Chip a Playstation, Go to Jail 703
perogiex writes "A man in Ottawa was
convicted of selling and installing mod chips out
of his computer store. Sony is overjoyed, man is less than thrilled. This is the first time such a case was tried in Canada." From the article: Garby said he didn't know he was committing a crime and would have never gotten involved in selling mod chips if he had known the law. Update: 07/24 21:53 GMT by M : Headline corrected; it's clearly mod chips for the original Playstation, not the Playstation 2.
depressing (Score:2, Insightful)
Selling 413 Pirated Games? (Score:5, Insightful)
Old... (Score:0, Insightful)
Or did you mean "PS2"? ;)
Pirated Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Chips or piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Even though I think selling mod chips shouldn't be illegal, I don't have sympathy for people who are selling pirated software!
Re:Ignorance is no excuse. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kudos to him! (Score:3, Insightful)
wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
He wasn't just selling mod chips, he was also selling pirated games. Not sure if they would have just busted him for the mod chips or not though.
Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a scenario. You bought a rad new PS2 game, you want to make sure that if it gets scratched, eaten, etc. . . you can still play your game, so you burn a copy, and use the mod chip to play the game. You paid for the game once, right? What's wrong with that.
If you ask me, aside from the selling pirated games, this guy had a case.
How many pirated games? (Score:2, Insightful)
A basic tenet of law (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I'm interested to find out which part of the Criminal Code specifically makes installing mod chips, and presumably other circumvention devices, a felony offense. It sounds rather DMCA-like. I wonder if Parliament passed something DMCA-like with almost no fanfare. The article makes it sound like the mod chip conviction is the important one for being the first of its kind.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot is trolling you again. (Score:5, Insightful)
How do I know this? Well, first, I read the article; second, I know that there aren't 413 GAMES available for the Playstation 2!
Also, the PS/2 is a computer from IBM, and does not require mod chips to play pirated games. Sony doesn't call their Playstation 2 the PS/2, perhaps because they don't want to get sued. Does slashdot want to get sued? Well, it'd be nice to have some penalties for irresponsible journalism...
Finally, considering the facts of the case, it is disingenuous for the writers of this article to call it a conviction for selling mod-chips, since that wasn't all it was.
In conclusion, all you journalists are lazy, illiterate, and incompetent. If you don't agree with me, prove me wrong by writing something accurate, intelligent, or interesting.
Re:Ignorance is no excuse. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chips or piracy (what a poor example) (Score:5, Insightful)
>Do you also have a hacked cable box? It is theft of service.
You miss the point so badly:
If you OWN something, it's YOURS. Not only do you NOT have the right to take away people's freedom, but you also have no right to even KNOW what people do with their property.
I'll give you a quick lesson in right & wrong:
RIGHT: You decide to paint your car YOU OWN, a color other than what it was manufactured.
WRONG: You LEASE (or steal) a car, and repaint it without the owner's permission.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chips or piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
There seems to be a vocal contingent on Slashdot that assume that anybody using DeCSS, Napster, Mod Chips, etc... must be pirates and should be thrown in jail. Even if there are legitimate uses for a technology the potental for abuse exists and therefore everyone who uses it is therefore guilty.
I've used DeCSS dozens of times (everytime I watch a DVD I bought legally in fact) without infringing on copyright once. Does this mean I should go to jail? I've played import games (at conventions, but still...). Those machines were modded. Should I go to jail? I've backed up my games (although I don't actually have a mod chip yet, I'll install it if one of my originals is destroyed). Am I evil? Do I deserve to be thrown in jail for using technologies that can also be used to pirate?
Re:Slashdot is trolling you again. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that the journalists tend to be lazy, but don't blame
Phoenix
Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I'm not sure if these gaming companies pull a microsoft, and say that you're buying the CD and not the software on it (essentially paying for the distribution and not the product), but I don't think they do. If they don't, then you have every right to burn a back-up copy of your game and play it on the PS2. . . which would require a mod-chip. So, if this logic holds-up, you've got every right to go out and get yourself a mod-chip. What you choose to do with it is up to you.
Then why do we have lawyers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chips or piracy (what a poor example) (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I disagree with your point at all, indeed I heartily agree. But try telling that to the BATF if, for example, you make a minor mechanical modification to a legally owned semi-automatic rifle that converts it to fully-automatic (ie a machine gun), or cut the barrel of your legally owned shotgun down to less than 18 inches.
If you thought DMCA enforcement was tough...
I'll bite... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, people and organizations can still be sued for slander and libel, even under the First Amendment. I think that organizations that purport to report the News have an obligation to report the facts accurately, and should be held to a higher standard than are individuals.
I'm arguing that the headline is negligent and misleading, and should be corrected. Every minute that goes by when it isn't misleads and confuses another person who might have expected news or accurate reporting. Many people have come to expect this sort of inaccurate reporting from slashdot, but that doesn't excuse it.
Perhaps they could have an "editor" on duty whose job it is to "edit"?
Intent to infringe major portion of the ruling. (Score:2, Insightful)
So suddenly his mod chips are no longer semi-grey market (as the de-Macrovision devices you can get at Radio Shack are, for example) and are now part of the reason he gets the fine and probation.
Perfectly reasonable and nothing to be ashamed or outraged at.
Now, if he had just been selling the mod-chips under cover of interoperability with Japanese imports, for example, or for playing back-up games, I doubt very much he'd have been convicted, and I challenge anyone to dig up some Canadian precedent that specifically ruled otherwise.
