5 months in prison, $28500 fine for selling X-Box mod chips (1 Viewer)

[Lee L]

The guy was pretty stupid selling devices that could be used to pirate games from a site that seemed to enable the downloading of pirated games. Kind of hard to make the argument that it was only for linux there.

The DMCA, however is a horrible law. One Example: There is a local company that sells remanufacured ink and toner cartridges for printers. Recently one of the companies (Lexmark IIRC) started putting a chip in the cartridge that is zapped by the printer when it runs out. This company reverse engineered the chip so they could keep selling refurbs for these printers and the printer company is now suing using the DMCA. So I guess all you have to do is put a chip on something now and you can control all use of a product forever, perhaps even after patents run out.

 

[Matthew_V]

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[Dan Hine]

I prefer to live in a world where I own what I pay for. If I buy it, I'll do whatever I like with it - laws be damned.

I'd like to say that I agree. But since that world doesn't exist I can only speculate.


I'm still waiting for someone to try and outlaw CD burners. I mean, people can buy a CD and distribute thousands of copies for $30 worth of discs. It's not legal but it can be done. So selling cd burners (an item that can be used to break the law) is ok but not these chips. I say either outlaw everything that can be used for an illegal activity or leave it all the hell alone. (And I think it should be obvious which would be the better idea)

 

[Keith Mickunas]

Dan, while CD burners won't be outlawed, they may be taxed. I believe in Canada that's happening already. Also, if you buy an Audio CD-R you are paying a tax to the RIAA because its assumed you'll be pirating it, the same goes for minidisc and some other formats. Theoritically that should give you the right to make all the copies you want because that's what you are paying for.

 

[Daren Welsh]

What makes an X-box "heavily modified" What if your car was just lowered and had larger rims. It wouldnt be breaking any laws, and it wouldnt be dangerous at all. So that would be the best analogy, and that analogy would support the right to modify your X-Box.

MS makes the laws for their roads (the TOS for XBL). If you want to mod in a way that violates their TOS, then you refuse the right to play on XBL. Like your "best analogy" states, certain mods are legal and others are not. Right now, it looks like case mods (new rims and those all-important stickers) are all that MS will allow for XBL service.

 

[Keith Mickunas]

Daren, I agree MS has the right to limit the access to XBL if they want, but still your analogy doesn't hold up. If you don't drive within the rules, you lose your license, and therefore can't drive on the roads. That's a bit closer to what MS is saying, but their only doing it out of concern for their profit, not concern for the other users.

Still, its within MS's rights to guard their profit by limiting XBL. However I have the right to tinker with the XBox if I bought it without the threat of going to jail. That isn't right, and there's no justification for doing it. If I start selling modded XBoxes and pirated games, then they have the right to report me to the appropriate authorities, but until then they need to keep their noses out of my business.

 

[Ryan Wright]

Theoritically that should give you the right to make all the copies you want because that's what you are paying for.

I agree. If you're being charged a "piracy fee", then you might as well get some use out of it. Of course, the law disagrees...

Lee, thank you for bringing up the printer situation. I was just about to do so. They are using this law to force you to use only their printer cartridges - at significant cost increase, no doubt. That should be illegal. Imagine buying a car that took regular gas, but the gas cap refused to open unless you were buying $3 per gallon Chevy Gas. So you modify the chip in the car to bypass the gas cap's security so you can open it anytime you want to (it's your car, right?), and you sell a few of these chips to other owners, and then you find yourself in jail for 5 months.

Eventually, they will start going after the end users. Modifying the item is just as illegal even if you don't sell or give it away.

 

[Daren Welsh]

So you're saying they're only restricting XBL to non-modded Xboxen because they want you to buy a 2nd Xbox for modding? I guess I can see that, but I still think it's a high priority of theirs to keep XBL cheat-free. Once it gets a rep for having cheaters, it will be hard for them to clear its name. So they're starting out strong by blocking all modded Xboxen. To me, that's a smart move and I support it.

Now, I think in your second paragraph you're trying to argue in favor of being able to mod an Xbox that you bought without threat of jail-time or fines. I agree with you there. It's your equipment -- go for it, just as long as you aren't using that modded Xbox against me on XBL. Let's keep those issues separate.

 

[Dan Hine]

Also, if you buy an Audio CD-R you are paying a tax to the RIAA because its assumed you'll be pirating it, the same goes for minidisc and some other formats.

Who would buy an Audio CD-R when the regular ones cost much less and work just as well? And if they are taxing us b/c they assume we're pirating, why not just arrest everyone that tries to purchase an Audio CD-R? Why would that pirating not be punished as much? If the people selling the XBox mod chips charged a tax which they sent to Microsort would they have been ignored? I personally don't think so.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Dan, while CD burners won't be outlawed, they may be taxed. I believe in Canada that's happening already. Also, if you buy an Audio CD-R you are paying a tax to the RIAA because its assumed you'll be pirating it, the same goes for minidisc and some other formats. Theoritically that should give you the right to make all the copies you want because that's what you are paying for.

Not quite correct. It's not assumed that you'll be "pirating" it, it's assumed that you'll be copying music that you already own or recording from the air. Audio CDs, MiniDiscs, and even Cassette Tapes are covered.

