College student arrested for modding game consoles |
Ó
A college student from Cal State Fullerton was arrested by federal agents on Monday by illegally running a home business of modifying Xbox, Playstation, Wii and other video game consoles to enable the machines to play pirated video games.Matthew Lloyd Crippen was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for allegedly violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. According to NBC Los Angeles:
The college student is accused of modifying for personal financial gain technology affecting control or access to a copyrighted work. Each criminal count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The charges against Crippen stem from an ICE investigation initiated late last year after the agency received a tip from the Entertainment Software Association.
Special Agent in Charge Robert Schoch, who heads the ICE investigations office in Los Angeles commented on the bust:
Playing with games in this way is not a game -- it is criminal. Piracy, counterfeiting and other intellectual property rights violations not only cost U.S. businesses jobs and billions of dollars a year in lost revenue, they can also pose significant health and safety risks to consumers.
Related articles:
Via NBC
Contact Us:
The QJ.net Network |
 |
| Site | Feed |
| QJ.NET | RSS |
| Nintendo DS | RSS |
| PlayStation 3 | RSS |
| PSP Updates | RSS |
| Wii | RSS |
| Xbox 360 | RSS |
| MMORPG | RSS |
| Personal Computer Games | RSS |
| iPhone - iPod Touch | RSS |
| QJ.NET Forums | RSS |
Add QJ.NET
User Favorites - December
User Favorites - December
Categories
Archives
Accessories
Add-ons
Applications
Artwork
Batteries
Cheats
Deals
Emulators
Events
Featured Articles
Firmware
Flash Applications
Flash games
Game Demos
Games
Hacks & Exploits
Homebrew Applications
Homebrew Demos
Homebrew Development
Homebrew Emulators
Homebrew Games
Homebrew Themes
How-To
Humor
Imports
Interviews
Magazines
Mods
MY QJ
News
Off Topic
On Shelves This Week
Opinions & Analysis
Podcasts
Previews
PSP Go
PSP Minis
PSP Slim & Lite
QJ How-To Series
QuickJump QuickGuide
QuickJump QuickPeek
Reviews
Rumors
Scans
Screenshots
Site News
Titles
UMD Movies
Videos
Weekend Warrior
Wi-Fi
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
Comments [refresh]
good old news so close to home....
I'm all for people modding their consoles, i mean i've chipped and hacked plenty consoles but only for myself and people who can't do it themselfs.. But i do have a problem with people making money and not paying taxes.
When was this why am I not aware of this happening. Damn only if I knew I could've gotten something modded
Yeah I mod for myself too. It's not that hard specially with YouTube.
@gunblade15zx
Yeah dude I didn't know either. But there are a lot of modders here in LA. Some people don't want to risk breaking their systems so they have others mod it for them.
Oh well lol. Dude got owned by the feds lol.
"Each criminal count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison."
I wonder if those punishments would be concurrent or consecutive?
Not paying taxes? Modding a console is a SERVICE. There are no taxes. They would have to charge tax on the chip if they sold it to the customer. Which probably came from overseas so either way the good ol' USofA banked on the product anyway.
I don't really have a problem with modding a console for yourself, you can do some cool things with a modded console, but for-profit counterfeiting and rights infringement are crimes, no two ways about it. Guy was asking for what he got
To NickyP, if the jail sentences even stand, they are almost always ruled to be served concurrently. It's up to the judge, but no judge would, say, put a man in jail for 50 years for stealing 10 movies.
I thought he had a modded console and got arrested cause douchebag room mate told on him and he got in serious trouble. This also made me not bring my Xbox 360 to college -.-
"...they can also pose significant health and safety risks to consumers."
Really?!?! And what would those be??
Kids, the moral of the story is get a real legitimate job. And never try to rely on your piracy abilities to generate income rather than doing respectable work.
He had to have been selling the games also. Cause modding it isn't a federal offense. If that were the case he's a filthy idiot. I have a business in Topeka, KS 66614 (come get me feds) that I post on Craigslist and charge for the systems. But technically I charge for the labor, not the task that I'm doing. He'll get off scotfree cause they don't have a case, unless of course he doesn't have a lawyer, cause even a bad lawyer knows this is an easy fight to win.
