If Mod Chip Firms Get Fined, Should Pep Boys Start Calling Their Lawyers?
from the analogies dept
Imagine if you bought a car, and you wanted to mess around with it and turn it into a hotrod. While that may not be for everyone, it's a pretty common practice. Car owners are allowed to modify their cars, as long as it remains road safe. However, when it comes to video game consoles, the same sort of thing gets you in an awful lot of trouble. This isn't a new issue. Lawsuits against video game mod chip companies have gone on for years. While Italy has realized that mod chipping should be perfectly legal, many other countries still have a problem with it. The issue, is that while there are plenty of legitimate uses for mod chips, they can also be used to run unauthorized ("pirated") software, and that can violate the ever-infamous anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA. Recently, the feds started cracking down on mod chippers, and the news came out that a court has fined one firm over $9 million for selling mod chips and software that could be used to copy a game. Note, of course, that they were just selling the tool. They weren't the ones actually violating copyright. So why should it be illegal for someone to tinker with their gaming console, even if the tinkering could allow games to be copied? If they actually are copying games, that's one issue to deal with. But, simply selling a modified version doesn't seem like it should be illegal. Just imagine the uproar if the same rules applied to automobiles? Of course, with cars becoming increasingly computerized, it's probably only a matter of time until someone is sued for either modifying their car or selling the tools to do so.
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same as those useless ipod
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minority report
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bad analogy.
When you chip a car, you're pretty much doing the same thing as when you overclock your PC: You reprogram it to operate outside the manufacturer's specifications. There's nothing about this activity that would imply an unlawful purpose... aside from perhaps a little speeding ;-)
When you chip a console, you do it explicitly to disable the copy-protection. While YOU may not be doing it to play pirated games, the vast majority of people are. In fact, I don't know of any local modchippers who won't also try to sell you an HD preloaded with dozens of games. That kind of crap makes it possible for the industry to justify the DMCA!
Even without the DMCA, a product that defeats copy-protection and is mainly used for illicit purposes is a sitting duck for civil action. With the DMCA, it's explcitly illegal. The DMCA will never affect non-infringing modifications.
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Re: bad analogy.
The same holds true for mod chips on consoles... most people do it to copy games. However, there are some perfectly legal reason to mod a system. I modded my xbox because I wanted the media center functionality that is available.
So, while I don't disagree that most people mod their systems to copy games, I do not agree with your statement.
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Tools vs intent
The problem here is that there is an assumption that all modchips are designed specifically for piracy. Modchips could be - and I believe are - used to store the entire game on a Hard Disk instead of having to root around for the disk.
I don't have a console, but I do have dozens of no-CD patches for games. In every case I own the game. Would this be a felony under the DMCA? I suspect that it might be.
I watch DVDs - that I own - on my Palm handheld. If the DVD has encryption which I have to break in order to watch my DVD on my handheld, would this be a felony? I believe that it is.
"The DMCA will never affect non-infringing modifications."
Where does it say that? What are "non-infringing modifications"? How are they defined?
The sooner the existing copyright laws are thrown out and replaced with legislation built around the concept of commercial exploitation - rather than copying - the sooner this mess will be sorted into something that makes sense for non-lawyers.
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bad analogy
What the article didn't mention is what charge the company that was fined 9 million bucks was convicted of. They couldn't just fine them; they had to be charged and convicted of a real crime, not some made up BS.
Give us the whole story next time.
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Re: bad analogy
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Replaced or modified?
Any experts out there that could weigh in on this?
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Yeah, right!
GROW UP! The gov't does whatever it wants, and since Big Business gives LOTS of money to keep those already in the gov't IN gov't, they get to do whatever they want, too! "System of checks and balances," my @**! When they're all bought and paid for, there's no such thing.
This is and has always been about the allmighty dollar. There ARE legitimate uses for a mod chip, and it IS necessary to disable the protection. The DMCA wants to shut down the 9yr old who develops his own games because his company will eventually put them out of business, and they know it. They're protecting their bottom line just like they always do. It's much easier to get the gov't to do the dirty work by suing a rival company into oblivion than it is to acutally make a better product and allow competition and capitalism to do its job by rewarding hard work.
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Re: Yeah, right!
All high and mighty, aren't we?
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first success for the Game Industry and I couldn't help but notice that the chip firm in question was specifically providing tools for breaking copyright. IANAL, but that looks like a crime to me with my limited understanding of intent.
