Game Pirate Sentenced To Jail Time 136
A man charged in a case separate from the much-publicized anti-modder raids last month has been sentenced to ninety days in prison, another nine months of work furlough, and five years of probation. "Police seized over 1,000 pirated game discs during the raid on Brown's home, along with 'numerous' mod chips. Ric Hirsch, Vice-President of Intellectual Property Enforcement at the ESA, said, 'Sentences that include jail time send a clear message that violating intellectual property rights is a serious crime with significant consequences and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'"
THANK GOODNESS! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:THANK GOODNESS! (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, I sort of wished they threw more of the book at this guy for pirating this stuff. Mod chips have a legitimate use by enabling the owner of hardware to use it in the way they see fit. The homebrew community and those who enjoy the protection that backups provide should hold a zero-tolerance policy to those who would use those tools to enjoy materials for which they didn't pay.
My guess is that if the homebrew/backup communities weren't all driven underground thanks to the DMCA and corps with large legal budgets, they'd agree.
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I happen to like handcuffs, thank you very much!
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Re:THANK GOODNESS! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying that these types of crimes are best punished by putting these people in with violent criminals, but they should definitely serve time in a real prison. Separate the violent criminals from the non-violent criminals for safety's sake, but other than that the accommodations should be similar across the board.
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I often times wonder what the real punishment is when house arrest results in somebody being stuck in a really nice house, especially if this person doesn't normally need to work.
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No Shit. (Score:3, Interesting)
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If law enforcement would quit whoring itself to corporations to inflate their statistics with bogus cases like this, and actually took the resources used on this to track down, say, serial killers, rapists etc... The world would be a much better place.
But apparently Jim Franklin at Scumbag Games wanting a slightly better Porsche is more important than anything with honest to goodness traumatized victi
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This whole digital copying thing is a really horrible precedent to set in this country.
I really want to know why they equate digital copying to theft , we pay for data bits and the electricity to get and send them as well as paying for the service to transport it. This completely ticks me off.
If the person was selling "back ups" then I am all for having them arrested and they should be sitting in their home with out a internet connection or computer. I see
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It's been a bit this way, that way for modchips in Oz. A couple of years ago it was legal to have a modded console, but not to sell the chips...prior to that, legal to mod someone's console, but not to advertise the service. Interesting, if annoyi
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Selling/distributing someone elses IP appears to be a victimless crime to a lot of people though, so there is almost no moral deterrent. Thus the legal deterrent has to be large if you want people to be af
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There were three guys in prison... two muscular, bearded and looking really badass.
One of the ruffians asks the other: "So, what did you get prison for?"
"I killed 10 people - cut their arms and legs with a pocket knife, just for the fun of it. You?"
The other guy answers: "I caught my wife with another man. Burned the hell outta' them".
Then they stare at the third guy - a wimpy kid with glasses sitting in a corner. "Hey kid, what ya here for?"
The kid answers in a
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Whew (Score:5, Funny)
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that because you don't make a living from IP. for some people, their IP is their salary, their savings and their pension.
I have a friend who's entire living is from "intellectual property", and you could pirate his artwork all day and it wouldn't affect him much financially. Hell, he has artwork that Disney keeps re-using without paying him for (in violation of contract), but the effort required to squeeze money out of Disney is more expensive than the payoff. No, if you're counting on that to be your "savings and pension", you're a complete fucking idiot. The only way to safely handle your retirement and savings is to put c
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I haven't downloaded movies in a long time but if I did I guess someone might lose "some" money because I guess I could occasional had rented one.
Music are to expensive and worthless to buy, and there are so much free and great music out there (last.fm and scenemusic.eu for two resources.)
Of course I also
Re:Whew (Score:5, Insightful)
I make a living from IP, and no I still don't care.
The average brute who beats his wife and kids probably won't end up in jail for the first several incidents.
Your average petty thug mugger who confronts people and takes their wallet and watch at knife or gunpoint rarely ends up in jail for more than a few hours, no matter how often they get caught. Despite the threat of violence, the theft of real property, and the substantial emotional distress they cause their victims.
Your average retail convenience stores are shoplifted from on a daily basis. Real goods, that cost real money, being stolen for real. Every day. When the pricks get caught, how many of THEM end up in jail for more than a few hours? Practically none.
