Fear & Loathing Over Feds' Mod Chip Sting
Fear & Loathing Over Feds' Mod Chip Sting
August 4, 2007
On Thursday the ESA, which represents the interests of US video game publishers, sent out a press release trumpeting a federal government take-down of mod chip purveyors in 16 states.Game-oriented websites, including this one, covered the story using fairly straightforward reporting: searches were executed, evidence was seized, blah-blah-blah...
Over at Dvorak Uncensored, however, maverick tech guru John Dvorak questioned the entire operation, writing:
Are you kidding me? With drug dealers everywhere, murder, porous borders, terrorism the Feds are concerned about game mods?? Holy crap.
Next I supposed they will be cracking heads over unlocked phones. Great.
Judging from coments to the article, Dvorak's readers were of a similar mind. One griped about the unfairness of regional restrictions built into games:
This is a really gray area. It’s true that a modded system will play copied games, but is also true that the mods allow people to play games not available in that region... I couldn’t buy my son the Crayon Shin Chan game because well, it’s a japanese only game with no plans of being published for America.
A common theme among Dvorak readers was that federal resources could be better allocated:
Defending copyright protection isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about “Homeland Security”. So, we can’t keep 12M Mexicans from coming here illegally, but we’ll make sure Sony is taken care of… [the official in charge] needs to get a real assignment over at Homeland Security, like working on actual security.
Yet others saw government repression in the mod chip bust:
hope some of you realize just how ominous a sign this is - we’re not talkin’ games here, this is genuine fascist police-state shit... when the gov’t starts using force against citizens on behalf of corporations, this is how a true fascist state comes into being.
One reader tried to place the piracy issue in perspective:
Although the insanity of being unable to play any game from anywhere is clear... we know that... mod chips are used almost exclusively to make illegal copies to sell or give away... On the other hand, the claims of billions and billions of dollars lost are clearly insane.
GP: While we understand the game publishers' desire to enforce their copyrights, Dvorak and his readers make some excellent points as well.
VOTE! The mod chip raids have sparked plenty of concern and some outrage in the gaming community. Even for non-gamers, it raises important questions about how Homeland Security forces are being used. Be sure to vote on this important issue. The poll is on the upper right sidebar of GP.
A PUBLICATION OF THE ECA
SUBSCRIBE
LOGIN
Copyright © 2007 ECA. All rights reserved.
Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Comments
http://lawofthegame.blogspot.com/2007/08/mod-chip-raids-what-happens-now...
And what bearing does the percentage of defendants who were end-users have on whether everyone here is "scared they might get dragged into the legal battles?" I for one have never modded a console, haven't bought a console in six years, and don't have much interest in buying another. I complain about this because I am a libertarian Anti-Federalist, not because I'm scared I'll get caught for something I don't do.
"This is no different than than making counterfeit drugs, counterfeit currency, trafficking in counterfeit goods, etc. The guys getting served warrants sell the chips; thats distribution. This is crime handled by Federal law. This shouldn’t be old news to anybody."
Yes, I am well aware of the DMCA, and the vast abuse of the Interstate Commerce clause which has brought us to the point that it can even appear legitimate. Cognizance, however, is a far cry from approval. Even if the law weren't so nefarious, I would still think that using ICE to secure our ports and borders is far more important than using them to go after mod chips..
"You just dont get it do you? I already stated above, Feds have to take a look at corporate loss when the company can show its greater than $5,000. Consider that theres a large distinction between traffic accidents at crosswalks and trafficking in counterfeit goods (in which in this case, its providing equipment which breaches the license agreement you accept when you buy the console, which is there to prevent counterfeiting; even so the equipment; mod chips; is being profited on)."
Over $5K and a massive piracy operation in interstate commerce, sure, let the Feds handle it. But DHS/ICE? Maybe if they catch some mod chips being imported (as in, Customs Enforcement), okay. But otherwise send in an FBI agent with some Sheriffs to serve a Federal warrant. I mean, really, is full-blown ICE raid necessary?
And one guy in Idaho with a single mod chip? He'd need a stack of a couple hundred pirated games to make a Federal raid worth the trip and worth bringing Federal charges against him. Even then, the mind boggles what kind of probable cause was used for such a fruitless raid..
then why are not computers cracked down upon? they are responsible for 50% or more of the supposed montrary loss, and with sites like youtube and torrents and others computers have been shown to infringe and grow the supposed black market,thus computers must be removed from every home across the nation to protect the bottom line, after that permits can be gained to to show you will not abuse the rights you once had.