Re:Chips or piracy (what a poor example) (Score:2, Insightful)
Same goes for other controlled or illegal substances. If you own a poppy field, you don't have the right to create opiates from them. If you own a rifle, you don't have the right to go shoot people with it, or modify its performance so that it falls into a restricted category.
Take your poor example elsewhere.
Re:Mod chips (Score:5, Insightful)
If we are going to be vocal on the unfairness of legal roadblocks to fair use in the cases dealing with DeCSS and proposed DRM legislation, we have a responsibility to be equivalently vocal in cases where technologies we advocate and claim rights to are being used illegally. If we want DeCSS to be legal despite its "side effect" of decrypting DVDs, we have to denounce those who exploit that side effect for illegal personal gain.
If we want mod chips to be a legal and accepted use of our own hardware for playing legally purchased Japanese games or burned backups of others we own, we have to speak against pirates who want to make money using mod chips and CD/DVD copying technology illegally.
Neil
"There are thousands of types of people in the world: The type of people who think there are two types of people in the world, and the thousands of other types."
Re:Chips or piracy (what a poor example) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod chips (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the same spurious argument that was used against VCRs (long live Beta!) and audio cassette tapes.
Just because something can be used illegally doesn't mean it *will* be.
Thats like saying scissors should be illegal because you could stab someone. Forget the million legitimate uses...like cutting up Celine Dion and AOL CDs.
Re:Chips or piracy (what a poor example) (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, but indeed they are. The FCC has a whole set of regulations covering consumer electronic devices and their possible RF emissions. You better believe that Sony has to file some serious paperwork with the FCC to get permission to sell the things. (Also with Underwriters Labs and the CSA regarding shock and fire hazards, but that's more of an insurance thing.)
Although I still believe you should be allowed to do whatever the hell you want to with your own property, so long as it doesn't actually (vs hypothetically) endanger others or trample on their rights.
Re:Slashdot is trolling you again. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Important Differences (Score:2, Insightful)
not at all true (Score:2, Insightful)
The FSF makes no such claim (Score:4, Insightful)
> Your program is linking against Sony's code (the PS1's firmware). According to the FSF, this requires Sony's permission - at least, they say linking against other code requires that code's author's permission. (That's how the GPL bans non-GPL code calling GPLed libraries, unlike the LGPL...)
That's not right. The FSF says that distributing a combined work consisting of copyrighted code plus your code requires the permission of the copyright owner.
But there is no distribution of a combined work when you run your own software on a modded PS1.
Anyway, we already know that the copyright violation in this case was selling pirated games.
Doug Moen.
Re:Responded Elsewhere (Score:2, Insightful)
In addition, the license agreement is not legally enforceable in many regions, since it attempts to abridge rights that the purchaser already has. In the U.S., the right to reverse engineer is legally sanctioned and assured. Plenty of case law already exists in this area. Most Playstation emulators that Sony tried to squash squeaked by because they were developed from specs that were arrived at through a "clean room" reverse engineering effort. Sony resorted to paying off the developers or buying them out in most cases (e.g., Connectix no longer sells Virtual Game Station because Sony bought the rights to it, and then sat on it).
I signed a lease agreement for an apartment that I rented once upon a time, and the lease agreement stipulated that I agreed to certain terms which were actually in violation of Arizona's Landlord-Tenant laws. When the management company broke Arizona law, they tried to nail me for leaving the apartment before my lease expired, and so I consulted an attorney. She pointed out that they can't take away my legal rights by having me sign them away in a contract. The property management company broke the law by failing to repair air conditioning in the apartment in a timely fashion (AC is considered an essential service in Arizona by law), and although they had a clause in the lease agreement that "excused" the company from liability if they were unable to perform a repair in a timely fashion, the law took precedence over the contract, and I was vindicated.
This is why most contracts, including license agreements for software and hardware, include boilerplate clauses that state that if any portion of the contract is found to be unenforceable (e.g., because local law forbids something stipulated in the contract), the rest of the contract remains in force.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I know bullshit when I see it. I can sign a contract that says that I agree to any number of things, but if the contract is legally unenforceable, then I'm not breaking the law or doing anything morally questionable by ignoring the clauses in the contract that are unenforceable and/or illegal.
If I buy a piece of hardware in the United States, I can do whatever I want to it -- take a sledge hammer to it, desolder the chips on the motherboard, add things to it, etc. The laws in Canada may be different in this regard, so putting mod chips on a PS/2 in Canada might very well be illegal. All the more reason for me to enjoy being a U.S. citizen (until such time as the laws here are modified by corporate interests).
Re:Implications (Score:4, Insightful)
In a truely free market capitalist society that would be entirely Sony's problem. Why should customers (including retailers) be obliged to ensure that Sony's business model works?
For your analogy to be more accurate you would have to say that when you buy a Ford Ranger the company (Ford) doesn't make very much, if anything. Instead, they get their money from selling gas. So, if you (and about half of Ford's other customers) were to mod your Ford Ranger and install a nuclear reactor in it, I'm sure there would be similar reactions.
In which case people would be telling Ford that they were being foolish not to get into the nuclear fuel business, make reactor driven cars as a standard option and supply their own mod kits.
The thing is when it comes to computers people think the rules of basic economics should be tossed out of the window. With laws created to enforce a corporate welfare model.