Agree with ujjwalg - sending someone to jail for that is crazy.

The point of jail is to physically stop someone from hurting other people. As in with fists or knives or guns. It's to stop violence. It is not to redress perceived economic or copyright infringements.

Are they serious?! You're going to take a human being, a fellow countryman (and a technically skilled one!) and actually forcibly confine him to a cage, because he circumvented the copy protection on a video game?!

What kind of crazy society is this, anyway. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

I agree this person should not go to the prison, but I think your classification is too simple. Madoff hurt people - not physically, but financially. And the harm he caused was more devastating than if he had administered a physical beating.

Don't question the government! They know better.

That said, it is illegal, it is not surprising that you're going to get busted.

As soon as you ask somebody to pay for something you lose control over every aspect of it. If that is not your intention you should rent your devices to people.

What really amazes me is that the law enforcement people are so eager to comply with this stuff that they even set up a special hotline for it.

As far as I'm concerned these kids are doing honest work, they're breaking a chain of control that should not even be there.

That's more or less what these companies are doing. If you read the mouseprint, you're effectively buying a licence to use their device on their terms. :P

If there is a bill of sale I'm buying it.

If there is a rental agreement and I have to return it at the end of the agreement then I'm renting it.

More or less doesn't cut it.

He could also potentially counter-sue with a class-action lawsuit claiming that the video game systems makers committed fraud by way of falsely advertising to people that they were "buying" the game systems, when in fact, they were actually leasing them.

(Yes, this guy was doing it to pirate video games. But handgun manufacturers build guns solely to murder other human beings, and auto mechanics can install equipment that allows you to exceed the speed limit. Neither of those are crimes, so why should modifying a game console be one?)

That's a gross oversimplification of a complex issue. Very few people obtain a handgun legally for the purpose of Murdering somebody. (Less than 1% of legally obtained firearms are used in a crime) The primary reason to own one is for personal protection which implies the direct preservation of life. Ignoring that fact is intellectually dishonest.

Okay, that's fine...

If all else fails then yes, I'm sorry, but yes, if somebody breaks into a house and threatens my family I will threaten them with force. The lives of 4 people who are innocent are greater than that of one who willingly put themselves into a criminal position. Do I wish that that wasn't necessary, sure, but that's not the reality of human nature. The threat of force has always been a factor in survival. Even in nature.

Poison caterpillars rarely get eaten, the birds learn to avoid them.

Gun ownership is widespread in the US, and lots of people have them in perfectly safe regions. So do they not create a source of danger where there was none? Accidents do happen.

In my country, gun deaths went down considerably after the police started taking them out of circulation. As one police officer put it, bar fights became a lot less deadly in the suburbs.

When did it turn out? It neither 'should' nor 'should not' be a crime, objectively, that I can see.

Neither of those are crimes, so why should modifying a game console be one?

You can't kill or speed without large and noticable external signals, such as a speeding car or a dead/missing person. You can also target shoot and race on private tracks.

You can pirate video games without any significantly noticable events, and there isn't much else you can do with a chipped console.

Video game piracy has more justification for legal blocks earlier in the process.

I purchased several original xbox's and modded them to run linux for a clustering project.

I was talking to a VP of a game company in Europe about 3rd party servers for games like World of Warcraft. He said that they don't really pay attention to them, except for when they run it for a profit. The minute $$ is involved, they have a special phone # at the FBI to call and get the servers raided the next day.

The DMCA says, “no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”

Not to be a pedant here, but obviously the protection wasn't every effective.

What is to stop me saying something like:

"THIS POST IS ENCRYPTED WITH ROT26 ENCRYPTION"

then suing the pants off of all of you for circumventing my protection? Yeah, that is a stupid example, but things have gotten WAY out of control here.

ROT-26 is a poor example. It does nothing to 'control access' to your text. Using ROT-13 would be a better example since it's so stupidly simplistic that a moron could crack it.

IMO this guy did nothing wrong based on the spirit of the law, but it is rather the DMCA that is in conflict. If you want to charge anyone with a crime, it shouldn't be the guy who removed the restrictions, it should be whoever was actually pirating games using his modifications.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article03/13...

By the way why is the wired author calling this "jailbreaking" - it's modchipping, completely different from "jailbreaking".. in fact, he even used an iPhone as his graphic... o_O The two are completely unrelated.

Why is it that someone can buy drug paraphernalia at a retail store? Isn't it because there are theoretical uses for those products that are legitimate? To convict him, wouldn't they have to prove that there was NO legitimate use for his "services"?

I just don't see how this can possibly go the distance.

EDIT: I should clarify that I mean "legal" paraphernalia, such as rolling paper and the like. Not the kinds that have been explicitly deemed illegal.

IMO, anyone who jailbreaks their own stuff shouldn't be put under the law, but someone doing it for others for money definitely are breaking the laws. But it is not something that taxpayers money should be wasted in sending him to jail and going through the investigation. Fine him and be done with it.

Why should it be illegal for me to pay someone to remove restrictions from a device I own?

The DMCA makes this illegal. Good thing Homeland Security could jump in and save us here.

Moreover, the analogy you have is completely irrelevant. I was not arguing against the moral issue behind it. I was saying he broke the LAW and thatz it.

If he broke a law (DMCA), and the law says he goes to jail, then he "should" go to jail.

I think the DMCA is deeply flawed to start with - IMO, what he did "shouldn't" be penalized at all.

Only our masters may actually own property.

"The "you don't own your computer" paradigm is not merely wrong. It is violently, disastrously wrong, and the consequences of this error are likely to be felt for generations to come, unless steps are taken to prevent it."

"Ethics for Programmers: Primum non Nocere"

http://glyf.livejournal.com/46589.html