Man you only further substantiate this when you talk about 1 guy in idaho getting the attention of the feds. You show me where even 25% of these served warrants were for the consumers of mod chips. Good luck.
illspirit Says: That one’s pretty big too. Who said anything about putting _all_ law enforcement on the border? The criticism here is that the agency whose primary job is to secure the border and ports isn’t doing their job. Let alone the fact that a minor crime such as the guy in Idaho with a single mod chip shouldn’t be the Federal government’s business either way. Save for a few powers granted in Article I of the Constitution, general law enforcement is supposed to be a function of State and local governments.
This is no different than than making counterfeit drugs, counterfeit currency, trafficking in counterfeit goods, etc. The guys getting served warrants sell the chips; thats distribution. This is crime handled by Federal law. This shouldn't be old news to anybody.
illspirit Says: Or are you saying you’d rather have the Fed’s do everything? Maybe we could even get the ATF to take over for school crossing guards or something? After all, the kids would definitely wait for the signal if there was a heavily armed, Darth Vader lookalike shouting orders at them..
You just dont get it do you? I already stated above, Feds have to take a look at corporate loss when the company can show its greater than $5,000. Consider that theres a large distinction between traffic accidents at crosswalks and trafficking in counterfeit goods (in which in this case, its providing equipment which breaches the license agreement you accept when you buy the console, which is there to prevent counterfeiting; even so the equipment; mod chips; is being profited on).
While they were likely trying to make an example of modders, I doubt it will do too much more than enforce the mentality of "it's breaking the law only if you get caught, so just be more careful how you do it".
so you want the FBI enforcing poor laws that break other laws because the media mafia says so?
If this had anythign to do with real crime I would not dismiss this as a joke,a sad costly joke.
just think of the moeny wasted on this it could have been used to get illagle imagrant criminals out of the country it could have been used to correctly possess and let in immigrants,it could have been used better than to bash the bully pulpit over the heads of a bunch of geeks with "chips".....
LightWarrior
basically the right set of events happen the goverment goes into full martial law mode and lingers there with the constitution suspended and a goverment who interferes with the public on the behalf of the rich and powerful and even when it starts its going to take 20+ years for the people to wake to and realize they nightmare they are in, thankful I wont live to see it but still a very real lien of thought if the goverment can not rebalanced and sustain itself.
If the new admin can set things right in the next few years prehaps its gods joke on humans and goverment,a cosmic game of tit for tat with the ball bounding in and out of human foolishness.
Ummmm, I know quiet a few people with mod chips installed on their consoles (mainly PS2) and they have 0 pirated games. The reason they have them is to play imported games and that is it. Not to say mod chips aren't used by a lot of people to pirate games, but saying they're used exclusively for pirating is wrong.
The claim of Billions of dollars lost is both ludicrous and probably fabricated. This is capitalism. If you don't want to pay for something, you won't.
Instead of targeting people with ONE MOD CHIP, why don't they target people who sell counterfeit games?
Mike has some answering to do for tauting this as a victory, while costing everyone else.
I need to hear THE MAN, Hal Halpin's take on this.
and the goverment (being controlled by the elite and powerful) can dismiss "us" as fringe groups and basically close down what lil freedom we have left in order to protect their hold on power and show a good face to the world.
In order for civil war to do anythign more than blow up in its face more than half the nation would have to stop what they are doing and march on Washington,and sadly to get that many people to think with a hive mind will take a few decades of hard oppression by the goverment.
As the goverment is right now its spiraling slowly into that dark night of revolution it might take 50-100 more years for thos in power to stay in power but without balance in the goverment the goverment will break.
Government,its like making sausages...only with people.... 0-o *shudders*
I just hope i'm there to see it. Our government needs a massive overhall and restructuring.
But the way things keep going down the drain by the year in this country. Zippy is right...something might happen years and years later...who knows.
Frankly there are more important things the FBI should be doing than cracking down on a few guys modding consoles. Specially since what those 30 "raids" doubtfully put even a dent in the business. I highly doubt only 30people have been supplying the country with illegal mods. I also have to agree with the guy who says the monetary loss from modding and piracy is extremely overstated.