Also, to set you straight on a few political issues... The president had extremely just cause for spying on people inside the coutry talking to known terrorists outside the country. Given the circumstances, I fully appreciate that the president circumvented a process that caused us to miss the important calls. Besides, any Joe Criminal with any electrical equipment knowledge can spy on your cell phone calls and I'm pretty sure that they don't have permission or just cause.
We invaded a country that it was publicly and well known to have WMDs, since we're the ones who sold to them. We found a lot of containers that were verified to have once contained WMDs. While we did not find the production labs or newer materials, that does not mean that they weren't shipped across a border to avoid detection.
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Re: Re: Yeah, right!
Thank god you aren't a lawyer... We'd all be in trouble then. But those tools that they were providing? Sure, they can be used for ill. From TFA:
Just because the can be used the way described doesn't mean that they are. I chipped my box and use the HDLoader tool as well... ANd I put a huge HD in as well. All my games load from HD. I bought them all too. Why? The read from HD is much faster (about 8x faster!) than read from disc.
Now, are people using them improperly? Sure. But people are using the Internet improperly too. Maybe I should sue Verizon. Oh, wait, they got protection somehow for people using their tubes illegally.
And while you spout the standard right-wing garbage, the rest of us can just go on knowing that what the president was wrong, because the spying was far more widespread than just people talking to known terrorists. As far as the WMDs? The containers found were over 8 years old. Quit hanging on to a failing administration. One day, you'll look back on your post and laugh, saying "Damn, was I dumb back then."
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Links are their for a reason
"In what has been labeled a "major victory" for the entertainment software industry, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced today that a federal court in California has ordered a group of defendants to pay over $9 million in damages for violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)."
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Modding your CAR legal?
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Re: Modding your CAR legal?
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Re: Modding your CAR legal?
http://priuschat.com
can be a useful resource
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Copying Games...
The problem here is not the mod chip maker. It is those who use the mod chip to copy games they have not purchased.
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two cents worth
Wait...every product can be modded so that it does something the manufacture did not intend it to do...A ball point pen can be used to stab someone, a periodical (magazine) could be used as a weapon and someone could be bludgeoned to death with it all for the theft of a pair of brand name athletic shoes.
Look out weedwacker, clothing...NO! I know he isn't wearing that tie with that shirt, that is a violation of the shirt makers intent....sue, sue, sue America. What ever happened to punish the guilty leave the rest of us alone?
Ask yourself at what level do you want to be regulated, and support that with all your might.
Caution, the thought police could find you guilty because you are thinking outside the accepted parameters.
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Same BS- go after the regular people, leave the cr
I think the Mod chips should be legal. Same issue as gun control. Some assholes break the law, the law goes after everyone who is easy to go after, all the women and children are safe from illegal video games and uncle Bob who likes to shoot skeet at the range. Criminals continue doing whatever they want.
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Infringing on our rights
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Stop thinking and STFU.
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Re: Stop thinking and STFU.
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Speeding is illegal AND life threating
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that's that.
now with mod chips...
i believe they should be legal. however, if the company specifically states opening up the unit and making modifications is illegal, then, well you broke their agreement. making the chip is aiding and abeting (can't spell)
these mod chips are used for both "fair use" and illegal practices. just like everything else. turbo chargers/nos are added to street cars to make them faster (break speed limits) car mods can be used to enhance the performance to get better gas mileage, run cleaner, and the like.
with a mod chip,i can play copied games, imported games, or backups of my own games. coppied games are illegal, and backups are protected under fair use still? right? now imports i'm iffy on. i'm sure, that they are illegal because they aren't licensed for the particular country. however, must we restrict fair use on eveything to protect the copyrights of a small portion of people?
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legitimate copying
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Courts have too much power
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I think this analogy makes perfect sense. Modding your car to disable the top speed cut-off is legal but that doesn't make you a criminal unless you are actually going above the posted speed limit. I chipped my PS2 so I can play a copy of the original (which I purchased) so I can keep it in a safe location (toddlers have ways to get to ANYTHING).
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Get over it!
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Cable Black Boxes...
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HA HA
Just dont get caught. I have a modded XBOX. If you hit either the power, or cd tray button seperately, it just boots up the microsoft OS. But, press both buttons at the same time, and voila! you have a modded XBOX and modded OS. This option still allows me to get online with XBOX Live! undetected (which M$ says should not be possible) and play games with the joy of knowing that I have over 100 games on my XBOX for easy access makes my Pee Pee happy. Now granted, I own all of these games, but I will have a friend or two over, and they might bring over some games that allow network play, and dont you know it, we just happen to mysteriously have a copy of that game on my XBOX. When they leave, it dissappears...
