Mod Chip Raids In Perspective

GamePolitics has extensive coverage on the aftermath of this past week's Federal raids on suspected modchippers. There were numerous negative reactions to the action here on the site, and your comments were not alone. Many commenters at the site Dvorak Uncensored expressed similar frustration and disbelief at the federal government's priorities. As stated on the site's original post: "Are you kidding me? With drug dealers everywhere, murder, porous borders, terrorism the Feds are concerned about game mods?? Holy crap. Next I supposed they will be cracking heads over unlocked phones. Great." Meanwhile, one of the raided men is now without any electronics whatsoever as a result of the search and seizure, and feeling very much alone. Another man has (more seriously) been barred from seeing his girlfriend and daughter, and has been reduced to sleeping in his car. As he puts it: "I would like to formally thank Microsoft and Nintendo for cracking down on the little guy with a soldering iron in his garage, rather than going after the people that are responsible for the bootlegs being available."

Comments

Not allowed to see family members?

[karnal]

Because of what happened Im not allowed to see my girlfriend and our 4 month old daughter, and last night, I slept in my car They took my life away.

Not sure that that means that some judge and jury said "you can't see your gf and daughter" - just sounds like the situation caused some tension???

Sen-Sational!

Re:Not allowed to see family members?

[Drakkoon]

I think it has more to do with the fact that the warrant was for his grandmother's house, while the mod chipping stuff was at his girlfriend's house, where he willingly led the feds to so they could search. So it might have to do with that. The small article at game politics does sound very sensationnal, but the whole transcript at Xbox Scene didn't feel that way.

Re:Not allowed to see family members?

[sgant]

OK, what am I missing? What difference does does it make who's house is what in relation to not being able to see his girlfriend and kid?

It didn't say anything in his blog about being ordered by a judge not being able to see his family...he just says he can't. Where are his GF and kid staying at the moment? Can't he stay there? No other place in the world he can stay? No friends? No other family? Her family?

Or is this him trumping up his situation, making it sound worse than it is for sympathy from the Net community?

Yea, like he's the victim

[TubeSteak]

"I would like to formally thank Microsoft and Nintendo for cracking down on the little guy with a soldering iron in his garage, rather than going after the people that are responsible for the bootlegs being available." Yes, the police and corporations should be using civil and criminal law to go after the manufacturers of mod chips, but that doesn't mean they can't go after the little guys too.

He isn't exactly an innocent victim and life does tend to suck after you've been caught breaking the law.

Re:Yea, like he's the victim

[aichpvee]

I don't happen to have a modchip to allow me to play backups, but that's because I haven't had enough broken discs to justify the cost. I have had one of my games bitten threw by my nephew and if I had small children living with me I'd definitely have one. So I guess you're in favor of Nintendo or Sony or whoever providing me replacement discs to my licensed software whenever anything happens to the original?

Re:Yea, like he's the victim

[iminplaya]

He isn't exactly an innocent victim and life does tend to suck after you've been caught breaking the law.

Man! I sure hope you never get caught peeing in an alley. The government is out of control because the driver(voter) is asleep at the wheel. There are some laws that have absolutely no right to exist. Getting anybody to give a damn when their favorite TV show is on, and the politician is promising a refrigerator in every pot, is proving to be an interesting challenge. We are all responsible for this. It is not a good thing to let people be treated like this for the protection of commercial interests.

Re:Yea, like he's the victim

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely why I chipped my Wii. I can't afford to replace $50 disks every time one of the toddlers gets their sneaky hands on them.

drug dealers everywhere

[Threni]

> With drug dealers everywhere, murder, porous borders, terrorism the Feds are concerned about game mods?? Holy crap. Next I supposed they will be
> cracking heads over unlocked phones. Great."

There's nothing immoral about selling drugs (unless you think we should ban alcohol and tobacco, or that we've criminalised the right drugs and that growing, selling, buying and consuming cannabis somehow requires punishment), but making it possible for people to trivially pirate software is an area I believe to be a little more grey. Also, as someone who's recently been burgled and had his phone stolen, if by `unlocking` phones you're talking about changing the IMEI number so that stolen phones can be reused after they've been reported stolen, then that seems a far more serious offence, in terms of perpetuating crime and suffering, than smoking a bit of weed or taking a few trips or pills.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlocking phones means not being tied to one telco and being able to put in a SIM for another. Not all of us want to replace our phone just because we want to use another company as the carrier.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Renaissance 2K]

Until somebody figures out a way to grind pirated games into a fine powder to be snorted or smoked that causes hallucinations, birth defects, and profuse, acute, addictive behavior, I'm going to stick with the side that says drug dealing is the more destructive industry to the well-being of humanity.

And if software giants have a problem with this, tell them to chill out and smoke some weed.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[asuffield]

There's nothing immoral about selling drugs (unless you think we should ban alcohol and tobacco, or that we've criminalised the right drugs and that growing, selling, buying and consuming cannabis somehow requires punishment), but making it possible for people to trivially pirate software is an area I believe to be a little more grey. Also, as someone who's recently been burgled and had his phone stolen, if by `unlocking` phones you're talking about changing the IMEI number so that stolen phones can be reused after they've been reported stolen, then that seems a far more serious offence, in terms of perpetuating crime and suffering, than smoking a bit of weed or taking a few trips or pills.

After somebody makes a bootlegged copy of a game, who exactly is suffering more than they were before the copy was made?

Ethically, it is extremely dubious to say that "failing to provide income to somebody" is equivalent to theft, or even that it's a bad thing at all. The problem with the idea is that there's no obvious point where you should stop - if I buy a game from company A instead of buying it from company B, how is my crime against company B any less than it would be if I had copied the game?

The other common ethical justification is that copying a game is bad because the person who copied it has received something that they did not deserve. The problem with this idea is that it says charity is a bad thing.

(Note that arguments along the lines of "Who is going to pay for it if you don't?" are financial arguments rather than ethical ones, and they are a variation on the problem of "Who is going to pay to build the roads?")

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Threni]

> Ethically, it is extremely dubious to say that "failing to provide income to somebody" is equivalent to theft, or even that it's a bad thing at
> all. The problem with the idea is that there's no obvious point where you should stop - if I buy a game from company A instead of buying it from
> company B, how is my crime against company B any less than it would be if I had copied the game?

It's not theft, but if people don't pay for an album that they would have done had they not been able to copy it digitally (and therefore flawlessly) then it's one less sale for the creator of the work. Frank Zappa might be a fairly atypical example, because rather than try and get a record deal and get a cut of sales, he recorded, produced etc his own stuff himself and just did deals with the majors for distribution (rather than running purely a mail order company). Also, he's dead now. Karlheinz Stockhausen is similar, only he doesn't seem to do any distribution deals, or take credit cards. But both of these people (or their families) lose out if you download their stuff rather than buying it. They don't magically get compensated somehow. There's obviously a distinction between someone doing you a few tracks on a compilation tape/cd to see if you like it, and downloading their entire back catalogue off the net.

> The other common ethical justification is that copying a game is bad because the person who copied it has received something that they did not
> deserve. The problem with this idea is that it says charity is a bad thing.

If your definition of charity is `getting something for free` then you could argue that receiving stolen goods is a good thing because it's charity. You can receive something for free in both moral and immoral situations, so clearly it is not a useful indicator of morality. Theft is bad, but if there is a situation where someone has the choice of stealing or going without food (or their family going without food) and you are stealing from a large company (as opposed to another family or a small, uninsured company), then it could be argued that they are acting morally.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Blublu]

If you want an unlocked phone, maybe you should .... well, I don't know. Maybe buy a fucking phone that is not fucking locked.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is stealing from "a large company" any better than stealing from a family or small company? All that does is reduce the amount you've stolen per person you stole from. Whether or not there is insurance involved, other individuals are paying for your thievery. There is no moral reasoning that justifies forcing anyone else to provide for you against their will.

I have no sympathy for anyone claiming they had to steal for food. That's a bullshit excuse to justify immoral behavior.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[thegnu]

Until somebody figures out a way to grind pirated games into a fine powder to be snorted or smoked that causes hallucinations, birth defects, and profuse, acute, addictive behavior
Isn't that pretty much how crystal meth is made? There are grades to drugs. I think that if you rank drugs from safest to most dangerous, you'd get something like:

1 weed, salvia, cigarettes
2 mushrooms, lsd
3 alcohol, cocaine, crack, opium, xanax, demerol
4 heroin, crack, crystal meth, methadone, paxil

with the caveat that category 2 can make you flip out and run in front of a car provided you're not of calm disposition and there's no one around to sit on your head until you calm down. If you made the first category completely legal, decriminalized the second and third for posession in the home, and made the "punishment" for the 4th category a rehabilitation program that provided work for people if they desired it, then you would have a much less burdened system, and people would actually have a chance at surviving the system.

Of course, some on the list are legal already. And if someone else has some other ideas, I'm open to them. But people's perception of drugs is very skewed by fear-based propaganda, and sometimes the mere fact that something is illegal makes people think it's immoral. Does someone know the ridiculous statistic on percentage of our packed jails that are non-violent drug offenders? Even if you just freed the weed people, we would be far less burdened.

And then we'd really have the resources we need to go after PIRATES! ARRRGGHH!!!

I'm going to stick with the side that says drug dealing is the more destructive industry to the well-being of humanity.
I think if drugs were legal, it would allow NORMAL people to purchase drugs and know they were not being sneaky and evil. This would allow real, honest individuals to import drugs, which would in turn put more pressure on drug cartels to stop using child slave labor. This would greatly decrease the amount of damage the cocaine trade does to the world. Also, the fact that people would be able to purchase drugs that weren't cut with arsenic or baking soda or CAL or something nice and random would make drugs safer for sneaky kids (please, think of the kids) and adults alike.

But that's just my opinion. Oh, and it's pretty much shared by several ex-narc cops, fwiw.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[vux984]

Why is stealing from "a large company" any better than stealing from a family or small company?

Its plain as day that stealing the rent/food/medicine money from a fixed income senior causes more harm than taking the same amount from a wealthy multinational corporation. Surely anyone can see that.

That doesn't make stealing from wealthy corporations ok, but from a harm perspective there is an obvious difference.

I have no sympathy for anyone claiming they had to steal for food. That's a bullshit excuse to justify immoral behavior.

Stealing for food is immoral but its less immoral than allowing someone to starve.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[tomhudson]

"If you want an unlocked phone, maybe you should .... well, I don't know. Maybe buy a fucking phone that is not fucking locked."

The cell carriers justify selling locked phones by saying that the owner needs to be with the company for a certain length of time to "pay back" the subsidized cost of the phone ... HOWEVER, they also say that if you cancel the plan early, you have to pay a penalty equal to the amount of the balance of the subsidy. So why can't I have my phone unlocked after I've paid for it, including the subsidy? Why do they want $100 for what is less than 1 minute's work? Just give me the code and I'll unlock it myself. Oops - that means I'll be able to unlock other people's phones too ...

