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Xbox Modding Trial Dismissed
It seems the harsh words from District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez on Wednesday had their intended effect; prosecutors in Matthew Crippen's Xbox modding case have now dismissed the indictment. Quoting Wired:
"Witness No. 1, Tony Rosario, was an undercover agent with the Entertainment Software Association. He told jurors Wednesday that he paid Crippen $60 in 2008 to modify an Xbox, and secretly videotaped the operation. Rosario had responded to Crippen’s advertisement on the internet and met Crippen at his Anaheim house. All of that had been laid out in pretrial motions. But during his testimony, Rosario also said Crippen inserted a pirated video game into the console to verify that the hack worked. That was a new detail that helped the government meet an obligation imposed by the judge that very morning, when Gutierrez ruled that the government had to prove Crippen knew he was breaking the law by modding Xboxes. But nowhere in Rosario’s reports or sworn declarations was it mentioned that Crippen put a pirated game into the console. ... [Prosecutor Allen Chiu] conceded he never forwarded that information to the defense."
Basically, they lied. dipshits. And how the hell did that Rosario guy knew that cd was pirated in the first place anyway ? did he understand it from its smell ? cd wasnt labeled ? what if the guy made a backup ? huh ?
ehh. pointless. they are lying and slyfoxing their way. that is as good as justice gets in a land where money buys everything.
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Don't they have bigger issues/bad guys to take care of than some college student POSSIBLY playing PIRATED VIDEO GAMES?
Drugs, gangs, violence, terrorism, rape, murders...need I go on?
last time I checked the courts and jails were rather full...
The ESA, government and ??AA caught being sneaky and underhanded in order to fuck over another citizen? I'm surprised it's even news except when the tallies of nefarious activities they've been caught at passes each 100/1000/n+^10 milestone. And yet they still get to do business.
This story is definitely news. The judge went back and read up on the DMCA, allowed for a fair use claim as reasons to mod the things, and then slammed the prosecutors for each and every mistake and lie and crime they committed.
I dont think I've ever seen such happen in any such case brought on by the BSA, ESA, RIAA or MPAA before. Sure, there've been ones where the judge used common sense and was stern... but this judge truly went all out to put the ESA and the prosecutors in their places.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
... in favour of the defendant. Sets a(nother) legal precedent supporting the idea that modifying something you own is legal.
I dont think I've ever seen such happen in any such case brought on by the BSA, ESA, RIAA or MPAA before. Sure, there've been ones where the judge used common sense and was stern... but this judge truly went all out to put the ESA and the prosecutors in their places.
Makes one wonder if they've pulled other shenanigans in his court before or on the cynical side, if they didn't contribute to his last reelection campaign.
Why are you speculating on something you are clearly completely ignorant of? Federal judges do not have reelection campaigns. They do not have election campaigns. They are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate exactly once, after which they are in until they die, resign voluntarily, or are impeached and removed from office (the latter being incredibly rare, in over 200 years 14 judges have been impeached, and only about half were removed from office).
Why are you speculating on something you are clearly completely ignorant of? Federal judges do not have reelection campaigns.
Because I thought it was a california district court judge who do have reelection campaigns.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
While I'm glad the correct outcome was made in this case, I shudder to think what would happen if the prosecution had NOT made a mistake and had notified the defense.
Before trial, prosecutors offered a plea deal that included pleading guilty to two FELONIES. A guy whose sole "crime" was to let people use their own purchased hardware as they saw fit had the choice between:
1. Having his life ruined - try to get any kind of job if you're not famous with 2 felonies on your record.
2. Rolling the dice with 12 folks who couldn't get out of jury duty with the downside being years in prison.
That this case even got as far as it did is a very sad commentary on our legal system - what if the defendant had been scared enough about the prospect of spending years in prison that he HAD taken the plea deal?
Certain agreements are maintained because while you have ownership over a physical thing, you still don't have copyright. And to run, certain things require copying. Software has to be copied to disk, videos have to be copied to RAM, etc.
Really, the whole idea of copyright needs to fall by the wayside to DISTRIBUTION rights. You own a thing, you can copy it as many times as you need to for your own use. You just can't give those copies to anyone, and you can't retain those copies if you sell the original. At minimum, everything digital requires copying to function internally anyway. This would cut out a lot of the BS.
The ______ Agenda
arrested? *THEY* broke the law and *THEY* should know better. These type of cases will continue to happen unless a judge arrests all the agents involved in this case. Show these agents zero mercy. Make an example of them to other agents to show this is what happens when you waste the courts time and lie and cheat. This is also very clear example that there are way too many law enforcement officials. TIme to cut the fat and fire/lay off 60-80% of the FBI, DHS, most of the state/local police forces. The USA is quickyl becoming the 1980's USSR police state...
Remember there's a different standard of evidence and all that. I'm not saying this judge wasn't an exceptionally good jurist, just that part of the reason is probably because all the *AA shit we've been hearing about has been civil. Given that there's no presumption of responsibility or lack thereof and the standard is more or less "Whoever had a slightly more convincing case," that is probably part of the reason they stayed out of it more.
An additional good thing is this happened after the trial started, so this guy is in the clear. Double jeopardy applies the moment all the jurors are sworn in. So before the actual trial, the prosecution can dismiss a case, but be able to re-present it later. They dismiss it, straighten their shit out, re-indict and so on. Not here, jury was already sworn in, so this is final and binding. He cannot be retried for this particular crime ever.
Copyright law, as specified in the DMCA, is different in that it spells out differences. Willful infringement, and such. Intentional or commercial/for-profit infringement (for music sharing for instance) and not. Some are civil violations, some are criminal. Some of the criminal ones require willful violations (such as this), others (certain civil aspects, such as file sharing) do not.
That's a grossly limited summary that doesnt even come close to covering all bases, and IANAL, thus wont go into more depth on it, but if you read the thing, you'll get an idea of what I am discussing.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Yep, but when trying to claim you don't have a right to make the copies of software onto your hard drive and into memory to run, the copyright holders run afoul of USC Title 17 section 117(a) which says that, since those copies are essential steps in the utilization of said program, making them is not an infringement of copyright. And that one's held up in court. You have to actually own the copy, which is why the rightsholders try so hard to claim that you agreed it wasn't a sale, but I've always held that UCC Article 2 says it was a sale if they can't show an explicit agreement otherwise made before payment was accepted and the goods delivered. And that what I bought was not merely the physical media, because every bit of description on the box and every bit of advertising for the goods describes only the software on the disc, not the box or the disc. The seller's selling what the seller claims to be selling, no more and no less, and they can't handwave away all those claims they made before just because they're inconvenient now.
Oh, this wasn't the Chewbacca defense...
The Prosecution did everything it could to try to convict this man- in what appears to be a case to "make an example" of the young man. They had two "star" witnesses that were guilty of the same acts as was being claimed by the prosecution for the defendant- which is bogus to say the least and the Judge was going to highlight that fact to the Jury when the time came. Then they had the one that was the one in on the "sting" "recall" on the stand that the defendant "put in a 'pirated' disc" and that this "recollection" happened just slightly before the hearings occurred and that it was "accidentally" not disclosed to the defense. They had the guy on video and I do believe that there was no mention of "pirated"- just that a copy was used to verify that it could play copies, backups or otherwise.
Sorry, this was a case of the prosecution doing anything and everything, regardless of it's legality, to get a case win there. Once they got caught doing that, the only thing they could do was drop the case- else they could face misconduct sanctions, and possibly, since some of these shenanigans occurred within the investigation phase, Color of Law charges. There pretty much wasn't any options for the prosecution once they had that "oops" like they did there with their witness.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The article says "... Tony Rosario, was an undercover agent with the Entertainment Software Association ...". I'm gonna call O RLY on that one.
Even though not surprising that the entertainment industry lives in such a fantasy world, private corporate organizations do not get undercover agents. This was some random guy playing at cloak and dagger cops under the label of "private investigator".