Its kinda like bondage, as long as its done in the privacy of your own home, know one will know about it. Until you receive a 20 page document about the user rights to buying an XBOX that have to be read, signed, and noterized before you purchase, use, or open the box for the first time then dont worry.
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If Carlos Mencia was here, alot of you would be De
Just remember that to almost everything corporate, money is god, not protection of your product.
I think you will see game costs rising, while mod chip prices go up and the easy of modding a game console with become easier. Shoot, when will MS and Sony, and Nintendo just start selling their modchips? They already lose money on the consoles... why not patent several versions of ways to mod your own console, then sell them so that other modchips cannot be created or sold? this would drop the price for people who do not want to mod their console, and then those modders could get all the goodies they wanted. This gives all the big corps room for selling the programs for these modded boxes. People simply look too much at the problem, and not enough at the obvious solution. If you dont like mice in your house, dont just put out traps, clean the house and bring in some cats.
Out play the pirates, and make them want to work for you, not against you.
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Principles of modding a car do apply
The same apply's for modding the game console. You do have the ability to copy games, etc. However, you are not committing a crime unless you are doing so. I guess you could possibly be using backup versions of your games.
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Re: If Mod Chip Firms Get Fined, Should Pep Boys S
If the mod chips for consoles added performance only when they first started then it may have come out differently. But now even if a mod chip came out to boost performance only it would still be banned because of all the others that came before it which circumvented the protection.
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There is a reason...
With an automotive computer in your engine compartment, no matter what you do, you will always be hampered by the limitations of that computer. Modding a car's computer is completely within the rights of the owner, but it usually takes very specific tools and procedures. Screw it up and the car won't run right. I'll stick with my old analog engine/system.
On the other hand, modding a game console is also completely within the owner's rights, but doing so includes the option of 'pre-supposed suspicious behavior'. If you mod your game system, people are going to assume that you are doing it for something of questionalble legality.
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Re: Re: Re: Yeah, right!
Sorry, I used the wrong term before, its not intent its inducement. I too have a modded Xbox with a big HD with all of my legal games on it to keep my kids from destroying any more games. I know that the software is capable of illegal use but the fact that my modchip was sold without any software other than a legal bios I'd have to say that the software is what lost the case for the modchip firm in TFA. Without some sort of software the modchip is next to useless. They could have bundled a bootable Xbox Linux DVD instead of the software designed to copy copyrighted material. In other words, modchips themselves are legal. Its the software that the modchips allow to run being bundled with the chips that cause the problem.
It is legal to own a radar/laser detector anywhere in the US, but many states have laws against actually using them. People may look at you funny if you have a detector hanging in you home/room but there is nothing illegal happening there. The instant you apply power to the device while in a vehicle, moving or not, you are using a device intended to circumvent traffic laws by allowing you to know when you are being checked for speed.
I don't care what you think about the current administration and I personally don't agree with everything done, but I feel much less secure knowing that several top secret programs that were measurably thwarting terrorists were illegally leaked and then published publicly. I am somewhat familiar with the laws that pertain to leaking classified information that posses a serious and very real threat to national security. Once the leak is routed out they will make an example of him/her/them. It is fully within current standing federal law for the leak and the publishers of the information to be executed for treason during a time of war. I doubt they will be though, its far more likely they will be living it up in a cushy Fed Pen for 20 to 40 years each.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Yeah, right!
"Measurably thwating terrorists" is a bunch of baloney, as far as the public should be concerned. To my knowledge, the administration has never given anyone outside the government enough access for to allow them to make a reasonable conclusion as to the success of these programs. The only thing the public has to indicate that the progams are a success are the assurances of the administration. Many in the public rightfully demand more.
And, in case you haven't noticed, we're not fighting a war. Wars are declared by Congress, and Congress hasn't declared one in quite some time. Congress has for the most part agreed not to deny funding for many of the administration's military activities, but that does not make a war.
Last, but not least, we are foolish not to require the administration to get warrants to listen in on US citizens. The Constitution requires due process for the government to impede our rights, which include our Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and siezure. While I agree the government should be able to listen in on calls between US citizens and foriegn terrorists, the Constitution requires that the US government *demonstrate* (ideally, to the courts) that it has good reason to believe that the foriegners on the other end of the call are, in fact terrorists. Allowing agencies to listen in at their own discretion does not constitute due process. What is to prevent someone from listening in at will and then just saying, "Oh, I thought a terrorist was on the other end," when discovered. And what oversight is there to even allow the discovery and punishment of abuse? The administration is rightly opposed on many of its survielance programs.
