British Modder Convicted Under New Law Posted by XanTium | December 8 20:47 EST

From gamasutra.com: [QUOTE] In stark contrast to Wednesday's news that mod chips were to be formally legalized in Australia, British trade organization ELSPA has announced that a man in England has been sentenced to one hundred and twenty hours community service for running a "while you wait" modding service. The conviction was made at Carlisle Crown Court on the Scottish border, where Stephen Fitzgerald pleaded guilty to nine charges relating to "chipping" games consoles, contrary to the British Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (copyright circumvention offenses). He was ordered to pay £2,500 towards prosecution costs and subject of a Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) confiscation order for £2,710, to be paid by May 23rd or face three months in jail. Fitzgerald was picked up by Police, Cumbria Trading Standards and an ELSPA investigator in April 2004 when, trading as www.mods-and-sods.co.uk, he operated a stall at a computer fair held at the Swallow Hilltop Hotel in Carlisle, where he offered to modify PlayStation and Xbox consoles while people waited. His stall also offered and advertised for sale pre-chipped PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles. [/QUOTE] [RM] gamasutra.com

That... sucks :/

I wonder if he was offering to install pirated games/etc (My guess is no, given the relatively minor fines).. still.. not cool.

I was surprised to read this. I didn't know it was against the law to chip consoles in the UK . Pirating games yes but being fined and facing jail for simply fitting modchips doesn't seem right!. Its not illegal to buy and sell them so why should it be illegal to fit them?. I wonder if the law is as strict here in Scotland?. Doesn't put me off modding boxes though since it seems to have taken them a whole 2 years to convict him .

They have stuff like this in Mexico too. However, no one seems to care about the law down there =P

As much as I disagree with the law, I do think that modding consoles is a major concern for developers. Lost profit from pirates is a big problem. I wholeheartedly believe that it should be legal though.

Good luck to him.

That's too bad.

I don't see anything wrong with modding a console...

At least he didn't get anything worse than 10k and 120 hours of service. If he was in the states, he would have probably got 150k, and 2 years in jail (yah the US is messed up like that).

That is terrible .... well good luck to the guy

Ugh what crap. In a minute regardless of what our rights are (which allow us one copy of any software we buy) we aren't gonna be able to crack open the box without fears of getting arrested. Can't get a region-free anything, can't get import consoles. Its like even though we have the money and the right to buy it...we can't get it or use it because they don't want us too :/

Us: Why can't all games and consoles be region free? Kinda wouldn't need to mod it if it was...

Companies: We are only protecting from certain content that might not be appropriate for you.

Us: Shouldn't i be able to make that decision? Ya know the whole freedom of choice thing...

Companies: No?!? i mean yes? kinda...hmmm Your kids could be playing your stuff without you knowing. We are only protecting the children!

Us: Yeah cause the worse thing my son could possible see in life is a tit....ooo the scars he would have /sarcasm

Companies: You still can't have mod chips though. Pirated ware is still going to cripple our industry and we will not allow it!

Us: Yeah cause look how the movie industry just collapsed after VHS won. You guys never recovered, VCR ftl /sarcasm

Companies: Are you being sarcastic with us? No Mod chips so there!!!

Us: You suck anyway...:/

Damn i remember buying a psone modchip off him at a computer fair a few years back.
hopefully installing a modchip to boot linux is still legal?

If any one asks i dont know how to use a soldering iron

Not everyone who mods an Xbox/Playstation is a pirate.

I would say that everyone who gets a mod for xbox has at least have one illegal game on there system or disk. Only about 1% of people who mod ps2 would only play legit region free games the rest would pirate.

The news about Australia laws making it legal is not correct. Australia is still pushing these laws in the next couple of weeks.

True but most are pirates... Yarr...

I agree, I would be hard pressed not to believe the vast majority of modders here don't pirate games.

And Dirvance, I disagree, I completely see developers and manufacturers not wanting you to mod their systems...they lose profit, plain and simple. People will pirate games, which equals lost revenue. Why wouldnt they want restricitons if you manufacture something for the sole purpose of making profit off of software, that some people may get for free? It's common sense.

Yarr...

Most guns are used to hurt or kill people, yet they are legal in some of the states of a certain big ass country with a warlord spreading fear against terrorists, nipples and reverse-engineering.

