Slashdot Mirror
Arrests Made Near D.C. Over Modded Game Consoles
multiOSfreak writes "According to this Reuters articl, two video game store employees have been arrested for modding video game consoles. From the article: 'Authorities arrested two store employees on charges of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and conspiracy to traffic in a device that circumvents technological protection measures, the ESA said.'" It's not clear from the article whether the modded consoles were sold without copies of the games which had been installed on their hard drives, which would seem to be the most important distinction between convenience for buyers and actually ripping off game makers. Update: 12/08 22:43 GMT by T : This thread on boing-boing includes a comment from a would-be customer who says (among other things) that store employees "were also preloading the XBox systems with tons of emulators (arcade and console) and as many ROMs as they could find."
Timothy: It's not clear from the article whether the modded consoles were sold without copies of the games which had been installed on their hard drives
Article: Pandora's Cube, Wright said, sold $500 "Super Xbox" consoles, modified versions of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Xbox video game console, that had been modified to hold larger hard drives and play pirated games. The modified consoles, some holding 15 or more games already copied to the hard drive, were on open display in the stores
It sounds to me like they'd stock up the drives with ripped off games to warrant the $500 price tag. After the modchip, hard disk and cost of the XBOX itself there isn't a lot left from the $500 to go towards games.
Trolling is a art,
Or does the phrase "conspiracy in the video game industry" really not sell you on the idea that the federal government needs to get a task force to eliminate it?
Seriously... it sounds like EA executives have imprinted subliminal messages to assassinate the president, until they are sniffed out by the ESA black-op soldiers!
Seriously, though... we have to hold off judgement until we know exactly what they are being arrested for. If they are just modding the boxes or are offering something on top of that.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
before we get all uppity, the headline written by reuters is a lie. they were arrested for modding xboxes, loading them with 15 games, and selling them as "super xboxes" on the store shelves.
They were NOT arrested for "modding xboxes". They were arrested for being idiots.
It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. The employees worked for Pandora's Cube apparently. This company is very active on the anime convention circuit and sells their wares there. I've never seen them sell these Super X-boxes at conventions. Perhaps the employees were doing this independently of the store?
AnimeNEXT anime convention
RTFA, heh. The Entertainment Software Association said the Dec. 1 raids at three Pandora's Cube stores in Maryland and Virginia were a joint effort of the U.S. Department of Justice's computer crimes unit, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Maryland and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
But let`s be honest. 99% of modded Xbox and PS1/2 serve a lone purpose : playing games without paying for them.
If these people hadn't pre-loaded the devices with games this would have been a completely different story.
Let's not fall into the "oh, it must have been piracy so it's ok" thing. Mod-chips serve a purpose and should be legal. If you are using a mod-chip to steal games then that's your own thing but certainly don't give them the satisfaction of saying that everyone mods for burning games.
Personally I'm waiting for the XBox2 to come out and everyone to drop their XBox1's on Ebay so I can get them cheap as hell for a media center machine.
Just FYI, here's the language from 17 U.S.C. 506 which describes criminal copyright infringement:
"(a) Criminal Infringement.--Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either--
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.
(b) Forfeiture and Destruction.--When any person is convicted of any violation of subsection (a), the court in its judgment of conviction shall, in addition to the penalty therein prescribed, order the forfeiture and destruction or other disposition of all infringing copies or phonorecords and all implements, devices, or equipment used in the manufacture of such infringing copies or phonorecords.
(c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice.--Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
(d) Fraudulent Removal of Copyright Notice.--Any person who, with fraudulent intent, removes or alters any notice of copyright appearing on a copy of a copyrighted work shall be fined not more than $2,500.
(e) False Representation.--Any person who knowingly makes a false representation of a material fact in the application for copyright registration provided for by section 409, or in any written statement filed in connection with the application, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
(f) Rights of Attribution and Integrity.--Nothing in this section applies to infringement of the rights conferred by section 106A(a)."
So yes, there canbe criminal penalties for copyright infringement -- its already built in to the statutes.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
I used to shop at the College Park location that these guys ran, and I have to say that if there was ever a poster boy for the copyright-free movement, these guys were definitely not it. These weren't folks who just modded a few playstations. They sold lots of blatently pirated games and videos, at outragous prices. They pulled all kinds of tricks to pull a fast buck at their customers' expense. As an example, one time they went to an Anime convention, grabbed up all the free samples of a particularly coveted product that another vendor was giving away, then promptly resold them at the same convention. These guys would pirate anything for a quick buck. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Yes they have them for sale. $500 will get you one.
The Sign in the plastic display holder even tells you what games you get.
People find it strange that I don't know how to juggle or tap dance.
There are more of these "illegal consoles" on Amazon.com for $500. They are listed as used, so they don't come directly from Amazon, but some of the ads openly say they are preloaded with games.
Used XBoxes
I know this is slashdot, and no one RTFA, but the article (and other comments) say that there was a printed sticker on the box with the names of the games that were PRE-LOADED onto the hard drive.
Here, let me make this clear:
They were selling modified XBox hardware with Brand-Spanking-New Games copied onto the hard drive. Without the games themselves.
No DVD of, say, Halo2 included with the XBox that has Halo2 loaded on it.
maybe a lot of you aren't in the xbox modding scene but I only noticed one person who picked up on this.
To run microsoft-signed code with a mod chip you need a hacked M$ BIOS. These are illegal, no questions about it. The cromwell BIOS is legal and can run Linux/Homebrew apps.
If these people were selling the xboxes with a hacked M$ BIOS pre-loaded in the mod chip's ROM then it doesn't matter if the game discs are provided or not, they are still providing the illegal BIOS.
maybe if they wiped any copyrighted games and cleared the chip's ROM before selling them they might have a chance.
that's my take on it anyway.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or Mepis or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. This is an article about email disclaimers. The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx, because "is teh free".
Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
Here's that drive-by advocacy and FUD in motion: twitter goes on about some topic and then drops the usual "oh and M$ is teh evil" because "WMP phones home" or some such. Called on his FUD, he then claims that WMP stores every song and movie you've ever played in a file, somewhere. Pressed further, he just sort of slithers out of sight, his FUD-spreading complete. This is not about some Microsoft technology that nobody likes anyway; it's about lying for the sake of lying. Way too many of his posts are exactly like this one.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one. Or this one.
Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.
M