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monkspider
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banned
Aug 2001
time: 23:26
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2803927.stm
A website used by tens of thousands of people every day that offered information on bootlegged video games and movies has been shut down by the US Government.
The Justice Department took over the domain name, isonews.com, after its owner pleaded guilty to selling modification chips that would allow gamers to play bootleg video games on Microsoft's Xbox console.
The site's owner, David Rocci, fell foul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it a crime to distribute tools that can be used to circumvent copyright controls on digital products.
Some civil liberties groups have expressed concern about the free speech implications of the government seizing websites and domain names.
Despite the action by the Justice Department, the original site can still be reached on its numerical IP address.
Console chipping
ISO News had more than 100,000 registered users and was estimated to get up 140,000 hits each day
The site did not contain illegal copies of video games, software and movies, but instead featured message boards where people could share tips about pirated material.
But the site was also used to market modification, or mod, chips. These have been a headache for game hardware makers for years,
Mod chips are grey-market add-ons that, once soldered to a console's main circuit board, defeat security systems and allow people to play games originally sent to different geographic markets, backup copies and bootleg discs.
The laws over mod chips are unclear. While they are illegal in some countries, they are not in others.
In July last year, an Australian judge ruled that mod chips sold for the original PlayStation did not infringe on Sony copyright protections.
New tactic
ISO News domain name was taken over as part of a plea deal with the US Justice Department. Rocci handed over the site and pleaded guilty to importing mod chips from Britain and selling them for between $45 and $60.
David Rocci developed a public website that specifically catered to the underground piracy community," said Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff.
"He attempted to profit by marketing circumvention devices to that community knowing they would be used to play pirated games.
"He thought that there were no risks associated with his actions. He was wrong and everyone engaged in the warez [pirated software] scene should take note," said Mr Chertoff.
Visitors to the ISO News site are now pointed to a statement about the Rocci case as well as information about illegal copyright activity.
But the government's decision to seize the site has caused concern among some civil liberties groups.
"It's a far-reaching and radical approach in light of previous Supreme Court decisions that emphasised the importance of the First Amendment on the internet," said David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.
"Unfortunately it appears to be a new law enforcement tactic," he said. "This could be equivalent to the death penalty in the context of free speech on the internet."
Rocci is due to be sentenced on 7 March and could receive a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
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So what do you think guys? Is this a dangerous precedent?
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H Tower
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the problem is the DMA, in its current form, people who use black permanent markers can be arrested because they can be used to disable copy protection on certain kinds of cds.
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rah
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Apolyton Prince of Moderators, Master of Reason
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Lord of the Ferrets
Jan 1970
time: 23:26
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ANOTHER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INTERNET BOONDOGGLE.
U.S. hauls in dealers of bongs, roach clips
Operation Pipe Dreams hits Net sellers
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By Bryan A. Keogh
Washington Bureau
Published February 25, 2003
WASHINGTON -- Signaling the start of a new front in the campaign against illegal drugs, federal authorities charged 55 people Monday with trafficking in drug paraphernalia in an investigation that focused on those who advertise and sell such items on the Internet.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, standing with a phalanx of other law-enforcement officials who participated in the nationwide investigation, said that by targeting major paraphernalia distributors the government was dealing the drug trade a sharp blow.
The investigation--a two-pronged effort known as Operation Pipe Dreams and Operation Headhunter--led to raids Monday in which officials confiscated thousands of tons of drug paraphernalia and tens of millions of dollars, and made numerous arrests, said Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh whose office is coordinating the investigation with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"It is an extremely profitable, illegal business," Buchanan said.
But some critics said an investigation targeting such items as bongs and roach clips showed little more than political grandstanding, misplaced priorities and a waste of federal resources, particularly as the United States is waging a more pressing war against terrorism.
"At a time of intense alert regarding the terrorist threat, this is a pretty pathetic waste of criminal justice resources," said Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a liberal think tank. "Is this a high priority when criminal justice resources are stretched so thinly?"
Justice Department officials defended the drug paraphernalia investigation.
"It's not a waste of resources. It's still against the law," said Drew Wade, a department spokesman. "The federal government has the right and obligation to enforce federal laws."
The investigation targeted distributors and shops selling such items as marijuana pipes, bongs and miniature scales, focusing on their sale over the Internet and by direct mail.
