ELSPA's successful piracy raid in England |
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The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) is happy to announce that its anti-piracy raid yesterday in the Billingham area and in Lingdale North East of England was successful. Modified consoles seized include Wii, DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 (PS2), and the PlayStation Portable (PSP).
The raid was done with the help of police officers from from the Cleveland Police Economic Crime Unit in conjunction with Stockton Police. Two Trading Standards securities were also at hand during the operation and a total of three individuals were caught in three different areas. Aside from the consoles, modchips and modified games were also recovered.
"We were delighted with the outcome of this operation, finding and bringing criminals to book. We now call on all police and trading standards authorities to act with the same level of commitment in order to protect legitimate businesses and consumers against these exploitative criminals," shared ELSPA Managing Director Michael Rawlinson.
Likewise, Cabinet Member for Community Protection Dave McLuckie is satisfied with the way the operation was carried out. He added that this raid is for the people after all, "People should be aware that by buying pirated equipment they are buying something that is unlikely to be of good quality and ultimately leads to a complete waste of their money."
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Comments [refresh]
let's hope they stay in england >_
umm police suck plan and simple they are worthless abusive pieces of humanity well the ones i know atleast and btw modded consoles are asome i dont support piracy tough thats a bad thing but modders mod on
those bastards have a *****ing cheek saying this kind of raid is for the people when its blatently not - ITS TO LINE THERE *****ING POCKETS.
people like this guy are just trying to make some money in this *****hole of a country - it is after all rip-off britain.
i feel for the poor guy they carted away - i wonder what major crime hes being carted off for:
is it murder? dont think so.
is it rape? highly doubt it, unless its the rape of those greedy arsed bastard companies.
is it ANY serious crime at all???? no it *****ing isnt.
then they have the cheak to say our jails are overflowing - I *****ING WONDER WHY.
god almighty can this *****ing country GET any worse?
let me add that piracy was NOT on the list of crimes he was carted off for. he was simply done for selling modified consoles. yes they can be USED for piracy but that doesnt prove that HE was guilty of that. *****ing rich bastards have the police in there pockets - it makes me sick.
Totally agree. The police have more important things to do, like solving rapes and murders, than wasting their time protecting some game studio's assets. It's just like Mp3s and pirated DVDs - The movie and music industies have the cash to buy their artists limos and caviar all the time, then sob and cry about the 5% piracy rate.
Piracy is despicable. Game developers put in a lot of investment and effort into making games and pirates reward them by stealing. Piracy is one of the reasons PSP isn't as successful as the DS. Cut the homebrew BS, you know you use it to play pirated ISOs. If we keep this up, the industry will suffer badly and we'll less and less of good, creative new IPs. That's the reality of the situation.
you spelt their wrong. you spelt it there. jackass
All you british people can do is complain about your semi-perfect country because it ain't perfect, well why don't you come to America and see how hard life is here whiners...
flame bait...
i didn't know modifying your console was illegal...i don't think he'll get any charges for the consoles. the police statement was simpy to link the presence of a modified unit with piracy. that way, even having a modified console of any kind would be probable cause
so, you're saying that you've never downloaded MP3s, or watched a music video or tv show on youtube?
why cant i make easy money on those *****ers that work their asses to get a game/console for my amusement? why?? whats wrong with that? they do a game, i download, and they don't see any money, they dont eat and die and you dont get new games, you A55HOLE! typical british.. use your focken brain, mate!
The "reality of the situation" is that game studios should spend THEIR OWN resources to protect their assets. Also, the PSP lost a HUGE amount of steam because of the new ROM set that won't play homebrew or backups. Now, oddly enough, nobody wants to pay good money for a CRIPPLED PSP. If everyone else can play the PS1 version of FF7 on their PSPs by simply copying the files to their mem stick, then I'm not going to run out and buy one that doesn't let me do what everyone else can do. Sony could release a PSP version, but we already know that only the bargain basement titles get ported instead of the PS1's dozens of AAA titles. Stores aren't getting rid of their PSP sections because of piracy; there are only 3 or 4 PSP titles worth playing. The flood of great new games that Sony promised never came, so people weren't buying PSP games, so stores are clearing those sections out for products that people actually want to buy, amazingly enough.
it is like cracking software. alone they are simply programs. but anyone knows what they can do. so, are they legal? in theory yes, as alone they are harmless, but.. really, we know what they are for, so NO.