Of course, if you know where to look, you can unlock your phone yourself.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[MikeBabcock]

How about you go read "Les Miserables" (or watch the play / movie, but the book is better). Just a thought.

PS, if you think France in the era of the book is bad, look around at current US laws.

-- Glad to be canadian

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Blublu]

Yes, but why not just skip all that and buy a phone that is not locked in the first place. They are available, though you might need to do a little researching or order it over the internet or something.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Multinational corporations are ultimately owned by individuals. Stealing from them is stealing from the individuals who own the company. Some of those owners are seniors who count on dividend cheques as their retirement income, or who count on pension funds which either use dividend income or trading shares (which is related in part to company revenue/losses) to finance their annuity payouts. And that's ignoring that theft from corporations contributtes to rising prices of corporate output which ultimately feeds into general price level inflationary pressure. So no, it's not obvious to me that stealing from an individual is worse than stealing from a corporation.

I will concede that most stockholders and private corporation owners are relatively wealthy, but there are poor folk directly or indirectly affected too.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[cdrguru]

First problem - finding NORMAL people. By this I assume you mean people that aren't immediately addicted or become overly dependent very quickly.

The second problem is there are certainly people that can handle drugs but there is a large number of people that cannot. How do you separate them out? The people that will utterly freak out on PCP or LSD. The people that after three doses of coke will do literally anything for the next, including sell their children, rob relatives, etc.

As far as I know, there isn't a test you can give someone that will say they can handle some drug. Ever seen any of the above behavior? It's not pretty and current laws pretty much prevent them from being confined in any way until they actually do something to harm others. Even stealing from relatives can get you a pass from the police unless the victim is willing to (a) press charges and (b) show up in court. (a) is tough enough, (b) is very, very difficult when it is a granddaughter. So the kid gets a complete pass and is free to continue.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[ravenshrike]

0-0=0
Just because you download something does not in any way, shape, or form mean you were likely to buy it. Now, it is true that there will be a percentage of people who would otherwise have bought an album, but that percentage is, quite honestly, probably no more than 10% of people who download 50% or more of said album. And except for the "elite" pushed upon the masses by the record labels, the vast majority of artists will experience a large enough gain in listenership that the people who do buy the album will outweigh the lost sales.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[quanticle]

So why can't I have my phone unlocked after I've paid for it, including the subsidy?

I know that, with T-Mobile they will allow you to unlock your phone once the contract with that phone is done. My old cell phone is unlocked, as that contract expired and I chose to upgrade my phone upon renewal.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[steelfood]

Then by your line of reasoning, sellers and buyers of date rape pills should be quite the serious offense. Yet, you say there's nothing immoral about it? "Drugs" covers a variety of things, but in all cases, they refer specifically to what's known as federally controlled substances. Marijuana is still one of them, but it's slowly coming off the list. But it's not the only substance that falls under the monkier of "drug."

There are behaviors that are detrimental to society, and there are behaviors that are detrimental to the self. Certain drugs fall under the former, others fall under the latter. Use of mod chips falls under neither. It may be detrimental to a company, sure, but that's the natural order of a free market: innovate or be rendered obsolete.

That's the issue that's at hand.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Buran]

"Also, as someone who's recently been burgled and had his phone stolen, if by `unlocking` phones you're talking about changing the IMEI number so that stolen phones can be reused after they've been reported stolen"

Not at all. It's a reference to unlocking phones so that they can be used with any carrier, not the one that provided the phone. That is explicitly legal under US law.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[thegnu]

First problem - finding NORMAL people. By this I assume you mean people that aren't immediately addicted or become overly dependent very quickly.

Actually, I meant people who are not criminals, demonized, or marginalized for their choice of chemicals. I think that pharmaceuticals are far far worse than my first two categories (except cigs, maybe). People are completely trusting of their doctors, who are completely trusting of the sponsorship of the drug companies. I'm far, far, far more selective about what I put in my body than most people, even though it includes illegal substances, and things child-drugging alcoholic valium-popping H3-driving soccer moms consider dangerous.

The second problem is there are certainly people that can handle drugs but there is a large number of people that cannot. How do you separate them out? The people that will utterly freak out on PCP or LSD. The people that after three doses of coke will do literally anything for the next, including sell their children, rob relatives, etc.

We could continue as a culture suggesting that people not do drugs. For categories 2 through 4, I'm suggesting at the very least NOT throwing some 19-year old in prison because he was at a low point when someone offered him some coke. I'm suggesting that if someone does acid, he shouldn't have to worry about asking for help if he gets freaked out. I'm not saying people SHOULD do drugs. I will not ever do any of my class 4 drugs. I think that the current system of what is essentially abstinence-only education is bullshit and non-functional. If I had been better-educated about drugs, I wouldn't have called a whole bunch of people the first time I did mushrooms.

I'm merely suggesting that a more permissive society lends itself to children coming to the proper people for answers for difficult questions, rather than having to learn about drugs from drug dealers. Try learning about a Ford from a Ford dealer. Or a computer from a computer salesman (why yes, it DOES play with your balls!).

As far as I know, there isn't a test you can give someone that will say they can handle some drug.

An educated and judicious acid-user (not abuser) can tell if someone will have problems when they take it. Educating people about the drug, again, is the safest plan. I am now very very very educated. After a few bad experiences, I found erowid.org, and it has kept me healthy when I did drugs I was going to do anyway (though I may have taken some of those trips back now), and it kept me safe and sane knowing what was going to happen to me and knowing that I'd done everything I could to keep safe.

Ever seen any of the above behavior? It's not pretty and current laws pretty much prevent them from being confined in any way until they actually do something to harm others.

I have seen my best friend from childhood end up hooked on crystal meth. It was a lack of education, and a lack of hope. The inexistence of support structures, the pressure from land developers to get poor mexicans off their prime golf-course real estate, and finally, him being careless. I went back to Mexico, and he wouldn't smoke weed anymore because it made him feel sick. He smoked with me once, and got sick and lashed out at me so violently that I almost fainted. I tripped with him, pleaded with him, tried to get him to get his motherfucking visa so I could pay for his ticket up to the US so he could get out of his toxic environment. I tried everything short of duct-taping him to a tree. Now, in retrospect, I would have. He had an alcoholic father, and a family that used to ride our asses about weed before we ever smoked, and they were friendly to us when we finally started. His mother ended up fucking his dad's best friend, and his dad moved back to Sinaloa, and he was stuck being the asshole head of family that his two sisters and his mother berated. Nobody gave a fuck about him. So yes, I have seen the problems with drugs, I just don't see where any of the above would have been made any worse by him not being considered a criminal and a piece of shit, and a little bit of straightforward education.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[mrchaotica]

I'm not convinced you've got category 3 quite right. It seems to me that alcohol would be more of a 2.5, while some of those others might range more up towards 3.5. Or do you have evidence to the contrary (that alcohol actually is as dangerous as opium or cocaine)?

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[masterzora]

*whoosh*

The point wasn't that the individuals owning the company are wealthy, but rather that wealthy companies are owned by enough people that the theft of a loaf of bread will hurt each individual less than the sole owner of a small store would be hurt.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[LKM]

Sell Heroin -> Get somebody addicted

Sell a Mod chip -> let somebody play an imported game

Grey alright.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[LKM]

I'm not convinced you've got category 3 quite right. It seems to me that alcohol would be more of a 2.5, while some of those others might range more up towards 3.5. Or do you have evidence to the contrary (that alcohol actually is as dangerous as opium or cocaine)?

Yeah, I actually do have evidence: the drunks hanging around at my train station. Never seen an opium addict get so violent (actually, I've never seen an opium addict at all), and the coke addicts usually lead normal lives.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Drenaran]

I suggest at least trying to find out what something means before you make broad moral judgments on them. An "unlocked" phone is a phone which is not locked in to a single provider. For some reason many people accept that Sprint has one set of phones, AT&T another, and so forth - this is ridiculous. The hardware itself does not require this at all (except through artificial implementation), and unlocked versions of phones reflect this by allowing you to use the hardware you enjoy with whatever service provider you deem to be the best choice for you. That the majority of us allow this locking in without question is only evidence of how effectively we have been brainwashed (because it makes perfect sense that companies can use our private property after we purchase - not rent - things from them. Wait...)

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Drenaran]

because it makes perfect sense that companies can determine how we can use our private property after we purchase - not rent - things from them.*

Sorry for the typo, I generally catch such things before I post.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[vux984]

So no, it's not obvious to me that stealing from an individual is worse than stealing from a corporation.

Take 100,000 people; lets for the sake of argument suppose that they are all poor fixed income seniors living off dividend cheques from the corporation they own equal shares in.

Now, steal $1000 from one of those individuals; suddenly he can't pay his rent, or buy food, or refill a prescription. His best chance is to take out a loan, and try to pay it back $100 month over the next year; which would make a significant dent in his lifestyle.

Steal that same $1000 from the corporation; and what happens, their next dividend cheque reduced by 1 penny. The total dollar damage is the same but harm it causes is easily absorbed by the group. Its the difference between getting hit with book and a knife. The damage from the book is spread over a large surface area and you probably won't even bruise. Get hit with a knife at the same force but because the damage is concentrated to a point it can cut you deeply, even kill you.

Stealing from a megacorp is the equivalent of hitting with a book; the harm is spread thinly, and is therefor much easier to absorb. Steal from an individual, and like a knife, there is a good chance you'll seriously injure him.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealing for food is immoral but its less immoral than allowing someone to starve.

It's hard to rate "allowing someone to starve" on the morality scale since, as long as anyone anywhere is starving, we are all guilty of that. Stealing something you need to meet some basic need because you can't afford to pay for it is less immoral than stealing something you don't absolutely need because you don't want to pay for it.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[vertinox]

If you want an unlocked phone, maybe you should .... well, I don't know. Maybe buy a fucking phone that is not fucking locked.

Any recommendations?

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[asuffield]

It's not theft, but if people don't pay for an album that they would have done had they not been able to copy it digitally (and therefore flawlessly) then it's one less sale for the creator of the work.

Assume I can afford to buy one album this month. If I buy an album from artist A instead of from artist B, how is my crime against artist B less than if I had copied the album? In both cases, it's one less sale for the creator of the work.

The basic idea is: can anybody formulate an convincing ethical principle that says there is a difference between these things? The one you described here doesn't recognise there being a difference between copying an album and simply buying a different one, because in both cases, somebody has lost a sale.

If somebody steals an object, the ethical objection is obvious: the person they stole it from no longer has it. When copying information, there is no obvious ethical reason why this should be a bad thing, so far as I'm aware.

You can receive something for free in both moral and immoral situations, so clearly it is not a useful indicator of morality.

My point exactly. "Receiving something that you did not pay for" is not a valid ethical objection to copying information (or anything else).

(Note that anybody who insists that copying information without paying is wrong, while refusing to provide a reason why it should be, is merely demonstrating that they are a bigot)

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Threni]

1 weed, salvia, cigarettes
4 heroin, crack, crystal meth, methadone, paxil

Cigarettes are a killer. Heroin is harmless. I don't understand your rating system!

