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?"

Comments

Of course Not

[Kranfer]

I am going to have to say no... The reason is.... Media degrades over time, and get scratched to hell and such. I own over 500 DVDs, however some of them are "unwatchable" either from storing them in those cheesey folder cases or just letting them sit around on my desk... Some of them are backed up some I bought anew... But I think making personal backups of software SHOULD be legal.... the companies that make this stuff could make money off this by selling an option to make backups for say... a dollar per backup and has to be registered to yourself with a separate backup serial key... DMCA goes too far sometimes....

Re:Bogus question.

[dattaway]

I have a modchip on my Nintendo DS. I don't use it to play games. I have NEVER played a game on it. So why do I have it? So I can run Linux on it. I have no interest playing games, but I do have an interest in a unique hardware device. Should the FBI raid my house?

If they did raid my and drag me into court, I would ask my legal counsel why small portable computers with good battery life is non-existant, while gaming consoles with much more features are. Something is wrong with the market in my opinion. Should it be illegal for me to have the technical possibility of running a rogue game? Should they give me 20 years in FPMITA Prison for it?

Re:Games Producers Want The Best Of Both Worlds

[Renraku]

When you buy blank media they charge you for the media.

When you buy any kind of software they charge you mainly for the licence to use the software and to get support/etc. However when you lose the media or it breaks, they want to charge you to replace the media.

So which is it? Charging us for the media or charging us for the licence? One or the other.

Re:Bogus question.

[beatmania]

The "motivation" for mod chips kind of depends on the person, wouldn't you say?

I bought a Nintendo Wii on launch day when I was living in Japan, and bought 4 or 5 games for it while I was living there. I just returned to the USA about a week ago, and now I want to buy more games, but I can't, thanks to region locking. The only options I have are 1.) Buy another Wii (not really an option, as I've sunk money into the Virtual Console games), or 2.) Install a modchip. The games I want to play on my Wii are indeed published by an official publisher, just from a different region.

Does this mean I should be raided / arrested / tried in court?

I realize that a lot of people who use modchips are only out to copy everything in sight, but hasn't this kind of thing been covered in the past (Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.)?

Bogus question indeed, sirs.

False Positives?

[Sasquatch6]

OK, so the FBI has just gone and raided a whole bunch of places looking for mod-chips. Presumably they would be looking for installed chips in consoles they raid at homes. How are they detecting these mod chips? Are they running a program to detect modified hardware (I would have thought MS, Sony, et al. would be doing that already). If not that, then they must be physically opening the cases to find the chips... Which brings me to my ultimate point: what happens if their information proves to be faulty, and the console is found chipless. Is the owner compensated for bother? Wear and tear? Damage? Loss of warranty after the console has just been opened? One would hope that the apology would extend to some sort of written proof that the console was opened for legal purposes, so that if that 360 red-rings, they can send it back without MS complaining.

Re:Bogus question.

[dattaway]

no. get some perspective. hammers and screwdrivers do not have an end use licence agreement. yes of course it is up to the seller to determine the terms of the sale. its called a contract.

Perspective? Why should a blank device with NO COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL have a license agreement? Should a movie projector have one? A pair of glasses? Why should my Nintendo that I want to put MY OWN DAMNED SOFTWARE on it have a license agreement? I don't want it for the games, I want it for the ARM microprocessors and displays, not for the any included software. The first thing I did was wipe off all that crap software off it, because I didn't agree with it. Is that good? Or did the manufacturer squeeze in some FEDERAL LAW that says my door is going to come down one day because I didn't subscribe to their business model?

Re:WTF?

[Slithe]

They also get the "jobs" nobody else would want, because it's risky or so crappy paid that even the burger flipping crowd sneers at them. The funny thing is that these jobs are low-paid because of the wage lowering effects of mass immigration. (supply and demand, anyone?) This article has a very interesting paragraph about the meatpacking industry that sums up the situation nicely:

Thirty years ago, meatpacking was one of the highest-paid industrial jobs in the United States, with one of the lowest turnover rates. In the decades that followed the 1906 publication of The Jungle, labor unions had slowly gained power in the industry, winning their members good benefits, decent working conditions, and a voice in the workplace. Meatpacking jobs were dangerous and unpleasant, but provided enough income for a solid, middle-class life. There were sometimes waiting lists for these jobs. And then, starting in the early 1960s, a company called Iowa Beef Packers (IBP) began to revolutionize the industry, opening plants in rural areas far from union strongholds, recruiting immigrant workers from Mexico, introducing a new division of labor that eliminated the need for skilled butchers, and ruthlessly battling unions. By the late 1970s, meatpacking companies that wanted to compete with IBP had to adopt its business methods--or go out of business. Wages in the meatpacking industry soon fell by as much as 50 percent. Today meatpacking is one of the nation's lowest-paid industrial jobs, with one of the highest turnover rates. The typical plant now hires an entirely new workforce every year or so. There are no waiting lists at these slaughterhouses today. Staff shortages have become an industry-wide problem, making the work even more dangerous.

Re:Not really a legitimate question...

[CelticWhisper]

What kind of blank media did you use? Normally recordable DVDs have inaccessible CSS key sectors so that the CSS key cannot be duplicated along with the rest of the content. Also, what DVD was it that you copied? Maybe it was released unencrypted (though I can't really see that happening.)

Re:Bogus question.

[dattaway]

but your Nintendo DOES have copyrighted software on it, even without a disk in the drive.

No sir! I now have an open source custom bootloader flashed on it. The first instructions the ARM processors run the uploaded program I installed. Lots of good people in the DSLinux community understood the basic hardware and enjoyed making a complete system from scratch. The ARM7 and ARM9 processors are well documented and so is the hardware on the DS. I don't see why it would be a FEDERAL offense for someone to write their own software. Maybe a judge somewhere will listen one day without taking money.