegal in their own right. Firearms, while legal, are regulated. Playstations are not, and are not illegal. The same argument applies to making illegal drugs, or perscription drugs without a license, or bombs. The final product is illegal. But unless it would be illegal for Sony to sell multi-region PS2s, it shouldn't be illegal for me to make one. Now, if I use that to steal games, that is another story entirely.
Playstations are not [regulated]
Oh, but indeed they are. The FCC has a whole set of regulations covering consumer electronic devices and their possible RF emissions. You better believe that Sony has to file some serious paperwork with the FCC to get permission to sell the things. (Also with Underwriters Labs and the CSA regarding shock and fire hazards, but that's more of an insurance thing.)
Although I still believe you should be allowed to do whatever the hell you want to with your own property, so long as it doesn't actually (vs hypothetically) endanger others or trample on their rights.
-- Alastair
> Your program is linking against Sony's code (the PS1's firmware). According to the FSF, this requires Sony's permission - at least, they say linking against other code requires that code's author's permission. (That's how the GPL bans non-GPL code calling GPLed libraries, unlike the LGPL...)
That's not right. The FSF says that distributing a combined work consisting of copyrighted code plus your code requires the permission of the copyright owner.
But there is no distribution of a combined work when you run your own software on a modded PS1.
Anyway, we already know that the copyright violation in this case was selling pirated games.
Doug Moen.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
Well, I guess the problem is that Sony is selling the colsole very cheap, making almost nothing from hardware sales.
In a truely free market capitalist society that would be entirely Sony's problem. Why should customers (including retailers) be obliged to ensure that Sony's business model works?
For your analogy to be more accurate you would have to say that when you buy a Ford Ranger the company (Ford) doesn't make very much, if anything. Instead, they get their money from selling gas. So, if you (and about half of Ford's other customers) were to mod your Ford Ranger and install a nuclear reactor in it, I'm sure there would be similar reactions.
In which case people would be telling Ford that they were being foolish not to get into the nuclear fuel business, make reactor driven cars as a standard option and supply their own mod kits.
The thing is when it comes to computers people think the rules of basic economics should be tossed out of the window. With laws created to enforce a corporate welfare model.