Federal Agents Raid Homes for Modchips

Lunatrik writes "Invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, Federal Custom's Agents have raided over 30 homes and businesses looking to confiscate so-called 'mod chips', or other devices that allow the playback of pirated video games. This raises an important question: Are legitimate backup copies of a piece of software you own illegal under the DMCA?"

We've been over this

[Rogerborg]

The DMCA doesn't prohibit having a backup, just creating, obtaining or distributing the tools to make or to use one. That's the risible position that the DMCA puts us in.

"Legitimate"

[cfulmer]

Are you talking about copies of software that are unprotected by any copy-protection scheme? If so, that's probably OK. If, however, you're talking about copies of copy-protected games, that's a different story. Their creation, at minimum, is an infringement of the DMCA (17 USC 1201(a)(1)), and your possessing them is evidence that you created them. It's vaguely conceivable that the "backup" copies are fair uses even though you had to break the law to make them, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The mod chips themselves are a pretty violation under the DMCA:

No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that . . . is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

Re:No Clue

[ICLKennyG]

Troll much?

The DMCA goes hand in hand with Fair Use [wikipedia.org] principles which have time and again been upheld by the US Supreme Court. It criminalizes tools necessary to implement freedoms upheld by previous USSC decisions. The law goes so far as to not only make telling anyone that a Sharpie can beat Sony's copy protection, but make the magic marker its self illegal. It makes the ability to gain a backup copy illegal, and thus in the great 4th grade tradition: 'You have no clue!'

Re:This sounds very much like....

[couchslug]

"it will just alienate an entire nation again."

Er, no. The "entire nation" can still buy legal games, and the fair-use folks don't have political pull.
The only way to influence the game companies is a boycott that addicted consumers will never support.

Re:Games Producers Want The Best Of Both Worlds

[spyrochaete]

I think Steam is about the best case scenario we could hope to expect. Yes they keep track of what you're playing and for how long, but they use this information to benefit game design as well. Check out the fascinating Half Life 2: Episode One statistics [steampowered.com] for an idea of how Valve makes the most of this technology to observe players' in-game behaviour to assist in designing future products.

Another thing I love about Steam is the generosity of distribution model. You can download any paid-for product as many times as you wish, no matter how huge it is. You can also compact installation data to CD or DVD-sized archives for your own storage if you don't want to wait to download it. You can have your registered copy installed on multiple computers simultaneously and can play on any of them one at a time. If you own 12 Steam games you can install all the games on 12 computers and have 12 people each log in as you and let them each play a different game. All this without wearing out your media or drives (and yes, there is an emergency offline mode that lets you play while your network is down).

The biggest flaw, of course, is that the EULA refers to you as the "Subscriber", not the "Owner". I seriously hope that my money won't go to waste if Steam folds. When 3D Realms' Triton, a similar distribution system, went under, they untethered purchased games so that they became fully owned by the purchasers.

Re:What about imports?

[Broken scope]

There is no moral quandary, if you have the means, you obviously will commit a crime.

Where is the rock you have been living under, are there any good ones near by that I can move too? Cause something tells me its a hell of a lot more pleasant under there.

Re:Not really a legitimate question...

[DreadPiratePizz]

1 to 1 copies don't work? That's odd, because I've made a disk image of a DVD in OS X and burned it (using a dual layer burner), and had it play absolutely fine in a DVD player. Not once did I crack the CSS.

Re:uhm, not DEPARTMENT of homeland security.

[Svartalf]

Wrong answer: Department of Homeland Security Immigration Services, Customs & Immigration Enforcement.

It's been brought under the DHS umbrella. From their website: " Created in March 2003, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "

Nice try, but no cigar for you. :-)

Re:Bogus question.

[erroneus]

Actually, that raises another good issue in this case.

With the law clearly infringing upon an owner's right to perform non-infringing activities with his own property illustrates that the law itself is a bad law.

It's a rarely identified fact that when a case is being heard in court, it's not just the defendant that is on trial, it is also the law itself that is on trial. A verdict of "not guilty because the law is bad" often sets interesting precedents and serves to help correct bad law. It's a part of the checks and balances system that are rarely used and either hidden from the public or simply forgotten. (For more information, search on "the powers of a jury" which, incidentally, is a great way to get yourself disqualified from being on a jury as knowledge of these facts of law often gets you dismissed.)

Re:Bogus question.

[MobyDisk]

You do not have to sign a contract to buy a Nintendo DS.

Re:WTF?

[Pepebuho]

You just got it totally wrong. IBP introduced a new way to meatpack whereby they did not need skilled labor, therefore they did not need to pay the wage premium that such a skilled labor commanded. That is the source of the wage reduction. It is not that immigants entered and were paid less. It is that the new meatpacker needed less skills and now there were more people able to fill that job and that is the reason for decreased wages. Please do your economic analysis right.