I see nothing wrong with modding certain things but when it comes to money pirating etc.... well then thats where I say to bad for you
I assume they're talking about the possibilities of being burned or electrocuting when soddering on the modchips?
Though I agree, there's always exceptions. Usually no one will be given consecutive sentences for minor felonies like theft and whatnot, but the reason I wondered was because it seems an agency of the government caught this guy.
there were a lot of cases where you would think the person doesn't have a case and then you look at how the legal stuff for a console is set up and you can see they have a case. If I remember correctly a lot of cases end up with the company saying that they do not own the system and all they bought was a license to use the system or something like that
to post this on the internet. Who knows, the FEDs could be after you next
BS law because it's up to the end user to decide how they'll use it. If you mod a console and then give them a bunch of DVD-Rs with games or a HDD with a bunch of games on it, then you get what you get.
Well, that depends. If you are modding using a modified BIOS that was illegally obtained (like some mod chips do), then you are doing something illegal. If he was just soft-modding, like on PSP or Wii, I don't see how they could do anything.
And yeah, I love the canned line they give at the end. I especially love how they just randomly tack on new things, this is definitely the first time I've seen them claim health and safety risks to consumers.
Robert Schoch
you are dead man. KGB watching you - i prepare Deyterium
^___^
прощайся с жизнью, пидарас!
even if modding was an offence they dont have the manpower to arrest everyone an danyway most cases of modding e.g. install cfw on psp is not actually modifying becasue all we are doing is extracting it and patching it so technically we can get it legally becasue they host the files on there website
how they count things as piracy becasue i extract files from setup.exe files so i dont have to install them that is actually classed as modding and ilegal fro some reason but it wont stop us for every person they hunt down hundreds more surface to take there place and there too busy with other crimes like murders to go after everyone that breaks the law becasue they go after people in order of the most dangerous ussually or the easiest to find
becasue it is easy for them to find people who mod becasue every single character we type is logged by ower ispn but it takes weeks for them to get anything out of them (thats with a warrent)
Often enough this happens watch the stistics
http://healthmad.com/healthcare-industry/euthanasia-3/
Well i mod 2 so what ! But i don't make money selling others copies of games or sell pre-modded consoles. I have the right to do whatever i want with my console, MS made me buy the Xbox360 3 times because of there RRoD so F@*K them !! I'm modding and downloading all my games ! I think the FBI needs to focus on more important thing like finding there friend ousama.
Soldering with solder containing lead can pose serious health problems if you're around it and constantly breathing the fumes. Make sure you chose the correct solder for what you're doing. This is definitely a case of "what you don't know CAN hurt you."
Happy to hear he was modding the 360, then *****crosoft looses money, which is DEFINITELY good. But as for the rest, they shouldn't have to loose money.
The only microsoft loses is the amount of royalties they make for selling the xbox 360 discs but I'm pretty sure the amount the developers lose is a lot more than what microsoft loses.
Bad karma comes to anyone who does such a thing. Whether you believe it or not, it'll catch up to you, and you're going to regret ever doing it in the first place.
Too bad, lol, that's what you get.
Extracting from an executable can be considered illegal it depends on the file and what you do with it's contents. Things like ComboFix, the freeware malware remover contains a plethora of intricate subroutines that many people worked very hard on and if you were to TAKE any of these and claim them as your own then that would be illegal. Secondly, unless you have some sort of active keylogger on your machine, internet traffic is most likely logged, not *every* character you type. And lastly, I would like to kindly suggest you use a spell checker and possibly some punctuation in future comments to make them more legible. Know that the web browser Opera has a spell check built in, so I would start there were I you.
what about income taxes?
i highly doubt he reported that income...
stop and think before you open your WTF'n mouth...
