Slashdot Mirror
Federal Agents Raid Homes for Modchips
Lunatrik writes "Invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, Federal Custom's Agents have raided over 30 homes and businesses looking to confiscate so-called 'mod chips', or other devices that allow the playback of pirated video games. This raises an important question: Are legitimate backup copies of a piece of software you own illegal under the DMCA?"
If you could make a perfect 1-to-1 copy of a DVD, and have it run, that would still be legal. But since that doesn't work, because commercially available DVD are neutered, you have to crack the encryption - which is what is illegal.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
The fed doesn't seem to want to raid businesses for hiring illegal aliens, but they spend their time raiding businesses and homes for having mod chips. I thought this line was especially funny. [quote]"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, said in a release. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."[/quote] There may be a tenuous connection to smuggling (i.e. bootleg video games disks), but how in the hell do modchips facilitate money laundering. This is just laughable, if it wasn't so pathetic.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
It's an important question because that's the motivation for mod chips... so that you can run games on CDs that are not published by an official publisher. This description includes games copied from Blockbuster rentals as well as your own games that are copied for traditionally acceptable use such as "I want my kids to play from the backup because the original is expensive!"
The DMCA has done much to close that hole in the game-seller's net.
But oh wait... comparing them to the Commissariat of Homeland Security (KGB), Bureau of Security (UB) or Securitate, I should be thankful they're not participating in mass murders... yet.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Firstly, in the case of PC games (or indeed any system where games are installed to a hard drive), it should not be obligatory to have the CD or DVD in the drive to play them once installed as this creates totally unnecessary wear on the CD/DVD drive and the disc itself scratches a little more every time it's inserted or removed. Whilst I don't like the "spyware" concept of Valve's Steam, I do accept that being able to load my games on any PC I like without the disk is a good thing - though all praise to Stardock for just letting you get on and play Galactic Civilizations II without the disk once you've registered your product code with them. If every games company trusted me like Stardock does, I'd feel less inclined to rip them off at every opportunity (and, no, I don't work for Stardock).
Secondly, if your original CD/DVD goes faulty, the games company charges you for a replacement. This strikes me as wrong - if they won't let you back it up, then they should provide replacements (within a reasonable amount of time) for just the cost of postage.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
What about imports? Now I'm told that at least the PS3 is no longer region-locked, but the PS2 was and so were a heck of a lot of PS1 units. (Although more loosely into PAL and NTSC regions.)
I'm in Europe which is mostly PAL, and which also didn't get half of the PS1 games available in the USA in NTSC.
So here's the deal: half the game I owned were US imports. None burned/"backed-up", all original CDs, with manual and box and everything. Sony got my money for every single one of them. Money which they otherwise wouldn't have gotten at all, since they never released those games down here. Yeah, that's the kind of an evil pirate I am: I went and gave Sony some money against their will.
Sony also always acted as if imports are piracy. Again, we're not talking about burned CDs, we're talking units sold. Apparently the fact that I bought some games from them, which they otherwise wouldn't have sold me, counted as piracy to them. Apparently it's soooo much of a similarity between an inconvenience like "yeah, but it screws up our marketting data of how much units were sold in each territory" (which is all that game imports ever did) and pirating that game.
Where I'm getting at is: it's not as simple as "modchips == piracy." There are perfectly non-piracy uses of modchips. One is mentioned in the summary (you'll ideally want your little kid to play with a copy, not to scratch the $60 disc) and another one I just gave you now.
Plus, there's the whole moral issue of criminalizing people for owning a tool, as opposed to actually committing the infraction. If you still don't see the problem, think this: if you're a guy, chances are you have all the equipment you'd ever need to be a rapist. It doesn't mean you're automatically one. How about looking for people who actually committed a crime, instead of those who would technically have the means.
And it seems to me that that's the whole problem here: the summary mentions raiding for mod-chips, not for burned DVDs.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
i don't think your question will get any response other than a dismissal as irrelevant. Dissatisfaction with the market does not act as an excuse to break the law. There is nobody stopping you starting our own computer hardware company, and making the device you describe. The people making the device you modded have done so on the assumption that they can sell complimentary products for it (games). We all know this. They designed, financed and made the product, it's up to them to determine the terms under which they offer it for sale. If you do not like the terms, don't buy one. Punish restrictive practices through the market, not by breaking the law.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
You are correct. You may own as many backups as you would like as part of 'Fair Use' which the DMCA explicitly states it is not meant to interfier with, and the MPAA & RIAA lawyers argued in front of congress as being acceptable fair use. However, the DMCA does make creating, selling, distributing, and importing the tools to make backups illegal. Additionally, mod chips, which would allow you to use your legal backup - made with illegal tools - are also illegal. So, you are perfectly within your rights to own a backup, so long as you don't posses the tools to make it or the tools to actually use it.
So, while the DMCA explicitly states that your fair use rights are not to be hindered by the DMCA, it simultaniously blocks your ability to impliment those rights by outlawing the tools required to do so.
More Twoson than Cupertino
it's up to them to determine the terms under which they offer it for sale
Scope to determine terms is not and should not be unlimited. Once something is sold, it's not theirs any more. That is right at the heart of "selling". If they didn't want people to tinker, they shouldn't have offered the device for sale. It's not our responsibility to shoulder the cost of a crummy choice of business model and it's unjust for the law to try and push it onto us.
Punish restrictive practices through the market, not by breaking the law
Bullshit. They're writing the laws. Obedience to unjust law is a fool's game. While copyright and patent exist, a free market doesn't.
If you do not like the terms, don't buy one. Punish restrictive practices through the market, not by breaking the law.
Say what? Are you saying "It Is A Violation Of Federal Law To Use This Product Inconsistant With Its Labeling?" Is it also against the law to combine vinegar and baking soda in the kitchen? Is it against the law to use a screwdriver as a hammer? This government is really starting to annoy me if its telling me I can only do what was labeled on the original package.
If I buy a Gamecube or whatever then it is my gamecube. Contract law IMHO is being severely abused by corporates. All they have to is put a f***** contract on EVERYTHING to see to it that nobody ever has a shred of rights again. Buy a bottle of barbecue sauce? You agreed to a contract. No rights. Period.
The grandparent isn't pirating games. He's using his own personal private property as he sees fit and under no ethical theory that I can think of does it cost Nintendo anything. If contract law can be twisted to preclude such things then I say it is our sacred duty to violate it at every opportunity.
You are suggesting that sellers of all products be prevented from setting any conditions on the sale of their products
.. to promote progress in the science and arts by offering a TEMPORARY monopoly which then expires and your work enters the public domain.
Yes. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to actually own the copy that I bought and that includes the ability to modify it. There are already laws in place by society (such as Copyright) which limit what I can do with that copy in terms of distribution. If additional conditions are required (such as NDAs) then these agreements must be established before the time of purchase. Shrink-wrap licenses or EULAs should not be acceptable nor enforceable.
I guess you would also mean that a EULA should be unenforceable, and thus abolish copyright when it comes to allowing you to make copies of digital products?
What does EULA have to do with Copyright? Works, digital or otherwise, are just as protected by copyright without EULAs as they are with them.
If I invent product X, who are you, or the government to dictate the terms under which I profit from my invention?
It is in the best interest of society that knowledge not be held hostage in the silos of their so-called inventors. This is precisely the original reason for copyright
If you don't like it, go invent your own product and stick a big "mod chip friendly" sticker on it.
I'm feeding a Troll aren't I?
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
If GE sold a coffee maker that magically permitted only GE-brand coffee filters, no one would give you a moral lecture for using a workaround and using non-GE filters. It's your coffee maker. If GM sold cars that accepted only GM-designed bolts, no one would lecture you for using an adapter or changing out the bolt thingy so you could use whatever bolts you wanted.
It would never occur to anyone to be so damned stupid as to think that GE or GM or any other company has a moral claim to dictate how you use the product you already paid for--unless it's a video game console, or otherwise involves a computer or, God forbid, the internet. These are apparently magical, and are not subject to the same common-sense, well-known principles by which we have conducted business since, well, forever.
http://www.mhall119.com