Either way this exercise by the FBI was a complete waste of time and resources.
the middle ground is to keep the gray area gray let fair use be and let people import mod chips and modding devices,smite the sellers and sharers of the games not the mods chips witch fall under fair use.
unfortunately if we did they would not only close us down and subjugate us to keep the peace,that will either cause a cival war or a defacto dictatorship under the guise of martial law,after all they need to keep the peace to keep money flowing into the hands of their "keepers" so it dos enot matter if this peace is "martial" or not 0-o.
The governments are to blame as well. The fact is that they want revenue for their own country to exist and force them to have certain standards of quality for each region, besides it pulls in "jobs" too.
Them wanting to make it region free would make the manufacturers and the government nuts. Sure, the DS is only seen as a handheld, which is just some other legal ground.
Although the PS3 is region free, the movies aren't, so it is locked in some way. I'm sure running Linux can help break that or make a work-around...
offer up a monthly/annual insurance policy against disk damage, for a cost.
SilverStar, in case you didn't realize, retailers are already doing this, and its $1 a month or something. However, it seems fairly useless due to how people like to take care of disks. The only thing I see difficult about this back-up issue is that BDs are going the route of innate disk protection for the day-to-day wear-and-tear.
Anyway, due to licensese (hence money) the idea of region free is out of the question for many. They are in businesses to make money, and well, you'd kill a source of revenue for them if it were region free. Then, the government would feel more upset if imports didn't happen.
We also would have problems getting back-ups, as the manufacturers know there'll always be one person that'll distribute back-ups.
There's just no easy way around it, each back-up is pretty much unauthorized, no matter how legal it is...
What I liked seeing once though, was that Galatic Civilizations 2 makers didn't have ANY DRM, and allowed you to make as many back-ups as you want, and you can install the game to a few PCs, but you can only get updates if you had the keycode.
They emphasized there should be less focus on DRM (if not any), and more focus on increasing sales.
It worked for them, and I'm sure it could work for many others.
The proof pretty much exists... gamecube was the longest that many weren't able to pirate, and it sold the least. Xbox and PS2 were full of mods, and it helped increased sales.
the PS3 is also a freaking monster hardware wise thus it might take a bit longer for full chips to come out for it.
PS3? Region-free. Is there a mod chip for it yet?
Wii.. Region Locked. Chipped within a month.
If they made the systems region-free, then it'd be no problem at all in going after chip makers and suppliers around the world, because then their only reasonable legal defense goes up in smoke. That defense being, that you can play games from any region.
Being able to make your own backups for personal use.. Well, here's an idea for easy money for the console makers: offer up a monthly/annual insurance policy against disk damage, for a cost. It literally costs them only pennies to press the game. And late in the console lifecycle, or even right at the end, modchips are completely a non-issue, so if people want to make their own backups, for when the insurance runs out, they could go right ahead.
Gamers, remember that press release the next time ESA tries to befriend you for the advancement of the video game industry.
I know I will.
Scorched earth tactics work both ways ESA.
Disgusting.
Nice straw man you got there. How much did the fire insurance cost on one that big?
"You know what, forget all this, lets just put all law enforcement on drugs and border patrol cause we need to go ahead and let the rest of it fall apart anyway."
That one's pretty big too. Who said anything about putting _all_ law enforcement on the border? The criticism here is that the agency whose primary job is to secure the border and ports isn't doing their job. Let alone the fact that a minor crime such as the guy in Idaho with a single mod chip shouldn't be the Federal government's business either way. Save for a few powers granted in Article I of the Constitution, general law enforcement is supposed to be a function of State and local governments.
Or are you saying you'd rather have the Fed's do everything? Maybe we could even get the ATF to take over for school crossing guards or something? After all, the kids would definitely wait for the signal if there was a heavily armed, Darth Vader lookalike shouting orders at them..
For all of those who dismissed jakethe8lf, sure it was extreme but don't you see the irony of being afraid to stand up for fear of being put down hard. I keep arms at my house and have been raised around them for the sole purpose of it being the last trump card I have in case of war, invasion, or oppression. There are 300 million americans, only about 2 million soldiers. If enough people had a problem and rose up the regimes could be toppled.