There's nothing illegal about modding game consoles...the dude who got busted wasn't pirating games, he was offering a service to modify game consoles. Even though mods allow systems to play pirated games, that's the console user's responsibility, not the person doing the mod for them.
it sucks for this guy, id support him,
but did he mod a playstation 1,2, or 3 lol?
stupid question i know
Guys this guys can clean him self by just saying "im moding console not for piracy but for buckup" yes , self use of buckups is not ilegal and laws confirms it , since if you got your game disk scratched you are not waranted so pls let him know that . also their hundreds of uk and us webstores who sell modded xbox360 this agent want a graduation by pissing off this guy summer .
@apex05 and @rollypolly ---You can now officially consider yourselves fully 'brainwashed' by Govt, if all you have to worry about with this story is whether or not the guy paid taxes on the service of modding someone's console. First of all, this sounds to me like a 'first': software piracy is one thing, but taking someone to jail for hacking a console is kinda' like putting the Auto Mechanic in the slammer because you paid him to put a supercharged engine in your car. :-O Seems to be some 'creative enforcement' of the Digital Millenium Act, ...and something we should ALL fear. --Don't even get me started on taxes (Income or otherwise). Suffice it to say that in the USA's founding years, Income Tax was *voluntary* (that's why you were considered a 'good citizen' if you paid taxes). Also, until late 20th Century, no one paid taxes on food (I don't think on services, either). --If you want to be over-concerned about paying taxes for breathing, etc. to a Govt run amok and slashing your freedoms left-and-right: your choice. ...But, don't berate someone because they don't think the tax issue is a high concern (speaking to you, rollypolly).
while services generally are tax exempt (really depends on the state, though), it is generally agreed upon by tax professionals that adding components to a product for a fee is taxable
as for the DMCA
Section 1201 SS 2
`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
@FelisCatusLove r
Smart one he wasn't just modding the xbox(quoted from the article you should of read)
"illegally running a home business of modifying Xbox, Playstation, Wii and other video game consoles to enable the machines to play pirated video games."
You can see that it isn't only the xbox, stupid fanboy
Why would you wanna go and blow it while in college? Seriously.
I remember being in junior high and learning about taxation with out representation being told that it is bad Just to learn our government is full of such atrocities. I mod and such but I actually own the games I like. (on PS3 of course)
also vizard00 is right to an extent he needed a case and since he probably just graduated he knew the modder on campus and *****ed him over.
Just remember 90% of Gov. Officials and Law Enforcement are not people they are tools they abuse their government backing.
Ending my rant, I have modded sheriff's xbox's and even people on the department of home land security "immigration department" so hey maybe game companies should lower their prices.
The PS3 isn't capable of playing pirated games so it could have only been the PS2 and the Wii. And I said "as for the rest, they shouldn't have to loose money." I feel sorry for the other companies, not Microscum.
#1. What got pirated? The chips, the technology of the installation of said chip?
#2. What happened to YOUR rights to copy YOUR OWN PURCHASED game, and once you have, how the FOCK are you supposed to be able to play it?
This guy needs a really good ambulance chaser and sue the living *****e out of the arresting force.
Nor were we told if he went out of his way to ask his clients as to whether or not THEY intend on illegal activities, as well as the loss of their warranty?
Personally, I need a bit more information before totally slamming the innocence or guilt of this individual, but it immediately seems to me that he lacks skills in semantics.
the consumer not the modder so can't be solder but since the consumer bought a modded 360 he will have many more games than he would have gotten if not and therefore he spends less time exercising and more time playing free games and therefore his health will deteriorate.
actually, according to wording in the DMCA, if you modify a device to play pirated materials, you are technically breaking the law
WTF happened to being able to copy your own games if you have already purchased them from a store. Sure piracy causes profits to go down but I've read myself that people have a right to have a digital copy of their physical games just in case you break it or lose it. Is it just me or does the U.S. Government overreact and jump to conclusions?
plays bootleg copies of movies, like the ones i download sometime. Guess who made my computer. Microsoft. hmmm maybe they shoud get in trouble too, after all they made it so i can play them. But im just joking lol. Lmao maybe this guy could use that as an argument in court.
i have a good figure out. Matthew Crippen is Alex dark. just guess
Piratez will live FOReVER! ;)
Epileptics. They download and burn a flashy game and have a seizure unintentionally . There was no physical manual or game box to warn them of seizure risks.