So why should a guy who makes copies in a nonviolent way, that don't take anything real away from me, and potentially don't usually even mean a lost sale -- what exactly has he done that he should he go to jail when other criminals who do much worse things do not?
Once we've got a policy of locking up all the brutes, thugs, drug dealers, thieves, and shoplifters then we can look at raising the penalty for crimes like jay-walking and copyright infringement.
Now, of course, if this guy is at the commericial/industrial scale of infringement, complete with counterfeiting discs, and laundering the money made, then yeah, he's costing his victims and society enough to treated like a serious criminal and deserves jail time.
But your average schmuck with an ftp server or some such nonsense
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There are thousands of them out there and working together t
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Yeah, so don't give me a speeding ticket either until they take care of the more important crimes.
I really hate stupid arguments. Either laws count, or they don't.
-Jeff
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No. You missed the point. The point isn't the enforcement of laws, its the relative punishment for them.
If you were thrown in JAIL for sixteen months instead of given a modest fine next time you got a speeding ticket, what would you think of that?
I really hate stupid arguments. Either laws count, or they don't.
I really hate people who don't read. I never said copyright infringement shouldn't count, or that we h
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Please don't trivialize game piracy by mistakenly thinking it's just a matter of having your IP stolen.
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Woo! (Score:2, Funny)
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Or just do the right thing and execute the criminals with the only exceptions being the ones whose cases are iffy.
It's funny, isn't it? When a dog is considered a danger to the community we have no problem putting it down. It's an animal after all. However, when a human, another animal which supposedly has the ability to know right from wrong, kills/murders/rapes/whatever, we have no prob
Well, there are two sides. (Score:2)
Permanently.
The problem comes in when you understand that the legal system makes mistak
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As you said, it's obvious that people who are constantly being arrested have not learned from their prior experiences. There is no reason we as taxpayers should have to continue to house and feed these people. We do not have the time or resources to keep coddling these people. To use a recent example, a man was pulled over in New Hampshire for drunk driving.
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You do realize, of course, that this is essentially the same argument t
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Of course, so are taxes. Schools. Television. Art. Religion. Philosophy. Science.
Funny how that works. It's almost like those are all tools, and people can use them to do good things, and people can use them to do bad things. And a good society would use t
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Killing is significant. I don't think the person being killed minds much one way or the other...Not like they're going, "Whew! Thank god for lethal injection!" But the people doing the killing should have to accept that that's what they're doing.
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Yeah, because there's never any iffy cases, especially when it's the state that's angling to put people to death as a matter of its own interest that decides whether a case was iffy or not. Independent judiciary? Don't make me laugh, the judges are usually elected, and even the ones that aren't are selected as idealogues by idealogues.
Sure I believe some people deserve to die. I just tru
The message I got out of this (Score:5, Insightful)
And for what? 90 days of jail. Whoo boy. He must be a really tough criminal! I dunno about your country, but 90 days is about what you get when you drive with the subway and refuse to pay the fine. For the third time. After being tried and told that paying the fee of 60 bucks is PROBABLY more interesting for you.
In other words, the damage this guy did must've been somewhere around 60 bucks. At least we now have found a reliable value for IP.
Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Their job is to uphold the law. They did so. There is nothing wrong with that.
If you're angry, then I seriously suggest that you write your Representative(s) [house.gov] and Senators [senate.gov].
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What was wrong was that their workforce was diverted to such petty crime while there are other, more serious, crimes being unprosecuted because of a lack of funding.
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police departments are usually broken down into divisions that each deal with their respective speciality.
I have no problem with that - I even approve, if it means the police involved in any given specialty might know the difference between, say, art and a bomb.
I have to disagree, however, that it doesn't mean some crimes get ignored in favor of what they choose to go after. As long as I can look forward to seeing a single spam email in my inbox every morni
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Personally, I'd say that's where they are better used.
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Are the police constantly writing jaywalking tickets or busting businesses for tax fraud? Both crimes are commited near-constantly everywhere. In fact, most Americans commit multiple felonies every single day. If the police actually enforced ALL the laws the whole population
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And how is the regular San Franciscan's life affected? Well, I would guess there's more hookers on the street and more Johns driving around because the s
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Sorry for being blunt, but that's all that comes out of sentences like that. Why should anyone TRY to scrape together 100k bucks? That takes about half a lifetime, unless you're a lawyer or rich by default. Working a lifetime for those leeches? Just to prolong their existance?
