Home Phone and Internet $60/moFeds' raids hit alleged mod chip smugglers
Look out, modders: federal customs agents have just announced a new crackdown on the smuggling of "illegal" devices that enable gamers to play pirated wares on Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 2 and other consoles.
As part of an ongoing investigation into the sale and distribution of such "circumvention devices," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from 22 offices said they raided businesses, storefronts and residents in 16 states on Wednesday. They reported executing 32 search warrants, but there was no word on whether any arrests were made.
The ICE agents said they're targeting chips and devices that were manufactured in foreign countries and exported to the United States, allowing gamers to play "illegally obtained, pirated and/or counterfeit software." They're also getting help from the Justice Department's computer crime unit and from the entertainment industry.
The feds are heralding the raids as "the largest national enforcement action of its kind targeting this type of illegal activity." They said they're not ready, however, to reveal any specifics about the operation, such as names and addresses of their targets.
According to ICE, mod chips and circumvention devices violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 federal law that prohibits people from sidestepping copy-protection mechanisms, albeit with some exceptions.
Sony, for one, has been using that argument for years in its own fight against modders in the United States and elsewhere, and Microsoft has also taken legal action against vendors of XBox hacking tools in the past.
The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the video game industry, argues the allegedly illicit activities siphon billions of dollars from console makers, game developers and others in the industry worldwide. Nintendo, for its part, said in a statement Wednesday that it has seized more than 91,000 counterfeit Wii discs globally since April and estimates last year's piracy-related sales losses at $726 million.
ICE assistant secretary Julie Myers claimed the problem is worse than just unrealized money in the bank. Such crimes, she said in a press release, also "facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."
- Tags:
-
video games,
-
Wii,
-
Xbox,
-
copyright,
-
piracy
- Bookmark:
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
I fully understand that in most cases these chips are being used for illegal activities.
I believe the manufacturers, should make a program that first detects if you have the game console, and that it is registered. If so, allow you to make one backup of the disc once per year.
Keep a database of all the copies that each user makes, and see if they are being played at the same time.
If they are then call in the authorities. It is not illegal to make or use backups of disc you own. Once you sell/trade your disc, then all copies made needs to be destroyed.
circumvention is what is illegal. so creating, distributing or using a circumvention device is illegal, but the idea of a backup itself is perfectly legal.
the fact that it is impossible to make the backup legally is immaterial.
Usually the people who do this modding or hacking do it for the novelty of having a machine that has simply the ability to do those seemingly illegal things. Little money is lost there. Those that do it to steal copies of games to play for free largely, that is some where around 80% of them never would have bought the game anyway, so again no sale lost. These people would get friends games to borrow or find a used one for like 70% cheaper in which case the game makers get no more sales again.
Besides all in all what this comes down too is digital data. It is free basically to make minus the cost of a computer and the electricity to do it, so it is not as if someone is losing the manufacturing cost as one would find with physical goods like the cost of the actual game console. One might venture to say that the cost of production lies with the games makers, i.e. the software writers and corporate big shots, but they make their money back after the first few thousand games are sold which when mixed in with their marketing deals and campaigns for each game will get them more than a pretty profit for each game. And then say when a game does extremely well like the Metal Gear series or Madden Football they make millions and millions.
Game makers really haven't lost that much money, just like Microsoft never lost the billions of dollars they claim because those millions of people in China I'm sure would have all gone down to there local computer store to buy a legit copy. If it was the case that MS was not so easily obtainable then everyone would run Linux because they would not pay for it. So basically what it all comes down to is money and marketing as usual. The companies just want to seem big and scary to keep people in line, so they get the MPAA and the Feds to attack all who oppose. That and they may actually believe they'll get a millions of dollars more if they curbed hacking, which they won't.
Facts are facts, game sales have not gone down but rather up, CD's DVD's are still selling but with the advent of online LEGAL movie and music downloading and renting like at the Apple Store, Napster, and Blockbuster people have less of a need or desire to buy the actual PHYSICAL DVD or CD and just get the data. Games too are now entering that same realm if they haven't already been there for years and so perhaps a decline will eventually occur with that too.
All in all I understand companies need to keep people in fear, just so modding and hacking won't get too far and they do lose a significant profit. So people of the world, hacking and modding is a great thing: keep it up but keep it at a reasonable level in terms of industry products. We cannot have them suing all of us for our grandfathers making a single copy of a children's video to give to our young nephew.
Cheers.
Definately don't hold the companies responsible for making stuff that causes kids to blow all their time and not get thier **** done, forget what playing outside is all about and basically accomplish nothing while trying to get to the next level.