I think it is a pretty high percent the people that pirate PSP games. Every person I have ever seen playing PSP I always ask two questions. What game are you playing? Answer I'm playing blah blah. Second question. How many PSP games do you own? Answer Oh I didn't buy it I downloaded it I download all my games. I don't plan on ever buying a PSP game as long as I can play them for free. It's pretty much those same anwers all the time. Which is why you constantly see people *****ing and moaning about how they don't want to upgrade because they don't want to lose their precious homebrew. Which is a lie they just want free games. Another problem it's that it's so easy to do it that even the dumbest person can downgrade a PSP and start pirating games. You need what a USB cable, 2gb memory stick and Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories and a downgrade guide available right here at Qj.net and that is pretty much it. My question to these people is. If you can't afford to buy the games what the hell did you buy the console for? I also found this article that hit the nail right on the head. Check it out
http://yourgamerparadise.wordpress.com/2006/08/19/why-are-psp-games-not-selling/
Meh, what are you trying to say?
If games are good, people will buy them.
I hate to tell you, but gamestop/EB games is more evil than piracy, check it out.
Cracks are perfectly legal. When I pay $50 or $60 for a PC game, I shouldn't have to have the DVD in the drive. I have 400 gigs of free space, there is no reason to play the swapping discs game like I did with my Amiga 500 a while ago. The sad thing about copy protection is that it only affects paying customers, which the game industry has known damn well for 20 years. People who do the right thing and PAY for the game have to play feminine little games in order to launch the program, but people who steal the game by downloading it from the Net play on pre-cracked copies. THAT is another reality, from a CONSUMERs view. ANOTHER reality is that the game industry has played the intellectual property angle so much that now we can't return open software to the store. Nobody admits that having a product in stores which is impossible to return is every corporations wet dream. If I buy a game, and I don't like the game FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, I should have the right to return it. Saying "oh we can't take that back because you opened it" is a scam. Check out the PC Gamer article this month, where the editor tries to get his money back from game studios. Interesting that if you want to BUY a game, they always have enough people to take your order, but if you want to RETURN a poorly developed and/or totally lame game, they have an automated system to try and discourage you. These are the people you are protecting???
"Which is why you constantly see people *****ing and moaning about how they don't want to upgrade because they don't want to lose their precious homebrew."
Yeah I hate it when people whine because they are expected to buy a crippled console. What a bunch of jerks people are, they should just be happy Sony is nice enough to deal with them at all. Oh, wait, that's totally backwards isn't it?
Strangely enough, piracy has been around since the Apple II and IBM-PC Compatibles and the gaming industry is stronger than ever. They must be selling a FEW million copies, eh?
Also, this link you provided, http://yourgamerparadise.wordpress.com/2006/08/19/why-are-psp-games-not-selling/ says that the PSP games aren't selling because people bought PSPs as multimedia players and then got tired of them. You might want to read the actual article before claiming it supports your view. Cheers kiddo.
me too
well,
personally i think the game industry is asking for.
The amount of tat they turn out and then bull***** us with their propaganda saying it is the greatest game of all, and we look at the glossy packaging and buy it.
Well i am fed up of shelling out money for tat that wouldn't keep a 4 yo entertained.
If the games industry wasn't so quick to cash in on cheap ideas, maybe we wouldn't have so much piracy.
I really don't understand it, i develop for a living and if i am asked to code something that is crap, i make a point of not doing and pushing for it to be done the right way.
Why can't all devs protect us from the wallet sucking ceo's of companies who just want to rape our bank accounts :(
me three
HHhhmm I would say something here but it seems Neuromancer has taken every thought I've ever had about this topic and pieced it out in little sections.
If developers priced their games according to the quality 50-60 for good, 20-25 for bad, I might actually be interested in playing more games.
Thank you, kind sir. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one out there that hasn't been caught up in corporate BS.
yes, my psp i modded. i own SEVEN psp games and have downloaded a few. I have gone and BOUGHT 3 of the games that i downloaded because I thought they were deserving of my forking over the money. Any of the games that i have downloaded that i didn't buy usually get erased a day or two after the download. I can't rent psp games, and i don't want to fork over 50 bucks to find out the game sucks and i'll never play it again.
But do you want to know the main reason i modded my psp? Original playstation games that I OWN. I was excited for the *update* that would allow working PSone games. I had an original playstation and own almost 40 games for it. But guess what, i couldn't play ONE of them on my normal psp. i would have had to go BUY a PS3, and then from there go on the Playstation Store and find out that they have hardly any of my games. And the ones i did have i would have had to buy AGAIN. I don't see that as fair or right. So i modded my psp to play MY ALREADY OWNED PSone titles. And i can get charged for that? thats a friggin joke!
s.t.f.u. n00b piracy is awesome and so's hombrew software, you f.u.c.k.i.n.g. p.r.i.c.k.!