Most likely, I'd take my last few cents, buy me a good arsenal of automatic weapons and find their headquarters. Go out wi
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If the Feds had made the bust he would be serving far more time on the felony charge. The Feds are more than willing to play host to the Geek who thinks that jail is for others but never for him.
non violent criminals (Score:2)
That said, he did break the law when he pirated games, and it is entirely just that he should be brought up on charges. However, the punishment should fit the crime.
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No one ever goes to jail for just having pirated materials (regardless of the law against it in some countries). The only people who get in trouble are people selling/distributing it.
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Not mod chips! Oh no!
NPO (Score:2)
Is anyone else picturing Blackbeard and Captain Hook standing in line at the IRS with their 501(c) [wikipedia.org] forms in hand, discussing their tax exempt status?
"Arrrr, we be a powerful Recreational Club we be!"
- "Avast ye lowly deckswabber, we make a fine Fraternal Beneficiary Society we do!"
"So it be a life of Charitable Givin' for ye?"
- "Aye! Donate me hearties, Yo ho!"
"Well blimey, if I don't stuff that in me ca
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"counterfeit trafficking" is not "selling mod chips". You're being dishonest pretending it is.
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DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
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The title of the linked to article is "Mod Chip Seller Sentenced to Jail Time".
Repeating: he got time for illegally selling copies of software, not mod chips. The above article title is deceptive, apparently deliberately so.
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DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
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Personally, I pay for all the games and stuff I have, but I'm indifferent to people using copies. Where I do draw the line is commercial infringement. I actively dislike the making of money from an infringement setup. For that, I think 90 days is fair. It's not throwing the book at him and making him out to be the root of all evil, and up there with the terrorists.. It's saying "You'v
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And that is most likely also what the verdict is about. Notice how the modchips are mentioned, but nowhere that it's illegal to have, store, own or sell them?
However, the punishment should fit the crime.
Personally, I'd say that's about achived. He had "over 1000 Pirated Games" and got 90 days. Now, in many legal systems you'll find a system that trades "daily earnings" against a day in jail (provided you cannot pay or refuse to pay). I.e. 90 days jail is
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and when it is your house that has beem stripped, or your identity stolen, what then?
Now for modding thought (Score:5, Informative)
Brown was facing 10 counts of felony offenses, including grand theft, computer crime and trafficking in counterfeit products. In August, Brown pleaded guilty to two counts of counterfeit trafficking and today received a one-year sentence, the first 90 days to be spent in prison and the rest in work furlough. He was also given five years probation and a fine of $100,000, and will be required to pay $10,000 in restitution to the ESA.
Which sounds to me like its for selling pirated copies of games. I don't see an issue here. Don't sell copies of games, and you've got a lot less (or maybe nothing at all) to worry about.Re: (Score:2)
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The people in charge (Score:2, Interesting)
The only way to make them stop is to insist with all force necessary.
If you're not willing to get your hands dirty to stand up to this scum then no one HAS to care what you think..so why bother shaking your little fist and writing scathing condemnations?
Cut word lines
Cut music lines
Smash the control images
Smash the control machine.
- William S. Burroughs
Clarification (Score:3, Informative)
It's important to note that he was a "mod chip seller," not a normal Joe who downloads pirated games and then plays them on his modded consoles. The grand theft charge was dropped in the plea, of course.
U.S. law makes copyright violation a crime -- for the distributor. It has yet to pass laws against the distributee. And won't, otherwise you could be prosecuted for buying a plagiarized book at the bookstore.
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More seriously, I doubt that the mod chip market is lucrative enough to entice sellers to risk serious legal troubles to sell the things, so let's hope this is just a token arrest. It does sound like it was more for the actual piracy of the games than the mod chips, thouh.
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"Grand theft" would never have stuck. Grand theft refers to tangible items. What did he actually steal? Nor "computer crime," given that the offense itself didn't involve the use of a computer. "Trafficking in counterfeit products" would be selling copies of pirated items, but not the selling of the mod chip itself.
