News Three people sued for XBox mod

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/12/20/three_people_sued_for_xbox_mod/

 

I can understand them sueing for piracy if people used the modded consoles to play pirated games, But most people use XBMC and turn their 'boxes into media centres.

 

Even XBMC is illegal though, because it infringes on some MS patents. Only if you run linux on it you should be safe-safe. Indeed, you arent gonna get a knock on your door from the boys in blue because you are running XBMC because you arent a) condoning piracy, or being a pirate (Arrr!) or more importantly b) making money out of it.

 

I agree, the only illegal issue here is copying the games. Otherwise, everything else is open source, like XBMC and the linux OS you can put on it. and obvioulsy if there was illegal music and movies on it thats illegal too. i use my xbox as a media center pc with XBMC, linux that has AIM and firefox on it, and to play games... , i mean $150 for the console and then like another 50-60 for the mod chip and harddrive... why wouldn't you use it as a cheap media center pc? and as soon as you open it up it voids the warrenty anyway.

heres a quick question: what if you get a program that can play regular dvds instead of buying the dvd dongle and remote thing? is that illegal (not that i'm worried, just posing the question)?

EDIT: ya, hes right about XBMC infringing on the MS patents... damn...

 

Lesson: Do not sell illigal equipment over the counter otherwise your just asking for big problems. There are so many ways you can get burned. Starting with your compeditors getting pissed, followed by your customers trying to blackmail you.

I think the only reason why this story even gets air time is because people think that copy right laws are far to strict, and I agree.

 

These guys were pretty daft becuase they were actually selling Xboxes with 77 games loaded on the HDD so it was only a matter of time really before they got caught.

 

Microsoft...what more to say...
(but you guys are right those guys are truely idiots for selling pirated games
and stuff )

 

Keep in mind...the suit isn't just because of the games. MS is suing for making it possible to have pirated content on a system that they specifically imposed the limitation to prevent these things on. It's like disabling the region code in a DVD player.

Part of the suit is using the xbox for its "Intended use" vs. not. Which means these Linux distro boxes aren't really legit either, and you stomp over MS's patent by installing a chip into it. Will they all get lawsuits? Of course not. But *could* they all get lawsuits based on these grounds? Sure.

 

-=post_removed=-

 

I agree, honestly you are just begging for trouble by doing something like that. Everybody knows that your not gonna get problems for selling modded xbox's, frankly the neighborhood cops will buy them from you. However somewhere along the road if you begin to flaunt it in everybodies face, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore it while keeping up apearances.

 

they would have got away with it if they haden't had the stupidty to put any games on the xbox.

 

I think the main idea is: if you're going to mod chip or pirate games, don't sell it. No one's going to come after you for mod-chipping your own box and keeping it in your house with your games. Selling preloaded boxes is just asking for trouble.

 

Yeah, here in the east new PS2 and X-crotch games run for 50 cents to a US dollar, the same goes for DVD's If that regional code was broken..... There would be no reson to pay 55 bones for madden 06', Tekken 6, and Halo3. Further more, a games like doom3 and HL2 costs 2 bucks

I would actually by an X-crotch360 if it didn't have the regional codec.... You don't need the hard drive with hacked games if a game costs less than a bean burrito at taco bell.

 

I think this is just a case of people being stupid. Selling a modded xbox is nothing new and I can think of 3 or 4 local game shops that sell them. These shops don't load the drives with games though. If you even ask how to copy games our save them to the hard drive they say that it is illegal and they can't help you with that. This will save them the problems these dumba$$es are facing now. What the hell where they thinking putting 77 games on a HD and selling it? Morons!

 

It's the whole does a gun kill people are do people kill people...

I mean there are so many things that could be contrued into pirating information... I mean come on...