He should have just slapped a sticker on them that says "For Tobacco Use ONLY" That should work, right?

Seriously, he should have known what he was doing had a good chance of getting him into trouble eventually. That is the choice he made. He was making money doing something that was illegal, its as simple as that. Some of you say go after the people pirating the games, well if this guy wasn't doing his thing, what good would those games be? Its a circle of life thing. You don't have to agree with the law to see that it was only a matter of time before the long arm reached out and tickled him.

Huh? What countries have laws against "unauthorized modifications"? If its clearly stated when sold, I'm not aware of any such laws. Guess the car modders are going to be raided next. Actually, those people are a hella lot more dangerous, it wouldn't be a bad idea.

@EOTD

Actually, there are different laws to govern corporations than to govern the individual.

I think it's a kind of snowball effect. Modders use modchips. Modchips can be used to cheat copyrights. If you cheat copyrights, you're a criminal. If you're a criminal, then you're undermining the authority of the US Government. And, finally, the stereotypical belief is that only terrorists and illegal immigrants would undermine the authority of the US Government. Therefore, being a modder would be up there with being a terrorist or something.

I dunno, that's my theory.

Its cheaper to crack down on the modders the pirates spend thousands on blanks and hardware they actuality put money into the system 0-o

yes I know I wear my tinfoil hat ,and when lighting comes to strike it can kiss my grits too :P

@Austin Lewis

Corporations are made up of (surprise!) members of the group you refer to as "the people". They're citizens of the US just like the rest of us, and deserve equal protection under the law.

That's not to say that they're in the right in this situation, under these laws: they're decidedly not. But I thought you (and several others here) could use a reminder that the big corporations are anything but faceless drones.

[...] There have already been some stories showing up online from people who have been targeted by ICE. According to GamePolitics, an Ohio man was raided this week and is now living out of his car. Xbox Scene posted his account of what happened: When ICE hit me, they had a warrant for my grandma’s house where I had all my packages sent. They had a picture of the house, and a description of it, meaning they were ready to come find me. When they were there, they didn’t find much, since I hadn’t had my computer and most modding stuff there for a while, but I continued to have the orders sent there for security of the packages. They went in the house and woke everyone up and watched them get dressed and started going though everything that was in my old room, and the stuff I had in the garage. They took anything that was related to gaming. They opened all the mail I had waiting for me there (which included someone’s Xbox and $150 for a mod and 400gb), and took all the consoles and all console parts that I had stored there they even took my original xbox1 games, that were in retail cases. They took my 360, power brick and video cable, while its modded with xtreme 5.1b, it has never had 1 single burned game booted on it. They also felt it necessary to take all my old Xbox parts, mostly dead, my controllers for the 360 and Wii (?) and packed it in a box, and left. [...]

@Rou

The thing is that crappy laws really need to be challenged not meekly obeyed. Hopefully we'll see a fair bit of that due to this crackdown.

When the feds started changing their story from "you'll get your stuff back in 10 days" to "you have a better chance of..."/"this will look better in the eyes of...", I would have put a stop to it and said "Not without an attorney".

Even after leading them to the goods, I would not have allowed them to take the laptop since they didn't have a warrant for anything at that premises anyway

They are not going to be letting him go for being a good sport about it, although he should have got a real job instead of relying on his income from modchips

Also, what the story with not being able to visit his Girlfriend/daughter? That doesn't make any sense to me, how does DMCA stop him from seeing them?

I hope this doesn't affect importing games. Gyakuten Saiban 3 is coming out in Japan just shy of 3 weeks from now, and it'd be pretty bad if the RCMP raided my house just because of that.

Wait, there's no DMCA in Canada, right? I should be fine, right?

This whole thing is just a mess.

Personally, I'm not much affected: I only own Nintendo systems at this point (because I don't have much money to spend), the DS isn't region-coded, and pretty much every Japanese Wii game, even the more out-there ones, is getting published for North America at this point. So I basically have no need for a modchip.

But if I felt the need for one, I'd probably find one. If I felt the need to modify my Gamecube so that it made waffles, I'd probably do it. If I bought the system, I can do what I want with it, whether it voids the warranty or not, as long as I'm not making copies or anything like that.

It's a good idea to crack down on those using modchips to make illegal copies of games. Really, that backup copy argument is flimsy at best - if your games are breaking regularly, you need to be taking better care of them. Honestly, the sense of entitlement some people have is annoying.

Still, full-scale raids like this shouldn't be happening at all, especially not without proof that the person is making illegal copies rather than just playing foreign games. There are better things for the ICE to be doing, and even though that doesn't mean that the issue should be ignored, it DOES mean that they shouldn't be conducting a 16-state raid and confiscating everything vaguely related to video games in the suspect's house.

It reminds me uncomfortably of that incident in January when the FBI, reacting to a threat some kid made over Xbox Live, confiscated the Xbox itself, even though the system doesn't store the conversation (story here: http://www.10tv.com/?sec=news&story=sites/10tv/content/pool/200701/80673...).

Austin Lewis
they already have thos laws in place they are jsut not enforced...yet ^^

Johnny LaRue
thank you for supporting the status quo,next you be saying I do not have the right to backup the software and media I buy because I can always buy more of it,its shepple like you that help herd us right into fascism ....

Why should someone pay another 120 dollars to buy a NTSC J PS2 so they can play the game when they can mod their own equipment to play the game for less? Why shouldn't I be able to attach whatever the fuck I want to my PS2?

Whats next? Laws enforcing what programs I can have on my computer? What parts I can put in my rifle? What kind of radio I can have in my car?

This sets a bad precedent.

If he was burning discs, that is one thing, but simply modding your system is no crime.

WHEN will people fucking stand up and say "ENOUGH" to this bullshit. I mean really, everything that's going on... Folk need to stand up and start giving a shit... I am SO glad I don't live in the US, but this is insane, disgusting and despicable.

I really hate the DMCA.

Um ... why exactly "can't" he see his girlfriend and daughter?
Is there a legal bar on him visiting him, as implied, or is it something else?

Also, what the hell is ICE doing raiding houses? Why don't you go find illegal aliens in the country first?

It doesn't say whether he had illegal game copies or not. From the last sentence, I'd say it's possible he did. However, the most the actual modding of the console should do is void the warranty. There are those that just want to add to the capabilities of and/or play imports on their console. Others make backups of games they own, new and classic. Go after the ones distributing them online.

Where does the ECA stand on this?

@Terminator44

That's the rub, it's only stealing if you play games you are not in possession of a legal copy of. Except that the DMCA made anything that circumvents copy protection illegal regardless of reason. Given that many mod chips need to circumvent the bios that include the copy protection stuff thats what's supposed to make them illegal.

That's why people tend not to like the DMCA, it stomps all over fair use.

Illegal copies of game I can understand, but why crack down on modders. There can be many reasons for getting a mod on your console. Maybe you want to play that game that you got legaly in Japan? Maybe you found an imporvement for the system? WHo knows, but using force against someone for any of these reasons is bullshit and wrong.

This in the one thing that I dissagree with the ESA about. Just because the buyers are the easier ones to find does not mean they should be the ones to suffer the law. Go after the mod makers first, and then go after the consumer IF and only IF the problem does not stop at the source. To do anything else is the DICK move.

Spoiler: Dossiers created from data-mining will be used to hunt down people who support modding.

This is utterly disgusting. Instead of going after the people who make the effing modchips, they arrest the customers en masse. I'll bet anything Bush is behind it.