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[thegnu]

Cigarettes are a killer. Heroin is harmless. I don't understand your rating system!
Just my personal estimation from what I see and hear. I know cigs are a killer, but at least it takes a very very long time, and you can be a part of society relatively easily. I find them disturbing. Maybe they should get bumped to 3 or 4, though. But then, I guess I'm talking cigs without all the chemicals added, too. Which is not what people smoke.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is - there is no stealing going on from a megacorp. There is no bank account thats magically being drained, no warehouse thats magically going empty, they are losing no dollars at all in any way. Copyright infringement is one of the greatest scams in the history of the world - of all the $billions in damage that RIAA/MPAA like to pretend they are having stolen from them, they, us, and everyone know that they haven't had a single dollar stolen that they can substantiate and document. Not one, ever!

By that standard of 'damage', hey, I should have $billions too, wheres my money, oooh I'm such a victim of evil thieves and pirates, waaahhh! Its totally like being attacked by the Boston Strangler, oh, the humanity! And so on and so forth.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Petersson]

Cigarettes are a killer. Heroin is harmless. I don't understand your rating system!

That's a completely new meaning of "harmless", that I don't understand.

The only harmless drugs are no drugs at all. The first question regarding drugs should be "why drugs", not "what drugs".

Junkies, flame my ass.

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Threni]

> Cigarettes are a killer. Heroin is harmless. I don't understand your rating system!

Harmless as in `causing no harm`. Of course, heroin is addictive, but so is caffeine. Perhaps coffee should be in group 4 too, huh?

> The only harmless drugs are no drugs at all. The first question regarding drugs should be "why drugs", not "what drugs".

Ibuprofen is pretty handy when you've got a headache. I like a beer at the weekend, and the odd joint. Maybe some mushrooms a couple of times a year.

The only question regarding my (anyone's) drug use is: what the fuck has it got to do with you?

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that it would have been better if your friend had never done ANY drugs?

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[thegnu]

So what you're saying is that it would have been better if your friend had never done ANY drugs?
Well, no. I don't think the coffee hurt him much. Or the aspirin. Or the cough medicine, even that one time it was taken in high dosage. In fact, the one time he did E probably didn't hurt him that much either. And the weed was actually not very bad either. The alcohol and cigarettes I suppose he could have done without, given the sense of helplessness they tend to engender. Um... I think the mushrooms were ok, too, since it never turned into a problem.

But probably, if he had actually been more committed to weed, he wouldn't have developed a crystal meth problem, given how the crystal meth makes you manic no matter what, and the weed makes you tired if you're tired, and feel pain if you've been beating yourself up. So I think if he had stuck with coffee, weed, and occasionally mushrooms, he would be fine right now.

So, really, the moral of the story is that land developers should be strung up by their testicles for destroying my home, and we should make weed legal. And there's this guy named David for whom I have little compassion. In fact, there are TWO guys named David for whom I have little compassion. Which I think is ironic, since my name is Nathan. And yes, I taught those motherfuckers a lesson apiece. :-)

Re:drug dealers everywhere

[Blublu]

I haven't researched it, since I'm not buying a phone at the moment, so I don't know about any phones available now. But I'm waiting for Neo1973, running OpenMoko. The consumer version is scheduled to be available sometime in October. http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973 To be honest, I don't live in the USA, so I don't know exactly how the situation is over there regarding unlocked phones. But I figure there must be some unlocked phones available. If not, I guess order from overseas or something.

end user

[SolusSD]

I don't think the end users should be the people gettig in trouble. To use a not so uncommon analogy- this is just like raiding the home of and locking up the crack head that has been spending all his money on a hopeless addiction rather than ging after to SOB that is making tens of thousands of dollars a month supporting addicts addictions and making the illegal substance available in the first place. Think about it-- you make something that normally costs $50-$60 available for free after making some simple mods to your game console, of course people are going to want to do this. If the government thinks it is important to put an end to his they need to crack down on the people providing the ISOs-- after all, that is the only illegal activity, right? Oh I forgot-- the DMCA makes it illegal to make modifications to hardware you *own*.

Re:end user

[Opportunist]

The DMCA pretty much says that you don't really own hardware anymore. You just allow the manufacturer to store it in your custody, and in exchange you may use it...

Re:end user

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the end users that are getting in trouble. These people weren't just using mod chips or modding their own systems, they were modding other peoples systems for a profit. If people with mod chips are crack heads, then these people were the dealers.

Of course it's not like the summary (or the summary of the previous story on the subject) really bother to point that out. I guess you can just get more ad views with misleading crap than with accuracy.

Re:end user

[masdog]

What's to say that all those users weren't getting their XBoxes modded so they could turn them into cheap media center PCs? Is it a crime to change *your property* to do something that it wasn't designed to do?

Re:end user

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to say that all those users weren't getting their XBoxes modded so they could turn them into cheap media center PCs? Nothing, which is why no one gets arrested for modding their XBox. You get in trouble when you go into the business of modding other people's xboxes for profit.

Is it a crime to change *your property* to do something that it wasn't designed to do? If "your property" is an xbox, and you happen to live in the USA, then yes, that's a crime. Perhaps you meant to ask whether or not it *should* be a crime, which is a much more subjective question.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

As a game player, I say write some games worth buying or fuck off.

The US democractic system is broken.

[Inoshiro]

"I would like to formally thank Microsoft and Nintendo for cracking down on the little guy with a soldering iron in his garage, ..."

As long as people with money have more influence over those who make laws than people without money, the system will continue to represent the interests of those who have money. Look at the rejection of the justice system of allowing people on welfare to object to random searches of their houses; that's a rather large difference from what the US constitution has to say on the matter, but it is done to serve the interests of those who pay taxes against those who lack the ability (for whatever reason) to pay taxes. MPAA and RIAA crackdowns and suing actions (including those against the Swedes in their own country via the US gov't!) are similar reflections of the concept that money is power, not personal choice.

If you wish to not be in a situation where money decides power, move to a country with a representative democracy, where the representatives are purely chosen via 1 vote per 1 person, and where lobbying money is not allowed.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[lysse]

If you wish to not be in a situation where money decides power, move to a country with a representative democracy

Which, as a solution, also discriminates against those people without money.

The only lasting solution to this problem will come through the populace exercising their Second Amendment rights:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[jamstar7]

If you wish to not be in a situation where money decides power, move to a country with a representative democracy, where the representatives are purely chosen via 1 vote per 1 person, and where lobbying money is not allowed.

And which country would this be? And when will the US invade it for 'harboring/training/aiding/abetting terrorists'?

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[lightversusdark]

How about the United Kingdom?
What you call "the lobby system", we call "cash for questions" and it is a crime.
Most recently, where there was any question that money may have bought political favours (the cash-for-honours scandal), the police pulled in Tony Blair and half his cabinet for questioning under oath.
Sadly, I think many Americans could not even imagine the police questioning Bush over the Rove affair, or misrepresenting facts to the UN, or any of the many other scandals I find it difficult to keep up with on that side of the pond.
There seems to be an attitude of once your representatives have attained a position of responsibility working for you, you cannot countenance them being subject to the same laws and checks that you are.
And as for whether the US would ever invade the UK, I don't think the Chinese would give you permission.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[Kjella]

Look at the rejection of the justice system of allowing people on welfare to object to random searches of their houses; that's a rather large difference from what the US constitution has to say on the matter, but it is done to serve the interests of those who pay taxes against those who lack the ability (for whatever reason) to pay taxes.

Not having a clue what you were referring to, I started doing some research. I assume you mean the decision by the 9th Circuit by 2-1 split and denied en banc hearing of the Project 100% program in San Diego. In short, either submit to random unannounced searches by trained fraud investigators or be denied welfare. To me it looks like horrible poor handiwork by the court where they misapply precedent from a Supreme Court case. From a dissenting judge on the en banc hearing: "The majority opinion clings to Wyman v. James, 400 U.S. 309 (1971), asserting that it directly controls this case."

Going to the Wyman v. James case, you clearly see this is way different, it's about social workers' right to house visits for disabled children:

6. The means employed by the New York agency are significant. Mrs. James received written notice several days in advance of the intended home visit. 8 The date [400 U.S. 309, 321] was specified. Section 134-a of the New York Social Services Law, effective April 1, 1967, and set forth in n. 2, supra, sets the tone. Privacy is emphasized. The applicant-recipient is made the primary source of information as to eligibility. Outside informational sources, other than public records, are to be consulted only with the beneficiary's consent. Forcible entry or entry under false pretenses or visitation outside working hours or snooping in the home are forbidden. HEW Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, pt. IV, 2200 (a) and 2300; 18 NYCRR 351.1, 351.6, and 351.7. All this minimizes any "burden" upon the homeowner's right against unreasonable intrusion.

9. The visit is not one by police or uniformed authority. It is made by a caseworker of some training 11 whose [400 U.S. 309, 323] primary objective is, or should be, the welfare, not the prosecution, of the aid recipient for whom the worker has profound responsibility. As has already been stressed, the program concerns dependent children and the needy families of those children. It does not deal with crime or with the actual or suspected perpetrators of crime. The caseworker is not a sleuth but rather, we trust, is a friend to one in need.

10. The home visit is not a criminal investigation, does not equate with a criminal investigation, and despite the announced fears of Mrs. James and those who would join her, is not in aid of any criminal proceeding. If the visitation serves to discourage misrepresentation or fraud, such a byproduct of that visit does not impress upon the visit itself a dominant criminal investigative aspect. And if the visit should, by chance, lead to the discovery of fraud and a criminal prosecution should follow, 12 then, even assuming that the evidence discovered upon the home visitation is admissible, an issue upon which we express no opinion, that is a routine and expected fact of life and a consequence no greater than that which necessarily ensues upon any other discovery by a citizen of criminal conduct.

In short, this should get appealed to the Supreme court and hopefully will, but I couldn't find any news suggesting that it has. The en banc hearing was denied on April 17th, 2007 which is the most recent legal development I could find.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[mmynsted]

Because the US is democratic in name only. It is clearly a Plutocracy. Every day I see new examples of gross abuse of power. I fear soon speaking out here will result in being labeled as terrorist and be secretly punished without trial.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[westlake]

As long as people with money have more influence over those who make laws than people without money, the system will continue to represent the interests of those who have money.

I'll take it as a safe bet that owning an XBox 360 or PS3 makes you are one of the people who have money. Especially if you are willing to chance taking a soldering iron to a $400 appliance.

But neither would I be be surprised to learn that your mutual fund or 401(K) retirement plan has substantial investments in Microsoft, Sony, and others who benefit from the DMCA.

If you wish to not be in a situation where money decides power, move to a country with a representative democracy, where the representatives are purely chosen via 1 vote per 1 person, and where lobbying money is not allowed.

