Man convicted for chipping Xbox
 

Man convicted for chipping Xbox


A 22-year-old man has become the first person in the UK to be convicted for modifying a video games console.
The Cambridge graduate was sentenced at Caerphilly Magistrates' Court to 140 hours of community service.
The Xbox was fitted with a 200GB hard drive packed with games


full story here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4650225.stm

"The man was sentenced to 140 hours community service and ordered to pay £750 in costs. The court also seized his equipment - three PCs, two printers, three Xbox consoles and 38 hard drives. "

and theeen they follow up with this ridiculous paragraph.

("It sends a clear message to anyone tempted to become involved in chipping consoles that this is a criminal offence and will be dealt with accordingly," said Mr Rawlinson, deputy director general of Elspa.)

is it just me or does this seem idiotic to anyone else..
The guy barely got a slap on the hand if that. Any idiot profiting from the sale of that much pirated crap deserves a little jail time.. Hell at least a year.
For christ's sake he could pay that fine with the money he got from selling 2 of the boxes for which he was selling at £380 a shot. The only thing he suffered was the money he lost on the seized equipment!
Does anyone else think this guy would've gone down a lot harder in the USA?

I posted the exact same thing in another forum. This guy got off with a 14 year olds punishment. I mean, community service? What a joke.

yeah it is kind of silly. They come down so hard on modchips alone yet this guy is selling, installing the chip as well as 80 pirated games. I bet Charlie_PS2 feels raped.

Maybe this guy has some "close friends", if you know what I mean.

Guys like these are the reason chipping gets a bad rep... There are a lot of users out there that chip, uses legal backups or use it to run homebrew games/apps/linux and then comes this jerk. Wtf are you thinking if you chip, switch hdd (so far it is good I say) and then fills it with 80 games (thats where its gotten baaaad)?

Well....If you think about it....Come on....Jail Time???? People get caught with more DRUGS than you could fit in an xbox and they get off with suspended sentences, Com. Serv., and even first offense programs!!!! A guy in our area just got caught with drugs and a gun and he got off witht 250 com serv. and it was apparrently his 2nd offense????? I agree that he was an idiot for selling the boxs with games....I love the ebay boxes out there........UPGRADED XBOX FOR SALE.....50 games....Great Deal......haha.....I take piece of mind that my real copies are in my closet and my backups are all over my kids room....What's that.....a scratch...No problem......

Eric.. While you have a point.. The fact that the legal system is horrible doesn't really change the fact that the punishment should've been harsher.. Sure murderers only get probation but they SHOULD get at least life.. 2 Wrongs don't make a right is the closest I can get to rebutting that view point.

[QUOTE=Neipas02][B] Any idiot profiting from the sale of that much pirated crap deserves a little jail time.. Hell at least a year.QUOTE]

I agree but this is not what he got arrested for. He got arrested for chipping an XBOX or more specifically from the article, "Under that directive, it is illegal to circumvent copy protection systems."

The selling of the stuff is just what got him caught.

[QUOTE=tonydead]Obviously that's correct, but then again I never said that's "WHAT HE GOT ARRESTED FOR".. I said that's why he "DESERVES A LITTLE JAIL TIME".

It was more of a personal view point.. And now that you touched on it.. I would've rather sent a man to prison for getting rich off of stolen goods than have sent a simple ordinary Joe installing a chip for what it was intended for... Backing up his expensive ass software to protect his investment.

Yeah, he got busted for the wrong offence. In my eyes if you purchase a console you should be able to do with it what you want to. Be it installing a chip or getting mad and busting it into a million pieces :D .

Well said Warlock, and that is my point.

I think most everyone that visits these forums, any of them to do with DVD technology, agrees similarily with that viewpoint. Yet everyone wanted this guy to be punished and serve time......but for what?

He was busted for installing a chip and copying games, not selling them. The laws, this particular one at least, isn't worded they way we woul like them.

I can guarantee you he'd rather do time in jail than 140hrs community service which can only be done at a rate of 4 hours per week so will be hanging over him for 8 months.

A 2 week sentence with parole & tagging would have seen him released by the w/end!

I seriously doubt that.. I could do community service standing on my head even if it took forever to complete.. Rather that then getting a new boyfriend/cellmate I didn't want to begin with.

Uk jails are soft as shiite, most peeps have a better life inside than out!

ah.. well then that explains your POV.. I bet the male/male relationships are usually mutual then huh? BAHAHAHA.. The Uk is OOOk!
Enough spamming for me.. I'm banning myself from this thread

When you buy a computer you are free to do with it what you wish, you can change any component of it for something bigger, better and faster. I really cant see why people can not do this with their own xbox systems?

You can customize your xbox however you want. However, that breaks the tos for xbox live and voids any warrenty you might have. Nobody ever said it was illegal.

You cannot obtain hacked bios (or the originals for that matter) legally because microsoft does not distribute the original bios freely. This is where legal issues come in. It is their code and they chose to sell it. Distributing it is just like giving somebody a pirated game.

@Quall
I must say I dont own an xbox, (I also dont usually venture into the xbox forums, I only followed Neipas's post, silly me :D) anyway I wasnt aware of all the legalities of the xbox either. I wasnt aware of anything you have mentioned? Thanks Quall you have made me a little wiser. ;)

Erm may I quote this from the article?
"The man had been selling modified Xbox consoles which he fitted with a big hard drive containing 80 games. " Note selling, not meant as a flame, just saying.

Though Xbox is considered a computer because its built like one ( and almost identical except casing), it's still considered a console like the PS2(which also is like a computer but not as much as Xbox). So, my point is think of it as opening you're cell phone and taking out the memory and adding a 50 gb laptop HDD with Halo 2 and stuff on it(though impossible and stupid, its a demonstration dude....).You're not supposed to do that because it's taking copyrighted material and illegally putting it on your phone and impossibly playing it on there without ,most likely, buying the software and paying Microsoft and WTF Halo on a cell phone?!?! If you could do that I bow down to your mightiness.

The verdict is, you could jack off every 2 minutes in your room alone and no one would know, but if you record yourself and sell it, *SOMEHOW* your family find out *MAGICALLY*. Bad example,yes, also nasty, yes.
Anyway you can do whatever you want with your Xbox (I.E put a porno skin on your Xbox) and no one would know,put games on the HDD, who cares , no one knows, but you, and your buddies(which hopefully REALLY are your buddies and won't rat you out for a pat on the back). Unless of course you start mass producing and selling it and advertising. You can sell an Xbox with an upgraded HDD no problem, but when you add the 80 games it's a problem. Like Grumpy said, you can modify it however you wish and you cannot be jailed, fined ,etc, but it violates TOS,but still no fine or jail, or the dreaded Com Serv. The reason you can't copy it to the HDD is how would you know you ACTUALLY bought it?("Erm, I uh lost it? No wait, My Dog ate it. Oldest Trick eh? Well, my cat ate it than.")
You have the ORIGINAL disk that you BOUGHT huh? Well guess what, if you had copied it to the HDD successfully, could you have possibly copied it to other HDDs in other Xboxs and sold it? How about if you copied it to the HDD and than put it on the internet for distribution? The internet is a vast place much like the Universe(only man made the internet, who knows who or WHAT made the universe,but I couldn't care less). And they lived happily ever after.

The End




" "This case sets a major precedent which marks a milestone in the fight against piracy," said games industry spokesman Michael Rawlinson. "
[Comment]-_- How corny is that /\[/Comment]
P.S I know [comment] is not a valid command it's just there to symbolize if you know what I mean ( I hope).
P.P.S I registered just to post this and seek some techie help :cool: