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."
Although it's against policy, you'll still find a lot of, *ahem*, back-up games on Ebay.
I bought a Dreamcast a while back, and the guy threw in a sampler pack that had come with it originally. Upon lifting the CD out, it turns out he had forgotten about his lovely CD-R with Ready to Rumble 2 on it.
The moral of the story here being, make sure you're buying from a trusted source if you want legit games. And more often than not, you do, or you'll risk being arrested one of these days, yourself.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
While I don't have a problem with someone being arrested for selling unlicensed versions of games, as is the case here, I do have a huge problem with laws being in place that make it illegal to do things like view any region DVD, skip the FBI warnings on DVDs, etc. The congressmen that are taking money directly from the entertainment industry as campaign donations (which are nothing more than loosely veiled bribes) need to be brought to task. Someone putting a bigger harddrive in an X-Box should not be a crime unto itself. That's the kind of nonsense you get when you let corrupt companies directly fund corrupt politicians.
Is this illegal in Canada? I know that we are sort of allowed to copy software/music because of the tax on the media, but how does it work for modifying technology so the copied media works?
spend money here
So the display ones had games on them but did the one for sale?
A lot of people make the moral argument against copyright infringement. As well and good as that may be, and as much as I may agree with it, that argument is pointless and naive.
For every "pirate" they arrest, ten spring up in his place. For every p2p network that gets shut down/investigated/compromised, ten faster, more secure, more anonymous networks spring up in its place. Furthermore, many developing (and some developed) nations have absolutely no incentive whatsoever to enforce copyright law.
Bandwidth is increasing. Users are becoming more and more techno-savy. The technology is getting better.
This cannot be stopped. Legislative measures end at national borders, and do not effectively deter (see the drug war). Technological measures will always be circumvented. Moralistic measures have no power of enforcement.
It's not a matter of whether this is right or wrong. It's not a matter of whether intellectual property is legally protected.
It's a matter of technology existing that cannot un-exist.
Entities that rely on intellectual property protections have only two viable long-term paths at this point:
1) Adapt to this new world.
2) Be destroyed by it.
Yes, it may be wrong. Yes, it may be stealing. Yes, it will put people out of work. The sad fact, however, is that these points are irrelevant in the face of the simple truth that it can not and will not be stopped.
There comes a point in any losing battle where you cut your losses, step back, and re-evaluate your situation. We passed that point long ago.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Before non palladium drm crippled pc users who want to run Linux get thrown in the slammer?
After all its pirating since you did not pay ms the Windows tax so you must be trying to run software on your own system without Microsoft's approval.
I am getting real sick of not owning the products I buy.
What about fair use?
The whole reason mod chips are used is because all the apps are encrypted and need to be signed by MS to run. THis creates a virtual monopoly for htem and brings in a shitload of money.
The pc does not need modchips because its free.... for now??
http://saveie6.com/
God, FINALLY. We (some people in the dc area) have been trying to get Pandora's Cube taken care of for ages.
Admitidly, it was because of all of the bootleg dvd's and fansubs of anime that they sell, but still, a bust is a bust! I hope they get hit hard.
I haven't visited Pandora's in a few years, but in the past, they always had a few game systems available for customer use - to try out the latest import games. Similar to the practices of other console retailers.
It is very possible that the "some hold 15 or more games" was just the one display unit in each store for customer in-store usage. If that is the case, it may not be an open and shut case - though, I'm sure they will have a hard time proving that the display units were not for sale.
Maybe part of the cost was that they were actually giving the users the original DVDs and cases for the games, and the pre-loading was just a convienence thing? I know stores don't pay the full $50 for the games. Maybe they thought they were being legit because the customers were in fact buying all of the games and hardware they installed?
This is all speculation though, the article was written by someone who doesn't know anything beyond what the police told him, and the cops don't always have their facts straight before the brief the press.
