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ESA Initiates Police Raid Against Console Modder
Donkey Konga writes "A San Diego man was arrested after a raid turned up over a thousand counterfeit games, modded consoles and mod chips. Frederick Brown 'had allegedly built up a thriving business selling counterfeit games and installing mod chips, having advertised his services on Craigslist and other web sites. He allegedly sold pirated games from his Vista, CA residence as well, including both discs and hard drives preloaded with games that he would install into customers' Xboxes and Xbox 360s.' After the ESA learned of his activities, they contacted San Diego law enforcement and the San Diego Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Unit led the raid on his home. '"CATCH was very receptive to the evidence we brought them and were able to put the investigation together in very short order," ESA VP Ric Hirsch told Ars.' Brown now faces 10 felony counts related to selling pirated games and modding consoles."
You can live inside an operating system? Now that's virtualisation. It must be hell.
I understand the pirated games part, but how can he possibly be charged with anything about modding consoles? Sure, the console manufacturer doesn't want you to do it, and (in the case of the Xbox 360) they'll go to great lengths to prevent you from doing it (that's their "right"). They can't make it illegal though, can they? That's just stupid.
If he's selling pirated stuff, that's one matter but why should it be illegal to modify your console? If somebody wants to copy their own personal copy of a game onto their hard drive, that should fall under fair use (note I said should, not does). The headline makes it sound like modding consoles is all he's guilty of.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
In typical /. fashion, headline is designed to get people impassioned about a poor console modder. A fairer headline would be "ESA Initiates Police Raid Against Games Counterfeiter." Yes, it says that in the summary but how many around here even RTFS nevermind RTFA?
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
...advertised his services on Craigslist and other web sites.
Why don't you just go ahead and put a sign on you lawn proclaiming your ill-goten warez? I'm all for Mod-chips (for import gaming) and pirating games off BitTorrent (if a game is hard to find), but when you make a business out of it, then you've just crossed the line.
Will take note of this, and start raiding Autozone. Although on the plus side, if they started going after modders, there would be fewer cars with really unnecessary spoilers...
I understand that this guy was also selling unauthorized copies of games and HDDs preloaded with games, and he should have to face penalties for that, but why should I be disallowed to by a mod chip simply because I "could" pirate games with it? Should I be disallowed from buying a computer simply because I could copy music, games, or applications with it? I have two Xboxes in my house that are modded, but only so I can use them as media centers and to let me and my daugter play games we own without risking damage to the original DVDs.
The DMCA sucks nuts.
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Never had a chance.
"You door is about to be kicked in, Cancel or Allow?"
I might be reading a little too much into the summary, but can you run 360 games from the hard drive now? I haven't really been following the XBox 360 mod "scene", but that was one of my favourite things about my modded XBox. It's incredibly convenient.
This poo is cold.
In my little college town, there was a guy who owned his own small business, doing mostly PC repairs / upgrades. He acquired a reputation in my geeky-friend circle as being a little shady and a lot overpriced.
Apparently he also started modding XBoxes on the side. I met a neighbor that had one that he'd worked on, and as a result of the mod you'd get an extra splash screen when booting your XBox. I'm futzing the details, but the splash screen said something like this:
This console modded by Bob's Smalltown PC Shop!
I'll mod your console too for $35!
Contact me at 1234 Main St, (999)-999-9999.
I was dumbfounded that he'd leave such evidence on something that he had to have known was illegal. It made me want to buy one and forward it to Microsoft just for spite, because it seemed a tragic injustice that someone could do something so stupid and never have to deal with the results.
I never got around to it, though, because then he skipped town without paying the last X weeks of back wages to his employees. As far as I know no-one ever found him, but I didn't pay much attention after the first bit of news.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
We still do the same in the US, and you're starting to hear about people making the effort to crack down. Just because they can't enforce it today doesn't mean they won't find a way to enforce it tomorrow.
Question reality.