Though right now we haven't hit the limit imo, and wanting to do it over gaming is a little extreme, but jakethe8lf has a fair perspective
Your right this doesn't seem like a big raid. The only reason it was probably done was because it was such a slam dunk for the ICE. Then again, some of these people might have connections to bigger pirate rings, and this is the the ICE's way of putting pressure on them to talk. Just a guess.
he also forgets that it would take most if not all the populace to rally on Washington that wont happen,and any small group of people who try it will be labeled and removed from creation.
hell even the US dose not get a lot of "original games and rpgs" we will get most of the mainstream titles that have multi regoin backing but beyond that we dont get the "best" of the lot.
BTW with digi distro in full swing you could buy a unlock code for 5$ to get your import running if they would implement it.
CyberSkull
frankly they should go into the homebrew scene do statistical data gathering set it up like steam and ban the consoles to people who can not play fair or cheat to the point of annoying everyone,lock the online if more than 10 copied games show up on it in less than a week call in to get it unlocked, I mean hell mix some of the stuff thats out their and make it only slightly annoying to the consumer as long as I can play imports,backups and cheat I will be happy to pay for live and a small 1 time fee for,innovation in captilisim is why it has grown stagnation in it only creates chaos and desolation.
Generally speaking, it's much safer for the Feds to go kicking in doors over minor crimes in small towns and such than it is to go after real criminals. ;)
jakethe8lf: "You have a second amendmant, use it. Take back your government!"
Not for long. Speaking of Feds gone wild in Idaho, google "Red's Trading Post." Long story short, Red's is a 70 year-old, family owned, small town gun shop that the Feds have been harassing for the last five or six years. Now, I'm all for prosecuting real, shady arms dealers, but there are no charges of any guns from this shop being used in crimes. The ATF has been spending millions of dollars to fly agents out from Seattle every two weeks for several years because they found a few minor paperwork errors before. Think undotted i's and uncrossed t's, and forms with "Y" or "N" instead of "yes" or "no."
If this was just a matter of an across-the-board crackdown on illicit arms, that would be one thing. But if you ask your local police when was the last time the ATF or DOJ brought Federal charges (felon in possession, smuggling across State lines, etc..) against an actual criminal, they'll tell you it's quite rare. If ever. For the most part, the Feds are so busy trying to bully legitimate gun shops out of business that they (conveniently) don't have time to chase dangerous criminals.
If they eventually close all the shops, the Second Amendment would become obsolete. Kinda hard to keep and bear something you can't buy. :p
But, yea, apply this reasoning (or lack thereof) to mod chips, and is really any surprise they're wasting time and taxpayer money on them?
Shin Chan isn't the type of thing you let you kids see. from what i've seen of the show it's like south park, (looks like it's for kids, but really for adults). maybe the game is different? i doubt it, though.
We get loads of those damn sports titles and movie tie ins.
The more original games that are released here are as mostly difficult to find and only available in low numbers.
We have to wait months for localised versions that we don't really need because most of Europe can read and speak english by now.
In return for the wait we get black and white abbridged instruction booklets and irritating choose your language boxes that you have to select every d*mn time you load a game.
I hate the region locking, but if they must, could they please unlock the games that would probably not make it over here anyway?
Or just make them available without the "localisation" with the right region code?
Learn this equation and make your customers happy.
I could be wrong, but I've come to the conclusion that the reason they are so stubborn (particularly with the past titles) is probably due to contracts with the developers. It is they (and not solely the console selling companies, although thier greed enters in to it) who get paid liscensing fees after all. All systems save portable ones (due to the pretext that they were partially designed to take with you on planes) to my knowledge, have some sort of lockout or another (I don't think it became truly deliberate until the PSX generation though, but like I said, I could be wrong). With RPG's becoming more popular and various Japanese titles becoming more widely known in the US, people would definately want what they know they "lost" in the US (Seiken Densetsu 3, and Dragon Warriors 5 and 6 are classic examples). Not to mention how annoying it has to be for the EU people to have to wait as long as they do (especially for those who can speak and read english already). All that in mind, it is logical to at least provide the means to play it (it doesn't neccicarily have to be translated either) on virtual console or whatever. It's not like SRW, where copywrite issues would get in the way. It is either that or have to resort to one kind of Piracy (chipping, in the case of semi-modern games) or another (Emulation, for the oldest games) to get acess to these games. So with all that being said, even with thier seeming obliviousness to logic at times, it seems logical that they would at least allow acess to such materials without national restriction, so why do they still not do it when the chipset is fundamentally similar, just one chip activating a "country code" flag upon bootup. The only answer I can think of when it would be a profit and way of seizing a market for a company, is a contractual obligation tieing thier hands down.
