Men Face criminal charge for Xbox Tampering

Reuters ^ | 12/20/2005 | cawats

[CAWats]

Men Face criminal charge for Xbox Tampering
Tue Dec 20, 2005 3:45 PM ET168

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have charged three men with copyright infringement for selling modified Xbox consoles that enabled the original video game machine from Microsoft Corp. to play pirated games.

The criminal complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday named ACME Game Store co-owners Jason Jones, 34, and Jonathan Bryant, 44, as well as Pei "Patrick" Cai, 32.

[Knitebane]

I get the impression I'll be inviting you to jump on your hobby horse soap box here but, it is Christmas, so go on...... why a 'socialist'?

Bill Gates personally funds the UN Population Fund which in turn funds forced sterilizations and forced abortions in third world countries.

He also supports a variety of other leftist causes.

[Knitebane]

Because he is giving away billions of dollars to save some of the suffering this planet offers to its denizens?

You mean "giving away billions of dollars to forcibly sterilize women in third world countries"?

I wonder who, exactly, is being "saved" from all of this "suffering." Not the women being chemically sterilized against their will.

[Knitebane]

It's amazing to think that the same people around here who despise George Soros have no problem with lionizing Bill Gates. Both fund the same causes.
right?

[PjhCPA]

His start came with his co-inventing the harddisk operating system.

Neither Bill Gates or Microsoft has ever invented anything.

[Brit_Guy]

Well, I've followed your links and remain unconvinced. I am sure I have given big chunks of my wealth myself to Charities which maybe haven't used the money quite as I had hoped (I can think of one story relating to the recent Asian Tsunami, where one charity I gave too did something staggeringly stupid). That said, on balance, UNPF probably does more good than harm and the example you cite in peru was clearly just an example of misapporiation.

They guy doesn't have to give any of his wealth away. He does. By and large the money he gives away does a great deal of net good. Whatever else his faults, cudos to him for that.

[Glenn]

Not the women being chemically sterilized against their will.

Thanks for your input.

[antiRepublicrat]

if the buyer knows.. is there a crime here?

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes reverse-engineering and bypassing security measures illegal, even on your own box. It's the same law that makes backing up a DVD illegal. There are a couple allowances in the law, such as for compatibility and research, but they are largely ignored by the deep-pocket companies who will go after you if you decide to tinker.

[antiRepublicrat]

A rat, by any other name, is still a democrat. :-)

I resent that statement. I had a pet rat, and he was sweet.

[John Robertson]

"if the buyer knows.. is there a crime here?"

uh, yeah. and now he's a criminal, too.

[antiRepublicrat]

Neither Bill Gates or Microsoft has ever invented anything.

Bob, Clippy, personalized menus. Okay, so they invented three of the worst things in computing history, but they still invented them.

Although hardware-wise they did come out with the first comfortable mouse.

[montag813]

Once again we see prosecutors with too much time on their hands. Like the ones who charged that woman with 1st degree murder for killing her daughter's rapist. Today's classroom brownnosing weasels are tomorrow's prosecutors.

[Nonesuch]

This was hashed out pretty well on Slashdot.

Reading the article, the key factor is that they weren't just charging for the "mod chip", but also for pirated copies of dozens of games:

They charged from $225 to more than $500 for the modifications, depending on the extent of the modifications and the number of games preloaded onto the hard drive, according to a statement from prosecutors and the complaint affidavit obtained by Reuters.

During the investigation, undercover agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid $265 to have a modification chip, a hard drive and 77 pirated games installed on an Xbox, according to the criminal complaint.

So this isn't the pure "mod chip test case" that people are looking for, but rather your everyday bulk video game piracy bust.

[SALChamps03]

He stole Windows if I remember correctly from something Steve Jobs of Apple was working on.

[antiRepublicrat]

So this isn't the pure "mod chip test case" that people are looking for, but rather your everyday bulk video game piracy bust.

Let'em burn for the piracy, I have no sympathy. But you're right, it makes for a bad DMCA test case on the issue of circumvention simply because they're pirates. I'm sure Corely (2600) lost the DeCSS case partially because he could be portrayed as an evil hacker.

[unixfox]

He stole Windows if I remember correctly from something Steve Jobs of Apple was working on.

And Steve Jobs stole the idea from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center).

[sam_paine]

DMCA bogeyman again.

[mikegi]

I had my fill of Bill Gates after he purposely set out to, and did, destroy Stack Industries.

The company was "Stac Electronics". A jury ruled that Msft infringed on (in your terminology "stole") Stac patents but not willfully, and awarded damages to Stac. The court also ruled Stac "stole" Msft's technology and awarded damages to Msft.

I'm very uncomfortable with software IP in general. Lawyers buy up patents or failing companies and then go after big companies (because that's where the money is). Big companies use software IP lawyers to attempt to squash little companies, an intimidation tactic used to get the little guy to sell out cheaply - eg. sic lawyers on the little guy then ask him to come work for them (a "deal you can't refuse").

IP lawyers have descended on the software world en masse in the last 10-15 years. They will kill the software industry in the USA unless they're stopped.

[whd23]

He got the money from two places. One was his daddy, an Intellectual Property lawyer and also from sales of his BASIC compiler, which he got by stealing the work of others.

Hey, I'm no Gates fan but how do you figure he "stole" the work of others by writing a BASIC interpreter for the Altair? At best, I think you could argue that they misappropriated Harvard's computer time running their 8080 simulator.

[expat_panama]

During the investigation, undercover agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid $265...

Unfortunately, since our public servants had to allocate scarce tax dollars on this important case, they were forced to leave the borders unguarded for six months.

Come on people, is this really our highest priority?

[antiRepublicrat]

And Steve Jobs stole the idea from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center).

More like "bought." They paid for the visit.