Absolutely true - no two ways about it. They HAVE to prevent this sort of stuff. Its ashame for the non pirates and for XBMC lovers though but i guess these people just have to get it done on the sly. I for one am not a pirate because every game stored on my 200gb drive i have as an original. Is it pirate to hunt down these games on ebay for a few quid each? nope hope not. If pirates are fed up of game costs why dont they try and scat a bargain on ebay? (not for new recent games but for everything else).

Back to the modchipping, yea ashame about that guy. my mate lives down there (i'm more up north) and that's his local computer fair, he always sees that guy there. and he also sees customers buying up ps2's - why else would you mod a ps2 unless its for piracy.

If you fit mod chips for a commercial gain or do it on a large basis, i believe its wrong. A mate doing it for you is fine, but large scale isn't good

BUT JAIL TIME!?!?? Thats mad

I personaly think they used him to make people aware that wont be light on this issue, its an eye opener with a message to be learned. DONT DO IT IN PUBLIC.

Hmm there has to be more to it than what's been said, like putting some games on the HD or something. There is an actual shop (not a stall) here in Leeds with massive signs in the window saying prices of chipped and to chip Xbox's/PS2's etc.

This is bloody stupid, this kind of stuff really makes me mad!

The police need to go out and catch some real criminals, its like how they love to pull us over here in the UK and call you a boy racer and slag you off and all this crap, they just like to get the easier targets because their end of year report for busting so many 'criminals' looks really good.

At the end of the day, there are people out there who are commiting major crimers, doing gun murders, killing others, people that go out and rape women, these are the real criminals, so why don't they spend more time protecting the public against these people?

If you ask me it makes me bloody mad, they just like to make examples out of people and boost their scores on their little game, see how can capture as many criminals as possible when they have been chipping a console or done a little wheel spin in the car or something, idiots!!

Anyway with that done, i'm sure there are many who will agree with me, and probably some wont for whatever gay reason

Do you think this is playstation related, i mean if he only did xbox1, xbox360 console would he have still been prosecuted? As far as a I know PS2 modchips are illegal in the UK but xbox are ok right?

That really sucks, backups are a fair use aren't they? Perhaps doesn't work with DMCa-type legislation that says you can't crack copy-protection but then I suppose the laws themselves are at odds. When you have a game that's scratched to hell and you made a backup we're supposed to pay for another COPY from the company (sometimes MS replaced disks when original Xbox's scratched them, but what happens five years later?) Not fair with the ease of duplication with at home burners.

What about the legitmate use of Linux on these systems? SMB, mythtv frontends..

Plus I don't know why some posters are saying that most people with a modded console are pirates. There are hundreds of people with modded Xbox's on this forum who pretty much use it for xbmc esp. since piracy talk is not allowed here, at xbmc forums, or other console hacking sites. Speaking for myself at least, I only use XBMC,

i agree with dano2k0 the police should be catching real criminals.
i dont have a single pirated or backed up game and never have, i use my box purely for xbmc, however most people who want an xbox chipped dont realy care about stuff like that or even know it exists, they just want to play illegal backups

"
however most people who want an xbox chipped dont realy care about stuff like that or even know it exists
"
But how can someone say either/or with certainty?

For myself (again) I just happened to read on Wikipedia's "xbox" entry, the modding your xbox section. And it had a link to XBMC.

Sure the backup games thing is some part of it for some people (it may or may not be), but xbmc fit my needs exactly. For others it may be Linux. But installing a mod chip, if this story tells us everything, doesn't specifically lead to pirating. Wouldn't that be a similar argument to "VCRs are a pirate's best friend"?

As someone mentioned already, not all modders are pirates. Also, people who pirate games, do you really think they would buy the game instead? Think about it, if they pirate the games, they are more likely to see how good the games is, and _might_ be convinced to buy the game.

Gman22

man that dude was an idiot.