Lobbying exists in every political system. In the American system it is simply more open.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[quanticle]

No thanks. I would rather not move to a country that has 4 security cameras for every person. Heck you guys are even adding capabilities that allow the cameras to talk back. It just seems a bit Orwellian...

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[jamstar7]

Sadly, I think many Americans could not even imagine the police questioning Bush over the Rove affair, or misrepresenting facts to the UN, or any of the many other scandals I find it difficult to keep up with on that side of the pond.

No, the bit about hauling Clinton up in front of the Senate to answer the charges of lying under oath pretty much squashed any president getting hauled up to answer for anything.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[ravenshrike]

Good god. No crime was committed in the "Rove Affair",better known as the Plame Affair, although there was the travesty of sending a staff official to jail over not remembering the exact fucking date of a, to him, relatively unimportant phone call that occurred at least 8-16 months ago(Don't know exact span of time). End of discussion, unless all of you assholes suddenly have eidetic memories.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[mrchaotica]

There's no such thing as the "United Kingdom" anymore. Now it's just called Airstrip One...

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[Talgrath]

Yes, because everybody is equal when they're a corpse.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[king-manic]

Lobbying exists in every political system. In the American system it is simply more of them.

You had a typo. Fixed it for ya. Easy mistake.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[lysse]

Unfortunately, if you aren't prepared to give your life in defence of freedom, you will lose it in time.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[Malevolyn]

Personally, I find it very hard to believe that Nintendo had anything to do with this. Microsoft, sure. Sony, sure. But in the past, Nintendo hasn't seemed to be very outspoken about console mods.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[ultranova]

Which, as a solution, also discriminates against those people without money.

The only lasting solution to this problem will come through the populace exercising their Second Amendment rights:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Except that weapons cost money, therefore the people with money can keep and bear more efficient weapons than the people who don't, or pay other people to bear them for them; in fact, one could consider the current situation, with the US army and US law enforcement working for the exclusive benefit of the rich to be an extreme example of such a situation.

Money is a measure for resources; those with lots of money have lots of resources (by definition), and can therefore cause greater effects than those with less money; therefore they are more powerful (since power means an ability to cause some effect). Those with more power can, in the absence of an outside force which stops them, oppress those with less power; and any such outside force would simply be someone with even more power. The only solutions to this problem are that the resources (and with them, power) is divided equally between everyone (which is likely impossible), that the people on top behave themselves (which isn't bloody likely) or that some force external to humanity enforces such good behavior (which, according to many religions, will eventually happen).

In short, don't hold your breath waiting for social justice.

Re:The US democractic system is broken.

[StikyPad]

1) There are no mod chips for the 360 or the PS3. They exist for the Wii (which is essentially the same hardware as the GameCube), but that's not a $400 machine.

2) It's a managed risk, like driving, or going down stairs. A tiny bit of precaution will ensure your experience doesn't end in tragedy. The people they were targeting weren't some kids licking batteries -- they knew what they were doing, so it wasn't really a risk, any more than getting your car worked on is a risk.

3) We live in a low income area, and plenty of our kids' friends have DSes and PSPs, which is to say, even low income people will scrape together some money to buy nice things for their kids, sort of the way they put $3000 rims on a $1000 car. There's the argument to be made that if they were good with their money, they wouldn't be poor.. obviously not always true, but I believe people are mostly a product of their own choices.

This has to stop, now.

[Pantero Blanco]

Feds must love going after suspects of crimes related to technology; they can justify seizing everything the person has for the flimsiest reason. If they're lucky, they even get to auction off the lot.

And why the hell are modchips illegal? If someone's committing sizable copyright infringement, you can already nail them for something. You don't need a redundant law that criminalizes the guy who wanted to see if his X-Box could run Linux.

Re:This has to stop, now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does it say modchips are illegal? I thought just importing and trading in them is illegal.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be the 0.01% in your statistics then with two modified Xboxes running _nothing_ but XboxMediaCenter then.

How is installing modchips illegal?

[samwh]

It's my hardware, I can plug whatever I want into it. I can have other people do this for me. It is my hardware, I can use it as a doorstop, I can flush it down the toilet, I can light it on fire. The companies may be able to entitle themselves to software restrictions (DMCA encryption laws etc.), but when you come right down to it its just a hunk of metal and silicon. If the guy in the article was really just installing modchips, then I don't see why this warrents ANY law enforcement actiSDFwesfwefwe *NO CARRIER*

Re:How is installing modchips illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to burst your bubble, but you can't do *anything* you want with the hardware. You own the physical piece of hardware, not the intellectual property inside it. You can't reverse engineer it and create your own knock off for sale.

Fact is that mod-chips are illegal under the DMCA and the manufacturers and sellers are also violating someone's intellectual property rights, which they will take you to court for anyways.

Hard to tell from the biased links but I assume they are going after people who manufacture and sell the chips in large quantities. Though, I'm sure that 2 out of 30 is a good sample size to assume they are targeting the "little" guy or the "users" like most comments seem to suggest.

Re:How is installing modchips illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no such as 'intellectual property'.

Re:How is installing modchips illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the irony of posting that on a website that lists this on the bottom of the page:

"All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2007 SourceForge, Inc."

hmm

[nomadic]

"Are you kidding me? With drug dealers everywhere, murder, porous borders, terrorism the Feds are concerned about game mods?? Holy crap. Next I supposed they will be cracking heads over unlocked phones. Great."

Because people can't be concerned about more than one thing at once. While I can sympathize with the thought behind this, the argument "they shouldn't enforce crime X until they've completely eradicated crime Y" is a ridiculous one.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

none of the drug problems or violent crime where you live hold a candle to the situation in baghdad and zimbabwe, so we will take your entire police force there to deal with the problems those guys are having. thats fine with you right?

Re:hmm

[nomadic]

Give me a break, actually go to the inner city sometime and see how "rampant" the crime is. And do you think any crime that does happen is because the police were raiding mod chippers? You're probably just another middle-class, suburban slashdotter who thinks watching cop shows gives him insight into the "streets".

It's all about priorities you shithead. Copyright infringement is a civil matter. Can't you understand that?

Go read what I wrote again, this time read every word you illiterate cretin. I said I sympathized with what the poster was saying, but that the GENERAL argument he was using wasn't a good one.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Racemaniac]

and as someone who likes to tinker with everything, i don't really follow your opinion
i assume they should also outlaw bittorrent for you?

How do I train my audience...?

[tepples]

As a game player, I say write some games worth buying or fuck off. As a hobbyist game developer, I say I do, but how does my audience play them on a 27" TV without a modchip? If you mean TV-out, how do I train my audience to disconnect the PC, move it to the TV room, and connect it to the TV? And how do I train my audience to buy a GP2X so that they can play games on the bus or train without having to buy Datel's "Games n' Music" modchip for DS at Best Buy?

Which country?

[tepples]

If you wish to not be in a situation where money decides power, move to a country with a representative democracy, where the representatives are purely chosen via 1 vote per 1 person, and where lobbying money is not allowed. Which country that has soundly rejected crony capitalism is currently taking refugees from the United States crony capitalism regime?

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

You fuck off. My game was obviously worth your trouble to pirate, so it's worth your trouble to buy.

Video games go out of print

[tepples]

You fuck off. My game was obviously worth your trouble to pirate, so it's worth your trouble to buy. But are all video games still available for sale? For video games that go out of print, how is one supposed to obtain a legitimate copy?

Re:Video games go out of print

[p0tat03]

This isn't about Abandonware, this isn't about someone "mod chipping" an SNES or a Genesis. These are 360s, PS3s, PS2s, Wiis, etc.

Re:Video games go out of print

[tepples]

This isn't about Abandonware, this isn't about someone "mod chipping" an SNES or a Genesis. These are 360s, PS3s, PS2s, Wiis, etc. A lot of PlayStation 2 and (especially) original Xbox consoles are modded to run emulators that play abandonwarez. Other such consoles are modded to run homemade games that are not infringing copies of a proprietary computer program.

Re:Video games go out of print

[p0tat03]

In this case IMHO culpability has a lot to do with intent.

Let's say I go to Sports Mart and buy a baseball bat. I then proceed to beat someone to death with it. Obviously the store here is not liable for what I did illegal with what is otherwise a legal tool. This is the most common argument made by mod chippers.

But this isn't really analogous. If I walk into a store, talking loudly on my phone about buying a baseball bat for the express purpose of beating someone to death with it, I would sincerely hope that someone calls the cops, or at least refuses to sell the bat to me. That should be common sense.

The same situation applies to chippers. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you know full well that 99% of your customer base is getting the chip to play pirated games (as opposed to homebrew, as opposed to abandonware which is of questionable legality anyways...), then I have no sympathy for you if your operation is busted and shut down by The Man. This isn't a situation where the service/tool you are providing is overwhelming used for good, but occasionally may be used for bad, it is the opposite.

As an indie game dev I really dislike how mod chippers hide behind this veneer of moralistic attitude. What you people do may or may not be legal, but it certainly is not moral. And no amount of MAME and XBMC arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the chips you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of games.

Re:Video games go out of print

[tepples]

If you know full well that 99% of your customer base is getting the chip to play pirated games (as opposed to homebrew, as opposed to abandonware which is of questionable legality anyways...), then I have no sympathy for you if your operation is busted and shut down by The Man. Datel markets its "Games n' Music" modchip for DS explicitly for MP3 audio playback and homebrew games. It is not capable of running pirated DS games due to technical limitations. Does that earn more sympathy?

As an indie game dev ...how do you get your games onto end users' monitors that are larger than 19 inches (namely TVs)? How do you get GP2X units into end users' hands so that they can play your games?

And no amount of MAME and XBMC arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the chips you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of games. Likewise, no amount of EBAY and GMAIL arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the cable modems you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of music or movies, or to relay spam.

Re:Video games go out of print

[p0tat03]

I'm not familiar with Datel's DS mod chip. But if it's something that, when marketed as a purely homebrew solution, will honestly respect it and take reasonable measures to ensure that it isn't used for piracy, I'm happy.

...how do you get your games onto end users' monitors that are larger than 19 inches (namely TVs)? How do you get GP2X units into end users' hands so that they can play your games?

I don't target consoles. But if I were to, I would do it in the way every single other indie dev so far has done it - XBLA, PS Network, etc.

Likewise, no amount of EBAY and GMAIL arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the cable modems you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of music or movies, or to relay spam.

Invalid analogy. While most home broadband has been used at some point or another for piracy, it is not their intended purpose. The connection is good for and IS used for many other purposes than merely piracy. On the other hand, 99% of mod chips out there has only one raison d'etre - to enable its owner to play pirated games.

Re:Video games go out of print

[Brian Gordon]

What does it matter what people do with your product? You make a mod chip to learn about the hardware and show off your skillz, maybe make some money. You're customizing the hardware. The old Altair and Atari PCs absolutely depended on people building their own mod chips.. and it's still perfectly legal of course to design your own hardware components for your computer... but somehow these gaming companies have made it illegal to modify your own hardware if you bought it from them! It's really a ridiculous situation, and as a promoter of common sense I say **** off.