It%u2019s hard to say that Sony lost money because of people emulating other systems%u2026. For example, if Sony had a PSP version of Final Fantasy 7 in stores, and people were playing the emulated PS1 version instead of buying it, then yeah that affects Sony%u2019s sales. But since they DON%u2019T have FF7 for PSP, and there is no version of FF7 still on shelves AT ALL, it%u2019s really hard to say it costs them money.
The same with emulating old arcade games MAME style. Is there a Galaga machine down at the laundrymat that isn%u2019t earning money because people are emulating it???
Sorry, that comment got a bunch of control codes in it from somewhere. Let's try again.
It%u2019s hard to say that Sony lost money because of people emulating other systems%u2026. For example, if Sony had a PSP version of Final Fantasy 7 in stores, and people were playing the emulated PS1 version instead of buying it, then yeah that affects Sony%u2019s sales. But since they DON%u2019T have FF7 for PSP, and there is no version of FF7 still on shelves AT ALL, it%u2019s really hard to say it costs them money.
The same with emulating old arcade games MAME style. Is there a Galaga machine down at the landrymat that isn%u2019t earning money because people are emulating it???
Basically what my name is, why so many people slag the british off? We have done nothing wrong, and by saying typical british what exactly are you implying? Another thing is it annoys me that all or most americans think that all british people sound the same like they are all from down south. I have news for you there are many different accents in britain like scousers for example. Oh and we don't whine all the time, i mean our country is rubbish because we let so many people from other countries get in but i wouldn't want to move to america because of that fact. I'm sure life is just as hard in america but still don't make us out to be whining pieces of trash because we aren't. Britain isn't perfect but neither is any country including America.
youre the only one brilliant here i think.....im glad someone else than me understood the real fact about it.....the companies r just growing more than ever.......i always bought hardware only.....and that is just ok !!
me four
its mostly yanks that try and slag us off - mostly because they cant comprehend what its actually like living here. they dont understand what its like to be earning with, say 2 jobs, and still not managing to pay for the things those *****s take for granted.
i fully agree no country is perfect and that there are worse places to live but this country rips us all off and gets away with it because it can.
a small example for those brain dead troglodites that live in america:
you pay $200 inc sales tax for an item.
we pay maybe £175 for the same item (tax included also).
now - heres the tricky part - stick with it.
dollars are at roughly 2 dollars to 1 pound so we pay £75 EXTRA over what you yanks pay. i know someone out there will quote exchange rates but it doesnt fluctuate any more than 10% (and thats STILL £50+ ($100+) at best case.
so the bottom line:
yanks pay $200.
we pay the EQUIVALENT OF $340 dollars - YES THATS AMOST DOUBLE WHAT YOU PAY!!!!!
this is ripoff britain - i have every right to ***** and complain about it.
the next american who thinks he knows better, just try and live here - you wouldnt survive.
Americans are just up there own arse, they cant even tell friend from foe (check out the FF history of American troops in both golf wars)
they think the British whine to much about our country, yet these are the ones that have probably never set foot on UK soil because their two scared.
America arm them selves with guns because they think they are pro, yet the British defend them selves with knifes (for the silent kill) And bottles for the hell of it.
Get one *****y *****ing yank in this country that is GREAT BRITAIN, and you would see how much of a *****ing kicking that twa.t would get.
Even our Travelers would kick the living ***** out of them.
Id love to see Americans live with over 4 million cameras in New york, (last estimate for cameras in London alone)
Then have them complain when they get speed cameras set up across the country to make sure you do 30 in a 30mph zone.
Then suffer all the Taxes that we do.
Americans haven't got a fuc.king clue what its like here.
Yet we have the best Army in the world (even stated by a top American general)
We have one of the best economies, even though we get ripped off left right and center (next time you fuc.king yanks think $50 is to much for a game, remember this *****er, that would be £25 in today's exchange rates, yet we don't pay that, we pay between £35 to £50.
Or for those who cant work that out, $70 to $100 for a fuc.king game.
Now ***** off an go crawl back up that horses arse you came from.