Unless this guy was selling th
Absurd! (Score:5, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:Absurd! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Because "financial crime" undermines society itself. Look around you. The whole world is depending on the monetary system to work. And it only works as long as we - the users - trust that system. As such, "financial crime" is extremely dangerous for society because it destroys one of the most important foundations we depend on: money!
The most serious "financial crime" is counterfeiting money. It is punished extremely hard, because such activity is a serious threat to society. If we can't trust money, the world will stop functioning. Like... really! stop functioning!
The second-worst "financial crime" is forgery of documents where money is involved. The reasons are exactly the same as above. If you forge a check/document/contract in order to acquire someone else's money, that activity is a threat to an important foundation in society.
We can continue to describe the many different grades and shades of "financial crimes", but if you think about the logic behind it, it kinda makes sense. The reasons for having harsh punishments for such crimes are all similar: It is a kind of crime which is very destructive for society as a whole.
I am not saying that software piracy is as bad as rape. Nor am I saying that I agree with the course of action in this particular case. I am simply trying to explain the logic. Some laws are made to protect the individual, other laws are made to protect society as a whole. Are the former more important than the latter? Is there any reason to protect the individual, while society falls apart?
That is the reason for harsh punishment of "financial crimes". You don't have to agree with these reasons - but I hope you will at least give it some thought.
- Jesper
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The reasons for having harsh punishments for such crimes are all similar: It is a kind of crime which is very destructive for society as a whole.
No it isn't. It's destructive to those who have lots of money.
And your implied claim that illegal copying is very destructive for society as a whole is silly. If anything it's the reverse, with illegal copying being a great boon to society at large, creating enormous value for billions of people.
Very unlike financial fraud where a small group of people bene
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No it isn't. It's destructive to those who have lots of money.
I am not a rich guy. But I assure you, not having money would be very destructive for me and my family. I would not be able to acquire food for my 2 year old daughter without money. Or pay my rent. Or my electrical bill. Or my gas and water supplier.
On the other hand, nobody would want to deliver me any gas, water, electricity or food if they weren't paid to do so. Most of the employees at these companies would probably stop working the instant they realized they would never receive a paycheck for their
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I phrased it badly. Your post implied that all financial crimes, including those associated with copyright violation, are very bad, and all should attract large penalties. I was arguing that it's more complicated than that; like at the moment where we have large scale unlicensed copying going on while still having a high degree of confidence in the money supply and only certain wealthy individuals threatened.
To put it another way; the total amount of money in circulation is rather large. To significantly
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I was arguing that it's more complicated than that; like at the moment where we have large scale unlicensed copying going on while still having a high degree of confidence in the money supply and only certain wealthy individuals threatened.
fair enough. I understand that argument - though I do not entirely agree.
To significantly compromise confidence in that money supply a significant fraction of it has to be threatened. Small scale financial crimes don't fit that definition and so shouldn't attract significant penalties.
Here is where we disagree.
If someone I know gets away with plain old-fashioned counterfeit and never gets punished for it, my faith in the monetary system will degrade. Even if he only counterfeited a small amound, lets say 1000 USD. By comparison these 1000 USD are no threat to the monetary system. The threat is the perception that it is acceptable to counterfeit money, or the perception that one c
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Sorry to be harsh, but I'm not going to bother replying. Your post is a incoherent mess, full of half-truths, truthiness [wikipedia.org] and fill. Pretty much every sentence in it is either factually incorrect, an arbitrary assumption, logically inconsistent or not responding to the points they purport to respond to. I'd suggest you learn about logical fallacies [nizkor.org] and logical argument [wikipedia.org] in general. Ideally, learn about the scientific method [rochester.edu] also.
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Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can
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Sorry to be harsh, but I'm not going to bother replying.
What a great way to kill a debate.
Your post is a incoherent mess, full of half-truths, truthiness and fill.
That is an easy statement for you, since you decline to elaborate which portions you consider to be "half-truths". Gosh, it almost sounds like Microsoft yelling about the Linux community violating patents ... which they refuse to identify. Wow. Your trustworthiness is much higher than mine, I can certainly see that. Thank you for the lecture. You sir, are a real inspiration for other people.
A debate is all about sharing knowledge and views. If you disagree with me, fine
Funny story (Score:2)
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Really now, I'd agree with "illegal weapons usage", but possession? That reminds of prohibition laws...
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At least until Bush unveils his plan for the new Unitarian Republic of America, at which point the streets will most lik
Don't do for profit (Score:5, Insightful)
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while some people won't see a difference between making money off of this and being a Robin Hood type, I think the punishment should match the crime - making money should get you in more trouble. Believe it or not, the
Well 16x is the Industry Standard.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, that was a pointless rambling.. I sincerely doubt the ESA would do something so laughably foul.
Trafficking vs Personal use (Score:2)
If he was making these copies to SELL, then yeah, I could imagine over 1,000 CDs. At $5~10 USD each (average street vendor price), that adds up to some serious cash fast, especially if you can start run
Unbelievable (Score:3, Insightful)
Real, actual, non-fictional people's salaries are based on the fact that if people play these games (or music, or movies) then they will pay for them. If you don't like the way the market works due to levels of compensation, etc. then feel free to get your media from those that offer it freely or at a rate you agree with and who base their economic plans on that fact.
However if it's a commercial product and you steal it, then go to jail and shut up. You broke the law. Quit whining, quit the straw man style "rapists and murderers" blathering and learn something for a change. If you advocate open source and freely available media, quit giving our community a black eye by encouraging theft and cheering on pirates. If the new media model is going to work, it will work by being a better model, not by undermining the current system we have. Undermining rather than supplanting only encourages harsher laws and more intense DRM which will make the transition harder to accomplish in the end. Like I said, unbelievable.
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This guy had a lot of illegal copies of software which he definitely should be punished for but he got raided because he was modding hardware - the software copies they found were extra icing. SHould this guy have gotton 90 days in prision for modding the hardware only? No, but he would have and that's wrong because modding and piracy are not mutually exclusive...
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Playing a game and NOT PAYING FOR IT is no different then NOT BUYING IT. The logic here is just brutally stupid. I pay for games I deem worthy of my money. Everything else who's quality isn't up to snuff gets doesn't deserve my money.
Yeah! You get em Ric [sic?]! (Score:2)
Yes (Score:1)
Hmmmm. You mean he wasn't doing it just for the intellectual challenge of legally reverse-engineering it to understand it?
Marge Simpson: Now I've heard everything!
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but (Score:2, Funny)
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Mod Chips? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, I suppose I'm a little behind the times and I apologize for that. I also don't wish to start a flame-war here and I do believe that some people have pretty heated opinions about this.
There are mod chips for my Prius. [xanga.com] There are performance mod chips for lots of cars [speedydelivery.co.uk]. While they may invalidate an owner's warranty (in some cases) one has purchased the car and is willing to install it and take a chance that maybe, perhaps, they either won't pass their vehicle emissions inspection or they may wear the car out a little sooner.
So why is it illegal to make or sell a mod chip to make a game console work differently? If it invalidates one's warranty, well that's the chance you take--you cannot take the console back and get warranty service on it.
I cannot see or understand a law that would prevent you from doing a mod on your PSP or X-Box. After all, you bought it; if you mod it it's yours so who cares?
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Yet, for video games, music, and movies, the DMCA gives that industry the unique ability to call your modification of the hardware a CRIME because it bypasses copy protection. Being able to play backups and imports is basically the result of sidestepping copy protection.
But, you know, since I want to play a Jap
Criminal copyright violation - steep punitive fine (Score:3, Informative)
He was a counterfeiter. He should be thrown in jail with the rest of the drug dealers, prostitutes, con men and other smalltime ne'er-do-wells until he sobers up. This kind of thing must be pursued and stopped for the health of the industry, and the rule of law in general.
This is going after the dealers instead of going after the junkies, and it's the right way to go. I applaud the San Diego police (and prosecutors) for going after folks are causing true harm.
On the other hand, the punitive fine ($100,000 - ten times the awarded damages of $10,000) seemed absurdly steep. Without knowing the man's means, it's hard to believe that this was a fair judgment. It's a warning sign when the jail time and the punitive fines are so completely incongruous.
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Toro
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Though it does make sense. Copyright violations are a bit like underage drinking, especially for stuff like games. It has very very high peer approval, so people don't "feel" wr
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Toro