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re: two cents worth
Compare it to the Law Makers holding Weapons Manufactures responsible for the products they make because they could be used in a crime or Alcohol makers responsible for the actions of the people that misuse and/or abuse their products
the problem with that line of reasoning is that guns are protected by a huge lobby, the NRA. alchohol is a huge source of taxes for the federal govt. which is why it's legal despite all of the damage it does. it's the same story with cigarettes and gasoline.
the reason that mod-chips are illegal is that there is no lobby protecting the mod-chip industry. also, guns and booze (and cars for that matter) are sold at a profit, consoles are not.
game companies' problem isn't game piracy. the gaming industry has grown up with piracy and it's just a part of the price of doing business. the problem with modchips is that most consoles are sold at up to a 50% loss, with the hope that companies will make more money on games. if you buy the console, then mod it and don't buy games, then the companies are out the %50 loss they took and won't make it back from games that you never buy.
i purchased my xbox with the express intent of modding it so it would be a media center. i put a bigger HDD in it to accomodate movies, music, and a ton of emulators and it has the one feature that even the sexiest HTPC doesn't: the ability to play xbox games.
it does everything the 360 does but play 360 games. i wanted to buy and mod a PSP, but thanks to sony's anti-homebrew stunts, i won't buy one at all.
anytime a new cool gadget is released, it gets modded. if the mod community likes your gadget enough enought to take it apart, then you know you made a good one. before the PSP was the xbox, before the xbox was the iOpener. companies fight the mod community and it does nothing but hurt the product. that's why the iOpeners don't exist anymore.
people aren't stupid, if you build a computer out of computer parts, disable some of the computer features and sell it for less than the price of a cheap computer, someone is going to turn it back into a computer.
if you want to stop losing money on consoles that people mod, stop selling them at a loss. if you don't lose money on the console you can sell your games for cheaper as well. sell the console at cost and embrace the hardware mod community to the fullest extent, and then take the cool things they come up with and sell your own branded mods that don't void the warranty. but hey, why change business models now, when things are working out so well for you the way that they are?
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they were cardridges, right? not so easily copied?
but i ugess that was before computers, where roms could be made. go to propiratery data storage? something no one could really mess with?
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Re:
Actually, all the ROMs that people play on current consoles as well as PCs were ripped from carts, and most of the time it was with a set of Gator Clips (there were cart copying machines around as well). The practice of ripping games from carts goes all the way back to the first console.
So it would be accurate to say that the industry has lived with piracy from day one. It looks like it has thrived in spite of the piracy but I'm more inclined to think that mods (think game genie/shark) and piracy made up half of the appeal for the building up of the gaming industry beyond just the hardcore gamers.
Anon post 39, I think you're a little out of focus on the issue. Monetary loss was never part of the issue as discussed on this thread. The legality of using certain electronic components that cause certain objects to function outside the range of the manufacturer's intent was the issue at hand. And by that train of thought, the comparison is legit.
A quick recap:
Adding a chip to a propriatary computer to make it work other than the way the manufacturer intended is illegal. On consoles it is illegal under the DMCA if you install software capable of copying the copyrighted games, on cars it is illegal under the emmission laws and most likely you will get caught breaking traffic laws (speeding) unless you are using a radar detector (illegal in many states). We're fooq'd!
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A game console is a 2 item solution, the console is the 1st item, by itself is almost useless, its purpose is to play games that you buy which is the 2nd item of the solution. The game industry is powered by game sales, console sales either lose money or at best have a low profit margin. So by modding your console to play pirated games, you're stealing money out of the industry and the game makers.
By modding your car, you aren't stealing any money from the car makers. They already made their money when you bought the car. That is why they don't care if you mod your car and game makers do care if you mod your console.
It's not rocket science.
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re: cartidges
did anyone pirate old NES/super nintendo/sega genesis games? they were cardridges, right? not so easily copied?
cartridges cost more to produce. that's why the CD was such a revolution, it's cheap to produce, meaning greater profits. besides, buying DMCA legislation, and pushing it in court, is *WAY* cheaper than retooling your manufacturing process.
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One on hand.. on the other
No one forces people to buy products that companies produce that the companies intend on being protected (to protect revenue in this sense), so in that case, one libertarian side of me says these guys are just pirates and deserve punishment.
My other side says the courts have so much better things to be doing, and if they don't, we need fewer courts.
Either way, considering their is a comparable good that people could get in which they know modding would be legal (but not piracy, which is universally criminal), then I dont see how blame can be shifted.
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fuck em
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Parallel to head shops
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yo
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