Leaving it to a later generation is what the supposed "revolutionaries" in the 60's did and now you have the PATRIOT act.
You might want to hope Ron Paul gets elected. That guy is the only US senator I know that would honour the US constitution when in office.
and people think civil wars are pretty and will end in less than a decade or start up over night,it never happens like that, my point is any populace of people has the right to over throw its goverment...if it has the power to do so if it dose not then things change slowly/diffrently.
Kind of inevitable if you think about it.
The thing is, I highly doubt they discriminate between different types of mod chips. Anything that isn't a corporate approved release is a bad thing to them. And while we haven't had reports of arrests yet, none of the reports we've had thus far look much like a larger organized crime run operation like RawSteelUT mentions. That speaks to us of wasted resources and people that have been victimized by a bad law.
Not to mention I highly doubt that any of the people raided will be getting any confiscated equipment back in working order, if at all.
2. You guys need to calm down and take off the tin foil hats. On the whole Big Brother doesn't care or do much about your modded consoles that let you can play date sim games from Japan. 32 search warrents, that's at least 32 people who were affected by this raid. How many people in the U.S. use or sell moded consoles? Hell from what I've read so far there hasn't even been any arrests yet!
Whoa whoa whoa.
You're telling me that the Feds are searching people's homes for objects that MIGHT be used in a crime? I can understand if they have CONCRETE evidence that someone is using their modchip for piracy, and this evidence is the probable cause of the search warrants.
However, if my understanding of the situation is right, the Feds basically confiscated all of their consoles/computers/electronics on a "Well, you MIGHT be doing it" basis. I'm all about cracking down on pirates. They make the rest of us look bad. But if you're telling me that I'll get stuff taken if I mod my system to play games I can't buy in the US, I guess it's time to break out my black hat. *shrug*
If I'm misinterpreting the situation, please explain it.
It is actually more of a hassle to handle illegals, since it isn't like they drive them farther than they need to, they just take them to the border and then leave them alone. It isn't like they take them to the middle of Mexico City. So they can just simply jump across again about 1 hour later if not 5 minutes afterward.
Anyway, isn't there some new proposal where they want to put IP protection as the FIRST priority for policing officials? I know I read something recent about it, and sadly, it'd simply mean that someone could be murdered but they hear there is a modder selling illegal games, they'd put more resources into going after the modder than seeing if they can catch the murderer.
Hal Halpin probably won't talk much about this, it is a touchy issue and would put distance in relationships with the ESA which he is obviously trying his hardest to build a good relationship.
I'd be impressed if he spoke out against it, as it'd show he's willing to put out his neck on the line for the consumers.
Fair Use is getting faded out more and more...
If you go to Japan, be sure you research what you're getting into... meanwhile, I'm planning to move to Edmonton...
And you have to remember why the FBI isn't hunting illegals, it's 'cause it isn't politically correct, but taking down a bunch of gamers is. It's just so disgusting that our country is ruled by being PC instead of justice.
Bah... if things go further down the toilet, I may move to Japan, get better games there anyway.
Umm, we have a second amendment because it is the people's check on the government balance. And keep in mind that America was created on the very same civil unrest. I government can surely stop a few people, but once the ball is rolling there is nothing that can stop revolution. As for the civil war, yes it would become a civil war. All revolutions are civil wars. Our rights are what are important, not the rights of big bussniess. So when the government steps over its bounds too far, I say go for it.
Also, someone said something about publishers and the ESA being against consumers. I just want to reiterate, that publishers (and by extension the ESA) have *NEVER* been on the side of consumers, OR developers.
For example:
Electronic Arts- A bunch of monopolistic weasals more interested in pushing out half-assed sequals than fixing what they've already made, 'nuff said.
Ubisoft- Impatient to the EXTREME-MAX, so much so that unless a game sells on par with WoW or The Sims right out of the gate, then no more support or printings...okay...maybe if enough fans BEG for a patch, but no more.
Activision- Idiots who think that they will somehow magically not lose money by pumping out half-finished and unsupported games. (kinda like the guys in The Producers really)
Vivendi Universal- EVIL VILE MALEVOLENT ASSWIPES! People who exist solely to buy up dieing devlopers so that they can let the studio kick it and retain the IP rights to any games the studio made...and SIT ON THEM! Never make a fucking thing, never let anyone buy them, just let the fucking IP rights and game properties sit there forever.
Post new comment