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Mod Chippers Ordered to Pay $9 Million in Fines
GameDaily is reporting that that ESA is announcing a major victory against game software piracy in California. A judge has handed down over $9 Million in fines to Divineo Inc., some employees, and international subsidiaries. From the article: "The defendants had apparently violated the DMCA by trafficking mod chips and the HDLoader software application that enables users to copy whole video games to a console's hard drive ... Mod chips then can be used to allow a console to play illegally obtained/pirated games. Both the mod chips and HDLoader application therefore circumvent the copyright protection technology built into video game consoles and video game software and are in direct violation of the DMCA."
From TFA: "Once the entire video game file is on the console's hard drive it probably isn't too difficult for a hacker to transfer it to his PC and then illegally distribute it on the web." PROBABLY? I'm no cracker, so I have no idea how easy or difficult this is, but COME ON. I seriously hope nobody got fined for theoretical damages caused by distributing a game online when the only evidence was that they had copied it to their console's HD.
USE colorful confetti ON heavily-armed clown
I dream of a day when I won't have to get off my couch to put the legally-purchased games I own into my game console, stream video, pictures, and music from my Linux PC, check the weather, etc. all without the use of these law-breaking modchips. I guess the Wii has a lot of that covered, and probably the PS3 and 360, I don't know. But for me, I really am THAT lazy, that I don't wanna switch the discs. :) That's a benefit of using a modchip even to those who don't pirate software.