Oh man that was funny! But what did agent rob ever do to the russians/kgb?
I am 83 years old. How come I'm not a homocide vic yet? And don't give me that "your time will come" *****. It'd have come already, before the liver spots. It's a karma law.
his name is dark alex and again, no, because he lives in spain and the arrested matt is in california. lol
he modded their psps and xboxes and gave them some btchin american games!
"Well, that depends. If you are modding using a modified BIOS that was illegally obtained (like some mod chips do), then you are doing something illegal."
I can't speak for PS2 modchips or the Xbox360 drivechips, but when you get one for the Wii or the Xbox 1, you need to manually put the BIOS on there yourself and it isn't included when a standalone chip or premodded system ships, though they do point you in the right direction on where to get it. Once again, the end user's decision. If they are preflashed, then you are asking for trouble.
i totally agree with you.
i'm not brainwashed by any stretch of the imagination... i wasn't worried about the tax issue at all. i'm a firm believer that double taxation is illegal and the govt created loopholes to get around it. i don't believe the money i make should be taxed, only the money i spend... which i tend to do alot of.
i was merely pointing out to the ever so intelligent ISOHaven, that sales (or service) tax isn't the only thing the govts expect us to pay.
guys i happy you have humour sense :)
It's unlikely Dark_Alex will get arrested because Spain has some of the worst piracy in the world, so either the average gamer is very good at avoiding the law or more likely the Spanish Goverment just doesn't care.
I think you ment Firefox not Opera because I use the latest version of Opera and I had to look for and install a plugin (?) called "Aspell".
UltimaArmorX, are you f%u03C5cking kidding me ? What's with that Subject line ? You're 83 yo and killed two children ? If you're joking it's not a very good one.
You said buckups. What were you thinking about ? :) Cash ?
psp2, what the f%u03C5ck are you talking about ? Microsoft didn't make your PC to play pirated games. The person (or sometimes even a team - like reloaded, deviance, etc) who created the crack allowed you to play pirated games on your PC.
Did i not say i was jokiong!!!
It was my joke!!! AND not a good one so STFU, Either way piracy runs on my computer, so they should sue microsoft for not being strong enough to block it. No one else cares about what i said because it was a bad joke, d@mn dude relax, you know you a lame when you get worked up over stupid comments. Not to mention i didnt even care, i justwanted to drop a lil 2 cents.
i bet you would get pissed if i left a question on this article asking "whats a zune?" lmao.
HAHA look at my stars on the last comment, i feel special.
@rollypoly - That has NOTHING to do with it. Not a damn thing. He probably jaywalks to so it that a reason to claim services require taxes??? Seriously, WTF was your point?
I was just stating the obvious.
I agree with damonous in the sense that this whole issue sucks. But in the end, it is ILLEGAL to circumvent digital security.
But, this is actually a good thing. Sort of. After all, they only went after someone who made a business out of it. If you change the supercharger example to something along the lines of illegally modifying an exhaust to pollute for more HP but at the same time make it pass inspection then you quickly see why there's an issue on the table.
Now, if they start busting the console owners... the shlt is going to hit the fan!!!
@Orlyeh - I don't care what SOME moronic tax professionals "believe". The law is the law. A service is not taxable. I already went this route with the lawyers when I had a DVD conversion business. I converted video tapes to DVD back when DVD burners where not yet available for PC. It was a SERVICE and the DVDs I gave to the customers for FREE. I charged NO TAXES. But I had to pay sales tax on the DVDs (and cases and paper supplies). I could not buy them wholesale.
@rollypoly (again) - Again, WTF was your point and why? I didn't saying even close to that. You need to get in the game man....
You know what else costs millions of jobs?