Re:Video games go out of print

[Travelsonic]

(as opposed to homebrew, as opposed to abandonware which is of questionable legality anyways...)

Did backups and importing suddenly not exist?

That's why I swap magic/fliptop lid'd my PS2

Re:Video games go out of print

[Anonymous Coward]

The same games are available via commercial emulators, eg. Live, Wii etc. Abandonware doesn't exist.

Re:Video games go out of print

[Jthon]

I'm sure people pirate stuff, but I (soft)modded my xbox solely to play snes, genesis, mame, and XBMC. Of those I probably use XBMC the most to play legitimate movies and TV I purchased and ripped to my computer. Just because some people do the modding to pirate stuff doesn't mean there are legitimate uses. Heck if I hadn't modded my xbox I'd probably have given up on it long ago.

In fact I'm really disappointed the new crop of consoles don't offer the same features I get with my modded XBMC system. I can come close with Linux on a PS 3 but that lacks video driver support. Maybe 99% of the people mod their system to pirate stuff. I bet 99% of the broadband connections in the US are used to pirate movies and music. Should internet access be illegal then?

Re:Video games go out of print

[p0tat03]

I'm aware that there are legitimate uses for mod chips. That I acknowledge. What I have a beef against are self-righteous mod chip dealers who peddle chips to people they know are only there to pirate stuff, not run XBMC, emulators, etc. These people cannot turn around when faced with trouble and get on a moral high horse - because for them there is none.

They knew full well that 99.9% of the chips they were selling were meant for piracy and piracy only. Despite the tiny minority of people who make legitimate use of them, they don't have a moral leg to stand on.

Which I guess is the reason I have mixed feelings towards mod chips. I believe they should be legal - the buyer ought to have the right to do whatever they want with the machine they purchased. But at the same time I believe mod chip dealers to be engaged in highly immoral activity (unless they can somehow reasonably guarantee that the majority of their chips are for homebrew, not piracy).

Re:Video games go out of print

[Talgrath]

If you use a mod chip to pirate video games, that's the same as downloading a game (that is still in print) for free over the internet. You are stealing. You can call it what you like, but you are obtaining a game for free, or in this case, for the cost of a mod chip. It's not just about modifying your hardware, it's about modifying your hardware to pirate games.

Re:Video games go out of print

[bitserf]

Lets just forget that the entire industry that is letting us today have this discussion would not exist if people did not tinker with stuff in their garages, shall we?

I weep for the generation.

Re:Video games go out of print

[tepples]

The same games are available via commercial emulators, eg. Live, Wii etc. No they're not. When will Palamedes for NES or Harvest Moon for Super NES be available on Wii Shop Channel?

Re:Video games go out of print

[lupis42]

The fact that most mod chips allow the playing of pirated games is a direct consequence of the fact that they allow the loading of software that doesn't use the copy/access restriction system. This is a necessary bypass to make to enable homebrew games, because homebrew developers can't make games that work with said access restriction system. Nobody here has been charged with any copyright violations. Nobody has stolen anything. If I make a shotgun, and you use it to rob liquor stores, that's not my fault. If I make you a dvd-burner, and mod it into your Dell, and you use it to pirate dvds, that's not my fault. If I make a racing chip for your car, and you use the added performance to evade cops in a police chase, it's still not my fault. What about all the people who hacked the original Xbox to make it an MCE pc, and never bought or stole a game? If modifying a privately owned hardware good without knowing how it will be used can be illegal, than homebuilt PCs should be illegal, because 99% of them contain some trace of pirated software, pirated media, or just software that infringes on patents. What about the people who bought PS3s, knowing that Sony was selling them at a loss, then ripped them apart for the blue lasers?

Re:Video games go out of print

[lupis42]

Why should they have to? They may be aware of the degree of customer piracy, they may not. But even if they don't ask a lot of questions, if their intent is to supply a legitimate market, and their business practices don't obviously contradict that intent (i.e. advertising a copy-protection bypass) then really, they're on a clean ground as a store that sells crowbars, bolt cutters, or any of the other tools used in, say, bike thefts.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Opportunist]

As a software writer, I say if it's worth playing it's worth buying.

A completely different matter is if the game is unavailable to you. For example, I don't mind it too much if someone without a CC and no way to send me money "pirates" my software. He would not have bought it either, so why bother?

Actually, most of my software is free. I don't believe in inconveniencing my customer with copy protection and content crippling. Instead, I offer support to paying customers, and generally, it pays off. I have a few customers who didn't "buy" the software but copied it, then thought it might be a good idea to have access to the developer to get some new features.

I just don't know how this business model should work with games.

Mfrs fail to make unlocked phones' existence known

[tepples]

Maybe buy a fucking phone that is not fucking locked. Why do the phone makers fail to advertise that they sell unlocked phones directly to United States residents? And why do network operators fail to advertise their SIM-only plans?

Yeah, he *is* a victim

[KingSkippus]

He isn't exactly an innocent victim and life does tend to suck after you've been caught breaking the law.

Do you ever speed? I mean, really, when everyone else is going 65 to 70 (or higher) miles per hour, are you really going to diligently only go 55?

Do you have any idea what the possible penalties for speeding are? I mean, sure, most people who get caught by the police get a slap-on-the-wrist fine, but do you know what you could face for speeding? Check your state laws; in involves losing your license to drive, facing hefty penalties, and jail time. If you've gotten speeding tickets before, that means that you're a repeat offender and they can really throw the book at you.

Yet still, I'll bet that when you get on the interstate, you go 70 right along with the rest of the cars. By your logic, that means that if a police officer pulls you over and arrests you, throws you in jail for a few months, you lose your license to drive, and have to pay thousands of dollars in fines, even though that may not be the normal punishment that fits the dinkiness of your crime, hey, you're not exactly an innocent victim, and your life sucking from now on is justified, since after all, you were caught breaking the law.

As far as I can tell, this guy was guilty of breaking a law that is just as silly as the one that says I'm supposed to drive 55 miles per hour on a straight road that is 10 lanes wide (I live in Atlanta, we really have interstates 10 lanes wide in 55 mile per hour zones), even if it's a lazy Sunday afternoon with perfect visibility and very low traffic volume.

I don't see anything in the article that says he was selling the modded boxes. I don't see anything that says he was using the modchips to steal games illegally. I don't see anything that says he was using modchips to distribute illegal copies of games. If he's guilty of some or all of those things, then maybe he does deserve a stiff penalty, but that should only happen after he's tried and convicted in court, after that little annoyance called due process runs its course. Right now, all I'm seeing is that he violated the DMCA, which says that regardless of your intent, you do not have the right to modify hardware that you purchased and own to suit your own needs. It says that corporations have the right to tell you what you can do with your own property. It says that if you're suspected of modifying your own property, regardless of intent and without due process, you will lose that property and more, and that's just not right.

Years from now, this law will be looked back upon as one of the most shameful and disgraceful that this country has ever had on the book. (At least, until the DMCA v2.0 is passed and Richard Stallman's dystopian future really does come to pass.) In the meantime, I hope you rethink your ideas that just because something is illegal it is immoral, and that people deserve whatever comes to them for breaking laws that, frankly, need to be broken.

First they came for the filesharers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a filesharer;
Then they came for the modchippers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a modchipper;
...

(I think you can guess the rest.)

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[KingSkippus]

you think the law is silly because you would like to break it, because doing so lets you get free games.

You, sir, are an ass. (And an anonymous one at that, the best kind.) That's what you get for thinking you know me. I don't have any illegal games. Zip, zero, zilch. If any official-type agencies want to come inspect my computers, they could do so to their heart's content and I would be free and clear because there's simply nothing there. Of course, I would do everything in my power to defend the right to not have my equipment searched, even though I have absolutely nothing to hide, and once they were done, they'd be facing a very costly lawsuit for doing so.

I don't think the law is "silly," I think it's extremely destructive. Not because I can't copy games, but because it tells me what I can and cannot do with my own property, a dangerous precedent with a repugnant slippery slope. My personal freedoms trump the profit-making capability of game developers and publishers. If that means that you or someone else can't make money because of my fair use rights and my right to do what I please with my property as long as it doesn't interfere with other people's rights, too damn bad. Find something else to do in which you can make money without destroying other people's freedoms.

As for your comments about speeding, they just go to show how much of an idiot you are. If you think that driving faster than the speed limit is not giving a fuck about people who get killed by speeding motorists, then I guess that 99.99% of all of the people in this country (including every cop I've ever seen on the interstate) doesn't give a fuck about road safety. Or maybe the simpler explanation--you're an idiot--is right instead. Believe what you want; given your assinine response, I don't really care about your opinions.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the sales for Oblivion. Now, look at the copy protection on it...
Oh, you found none? And it had record breaking sales?
Maybe if you and your company didn't make shitty games you wouldn't have problems making a profit.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see anything in the article that says he was selling the modded boxes. Go read some other articles about the guy.
Peopled mailed him their XBox + cash and he put in the mod chip.

So this isn't about him dicking around with his property.
Get a clue.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[neomunk]

Oh, it's about dicking around with OTHER people's property after they ASKED or *gasp* PAID him too.

He's gone too far, how DARE someone offer a service to someone...?

WTF are you trying to say here? What 'clue' are you talking about?

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[pokerdad]

I guess that 99.99% of all of the people in this country doesn't give a fuck about road safety

I would guess its more likely that 99.99% of the people can't do a little math and physics, and as such have no concept of how linear increases in speed give diminishing returns with regards to travel time, but expotentionally increase their stopping distance in an emergency.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[heinousjay]

I hear that argument a lot, but over long trips, increases in speed produce significant savings in travel time.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[Buran]

If you speed on a public street you deserve everything you get.

There are ways to deal with oddly-low speed limits. Find out who's responsible for setting them and call and ask how to request a road resurvey. Request said survey in writing. Follow the procedures. They may well be using old survey results. Find out what the rules are regarding how the results must be interpreted. See if the limit is indeed correct for that road when considering the rules. If it is not, find out how to file the appropriate complaint. If all that fails, then you could consider taking the matter to the appropriate authorities and/or court.

Just whining that you think the rule is wrong doesn't mean you can break it whenever you feel like it. The civic process is open to all citizens. Use it instead of the typical spineless "I don't think this is right but I'm going to take the easy way out instead of doing something" bitchfest.

No sympathy for you if you get a ticket. The rules apply to you just like everyone else. You are not that fucking special.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[pthor1231]

I, and the poster you quoted, both travel faster than the posted speed limit on interstates in Atlanta because simply put, it is much more safe to drive 70-75 miles per hour than the posted limit of 55. I honestly feel uncomfortable driving that slow on I85. It is an absolutely ridiculous speed limit on a huge highway.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[pthor1231]

Come drive on Atlanta interstates, and please follow the speed limits. You will be more of a danger to the people around you going 70 miles an hour than everyone else is. For all you know, he is doing the above steps, but in the mean time, does not want to be in danger when driving on the interstates.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[KingSkippus]

First of all, calculating braking distances isn't a "little math and physics." You say that as if any sixth grader should be able to churn out the numbers without any problem. It actually requires calculus and mechanics to figure out, something that even most smart people don't really know or care about. (But since I spent over two years as a physics major in college and took mechanics and second-year calculus my first quarter--and got A's in both--I might know a little about it.)

