Xbox modder faces 10 years in the slammer..

zod

Taken from Wired

Crippen is charged with two counts of violating the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and faces a maximum five years for each count if convicted. The government maintains Crippen, a hotel car-parking manager, ran a small business from his Anaheim home modifying the firmware on Xbox 360 optical drives to make them capable of running pirated copies of games....Crippen was hoping to argue to jurors that it was legal to hack the consoles because the modification had non-infringing purposes, like allowing the machines to run homebrew software, or permitting limited fair use of copyright material such as backup copies of video games.

While the judge ruled last week that such a defense was not permitted by the DMCA, he seemingly changed course during his speech.

rizzla

He'll know all about the red ring of death if he gets convicted.

TouchingVirus

Stupid case, stupid law. It isn't the modders fault what his clients choose to do with the modification.

niallo27

It'll be thrown out and they knew, there just hoping it might scare a few people off doing it

Mikeyt086

Inmate 1: What did you do?
Inmate 2: I killed a guy to get into a gang. You?
Inmate 1: I robbed a bank and shot a security guard.
Inmate 2: Hey, dude curled up in a ball in the corner, what did you do?
Modder Inmate: ehh... I modded Xbox's for around $40.

How do they think that is going to end?

Slugs

One is Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who secretly video-recorded defendant Matthew Crippen allegedly performing the Xbox mod in Crippen’s Los Angeles suburban house. The defense argues that making the recording violates California privacy law. The other witness is Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who analyzed the two consoles Crippen allegedly altered. McGrail admitted that he himself had modded Xboxes in college.

If the guy has ANY legal balls whatsoever, and he has a decent lawyer, he can pull himself out of this on the grounds of solicitation by the government.

And if he's really good, he can turn the case onto the prosecution, and make a point that he is being victimised and used as a scapegoat.

Since I'm too tired, can anyone find me the details of the Digitial Millenium Copyright act and under what sections he's being charged with.

I like this judge, but I'll put a fiver down that he'll be taken off the case. This going to be a ****ing nasty case, and the fact that the judge has already ****ed the prosecution out of it for underhanded tactics says to me this won't go down well .

Man I hope this guy has legal balls. I also can't believe that the US government took this long to bring their first prosecution, I'd say most people settled out of court beforehand.

jetpack101

rizzla wrote: »

He'll know all about the red ring of death if he gets convicted.

LOL very good

Myrddin

They broke the law to obtain evidence against him? Only in the land of oppurtunity would such evidence be permissable :rolleyes:

They'll go after him becuase he was running a business out of it, but proving any amateur is 'guilty beyond all reasonable doubt' is a different story altogether.

Incredible that you can by an AK47 in the same state, but putting custom firmware on your consoles dvd drive is more likely to end you up in the slammer. The sooner the better someone takes on the fight, what a farce.

witnessmenow

This wont go through....

A Irish modder was telling me once he modded one for a guy and he had to drop it back to where the guy worked..... Microsoft

docentore

witnessmenow wrote: »

This wont go through....

A Irish modder was telling me once he modded one for a guy and he had to drop it back to where the guy worked..... Microsoft

I'm sure he was sh*ing his pants when he saw where he needs to drop the xbox

On the case: from my understanding case was dismissed, but I might be wrong. I don't understand this law language

Myrddin

docentore wrote: »

I'm sure he was sh*ing his pants when he saw where he needs to drop the xbox

On the case: from my understanding case was dismissed, but I might be wrong. I don't understand this law language

Yep dismissed, what a waste of time, money & effort.

niallo27

EnterNow wrote: »

Yep dismissed, what a waste of time, money & effort.

Im guessing Microsoft are hoping the publicity of the case will scare people in the future from modding their consoles

witnessmenow

witnessmenow wrote: »

This wont go through....

A Irish modder was telling me once he modded one for a guy and he had to drop it back to where the guy worked..... Microsoft

I modded 3 for a bloke that worked for MS

He wasnt complaining.

niallo27

niallo27 wrote: »

Im guessing Microsoft are hoping the publicity of the case will scare people in the future from modding their consoles

Scare people, now think of the amount of people who never heard of modded 360`s getting interested in getting it done.

Shiminay

It was modding and home brew stuff that made the first XBox popular.

docentore

Kharn wrote: »

It was modding and home brew stuff that made the first XBox popular.

After my bro's suggestion I got myself an Xbox as media centre, I never liked playing on consoles before. There you go, now I have X360, original X, PS3, PS2

Myrddin

niallo27 wrote: »

Im guessing Microsoft are hoping the publicity of the case will scare people in the future from modding their consoles

Not at all, in fact anyone who had doubts about doing it will now have a very clear perspective.