As for the arctic, well what can i say, If the police think they are protecting me from *****ty quality then they really need to go and arrest them lot at the BBC and ITV for airing a load of ***** on TV. and i would have to correct them on one thing, how can it be a waist of money for a chipped console considering i can now save up to £50 (that's $100 for you yanks) on each and every game that i download.
me 5
me 6
police in general (not just in the US, but everywhere) need to focus on real crimes and not these victimless crimes... what about the ***** who rapes someone down the street and the cops take 4 hours to respond... there are tons of real life issues (crimes against humanity) that are being overlooked, intentionally for the policeman's safety and for their own comfort.
piracy should be the last thing on a police department;s mind, especially if they ignore a meth-lab in the house right next door. politics, big corporations, and large amounts of money corrupt police departments goals and practices to fit them. its sad how they forget to "serve and protect" the people, and get involved in victimless crimes such as piracy.
and oh yea- before a wise ass tries to argue the definition of "victimless crime".
a corporation losing minimal (relatively) amounts of money is not comparable to the real crime of someone getting assaulted or car jacked at knife point (for example)
all americans are just like bush?
Sorry...if you are going to ***** about stupid americans generallizing brits...then don't be a goddamn hypocrit!
Dude go back to school and learn how to spell, you just sound freaking ignorant when you talk so please go learn how to spell or use spell check.
The DS also has homebrew
me7
me 8
Yep!, Us Americans can be "full of ourselves", especially the rednecks!! i.e. the "ugly American" hehehe! Are all Americans like Bush? HELL no! Sometimes I'm embarrassed that he's our president. It's like someone let our retarded cousin be president. Taxes? Yeah, UK/Europe gets screwed when it comes to taxes. We "Yanks" rebelled over unfair/abusive taxes remember? hahaha! XP It's time for UK/Europe to do the same! Or, maybe it's too late in the game!!? hehehe! Brits may have the best army, but we have the best "toys"!!!
That said, I'm tired of the authorities saying they did it for the "good of the people". A bunch of B.S. People seem to forget that piracy affects POTENTIAL sales, not real sales. I agree that if someone is SELLING pirated or counterfeit programs/CD/DVD, etc. they should get busted and serve time. But, jail time for DL and sharing, NO. Fines? maybe. Everytime I buy a new game or software, I find a "no cd" crack. Nothing pisses me off more than having to have the cd in the drive and being checked every two seconds. Some copy protection even hurts/ruins your cd drive!! And, does the software company repair or replace your drive because for their copy protection?? HELL NO!!, not without a lawsuit. I too, am pissed at having to shovel through the ***** that many game companies dish out. The PSP is a perfect example. Oh, and don't get me started on movies!! I'm tired of re-hashes and remakes!! XP
me 9
It seems if you've got money you can make anything happen.
If they have enough money to make the police do their bidding, they obviously aren't loosing much on so called piracy.
I say they're greedy and just want to use guilt and threats as powerful tools to make more sales.
If you make a good product and charge fair prices you can be assured it will sell without such tactics.
I personally do not believe that simply owning a modded console system or the equipment required to modify a console system should be grounds for being arrested by the police, considering that there are other purposes for modding besides piracy. Some modifications and programs that require them can actually enhance a gamer's experience and allow him/her to do a little bit more with his/her game system, like remapping controls to a setting he/she desires or increasing the speed at which a game loads or running some applications that offer more functionality from the console system.
Seriously, if a person can be arrested for selling modded console/portable systems because somebody might use it for piracy, that is similar to arresting a person who sells kitchen equipment because there is a chance that a psycho will take a butcher knife and attack somebody with it.
As for modified games being found on the site, if those modified games happen to be copies of the original game with no original copy or store receipt stating that it was purchased to be found then I suppose that would count as piracy, and I actually applaud any efforts to crack down on people who deliberately pirate games. Too much piacy would lower the profit margins of game develoeprs and as a result cause them to focus less effort and resources into their games just to avoid losing their current standing in the video game market.
As for the PSP being prone to piracy, I believe that the Nintendo DS is just as prone to piracy as the PSP but Nintendo does not necessarily put so much effort into blocking free crap that people program in their spare time (seriously, they have been lax in any efforts to do so) and force people to choose between legitimately updating their systems and losing the use of such programs or using an ISO loader or a hacked firmware that has ISO support to play the games they purchased without updating. Of course, the fact that various firmware versions have to be hacked in order to install this hacked firmware does help people who intend to pirate games learn a bit more about how to do so effectively than they would if theya re not forced to try to find loopholes and cracks in the firmware all the time. Talk about your all time backfires.
I think English dry humor is funny as all hell, and I didn't know that you guys pay almost 50 pounds for a game, that is totally outrageous. It's kind of like Japanese Anime in the US: Why am I paying twice as much for an Anime DVD as I am for a regular movie? Anime is licensed from the creators on the CHEAP by American companies and then the Region 1 DVDs themselves are manufactured right here in the US, so why am I paying extra as if the disc had to be shipped here overseas???