Second of all, I guess that means that technically, since the stopping distance-to-velocity equation holds even for very small values of velocity, we should really all just stay home. Anything else is just grossly unsafe.

Third of all, traffic fatalities have actually be steadily decreasing per miles traveled. I know, it's an inconvenient little statistic, given all those maniacs out there like me who apparently don't give a rat's ass about safety.

Fourth of all, if you're going to present yourself as some sort of authority on math and physics, at least know what the hell you're talking about. Increasing your speed doesn't give diminishing returns with regards to travel time. If car A's average speed is exactly twice what car B's is, car A will arrive at its destination in exactly half the time as car B, period. Obviously, on surface streets, there's a practical limit as to how fast you can drive, but if you're able to increase your speed over a distance by x times, you will reduce your time to cover that distance by exactly a factor of x, no diminishing returns.

Also, the increase in stopping distance isn't an "expotentional" increase. It's not even an exponential increase. If it were, the stopping distance would vary as some constant to the power of the velocity. It doesn't. It varies as the square of velocity, which is a quadratic increase, not exponential.

But don't let that from keeping you from driving 55 miles per hour and feeling good about yourself. Around here, people who do that aren't making the roads safe, they're a nuisance, a road hazard that needs to take the bus instead (which, incidentally, also drives faster than 55) so that normal people can actually get where they're going.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[KingSkippus]

Actually, I am pretty fucking special, but that's beside the point.

They could do all of the surveys they want and the speed limit still won't be changed. Do you know why?

Two reasons. The main one is that speeding tickets generate much-needed revenue to the city. Whenever the city gets into a crunch, they can and do get police officers to man the speed traps more and rake in what they decide they need.

The other reason is because the maximum speed limit isn't set according to what the maximum safe driving speed is. It's set according to Georgia State Code 40-6-181. I could have studies showing that the safest driving speed on the interstate is a hundred miles per hour, and it wouldn't make a damned bit of difference.

And just for good measure, check out what happened when some students got together and decided that they would force people to obey the speed limit on Atlanta's Interstate 285 for a while one day. (Hint: A lot of very angry drivers, and even an accident when some genius decided to pass their line of cars on the right shoulder.)

The law is stupid and dangerous, it's not going to change, and therefore I will choose not to obey it. I'm sorry you have such a problem with that. (But not really.)

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[pthor1231]

God I wish I had mod points, and +non-stupid-I85/GA400-speed-limits points

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[mrchaotica]

The other reason is because the maximum speed limit isn't set according to what the maximum safe driving speed is. It's set according to Georgia State Code 40-6-181.

If I'm reading the law right, they could raise the speed limit on the perimeter and Interstates within it from 55 to 65 and still comply with part b3.

And just for good measure, check out what happened when some students got together and decided that they would force people to obey the speed limit on Atlanta's Interstate 285 for a while one day. (Hint: A lot of very angry drivers, and even an accident when some genius decided to pass their line of cars on the right shoulder.)

I love that video! In fact, I have half a mind to start a club to do that regularly, as regularly disrupting traffic would seriously be the only way we might get the shitty speed limits finally fixed. I wonder, though, if that would cause the police to enforce the "slower traffic keep right" rule, for once?

Anyway, for the record, I'm an Atlantan and I don't obey the speed limit either. The only people that do are geezers and idiots.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[bitserf]

I'm looking for the +1 "Pwned By Science" option but I can't find it.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[LKM]

Interesting movie. I have to wonder, though: If the speed limit was increased, would people simply drive at (new speed limit) + 20, and the whole thing would be exactly as it was, except at a faster speed?

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[Nf1nk]

In my town the only freeway across it had a 55 speed limit for ages, people drove 65-70. the speed limit is now now 65 people still drive 65-70. the only change is now it is more dangerous to drive 45 on the freeway like a certain blue haired segment feels the need to do.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[Buran]

I went through Atlanta a few weeks ago and I did exactly that. It is not my problem if other people want to do something illegal. I will not do something illegal just so some selfish idiot can do so. If someone hits me I WILL report them as driving illegally and they will pay for their mistake in tickets and higher insurance for putting someone else at risk. And if I am injured in a rearending, I WILL sue for my medical expenses.

You cannot decide that a law is inconvenient and that you will break it while trying to get it changed to what you think it should be. You follow it and obey the rules until it is changed.

Don't like it?

Move to somewhere where you CAN drive 70 legally on the local interstate. Or stop whining and deal with it.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[Buran]

Then get the law behind the rules changed. Or stop being immature. Or did it not occur to you that a natural evolution of my comment was that you can keep going up the ladder?

The law may be stupid and dangerous to you, but it IS STILL IN FORCE.

I have no respect for people who can't handle the fact that they are selfish idiots, and I'm sorry (not really) that you are apparently unable to comprehend their selfishness.

Hey, if you think you can do better with making the law, RUN FOR OFFICE AND CHANGE IT.

But it looks like you'd rather take the lazy way out. Just like most of the other idiots out there.

It's lazy idiots like you who'd rather take a few minutes to whine and blindly break the law with no eyes toward the consequences in terms of public safety or financial punishment, rather than do the right thing, which takes time and effort.

No wonder this country is going to hell in a fucking handbasket.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[TehZorroness]

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. - 8th amendment of the United States Constitution

I do believe that that is the law of the land here. If you get pulled over while everyone else merrily speeds by, the law is blatantly failing. If you get thrown in jail for doing what everyone else gets away with, that is cruel and unusual... and excessive.

There is little difference from claiming someone to be a witch and burning them in-front of the town and when the RIAA makes an example of an old person or a 12-year-old by suing them for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I's cruel and unusual, and quite excessive. It's neat though that now vigilante justice isn't unnecessary any more. If you manipulate your bits in a way that some large corporation would rather you not, a law will be written speedily and the FBI will knock on your door personally.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[sjames]

While it requires calculus to compute braking distance from scratch, it takes little more than arithmetic to figure out approximate stopping distance at 2v given the stopping distance at v.

Many people mix up exponential and quadratic.

Re:Yeah, he *is* a victim

[Buran]

So it's trolling now to get pissed off that people are too fucking lazy to get up off their asses and stop whining and stop being about themselves and nothing else?

Yeah, my fucking hell in a fucking handbasket point stands, asshole.

WTF "copy it digitally (and therefore flawlessly)"

[tomhudson]

"if people don't pay for an album that they would have done had they not been able to copy it digitally (and therefore flawlessly)"

Since when are mp3s flawless copies?

Reading that last guy's comments..

[fyrewulff]

He's either

a) living with his grandma, and now granny has kicked him out, or the family there has kicked him out.

b) Not living at his grandma's, but was an asshole and used her address to get his stuff. Family kicks him out for using them like that.

Either way I agree with the kicking out.

This is Dumb.

[hklingon]

There is something seriously wrong here. I'm not sure that no wrong was done, but I'm also sure that there were better things Federal Agents could have been doing.

I'm not really a gamer, but I have to say using an original XBox (cheaply acquired, second hand, pawn, etc) as a network media front end for something like MythTV is pretty awesome... This isn't really possible without modifcations. I'm not interested in playing games.. but what I am interested in is a cheap media center box with decent TV out capability. That is one Really Awesome, Non-Infringing use.

I don't really think any of the analogies fit, either. It is what it is, which is not necessarily used for game piracy (though probably is some significant percentage of the time). On the one hand you can say it is like installing feature X in your car to get more horsepower. Well, that'll make your car go faster... which is potentially illegal. I mean your stock Geo is perfectly capable of moving along at any set speed limit.. so any modification to go faster is intended to break the speed limit. ... It doesn't really fit either, but I would bet the situation could have been solved with a conversation, perhaps an interview at the station, etc.

However, that would require an intelligent and thoughtful analysis of the situation: the parties involved, the scope and scale of the crime, etc. Apparently the folks in charge here here were either intellectually incapable of that or Conditioned to Obey(tm). Either way it is scary, and that is probably the intention.

I feel sorry for the folks involved. Probably, on the whole, just nerds like us in the wrong place at the wrong time. One looses one's stuff for an inexcusably long time and one is presumed guilty. If one is lucky one gets to be a media poster child on some scale about the "Dangers of XYZ". I would hope these folks can truly get a trial with a jury of their peers AND that the judge doesn't force the omission of "irrelevant facts" like "there were no pirated games found at the home". I would love to see this type of thing crushed by Jury Nullification. (If you ever want out of Jury Duty go up to the prosecutor, lean in, and whisper 'I know all About Jury Nullification').

Consider the BS one has to go through for simple things involving the government such as DMV tag renewals, tickets for various minor offenses, property tax, etc and then consider the crap these folks will have to endure, probably for years, over a mod chip. This is dumb.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[masterzora]

I'm going to stay out of the argument at large, but seriously, that's a crap argument.

Trouble to pirate = approximately 0
Trouble to buy = roughly $50

Given that there are two widely different costs here, your argument makes no sense.

good publicity

[fermion]

Things like having everything taken away from you is good publicity for those who wish to prevent an action. Why pirate software if you might go bankrupt for doing so. Is it worth risking your family to play a game? Is it worth doing drugs if you can lose everything?

So these stories play right into the hands of people who push these kinds of actions. Detainment and confiscation without due process is a very powerful method of enforcing will upon the masses. Stories such as this allow those who wish to oppress to succeed.

What is unfortunate is that we fight fear with fear. We think laws are unjust because it causes those who break the laws to suffer. This method of fighting injustice does not work because sometimes in order to enforce a law people must suffer.

So why do not have the courage to fight from basic principles. We cannot take a persons stuff away without a conviction of a crime by his peers. We cannot take a persons freedom without probable cause and timely due process. We cannot say that person is a witch, and then kill them knowing full well no jury will convict us. At least in the US, we were founded on the principle that we have inherent rights, and that those rights were given to us by our creator, though it seems that some people believe, especially in the US administration, only Americans were given those rights, or perhaps they do not believe in a creator, even though in their cowardice they claim to.

I think that some people want it all. They are cowards who are perfectly happy to have others suffer without due process, but when it happens to them they whine to the media. Get used to it. The congress is afraid of being called traitors, that they are further increasing the power of the government to take whatever they wish from the people without due process. This little mod chip thing is small potatoes, and meaningless. The power was given freely by the republican representatives of the people.

The strawman argument

[westlake]

"Are you kidding me? With drug dealers everywhere, murder, porous borders, terrorism the Feds are concerned about game mods?? Holy crap. Next I supposed they will be cracking heads over unlocked phones. Great."

