California Student Arrested For Console Hacking

jhoger writes "Matthew Crippen was arrested yesterday for hacking game consoles (for profit) in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He was released on a $5,000 bond, but faces up to 10 years in prison. This is terribly disturbing to me; a man could lose 10 years of his freedom for providing the service of altering hardware. He could well lose much of his freedom for providing a modicum of it to others. There is no piracy going on, necessarily — the games a modified console could run may simply not be signed by the vendor. It's much like jailbreaking an iPhone. But it seems because he is disabling a 'circumvention device' it is a criminal issue. Guess it's time to kick a few dollars over to the EFF."

Comments

Hooray

[Rydia]

Thanks for the mini-editorial and half-baked legal theorizing in the summary. I look forward to the scintillating and insightful conversation this invitation to discuss will bring!

(Especially the OMG MAH FREEDOMS replies sure to follow this comment, despite the fact I took neither 'side.')

Re:Hooray

[RobotRunAmok]

How should one respond to this then?

Why, as the periodic astroturfing-for-donations that the EFF does on Slashdot, of course!

Give examples please

[DaveV1.0]

the games a modified console could run may simply not be signed by the vendor

Please provide a list of, preferably all, the games that are not signed by the vendor.

Re:Scary

[tepples]

If you are looking for a place to take the pitchfork and torch mob, it really ought to be the console manufacturers. And if you think their business model is awful, your primary avenue of activism is to not buy their product.

A boycott generally starts "I'm not buying your product anymore; instead, I'm buying product X from vendor Y." But what PC game in the same genre as Mario Party series or Super Smash Bros. series do you recommend?

Re:The cops that arrested him must be proud

[Aurisor]

Do you realize that the Nuremberg defense logically follows from your suggestion?

Re:They force you to lease software

[DaveV1.0]

Once modified, the consoles are used. Under your own examples, once modified there is no legal use.

If the beverage companies got a law passed so that no one could re-use their bottles would you find that law valid?

That is not a comparable law. Not even close. No one is re-using anything in the current example. Someone is modifying, for profit, systems to allow them to play pirated games. That is against the law and is in furtherance of other crimes. Refilling bottles one owns for one's own use involves no modification, no profit, and does not further other crimes. Refilling bottles one owns and then selling those bottles as containing the original contents is against the law. Refilling the bottles one owns and then selling those bottles as containing what one has put in is not necessarily illegal, assuming one is following applicable laws. Taking a bottle one owns and turning it into a bong or pipe for smoking marijuana and then selling it as such is against the law.

Thanks for playing, you lose

Re:The cops that arrested him must be proud

[Requiem18th]

Just pedant nitpicking but the comparison is apt.

It's true that these cops didn't kill anybody, that is why they aren't being accused of killing people.

It's a little like saying that if someone steals a wallet following orders then they are innocent because the Nuremberg defense is valid as long as you didn't kill hundreds of people.