On the other hand, I live near DC and Pandora's Cube has always had a rather seedy reputation. They used to (and probably still do) sell fansubs for instance--not of stuff that's licensed in the US, but fansubbers explicitly state that their work is not for sale. They are also notorious for carrying HK knockoff CDs and DVDs. I've never actually been in the store though, so take this paragraph with a grain of salt.
I read the internet for the articles.
The wording of the article is very vague on a very key point, and it's a key point that decides whether or not I agree with the store or with Microsoft on this.
It says they modified consoles to have larger hard drives and play pirated games. (Dubious claim because that's what ESA will say about ANY modded xbox, regardless of intent). Then, in a second sentence it says there were modded xboxes on display that had 15 games or more copied onto the hard drive. What is unclear is this very important point: Were those boxes with 15 games ONLY display models, or were all the xboxes sold ones that had pirated games on them (as opposed to ones modded in such a fashion that they *could* have pirated games on them.)
Basically, if they sold modded xboxes that had pre-installed pirated games on their hard drives as the article heavily implies without saying outright, then ESA is in the right on this. If they merely were selling modded xboxes that *can* store games on the hard drive, but started out without any stored on them, and their 15 games on the display models were just examples to demonstrate this feature, then ESA is in the wrong on this (yeah, I know the law says otherwise, but the DMCA is wrong.)
Basically, the article doesn't provide enough information to explicitly state that actual piracy (actual piracy, not the DMCA newspeak version of piracy) was taking place. It states outright that mods that could be used for piracy were being *sold*, and that copied games using those mods were on *display*. The connecting of the two together to mean that copied games were being installed on the new xboxes being sold was merely heavily implied without being stated explicitly.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I don't know about that statistic.
Here where I work, I know 7 guys that have modded XBoxes.
As far as I know, none of us use it for pirated games. One of the guys does burn his games to burnable DVDs and use that instead of the original because he has kids who are notorious for scratching game disks.
Mostly, we use the XBox as a media center. I have tons of movies on DVD. I also have a 4 year old who is good at leaving DVDs sitting on top of the DVD player when I'm not looking. By putting all the movies onto a network share, he has the ability to play the movie over the network with the click of a few buttons. Also, I can play my MP3s across the network to my nice sound system in the living room via the Xbox. Heck, I even have fun putting up picture slideshows of the kids when the grandparents come to town.
So, that means i can pirate upwards of 60 music CD's every 180 days and not be commiting a crime. ( for personal use, not re-sale )
( not that i can even think of 60 cds i want at this point. but that isnt the point )
Now, considering its a criminal issue and not a civil issue, the burden is on the court to prove the timing of the copying..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've shopped at the College Park and Baltimore stores in Maryland. Their prices are very high! However, in this case my own observations led me to the following opinion: the article has the correct spin, i.e. pro-government, pro-console manufacturer, and pro-software publisher.
It's not unique to Pandora's Cube. Every import store I've visited sells grey/black market items in plain sight, with large signs, and sometimes light ropes! Depending on the quality of the copy, you may inadvertantly be purchasing illegal copies. Be wary when they say "They're from Hong Kong."
I'd venture to say they collected a bit more evidence in other areas (*cough* video/dvd *cough*), too. If you're gonna play, don't get caught. I mean, the probable cause was out in the open and the FBI HQ is 20 miles away?
The saddest example of law enforcement was when Pokemon: The First Movie was out, I was catching a preview of it at the store. Not only was this a week before theatrical release, but I was watching it along with four police officers who were in the store at that time. In the end, I guess it was truly a Federal case.
Sour grapes: Customer service sucked, too.
I neglected to mention before (and Xeni has already updated my remarks over at BoingBoing)...
Pandora's Cube keeps electronic records of who you are and what you purchase. Not so much with the game and DVD purchases, but defintely with the system purchases.
I doubt that the Feds will pursue the buyers, but if they obtain the records they will know who bought what system with the pirated games...
Everyone from the DC area knows how shady these guys are. They jack up prices on imports and run a general unethical business. Even to the point of offering VHS with current in theater movies for sale. PLus they are rude