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News US conducts nationwide raid on mod chip shops

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 2 Aug 2007.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  2. capnPedro

    capnPedro Hacker. Maker. Engineer.

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    I can't believe somebody went and decided that mod chips should be illegal. What if I make a board that allows a drive to play any region of DVD, is that illegal? Even though I can buy a £20 DVD player in shops that will do the exact same thing. How about a chip that lets me power off m Xbox by infrared? That's the mod chip. Is that too illegal?

    You aren't renting the console, you own it. You should be able to solder whatever you want in it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the playing of pirated games, but it should be the games that are illegal, not the chips.

    Disclaimer: I don't use consoles or mod them.
     
  3. d3fiant

    d3fiant What's a Dremel?

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    I spose thats the risk we take, I know some people will take the 'homebrew argument' but 99% of modchips are bought for 1 reason only and thats to play pirated material and while I totally agree that games are totally overpriced I feel that this tit-for-tat battle is going to be ongoing for the forseeable future
     
  4. crazybob

    crazybob Voice of Reason

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    I support their right to hunt for software piracy, but not if they're just going to attack modchips. Sure, there are more common illegal uses for a modchip than legal ones, but I bought the hardware and have every right to do with it as I please. If I choose to install a new operating system so I can watch movies, that should be fine even if it requires me to modify the console.

    A very similar example is modifying your car to increase performance. Even though many of the potential uses for the extra power are illegal (speeding, reckless driving, street racing, etc.) there are still legal uses for the power (bragging rights, trackdays, etc.) and as such the modifications themselves are legal as long as they are used appropriately.
     
  5. Lord_A

    Lord_A Boom baby!

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    Don't agree with this at all.
    I've got a chip in my XBOX (1 not 360) & use it just for XMBC - I don't have any pirated games on it.
     
  6. LVMike

    LVMike What's a Dremel?

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    The raids probably took place under section 103 of the DMCA which added section 1201 to Title 17 of U.S. Code. From the Copyright .gov PDF on DMCA

    Section 1201 proscribes devices or services that fall within any one of the
    following three categories:
    1. they are primarily designed or produced to circumvent;
    2. they have only limited commercially significant purpose or use other
    than to circumvent; or
    3. they are marketed for use in circumventing.

    It goes on further to ban the import of or sale of devices or services which are designed to circumvent copyright, or other IP protections.

    You could still mod your console, so long as your intent was not copyright circumvention. If copy right circumvention was a "unintended consequence" of your modification you would be ok-ish. So long as you didn't advertise that that was a feature or intended use of your modification. So home brewers are still ok, as are people who mod with out trying to circumvent copyright.
     
  7. whisperwolf

    whisperwolf What's a Dremel?

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    So if your a large company throwing a hissy fit over how much you lose to piracy (using the formula of 1 pirated disk is 1 lost sale) you get enough man power to research,coordinate and carry out 30 raids across 16 states, but if your an avergare joe and your home gets broken into you might get a policeman round at somepoint with a piece of paper for your insurance company. want justice then you'll have to be able to pay for it
     
  8. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    Bleh. I'm planning to eventually chip my Xbox so I can run XBMC on it. The system's so old at this point that it's much easier to just go buy the games for $3 used than to pirate them, and even new games are often cheap enough to not make it worth the effort. Of course with used games, MS isn't seeing any of the money, but it at least goes to prove Economics 101 to be true.
     
  9. riggs

    riggs ^_^

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    I own a chipped Xbox (running XBMC) and a soft-modded DS. I admit, I download the occasional game, but it's more of a 'try before I buy' situation. I'm more interested in the homebrew/emulation side of things tbh (which is another grey area in itself).
     
  10. mmorgue

    mmorgue What's a Dremel?

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    Would love to see the stats of the cost of this operation(s) vs the monetary gain/saved by these raids.
     
  11. wolff000

    wolff000 I am here to steal your secrets.

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    The US Has Gone To ****

    We no longer have any freedom. They tap our phones, they sniff packets and raid our homes and business whenever they like with no warrants. This is just another shining example of how the US is no longer for the people by the people. Our government preaches about freedom in other countries while they take it from us. I have several modded consoles and own 0 "pirated games". I modded my consoles to play with homebrew and linux yet I am still a criminal simply because I own a mod chip. They claim they are smuggled in which is a lie. Smuggling means you are hiding what is coming through, my first mod chip cam from overseas and the outside box was clearly labeled. The only reason they are going after these people is because some senators got a great big campaign "donation". It's disgusting and one of the very reasons I am looking forward to moving out of this place.
     
  12. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

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    They should go back to using cartridges like in the NES, SNES, Megadrive, N64, Gameboy <3333333 ahh the good old days...
     
  13. riggs

    riggs ^_^

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    I like your thinking (especially since carts have virtually no load times), but it wouldn't work as an anti-piracy method - how to you think I run homebrew on the DS (and the GBA)? I suppose it would reduce figures, purely because it's more difficult getting games on a cart-based system...well, difficult for the average Joe.

    What with falling prices and increasing size of RAM/ROM based memory, maybe we will eventually see consoles fall back on solid state media. Actually, scratch that, by the time it could (theoretically) happen, we'll probably have machines that stream game content direct from game servers. Even then, there'll be someone, somewhere, reverse engineering the process and figuring out how to run 'backup' copies streamed from their home PC.

    At the end of the day, piracy will always exist, no matter how tough the copy protection system is.
     
  14. wafflesomd

    wafflesomd What's a Dremel?

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    Could they be any more annoying?
     
  15. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    they were fast... but they were expensive compared to optical disks........ not that it translates to reduced price to us consumers....
     
  16. Copiedright

    Copiedright What's a Dremel?

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    In Australia, Mod Chips are legal!
    Makes me proud to be an Aussie!
     
  17. completemadness

    completemadness What's a Dremel?

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    exactly, i have a chipped PS2, but i only use that to run games off the HDD (As the laser if failing) i still have the games, i haven't pirated anything
    Just because you could pirate, doesn't mean you will

    hell, every PC on the planet is capable of pirating music, does that mean we should all have our PC's taken away ?
     
  18. elbarto241

    elbarto241 What's a Dremel?

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    very good point madness, its sad to see ICE bust down on the little man with his soldering iron in his garage instead of the HUGE piraters outthere making a fortune off of bootlegging ....
     
  19. DougEdey

    DougEdey I pwn all your storage

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    I mod a lot of XBOXs hell, I've made entire Home Entertainment Networks based off them, silent machines, powerful, accurate, lots of decoders. What more do you want?

    I don't use them for playing illegal copies of games, I do however, load owned games onto the consoles.
     
  20. tech3312

    tech3312 Where's my dremel o.0

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    why would they make a raid on mod chips? were all of us here on bit-tech are modders now it's "illegal to make mod chips?" they should ban all soldering gund and circuit boards if modding is illegal. and let me show another point why sould they ban download sites? once they knock one down another one is going to pop up and pop up again and the process is going to be the same. they alway's find stupid laws on technology to bind it to us like it's illegal to listen ipods on the streets man even if they approve that law i'll still listen music on the street
     
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