ICE - US Customs and Immigration Enforcement - employs 15,00.
CPB - US Customs and Border Protection - Including Border Patrol - 44,000

Law enforcement has the resources to multi-task. The FBI alone has a budget of $6 billion. "Getting your priorites straight" does not reqiure handing out a lifetime "Get Out Of Jail Free" card to the Geek.

Crimes of violence - rape and murder - almost always come under state jurisdiction.

Economic crimes that cross state boundaries tend to become a federal responsibility, because that is often the only way they can be successfully prosecuted, if they are to be prosecuted at all.

Re:The strawman argument

[Doctor_Jest]

No, but I believe that the Founding Fathers viewed copyright with a little less criminality than we do today. Remember, printers and printing houses in the Colonies (and subsequently the US) were thumbing their noses at the draconian copyright restrictions the Crown put on books... and by deliberately defying that unhealthy restriction (what could be considered now as "pirating books" by the copyright moguls), US printers were in effect, forcing an old stodgy system to acknowledge that for a society to grow, it needed a way to build upon the works of others. (Hence the copyright clause's mention of a _limited_ time.) We have gotten away from that, and our public domain has suffered... all for the sake of profits of a select few. The government grants copyrights for a limited time, and it should've stayed that way... things not going into the public domain in our lifetimes that are well past the death of the original creator is hogwash.

But that's another matter. Suffice to say, bearing the full arm of the law down upon these people is simply enforcing the notion that we've turned into "Old Europe" in the 18th century, and we are desperately trying to close up the freedom-designated loopholes that made the US copyright system a good balance between the needs of the community and the needs of the individual(s) who create(s).

Does that mean I condone mod chips? Beats me. They seem to have their uses, both good and evil (that's true for just about everything), but I am not sure they warranted the crackdown by law enforcement that these people received. We are applying force of law against the greater spirit of the law in terms of how these things work. The DMCA does nothing to promote useful arts and sciences.. and I think if it ever got tested in the courts, it would be struck down as unconstitutional... (unless of course the piles of money help it limp along...)

our current system is broken. It's been broken by the people who are benefiting from it the most. Does this mean I want it abolished? No, but I want it to be constitutional... and I want it to be removed from the criminal system and into the civil system... I also want to see common sense applied to things like backup programs and DRM... I want the lobby groups to come clean about their agenda and tell everyone they're just propping up an antiquated model of doing business... and I want people to quit labeling the other side of the argument as being the "evil" ones in this debate.

I probably won't get any of it. (And copyright infringement is _not_ theft. I want that removed from the dialogue.)

Re:The strawman argument

[westlake]

US printers were in effect, forcing an old stodgy system to acknowledge that for a society to grow, it needed a way to build upon the works of others

The economy of pirating of foreign authors made it extraordinarily difficult for an American writer to get a hearing.

Even some of the very best had to go the "vanity press" route, a huge barrier for a working-class writer like Poe. Copy Wrong: Internet Piracy and Dickens and Melville

Re:The strawman argument

[Doctor_Jest]

That's funny. The mistaken notion of copyright "guaranteeing" revenue seems pretty old. And like the so-called "piracy" of today's music and film, book "piracy" still required the complicity of those who were in charge of keeping the copyrights (in this case, European publishers.)

What's truly laughable about the entire situation is certain aspects of the debate centering on "lost revenue"... when Copyright never guaranteed revenue... Just because someone writes a book and has it published, their dream of a faucet that runs money from it is just plain wrong. But, for decades now, and for the foreseeable future, we will hear of the billions in lost revenue due to "piracy." As if someone was going to pay if there wasn't a free alternative...

Ah well...

Re:WTF "copy it digitally (and therefore flawlessl

[Threni]

> Since when are mp3s flawless copies?

What do mp3s have to do with a discussion about copying albums digitally and flawlessly?

hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

"First they came for the filesharers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a filesharer;
Then they came for the modchippers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a modchipper" ...and then they didn't come for me because I wasn't a liar, a cheater or a thief.

Seriously, grow the hell up and stop it with the ignorant hyperbole. You have no f*cking clue on where the real trouble in this world is.

Re:hyperbole

[Travelsonic]

Apparenly neither do you you goddamned hypocrite.

Are hobbyist game developers "thieving swine"?

[tepples]

However, if you work for a game developer, publisher or related company, and see your employer laying off staff while ...hobbyists develop their own games and run them on the modded console, you call your hobbyist competitors "thieving swine", right?

TM, (C), Pat exist. "IP" does not.

[tepples]

there's no such as 'intellectual property'. Oh the irony of posting that on a website that lists this on the bottom of the page:

"All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2007 SourceForge, Inc." There is copyright law. There is patent law. There is trademark law. There is trade secret law. The letter of the law in the United States does not recognize these four areas of law as some sort of monolithic "intellectual property" regime. They remain separate, and for a good reason: they are more different than similar in rationale, in scope, and in duration.

Re:TM, (C), Pat exist. "IP" does not.

[Anonymous Coward]

All are types of intellectual property laws, different in scope, form, etc.

It is an umbrella term that INCLUDES and DESCRIBES the basis for copyright, trademark, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

Your argument is akin to saying there are no "property laws", nor "labor laws" for that matter; which is patently false.

Re:TM, (C), Pat exist. "IP" does not.

[mrchaotica]

It is an umbrella term that INCLUDES and DESCRIBES the basis for copyright, trademark, etc.

No, it does not "describe." It misleads, and moreover, is designed to do so!

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Travelsonic]

"over 99.9%" is 100%, of which is obviosuly very wrong. Generalizing dipshits....

Civil engineers always win?

[pem]

I dunno.

Electrical engineers build weapons systems.

Civil engineers build targets.

But, I guess if they take out your target, you get paid to build another, so maybe so...

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

Or 99.91%, or 99.990000000001%, or 99.99897256974%, or... Something you were saying about generalising dipshits?

(not GP, I just felt like posting regardless)

What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[redelm]

Excuse me, but these seem rather polemic rants. I do not see any perspective or defense of the raids.

There _is_ a case to be made: modchips are probably the rate-limiting step in unauthorized gamecopyings. Gaming is a very big industry (more revenue than movies), so the losses are likely substantial. Perhaps ~$1000 per modchip. Going after the copiers is far more difficult and more invasive since anyone with a burner could copy. Far fewer can burn modchips.

I also see no discussion of how modchips are a blantant violation of copyright (derivative works) as well as being against the DMCA. Instead there is a smoke-scream of "fair use" that quite probably will undermine true "fair use".

The biggest criminals are banks and federal reserv

[cheekyboy]

Cops are so blind, money is worthless, made from thin air, and they are too dumb to see the federal reserve
is making trillions from thin air. But thats ok, they get paid by the govt, they wont arrest their masters.

So how do we prevent false analogies?

[tepples]

It is an umbrella term that INCLUDES and DESCRIBES the basis for copyright, trademark, etc. Umbrella terms often encourage people to draw flawed analogies among the various legal traditions included in "intellectual property". This clouds both understanding and judgment. Discuss copyright as copyright, patent as patent, trademark as trademark, unless you have a darn good reason to lump them together. What is this reason?

Your argument is akin to saying there are no "property laws" How do people who discuss "property" laws prevent themselves from drawing flawed analogies between real estate and personal possessions?

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[Mr2001]

Gaming is a very big industry (more revenue than movies), so the losses are likely substantial. Perhaps ~$1000 per modchip. You're assuming that everyone with a mod chip, on average, uses it to play twenty copied games that he otherwise would have paid $50 for? Hilarious.

I also see no discussion of how modchips are a blantant violation of copyright (derivative works) as well as being against the DMCA. That could be because they're not derivative works (unless they incorporate someone else's copyrighted code) and the DMCA is one of the worst laws ever passed.

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[Anonymous Coward]

"That could be because they're not derivative works (unless they incorporate someone else's copyrighted code)"

They are derivative because:
-they are based on reverse engineering of the console and thus proprietary information.
-producers and re-sellers are making a profit off of someone else's property

So, technically, they are infringing on copyright, IP, etc.

btw

[thegnu]

the tripping and the trying to get the visa wasn't at the same time. :-)

The raid was great

[grapeape]

Nearly everyone in the world does something that some corporate group is uphappy with. Some end up legislated others get leaned on through other methods. The more small niches are made uncomfortable the more people become aware of what is going on. As a whole people are freakin lazy, we dont care what is going on around us as long as it doesnt effect us directly. Hopefully in the future they will setup checkpoint searches for people crossing the boarder for cheap meds, raid homes that backup recorded tv shows from their PVR's, round up people who play music loud enough for others to hear in public without a royalty, throw people who try to buy used media in the slammer.

What makes you think REing is always infringing?

[tepples]

They are derivative because:
-they are based on reverse engineering of the console and thus proprietary information. Information gained through reverse engineering does not necessarily infringe copyright. Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade Inc., 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1993). This remains true even after the enactment of the DMCA. Chamberlain v. Skylink and Lexmark v. Static Control.

-producers and re-sellers are making a profit off of someone else's property When are they not?

So, technically, they are infringing on copyright, IP, etc. When you say "infringing IP", especially when you use it next to the abbreviation "etc.", you show that you may not have considered the issue carefully enough. Copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret are more different than similar, and reasoning in terms of a monolithic "intellectual property" leads to flawed analogies that are not supported by case law.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Travelsonic]

That thought crossed my mind after posting that. Damn, somebody caught on... ~_~ j/k, it was fair and square. ^_^

Re:The biggest criminals are banks and federal res

[ravenshrike]

Money is simply a centralized system of relative worth, ergo money is always made out of thin air. Before it was based upon the gold standard, but at the end of the day that's a useless metric as the supply of gold is finite and the actual money itself is still just a means of agreed upon exchange. Unless you'd see us using the direct barter system which works oh so well.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[ravenshrike]

99.9999% is less than 99.9%? Interesting, guess I have to go beat the crap out of my math teachers for lying to me then.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[geminidomino]

As a software writer, I say if it's worth playing it's worth buying. Of course, that's the real trick, isn't it? Since these whiny little bitch developers have strong-armed retailers into refusing to accept returns on games, you don't much know IF it's worth playing, much less buying, until it's too late.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[quakehead3]

I'd say 42% is the answer. Problem solved :)

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

And the media you're consuming with that machine only comes from legit sources too, right?

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

In my country - yes.

Re:The biggest criminals are banks and federal res

[Talgrath]

Right, money is worthless; that's why you exchange it for your food, gasoline, clothing, car(s), kids' toys or hell, let's just get right to the point, almost anything that is physically made. Money is just a way of bartering goods or services in an indirect way; you get money by doing work or by selling something and then you exchange it for a good or service you want. Let's get real here, if money doesn't matter to you then try living in the US without it for a year; we'll see how far you get. Unless you want to live in the woods, in the US (and many other countries on Earth) you need money in order to have a home, buy food and basically just to live; a crime in which someone loses money due to the actions of another is denying them money which they want to use to live their life. You can call their life opulent or say "they don't need any more money" but the frank heart of the matter is that this is the same as if somebody stole money from your wallet; even if you just burn the money you stole or gave it away to the homeless, the fact of the matter is that you stole something. If you don't like it, go to another country, because I'm sick of listening to people bitch because they think that others shouldn't get money for doing their job.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[LKM]

In the meantime, we still don't have Super Paper Mario and Second Opinion for the Wii in Europe. Many Japanese games don't appear over here, ever. I'm willing to give you my money, and I can't, because the Wii is not region-free. Why in the world should it be illegal to install a mod chip in my Wii which allows me to buy your games?

