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

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.