 

[Eric Kahn]

CD burners do not come under the DMCA, the DMCA specifically prohibits "anything that allows you to bypass digital encryption or digital copy protection" CD audio has neither, there is no encryption or copy protection on a CD, at the time the CD was conceived (very late 70's)and the time of its introduction into the market (mid 80's)it took a million dollars worth of equipment to make a CD (commercial audio CD's are pressed like Albums, not burned) the industry never even thought that the personal CD burner would be possible, so they took no safeguards with the standard at the time, I think that when the first CD burner hit the market, audio CD had already been around for 10 years

DVD's were conceived in a market already flooded by personal computers so the industry was pretty sure there would be copying issues, so they came up with the encryption scheme to prevent this, they were sure that no one would ever be able to "break" the encryption algorithm and that would prevent copying in a digital form, they never counted on one of the hardware makers getting sloppy with the encryption algorithms in the driver for the DVD drive they were selling (was not even compiled) so that some teenager could read it and write DeCSS, they also had written a new law and gotten a senator to introduce it and push it through so they could sue everyone for copying (the DMCA) the Senator who sponsored the DMCA has said that if he had it to do over again, he would have read the whole thing and never sponsored it and voted against it if someone else sponsored it

 

[MickeS]

Unfortunately, there is. I have a CD that because of protection can't be played on my car stereo. When it's played in a computer, it has special lower-quality versions of the songs and it's own built in player.

I'm guessing that it, in the US at least, would be illegal for me to try and bypass this protection so I could burn it to a regular CD-R so I could play it in my car?

/Mike

 

[Ryan Wright]

I'm guessing that it, in the US at least, would be illegal for me to try and bypass this protection so I could burn it to a regular CD-R so I could play it in my car?

Your CD has two tracks on it, an audio track (which will take up most of the CD) and a data track (which is a small portion of the CD). If you look at the bottom of the CD you'll see the two different tracks separated by a "line", much like songs are separated on a record.

The data track is where the protection is stored. It can be bypassed with a special pirate tool called a "magic marker", available at any office supply store.

The object of this exercise is to make the data area unreadable with your special pirate tool. I can't tell you how to do this, because it could mean my arrest - or, more likely, closure of this thread for helping you to violate the DMCA. So I'll leave the rest up to you to figure out.

And yes, actually doing this will turn you into a criminal... so don't do it. Ok?

 

[Kevin P]

If I recall correctly from studying the text of the DMCA a year or so ago (probably due to a similar thread to this), I came to discover that the DMCA's anti-circumvention restrictions only cover digital protection schemes that use encryption and AGC/colorstriping of video signals (aka Macrovision). So, DeCSS would be illegal since it decrypts encrypted DVDs, as would any form of Macrovision defeater, but CDs are copy protected using corruption, not encryption, so circumventing a "copy protected" CD isn't illegal under the DMCA.

 

[Ryan Wright]

CDs are protected with various schemes. The one Mike was talking about uses some sort of software on the data track to hide the audio track from the computer. It's just a multi-session CD with something nasty on the data track. Hiding the data track removes the second session and makes it look like a normal CD.

Depending on what that something nasty is would tell you whether it falls under the DMCA or not. Still, RIAA member studios have made numerous public threats in the media to prosecute anyone who bypasses their "copy protection mechanism" under the DMCA.

 

[Paul McElligott]

Unfortunately, there is. I have a CD that because of protection can't be played on my car stereo. When it's played in a computer, it has special lower-quality versions of the songs and it's own built in player.

Philips, I think, says that these are not really CDs (because they won't play in all CD players) and refuses to let these discs carry the Compact Disc logo.

 

[Thomas Newton]

The DMCA itself is an unConstitutional law.

Congress only has the right to grant copyrights and patents in pursuit of the public good ("progress of the Arts and Sciences"), and with restrictions (e.g., limited Times and that pesky First Amendment).

It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it that Government-granted monopolies on ideas and expressions live at best in precarious symbiosis with freedom of speech and the press. When copyrights and patents run amok, they lend themselves to the old Crown use as tools for censorship and destroying free markets.

The effect of the DMCA anti-circumvention clause, which protects "technological protection" in cases where there is NO copyright infringement, is to let private interests define their own arbitrary Government-enforced "laws" just by adding "technological protection".

Lo and behold, most "technological protection" does NOT expire, honors Fair Use, First Sale, etc. only in the breach, and is chosen by those who have the least interest in the "public-first" balance the Constitution requires. The DMCA gives special interests power that Congress does not have a right to give, power that Congress does not even possess itself.

As we have seen, in addition to its destructive effects on the Constitutional copyright system, the DMCA also threatens free speech, freedom of the press, and the free market for things as mundane as printer ink cartridges.

Remember how Jack "the VCR is to the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone" Valenti pronounced that it would be "unacceptable" for Congress to pass a version of the DMCA that would have outlawed circumvention only in connection with copyright infringement? A version that would not have enabled these abuses?

I do.

 

[Thomas Newton]

they were sure that no one would ever be able to "break" the encryption algorithm and that would prevent copying in a digital form

There's the minor little detail of all of those commercial Chinese pirate DVD plants that are able to replicate working counterfeit DVDs by the thousands, without having to crack a single encryption code.

But other than that, it was a perfect plan.

 

[Lew Crippen]

The DMCA itself is an unConstitutional law.

It is when the Supreme Court rules that it is and not before. No one else’s opinion has validity.

 

[Thomas Newton]

It is when the Supreme Court rules that it is and not before. No one else’s opinion has validity.

The Supreme Court isn't the only court that can rule on Constitutional issues.

Quite aside from that, if Congress passed a law tomorrow, and the President signed it, saying "all people who read the New York Times will be executed", that law would be so unConstitutional on its face that neither "the Supreme Court hasn't ruled on it" or "the Supreme Court upheld it" could make things otherwise.

The Supreme Court may have appointed itself to the role of check and balance on Congress (Marbury vs. Madison), but that does not mean that citizens are forbidden to make their own assessments of laws.