1 modding systems at a trade show

2 THE BIG ONE selling pre-modded systems at a trade show. <-- thats what got him more then anything. everytime anyone gets busted for modding they are usually either selling pre-modded systems or loading games on the system as well



EDITED: here in the states every trade show ive been to ive always seen customs people walking around since a lot of the venders can be from out of the country and they are the perfect place to get ride of hot goods.

if you are just modding the system and not selling pre-modded and not putting games on the system usually you have to really pissed people off to get busted since under the law i dont think modding in its self is illegal. but if your selling pre-modded systems and putting games on the system that is braking about 3 laws right off the bat so your just asking to be picked up.

plus if you notice that was in 2004 M$ was big on trying to crack down on guys selling pre-mods back then

I'd have to agree with Gman22 on that. The people who pirate probably weren't ever going to spend the money on buying the game in the first place so no actual loss to the developer. If anything they're more likely to end up buying a subcription to Live and purchasing the real disc so they can play online!.

I've modded plenty of xbox's for friends and family and the main thing they all use them for is xbmc and live!. Because of my "illegal" modding M$ now has 3 new Live subcriptions and at least 5 more people with xbox consoles they wouldn't have bought if it weren't for me. Add on the number of original games all these people have bought and it seems M$ could do with sending me some commision for all my hard work .
Not to mention that but 2 of the people I introduced to the xbox have now upgraded to a 360!.

I own 5 xbox consoles myself all of which are modded and I have a massive stack of original games. The only reason I bought an Xbox in the first place was because it could be chipped to allow the use of homebrew like xbmc. I think its upto me what I do with items of hardware I bought and own and it has nothing to do with anyone else!. To threaten or put someone in jail for modding a console is just retarded. Police time seriously wasted when they could be catching real criminals.

I buy all the games that I play for any extended period of time. I like having the original in case the "backup" gets fubarred or if I upgrade hard drives.

Most of the time during the past year that I turn on my xbox it is to do something with XBMC like watching videos or listen to music. The 360's music and video support STILL really sucks horribly. The playlist support is horrible. I can create a playlist for any amount of my music for XBMC in 5min or less. Playlists on the 360 are a huge pain in the ass and not worth the time it takes.

Thanks to TVersity transcoding, I can now play movies across the network from a non-Media Center PC...which is great, but MicroNuts should have included better video support from the get go. They are soooo far behind XBMC it isn't funny.

So yes, I'll continue to mod consoles for myself, friends, and others so they too can enjoy multimedia the way it was meant to. If they decide to copy games, that is on them. However the 3 people I do know copy games always buy the games they play for long periods of time... They wouldn't be buying the games that they only play for a week and delete anyway...they'd just rent it from gamefly if that was the case.

pay to play

One: once you buy a system, be it a consumer or a vendor, it becomes you'r property, you can do to that property whteve you like, be smash it with a bat, throw it off the balcony, or chip it. It is your property and can do with it what you please except for reverse engineering it. And modding a system is not reverse engineering at least id like to believe. Yes if you sell pirated games for profit you should be convicted, but chiping a system, come on thats just silly.

Two: the companies that make the product should be responsible for their own product and not get the government involved. It is up to the companies to make sure that if they do not wish their systems to be modded, well then make sure when you design it you make it impossible. If you cant well then youre shit out of luck, the government is there to protect the people and not the billion dollar companies and industries that manufacture the product. The problem is that most governments that do prosecute people for chipping are under pressure from the Capitalist country of USA where corporations dictate policy, to do so. We've seen this happen in australia where the free trade agreement between USA dictated that people get prosecuted for chipping. I'm sure Bush and Blair came to some sort of agreement that was close to that.

I think us canadians only really know how full of shit the US goverment really is, and Mexicans as well. Being so close to those assholes and all. They're trying to pull that shit here, but get rejected at every turn they try.
At least out government still looks out for the little guy, somewhat. See the states are conccearned more with profit than poverty or way of life, thats why they have the largest population per capita living under the poverty line, in all of the 1st world countries. The human factor doesnt come into play at all thats why the USA have created a police state, and the UK is on its way there as well.

As I'm not on probation I guess there is little to loose here.