Officials said the growth of the Internet has opened a major avenue for the sale of drug paraphernalia, as it has for other illegal items, from child pornography to drugs obtained without prescription.
"With the advent of the Internet, the illegal drug paraphernalia industry has exploded," Ashcroft said.
Federal authorities said they were obtaining court orders to shut down 11 Internet sites that market drug paraphernalia, and that they would direct visitors to those sites to a Drug Enforcement Administration Web site that states why the site was taken offline.
Ashcroft said drug paraphernalia distributors often target children in their marketing schemes, using cartoon characters and other gimmicks to entice young buyers. The Internet's ability to reach inside homes makes such schemes "even more frightening," the attorney general said.
Officials emphasized that some of the items were designed to appeal to youth, such as marijuana pipes disguised as common objects such as highlighter markers, lipstick and flashlights. To support her contention that these pipes are marketed to teenagers, Buchanan said these are the types of items high school principals have been confiscating.
Although drug paraphernalia are widely available in tobacco stores, so-called head shops and record stores, they are illegal to sell or possess in the U.S. According to federal law, drug paraphernalia are defined as anything primarily intended to be used in the processing, distribution or consumption of a controlled substance.
The 55 people charged face penalties of up to 3 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. Ashcroft also said federal authorities would confiscate any property or equipment used in the manufacturing of drug paraphernalia.
Federal indictments were brought against 27 people in Pittsburgh, nine in Des Moines and 19 others elsewhere in the U.S.
Besides the DEA and six U.S. attorneys, the investigation involved the U.S. Marshals Service, the Secret Service, the Customs Service and the Postal Inspection Service.
While most of the indictments were against companies that authorities said were involved in large-scale manufacturing and distribution of drug paraphernalia, some involved local head shops that sell pipes and bongs directly to consumers.
Describing marijuana as the drug that teenagers are most at risk to abuse, John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said eliminating the drug paraphernalia market was as important as treatment and prevention in curbing drug use among young people.
Law-enforcement officials also criticized distributors of drug paraphernalia for their roles in the illegal drug trade and said they shared responsibility for the violence it accompanies.
"People selling drug paraphernalia are, in essence, no different than drug dealers," said John Brown, acting administrator of the DEA. "They are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide."
But Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group opposed to the government's anti-drug effort, questioned the assertion that cracking down on the drug paraphernalia industry would make high school students less likely to smoke marijuana.
"It seems like an absurd diversion and waste of resources," Nadelmann said. "I think what it represents is an increasing politicization of the war on drugs."
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:26
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quote:
Originally posted by monkspider
User agreements aren't divine mandates. |
If you don't want to agree to the agreement, don't buy the product.
You're not just buying a physical product when you buy a game console, you're buying the right to play games. It may seem like semantics, but it's the reason why modifying it to play things other than the games they allow is illegal.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. You shouldn't buy it then mod it because you think it's "immoral" what they're doing (the irony is great fun thuogh).
quote:
Do you know how many legitimate uses there are for modchips?
-Using different operating systems (e.g Linux on XBOX) |
Not a legitamate use.
quote:
-Playing games from different regions that you would not be able to otherwise (or playing them before they are released in NA). |
I've always hated region locking, but this isn't as popular as piracy. Hell, on a college campus here soooo many people have modchips, and by far most of them use it to download and burn games and pirate, only a couple people I know use it to import.
quote:
-Making backup copies of games in case the originals become too damaged to play. (I know I wish I had done this with some Playstation games my sister destroyed). |
Companies like EA send you a replacement disc if you send them the damaged one.
quote:
-Playing "modded" versions of original games (I recall Final Fantasy VII being modded by some gamers a while back, but you needed a modchip to play their new version) |
Never heard of this. But by the same token, this is why I'm so glad MS bans people for life if they connect to Xbox Live with a modded box -- prevents people from playing modded versions of games.
quote:
Saying that modding hardware is not only illegal but immoral is very hard to defend. |
It's painfully simple.
The terms you buy the device under specify you can't, if you don't want to agree to them, don't purchase the device. It's immoral AND illegal to buy it and break those terms, whether you think you should be able to is not the point.
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28-02-2003 03:50
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