Posted on August 6th, 2007 in Axel Night, Video Games by Axel Night
Good afternoon, monkey minions. It’s August 6th, 2007. I’m dizzy with excitement and low blood-sugar, and todays news is as rancid with age as the bowl of rice on my counter that I don’t remember making. Let’s pretend it’s new and begin, shall we.
For as long as we’ve had computers, we, as a population, have been trying not to pay for games. I can remember as a kid having a disk box full of about a hundred disks, each packed with pirated games for my old Commodore 64. With the advent of CDs on game consoles, it wasn’t long before they joined the ranks of binary burglary in full force. The concept is simple enough. Install something into the console that tells it your ten cent CD-Rs are legal games, then download them from the Internet or rent them for a couple bucks and copy them. Thrifty and fun!
Earlier this week, the US government showed their hand, and we found out the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has been working a year long sting that reached a climax on August 1st with 32 search warrants (and associated arrests or further punitive action). The offensive was against "subjects who are allegedly involved in the direct importation, installation, sale, and distribution of the devices that are of foreign manufacture and smuggled into the United States." Perhaps the watch for terrorists and illegal immigrants got boring.
The fight against modding is no new one. Both Sony and Nintendo have brought chip distributors and manufacturers to court, and Microsoft has been detecting and banning X-Box Live accounts for modded systems since launch. However, for the US government to take a forward initiative is a huge step.
"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," said Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."
What this means exactly for the Japanese import scene seems fuzzy, but it’s pretty obvious they see no difference between a chip for region hacking and one for playing illegal backups. Are imports illegal? It’s always been somewhat nebulous. You are, after all, paying for the game. However, in the past year, both Sony and Nintendo have made clear their feelings on the issue, and they don’t like it.
Still, unlike past incidents with the music industry, neither company nor government have shown signs of going after end users. For the time being, you’re only in the cross hairs if you sell or install the things.
- Article: ICE
What are people saying about "In the News - Mod-Chip Crackdown"?
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Architect of Awesome Re: In the News - Mod-Chip Crackdown Well, there's a line that It's one thing to go after those who make the mods, those who manufacture the circumvention medium, but it's another thing to go after the end-user (which probably isn't all that far away thanks to the Bush regime). As far the the racist 12 year-olds on X-Box Live go, the current governmental politics and policies call for complete avoidence of any kind of action taken in direct response to racism, because let's face it: They're too busy jerking off to the 1-900 calls they're illegally monitoring from atop their ivory tower of untouchable power. |
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Brick Prior Re: In the News - Mod-Chip Crackdown As far the the racist 12 year-olds on X-Box Live go, the current governmental politics and policies call for complete avoidence of any kind of action taken in direct response to racism, because let's face it: They're too busy jerking off to the 1-900 calls they're illegally monitoring from atop their ivory tower of untouchable power. Well, yeah- the X-Box Live dumbshits are more Microsoft's deal rather than the government's. I, however, want an Ivory Tower of Untouchable Power. Imagine all the work I could get done... or all the people I could get to do work for me! |
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Architect of Awesome Re: In the News - Mod-Chip Crackdown And imagine how many forts of awesimitudes we could construct within the tower! |
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Sasha Kenzan Re: In the News - Mod-Chip Crackdown There are chips that only play imports and not backups (Axel, several stories on Acts of Gord approach the subject), but apparently any kind of modification falls under the DMCA, which doesn't make any sense if you're importing the games and don't want to bring in a system from another country. The only people that should be concerned about it are the people voiding their warranties trying to mod their systems for imports. I never understood why Sony or Nintendo were such sticklers about it... if anything, they still pocket licensing fees because the games are still bought legally and, if you break the system by covering a chip in solder while installing it, you already know your warranty is voided. I mean, sure, there's the whole "mod chips to play backups" thing, but I find it extremely hard to believe that Sony and Nintendo would be that ignorant as to not determine the difference. |
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Robfathah Re: In the News - Mod-Chip Crackdown Come get me and my modified xbox, you fucking douchebags. Seriously, what the fuck. There's got to be better things the gubmint could be doing than cracking down on console modders. |
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