So many comments & many respected. Considering i'm not on probation, I think (or believe) I can say want i want about this particular case. If no one objects i will post details tomorrow of this case. The craziest thing here was I was shafted by European legislation even though several European countries had thrown it out! It's all about "interpratation of law" Oh, how we've heard that before in the UK! Sorry can't stay any longer need my beauty sleep for CS tomorrow.........only 109 hours left to do!
Steve Fitzgerald
MODS-AND-SODS.CO.UK

That's a good point. For the Xbox, and presumably the PS2, the modchips have to have a hacked BIOS in to let you play pirate/backup games. As Xbox-Scene has made clear for years, that's illegal under the DMCA.

Until we see someone getting convicted for selling Xboxs with FlashBIOS chips, I think either it's legal, or it's just like ripping CDs in the UK - "It's illegal, but we're not going to pursue anyone."

I didnt even think about the bios.
Well technically no PS2 chips have any illeagal bios on them. i know the ghost and a few other chips have to be flashed because they come blank with no bios, but all other chips have legal bios flashed.
And the Xbox doesnt have any illeagal content untill flashed.
So i guess if you sell the Xbox premodded with just the cromwell flash bios youre ok. But then youre taking the risk of whom ever you sell it to that they will mess up the flash. Then you have to explain to them where to obtain the actual BIOS and how to flash it.
I guess he was the example to be made of, sorry to hear it and i hope we get some detail on the case from Mr inocent. looking forward to hearing about it.

People! people! I dont believe you understand the magnitude of chipping, You literally take the caviar out of the gaming industrys executives childrens mouth, and even worst if this will continue their children will not get the next years BMW modell when they turn 16. They will have to settle with a 2006 modell or maybe 2007 but then only whit basic equipment. And the one with basic equipment only have airbag on the drivers side, so after a party drunk driving they could actually kill the girl they are dating that week, and if its a friday they wont be able to meet another girl before monday. so they have to live without sex for whole 2 days. And because their parents have less money to bribe the cops they dont give them a lift home after they falsify the blodtests, they have to take a stinking Taxi home because it is to late to call a limo.
However if they think about the safety first and take a fully equiped 2006 modell they would be bullied by their friends and they wouldn't be happy with themselves. All their pain would be our fault, by our fault I mean all the people that modd their console or anybodys console for that matter.

Could you live this way, knowing that you literally made someone unhappy. From now on I will destroy my chipped consoles and buy new ones. I Will buy every new game that comes out now matter if it sucks. (It is not their childrens fault the games sucks).
And the most important thing of all is that I will donate the rest of my salary to a trust for rich and spoiled children, because they need it the most.

I hope more people think like me because my salary is not enough, it's just like pocket change for them. But if we join together everybody and donate everything we have then maybe we can make a rich kid happy.

However the main thing is that we shouldn't modd our consoles because if we even buy all the games that sucks it isn't enough, and if we make backups of the games we have we would only buy those games once.

So the conclusion: DON'T MODD,play freesbee with the originals you have, so you can buy and use more than one of each game. And if you don't have children of your own that could help you with a efficient destruction of your originals, you could just donate them the money directly without any fuss.

Live in peace and may the rick get richer, it just makes me so happy knowing they are happy........





NOT

Uh no...you should get informed. The Crystal chip 2.0 for ps2 is a homebrew chip capable of doing alot more than just bypassing copy protection. It's used for region free movies, NTSC->PAL, PAL-NTSC, and everything you can think of. It's one of best ps2 chips. You can use it to watch divx/avi anything. No one thought a ps2 could do that but it can. Late in ps2's life there's lots of homebrew...like SMS player. Of course it doesn't come close to abilities of xbox though.

I know you're just trying to piss people off, so I'll ignore your ignorant generalities towards Americans and Mexicans, but I wanted to point out another thing I think you're completely wrong on. Why should companies have to spend extra time and design dollars making it "impossible" (which is never the case) to mod their system, when it's your civic responsibility not to steal their shit? In your mind, everything is fair game unless your physically locked out of it. PEOPLE work for these evil corporations you talk about, people that spend their time designing games or software so that they can make a living. If everyone thought like you, developing would be a minimum wage job because they'd spend most of their time and money preventing d-bags like you from stealing their stuff.

And next time you rag on Americans and Mexicans, dont tell everyone you're from Canada, lie and say you're from a country with some sense of national identity and pride.

Steve. Couldn't you have just sold the consoles to the customers unflashed. Like with Matrix Homebrew for PS2 and Xecuter with cromwell bios for Xbox. Also, were there additional charges thrown into the mix aswell, like non-declaration of additional income.