Restrictions on hardware that stifle INDEPENDENT DEVELOPERS, who are much more likely to create more jobs and create better software than these Wiitarded megacorporation s who stay with the same old safe gameplay formulas over and over!
And health risks to consumers? Don't make me laugh. Some idiot gets electrocuted by messing with HIS OWN ELECTRONICS, and for this, he's ARRESTED? Will the same rule apply to automobiles? Will we need to modify them to drive to restricted places before long?
Your hatred towards one giant greedy company as apposed to another giant greedy company really escapes me. Not that you would tell the truth anyways, but are you typing your nonsense from a windows machine? That would just be the bees knees. Keep in mind it doesn't really count if your mom bought you a Dell loaded with XP and as an act of "fighting the man" you installed ubuntu...Microsoft doesn't care and open source is garbage. And if its a mac...well...you really have to rethink yourself. Don't bother replying to bash me...I was just wondering how you came to the conclusion that one crappy company is better than another and why you are all up in arms about it?
how do you know he wasn't doing it to PAY for college? Not everyone has a mommy and daddy to pay for school. Ever hear of strippers?
Damn, there are enough people who mod consoles for money, as well as sell copied games for money, at least where I live....
This guy got caught cuz he pissed off somebody...
Piracy will be around for a long time anyways.
I bet you over half of QJ users have a modded 360s, DS flashcart, modded wii, or custom firmware on PSP.
Or all of the above.
I bought my modded 360 from a guy in San Jose California not too long ago. People advertise the stuff all the time on craigs list. Looks like they'll have to find a not so obvious way of selling the systems, like the whole "back up games" thing lol. Sucks for that guy though. And there are way too many pricks on the qj pages that are so anti piracy for the stupidest reasons, can't help but suspect half of them or childish whiners.
he said taxes... he didn't imply a specific type, and you acted like a service tax is the only kind he could even been talking about.
in fact his statement implies INCOME TAX as it follows the statement "making money", not "offering a service" or "selling a product"
make all the nonsensical comparisons you want, it doesn't change the fact that you assumed he meant a service tax.
That's the same thing you idiot. When you CHARGE someone tax you PAY that tax to the government. You don't get to keep it! Thus, PAYING TAXES.
It means both. Whether he meant it to only mean income and/or sales is up to him to specify.
Also, it's called SALES tax not SERVICE TAX. Gees!!!
First of all, there ain't NO COMPANY ON EARTH as greedy as Microsoft. NONE. PERIOD. THEY ARE THE WORST. Everything they do is evil. They rip off ideas from EVERYONE, THEY HAVE NEVER IN THEIR ENTIRE HISTORY MADE SOMETHING INNOVATIVE. NEVER. THE MOST INNOVATIVE THING THEY HAVE EVER DONE IS GET A RECORD AMOUNT OF LAWSUITS. Secondly, I would never use Winblows, yes I am on a Mac.
He should not have charged for it. That was selfish and dumb. People who do that make me mad, and it is because of their own greed that they get caught. Had he not been trying to make a sale, I doubt anyone would have noticed (or cared) that he was modding anything.
And another thing, you can't just trust anybody you go to school with. One of the PSP's he modded could easily be the bait that got him caught!
If you don't consider the modder as a consumer then you're correct and I was wrong. I was still thinking of the modder as a consumer.
I could spin a story where a modder doesn't know what he's doing and ends up causing the console he sold to catch fire, and burn down a house or something, but that's going out on a limb. But hey, Special Agent Robert Schoch went pretty far out on a limb saying that its a safety risk. I was just trying to think of anything when I brought up soldering.
Perhaps its even good for you to mod consoles!
Next up: Richard Simmons, Modding to the oldies!
im 100% sure this guy is not american
Apparently, everyone here is an accountant or IRS agent ..or have diccks shoved up their ass.
...ANYWAY, the only bad thing to happen in this case is that the guy allowed himself to get caught.
fo shizzle
~K Dizzle™
and that has to do with what again?
Anyway, back on topic...
So, if he did the service for free he wouldn't get busted for it?