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Talgrath]

That's what a demo is for; and now there's little to no excuse for NOT playing a demo. Demoes for major games are either playable on PC (if the game is on PC) or can be downloaded for their respective consoles from the console provided service. There's also this thing called "game reviews" and "word of mouth." Either find a review site you generally agree with and use them as a gauge of how good a game is, or talk to friends who have bought the game whose opinion you trust or both. And of course, you can wait until it goes down in price to buy it if you are unsure of it; most games are $20 or less in a year, and if you can't spare $20, you probably shouldn't be gaming because you're in deep financial shit (or you're a whiny little twelve-year-old, in which case I'll just drop-kick you to Mongolia).

Make Internet Access Illegal!

[LKM]

If you use a mod chip to pirate video games, that's the same as downloading a game (that is still in print) for free over the internet. You are stealing. You can call it what you like, but you are obtaining a game for free, or in this case, for the cost of a mod chip. It's not just about modifying your hardware, it's about modifying your hardware to pirate games.

So you're basically saying that using a mod chip to pirating game is the same as downloading a commercial game over the Internet. Obviously, a huge percentage of all Internet connections are used to download stuff illegally. If Mod chips should be illegal, then so should Internet connections.

Re:Make Internet Access Illegal!

[micpp]

Just Internet connections? Clearly computers should be made illegal.
My own brain can remember the tunes to copyrighted songs (and indeed it does). I'm sure you'd agree that it should be confiscated from me for violating the DMCA.

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[king-manic]

You're assuming that everyone with a mod chip, on average, uses it to play twenty copied games that he otherwise would have paid $50 for? Hilarious.

I have about 80 games at $20-$75 CND (most were $29.95) a piece easily makes it about $2800 of games for PS2. I have about $500 for the DS, $300 for the Ps3, $140 for me wii. I'm on the upper end of the consumer market. I have a friend who is in the industry and his collection dwarfs mine. Most of my peer group has about 1/2 what I do. So it's sort of reasonable to assume if we were to mod for piracy we would not spend that $1000 on games since the peer group who mods tends to be very much like me. (asian, geeky, middle to upper middle class).

The seller should not have to police the buyer

[LKM]

I don't think it's the modchip seller's task to make sure his customers respect the law. How do you propose this should work?

It's not the gun seller's task to ensure his customers don't kill anyone. It's not the Internet provider's task to ensure his customers don't download pirated apps. It's not the car seller's task to ensure his customers aren't driving recklessly. We have the police and a judicial system for that.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[geminidomino]

Nothing forces a company to put out a demo, and not all consoles services support demos (AFAICT, the Wii memory is too small).

"Word of mouth" doesn't scale. If everyone followed that advice, no one would ever buy a game. Those that do buy it are going to be psychologically predisposed to describe it positively because of the investment they have in it.

If you can recommend a game review site run by or like Consumer reports, where the site buys its own games instead of relying on the publishers, I'd love to see it. As it is, they all depend on publisher goodwill to keep going, and as such, there's not a one I trust.

As for waiting for the price drop, paying for shit is stupid, whether it's $50 or $20, or $5. The new GH:80's game, for example. Not worth playing, nor buying. I can spare plenty more than $20, but that doesn't mean I should waste $50 willy-nilly just because I can. That's foolishness.

So demos are the way to go. If they decide not to put out a demo, then I'll find my own way to sample it before I put my hard-earned money on the line.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

"they are based on reverse engineering of the console and thus proprietary information."

Reverse engineering for interoperability is allowed by the DMCA.

In other words, you're wrong on this point, and thus, you're entire post is undermined.

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[redelm]

Yes, I suspect the relatively few people with modchips use them heavily. 20 games doesn't seem unlikely.

Are you claiming the modchips are "cleanroom" REd? I very much doubt that's worth the effort or even feasible given the lack of documentation. Most likely, the modchips are patched OEM ROM code. Much easier to identify and bypass the security checks. However, this is easy to prove one way or the other.

Re:What makes you think REing is always infringing

[redelm]

Agreed correct cleanroom RE can avoid derivative copyright findings. Compaq did it for their clones of the original IBM PC. But I don't think the modchips have been made this way. Too uncertain a market to justify the massive investment. Most likely modchips are just patched OEM ROMs.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Opportunist]

There are demos and reviews. While I do agree that reviews today more smell like being bought and sold like other commodities (i.e. "Gimme a good review or you won't get a review sample for our next game and nobody buys your magazine anymore"), demos tell you whether the game or program is worth it. I just today bought a data recovery tool after seeing that it can do what I want it to do. It was crippleware (i.e. it showed me what data is recoverable, but didn't recover in the demo version), but it showed me that it is what I want.

If all you get about a game is hype, don't buy it. If the game developers and/or studio does not have enough faith in its product to give you a taste of it before "forcing" you to buy it, it's not worth your money. Either they quite bluntly want you to buy into their spin, or they know that the game sucks donkey balls.

Re:Fuck off whiners

[Opportunist]

If you can recommend a game review site run by or like Consumer reports, where the site buys its own games instead of relying on the publishers, I'd love to see it.

I think you just spilled a great Web2.0 idea.

DMCA ~= Wiretap prohibition

[redelm]

After considerable reading and thinking, I've changed my mind on the DMCA. While I'm always in favor of avoiding new laws and letting traditional laws and precedents expand to cover new technology, there are times when they cannot and new laws are required to stop undesireable activities that new technolgy has created.

Prohibitions against wiretap are an early example. You can bet the FBI was none too pleased to lose their technological capability. The DMCA appears to be another example. Different people are annoyed at having their technological capabilities restricted. But a balance must be struck, and swords cut both ways.

Re:What makes you think REing is always infringing

[tepples]

But I don't think the modchips have been made this way. Too uncertain a market to justify the massive investment. Most likely modchips are just patched OEM ROMs. True, some modchip firmwares are derivative of the OEM firmware. These include most Xbox modchip firmwares and the "FlashMe" mod for DS. But other mods do not contain any portion of copyrighted work beyond the minimum necessary for booting, such as the Cromwell BIOS for booting Xbox into Linux, the "FWNITRO" replacement firmware for DS, and the various "NoPass" cards for DS. So does a problem remain with selling Cromwell installation as a service?

Re:What makes you think REing is always infringing

[redelm]

I was thinking more of Sony & 'tendo modchips. Of course some like XBox are pretty easy to do RE. Even if Cromwell is not clean RE, patching the XBox ROM for a legitimate copy holder might be a legal service under the rubrick of making it run. Generally you can add notes or tear out pages from a book you own without violating copyright.

Mod chips more impropant than drug crime?

[Kaenneth]

While I was getting my PS/2 modded (for imports, not copies), someone came in and bought some weed off the guy doing the mod.

I believe Al Capone was brought down for Tax Evasion...

Sometimes the police are just figuring out how to bring down a specific target (which I think is a more of a greased chute than a slippery slope)

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[Mr2001]

Yes, I suspect the relatively few people with modchips use them heavily. 20 games doesn't seem unlikely. Please note my use of the phrase "games that he otherwise would have paid $50 for". Just because someone will download 20 games for free doesn't mean he would've otherwise paid full price for each one. I'll eat the free bread at a restaurant, but if it weren't free, I'd rather wait for the meal to arrive than pay for bread.

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[redelm]

Ah, the old elasticity rationalization: I only have a copy because it was free. While this undoubtedly is true perhaps for half the games in a collection of copies, I wouldn't be surprised that some of those would have been paid for. 20 over the 2-4 year life of a system doesn't seem unreasonable.

Your argument is particularly weak in the case of games, which successful attract and retain many devotees. The inelasticity of demand pushes the profit-maximizing price higher. Frankly, I'm surprised at $50/game. But I don't doubt mfrs have carefully studied their demand curves.

Beating around the bush

[Varvs]

Lets cut straight to the chase and ignore the thinly veiled, nudge nudge wink wink attitude of mod chips. youre not 'backing up' anything and you god damn well know it. youre using the mod chip for nothing more than playing pirate copies of games. Im so fucking sick and tired of people acting as if theyre not doing anything wrong because theyre using it to 'play back ups'. if you cant afford the games, how the fuck are you managing to scrape together $500 for the console, controllers, and other peripherals? Im sick of buying my games legitimately and subsidizing assholes that want the game for free. I dont give a shit if we go back to the cartidge days, Piracy sucks and I hope everyone of these little assholes gets arrested. There is nothing wrong with going after the little guy if hes breaking the law. stop acting like the victim.

Re:Beating around the bush

[iainl]

Yes, because when I say "I want to be able to play the American copy of Katamari Damacy I imported, because the game never received a UK release" you would feel happier to think I'm lying in order to keep that nice fuzzy sense of outrage going.

Sure, some people want to get dodgy games, but your claim that includes every person with a chipped console is as patently false as the attempts of justification the pirates have.

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[Mr2001]

Ah, the old elasticity rationalization: I only have a copy because it was free. That "old rationalization" is still around because it's still true. People will consume more of something if it's free than if it has a price attached. That's Econ 101.

While this undoubtedly is true perhaps for half the games in a collection of copies, I wouldn't be surprised that some of those would have been paid for. 20 over the 2-4 year life of a system doesn't seem unreasonable. For the size of a collection, sure. I have around 25 PS2 games myself. But I guarantee that if I had installed a mod chip and gotten into copying games, I'd have a lot more than 25 games for it! My point is not that nobody wants that many games, but rather that it's foolish to think every copied game is a potential sale lost to piracy. "Half the games in a collection" is pure speculation; from my experience I'd say 10% or less of copied material is material that the copier would've been willing to pay for.

Re:What perspective? Where are BOTH sides?

[redelm]

Sure, but you paid for 25 games. How many would you have bought if you had a modchip? All 25? I suspect not. Five or less would justify the $1000 loss evaluation. It doesn't much matter how many dead copies are made to evaluate loss.

Where did they get the list of people to raid?

[LordJezo]

I haven't read that part anywhere. How did they come up with the list of people to raid? In the one link it mentioned Canada, so did they seize a list of customers from a Canadian company? I'd like to know how they decided who to raid and how they knew the people they went after had bought chips.

Wow

[Bobfrankly1]

...and they took my Wii... Seems like everyone is missing the true purpose of the raid here. Someone in higher government got tired of checking with their local retailer every Tuesday!
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It just didn't seem like tommorow yesterday...