Go figure you got a pic of Bush as your Sig, that right there tells me about your intelligence level.
First of all I'm sorry you misunderstood me. Second I wasnt ragging on Americans or Mexicans, I was simply stating a fact about level of corruption int the American Gov't and how its policy is dictated by the multi million or billion dollar corporations. Thirdly, I feel really bad for all the Americans that have to live under the current and any future gov't because youre all fucked, you have no freedoms, just a bunch of guidelines with the illusion of freedom. These so called corporations make their millions by exploiting people and actually do more harm than good, Blood Diamonds, Sugar Cane industry, Wal Mart, LCD crystals, and so on and so on, I could go on for another 20 min, all industries started by greedy Corporations. So tell me, why are they allowed to break human rights and laws, and f**k over thousands of human beings, but when One individual steals from them, he has to suffer. What about the thousands of people around the world that suffer daily and die, because your precious corporation needs their products. But because some CEO's bonus will will half a million this year instead of a full million, he has to lash out at the person that actually might need that extra money to feed themselves that day that he sells a modded system. Have you thought about that. So shut up and go back to watching your Corporate Propaganda (TV)
And the actual amount of people that pirate games, is minimal compared to the amount of people that buy them.

Maybe you should look closer Einstein.

I wont even dignify that with a comment.

What a waste of time. I'm sure the statistic police will be masterbating over this crime against humanity in the near future.

WOAH!!! Slow down nutjob. Most guns are used to kill people? That is OBVIOUSLY erroneous. Now you're obviously speaking of either Iran or South Korea by the warlord and spreading fear comment, but they aren't that big of countries and they love nipple and reverse-engineering. Basically leave the lies and your radical, crazy point of view of of this as it has nothing to do with the discussion.



I would be willing to make the statement that EVERY person that mods is guilty or has been guily of piracy at some point. Whether you just use a modded xbox as a media center to play your stolen mp3's and/or stolen movies, tv episondes or whatever you are guilty. Whether you play emulated games that are not yet public domain. Whether you back up games or not, you can't tell me that you still spend the money on new games and THEN make backups when you could save around 50 dollars a pop, JUST because you want to be able to say you're not a pirate.

Until the day when there is no purposes OTHER than to pirate games of a system, I refuse to acknowledge these stupid laws. If the game companies want us on there side they should:

1. Offer the systems with all the features unlocked. Linux, media player, run homebrew, etc.
2. Region free games.
3. Have a policy that if your game gets scratched/damaged, you mail back the original disc, and they mail you a new one for free.

MS has already been smart with the 360 offering free demos on live. So that eliminates pirating for the purpose of "try before you buy". This was one of the few reasons I was for pirating. I have no problems giving $50 to a great game, but I have issues with spending $50 and then deciding the game sucks and that the marketing was bogus, and then only being able to trade the game in for $10.

The moment there is no purpose to modding except pirating, I will stop modding period.

I have no sympathy for the modders who also sell pirated games (as that is not backing up your own game, or "try before you buy", that is clearly pirating for profit for the guy making/selling copies), but I truly feel bad for this guy if he was only modding systems and not selling games. The reason these stupid laws are in place is because who do you think gives large donations to these politicians?

Yarr...

This is outrageous. Modding is or shouldnt be illegal. Pirating yes, i do not condone. I mod consoles for people and yes i get asked to load their hdd with games. I say no, no matter how much they offer me. I repeat and say i never will give or sell games.

If i was to get arrested for MODDING, i would fight it as best to my ability. Does the guy that sells guns get arrested when the purchaser kills a man? Does the guy that repairs my rifle scope get arrested? I am simply upgrading or fixing a game console. If i put neons on a guys car will i get arrested? If he turns them on while driving, is that my fault?

I hate the world, everything is illegal. I cant leave my house without being in fear of doing anything. Even in my house heck, my wifi could be hacked and be downloading files right now for all i know.

I repeat i hate the world, im moving to aussie land where most is free to do as he wishes. Plus girls are hot too, which is a +.

You just did. Want me to explain it to you? That's Bush, that's an oil well. He likes oil. I dont like that.