I sometimes wonder if my PSP was worth it... then I came to the conclusion that if I would have bought a DS, I would have spent more money on games. Because PSP is so easy to hack, I don't have to buy anything and still can have fun on the go. I rocked it out to a Samurai Warriors iso on one trip. Then I played Chrono Trigger a bunch. I moved my way up through old Gameboy Classics, discovering I could play those old Zelda games that I actually owned but stopped working. Daxter and GTA were some good hours wasted as was Ace Combat X which I just finished for the second time. All in all, I'm pleased with my game system.
Piracy: Turning the lemon of the PSP, into a fun gaming system.
>> Piracy is one of the reasons PSP isn't as successful as the DS.
For some reason, my post above was cut? ... Anyway, piracy does not result in fewer *hardware* sales. Game sales, yes, but hardware sales could only increase as a result of piracy.
How could QJ net think this is a good thing.
Think about this, we have MOD chip makers,
we have Acid MOD and a host of other
console hacking material and QJ.net is part
of that by hosting content spacific to hacking
such consoles. Yet they act glad when people
get hammered by the poe poe's. This makes no
sense to me. Why would this be a good thing?
when they say that pirated games and movies are bad quality thats a load of pig *****, that just say that to put people off the idear of buying pirated stuff. infact that are the same quality if you use the right priced writable media.
i agree, i bet this guy will get more that a child rapist gets in prizon!! *****ing leagal system in the uk is useless.
omfg, that is sooooo *****ing true. the uk legal system sucks and our jobs are being taken by *****ing immergrants. arrrrrrrrr (soz for spelling)
why do they have me logged into wicked insider??
Immigrants aren't taking your jobs, fools. You live in a capitalist society. If someone is willing to work for less then it makes sense to the capitalist economy that they employ them.
Even taking this into account there is, for example, still the fact that 20% of the fruit grown in Britain this year isn't going to be harvested due to a deficit of immigrant labour, and the fact that the highfalutin British public don't want to stoop to such levels. Manual labour? Never! We're British! We want everything delivered to us!
Climb out of your centre-right arses and realise that immigration is what allows you to live your middle-class lives and buy your PSPs and pirate your games.
Oh, and before you start telling me to '***** off you yank *****' or whatever your ignorant self-important comeback is going to be, know that I was born in Britain and live in Leeds. I know what Britain is like. Self-destructive.
Hope this got through some of your thick racist skulls.
Nothing wrong with his spelling, it's your spelling that has problems. btw Its the grammer that was incorrect.
Just a thought...
us whiney brits do so as we live in a democracy. 'Whining' or voicing your opinions and objections to governmental action is crucial to the system working properly.
Dont voice your objetions and you will end up with a c*** for a president who steals elections, starts random wars and is the single biggest threat to the world today. How in the hell can you not whine about that?
me 10
all gaming consoles are, are computers... yet since they are called video game systems, thats pretty much all that people think they're for... there is nothing wrong with unlocking a computer's potential, and thats all that modchips do... emulators and the like arent bad... you get to play your old games even after your 20 year old console crapped out... homebrew isnt bad(unless of course your HB is in fact some sort of virus)... the only thing thats wrong here is copying commercial games.... it says right on most every disc "do not copy".. i mean come on, if you made a game, wouldnt you want to get every cent of it? (you might give away a few free copies, or have some kind of discount for the first few customers of course) i know i would, seeing as how i also make games...
bottom line is - Piracy is wrong, Modified consoles are not
There are countless americans who hate bush.
So how about you read some more posts.
Seems some are telling you to stop gernalizing americans when a few *****s generalize you brits.
Americans and brits are alot alike.
They love to ***** when things don't go their way.
britian is just like america.
Just look at the obesity rate.
Britian is right behind the usa!
bunch of arrogant asses.
Dude last time I checked you spell awesome with a W and an E not asome maybe in England but I don't Know
Every corporation out there would LOVE to get every cent they can, for any reason. It's their purpose. Sort of like McDonalds deciding "Hey, if we only allow 1 packet of ketsup with an order of fries, at all our stores worldwide, we'll save a million dollars!"
me 11
me fivehundredth.
That would be some real bs. lol ok so im half comfused. Why is it that the first 1/3 of the topic is logic, the 2/3 of this topic is people from 2 diffrent countries making hypocritical and sterotypical comments at each other and then Neumancer come back into the scene and this go back to logic? Damn why are people as a whole so damn stupid. ahh but back on topic, Corporations are just *****s who are try to take every penny they can from the working person(i like being politicaly correct (: ) and they dont care what they have to do to get it. Thats why i only buy game i know im going to like and DL the ones im not sure of. I like to call it a little insurance for the product im buying.