Nevermind Global Terrorism Lets Target Modchips

[wraggster]

The last week the world of modchips has took a massive beating and lets be fair anyone selling pirated discs and consoles chipped along with pirated discs is themselves to blame, but in a world with Global Terrorism so high on the agenda and so many other worrying global events like Global Warming its staggering that worldwide authorities are so devoted against modchips. Piracy does ruin consoles and the global games market but wouldnt it be better to actually join forces and fight the real evils of this world, heres the newspost of a massive raid in the UK from Next gen:

Digg This News: (http://digg.com/gaming_news/Nevermind_Global_Terrorism_Lets_Target_Modchips)

http://digg.com/gaming_news/Nevermind_Global_Terrorism_Lets_Target_Modchips


The discovery of chipped Wii and Xbox 360 consoles at a residential property was made after officers first raided a tradesman’s stall at a Halifax market. When his residence was later searched, West Yorkshire Police unearthed a staggering 246 Wii and 168 Xbox 360 consoles.

Also included in the haul were 19 PSPs, 12 DS Lites, 6 PlayStation 2s and 6 PlayStation 3s, along with other pirating material such as computers used for the duplication of copied discs, illegal chips, 300-400 copied games discs, and £5,000 in cash.

The original operation at the market also resulted in the seizure of over 5000 illegal discs with a retail value of over £50,000.

Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s closest allies, remarked that the operation, codenamed Poseidon, highlighted an excellent use of government funding in the fight against video games copyright crime.

All seized consoles have now been sent to ELSPA’s (Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association) Anti-Piracy Unit (APU) for forensic examination.

“I congratulate West Yorkshire Trading Standards and west Yorkshire Police for what stands as a landmark seizure of chipped consoles and illegally copied discs. The scale of the operation and the removal of counterfeit material from the market place will have an immediate impact on local businesses in the area,” said Michael Rawlinson, managing director of ELSPA.

“Copyright crime is driven by greed and causes a loss of millions of pounds to retailers of West Yorkshire and to members of the music and entertainment industry every year,” said Graham Hebblethwaite, chief officer of West Yorkshire Trading Standard.

“The haul of items from this operation should send out a clear warning to individuals involved in the illegal copyright industry that they will dealt with severely. This sort of crime carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment,” he added.

The world is full of double standards and soft targets it seems.

[Mr. Shadow]

So wait this site might be closed then?

[kiariki]

I've seen murderers go in to prison for less time! O_O Of course, vendors of pirated games sure, but people who bought or own a modchip or flashcart?! WTF!

[mcdougall57]

I've seen murderers go in to prison for less time!

agreed lol, there have always been raids such as this im just wondering why people have decided to bring it up now

[S34MU5]

2 diggs. Owned.

I have never seen anything on DCEmu reach more than 10 diggs.

[funem]

[/sarcasm] I for one will be sleeping safely in my bed tonight knowing there is one less modchipper in the world [/end sarcasm]

[Airdevil]

Some people buy modchips/flashcarts for development/homebrew reasons!

Surely not everyone who buys one has the intension of using it for piracy!

[Darksaviour69]

2 diggs. Owned.

I have never seen anything on DCEmu reach more than 10 diggs.

http://digg.com/search?s=dcemu&submit=Search&section=news&type=url&area=all&sort=most

[stedaman]

This person wont get 10 years....
Always scare mungering. This person had a large amount of copied material illegal piracy which he was selling. The vast amount seized shows how much he was doing, and so will be in far more trouble.

People who have bought just a modchip and flashcart wont get in trouble lol. This was a large operation, and so caught the eye of the law.

Don't go on about why they target something small like this when theres terrorism in the world etc. Thats weak, So they should just let them do something illegal, sit there and do nothing?
It was hardly a soft target was it, £50,000 of copied games with what near 300 wii's etc.

"Piracy does ruin consoles and the global games market but wouldnt it be better to actually join forces and fight the real evils of this world". So all police forces that don't need, have never or dont intend to deal with global terriorism should now drop what they are doing and seek out bombers. Yes, great idea! Let all other crimes be free and acceptable.

So if you havent relised by now, Yes I hate people who regard these big things as petty and small. Its like someone who gets caught driving 10 mph over the speed limit and gets pulled over and gets angry at the copper. Basically "YOU SHOULD BE OUT CATCHING MURDERERS", its so funny. There's no excuses, your breaking the law.

On the other hand, if someone got into trouble for downloading music, only for themselves to listen to. Thats petty, and small.

[Junixx]

2 diggs. Owned.

I have never seen anything on DCEmu reach more than 10 diggs.

I hadn't seen any get alot over 100, but I stand corrected

[koiulpoi]

Steadman, the problem is that it was a huge waste of money. Modchips have completely legitimate uses - Homebrew, imports, and backups. I played Sega Genesis roms (yes, that's edgy, I know) and Japanese RPGS on my Dreamcast, and I play ScummVM on my DS. On my XBox, I have XBMC (for playing movies and music), and I put the games I own on my harddrive because they load much, much faster that way.

Are you really going to sit here and tell me that what I've done is strictly illegal? Because it's not. Stealing games is illegal. So, those disks are illegal. The chipped consoles, while they might be illegal, should not be. Once you buy a piece of hardware, it's yours. You should be able to do whatever you want to it, and that includes buying a small chip and soldering in a few wires.

The other thing is that (this also happened in the USA, almost the exact same story) it's a waste of the taxpayer's money. They took money out of your pocket, out of my pocket, to go "raid" modchip dealers. So yes, there are definitely better things these thousands of pounds could be going to, from education to healthcare to any number of programs. Or, it could've gone back to the taxpayer instead of being sucked up by a "need" to get rid of "stolen" material.

And they even have the gall to throw out the "millions of pounds" statistic for how much money they've lost. Where do they get these numbers? Do they realize that most of these pirates would buy little to none of the material they've stolen? It's not lost revenue. Doing this will not likely help the businesses in the area. In fact, I bet there are any number of things they could have done with the money they spent on this program that would have a bigger, more positive impact on the community's economy. They're making things up to get uninformed people on their side.

Yes, piracy is wrong, clearly. But our already stretched-thin police force shouldn't be focusing on crimes that have little impact on society.

Also, Steadman, you should look up what the "strawman" argument is. Much of what you said was not said by the people who you think you're refuting. You're setting up false arguments so that you can easily beat them. It's a fallacy.

[cloud_952]

I can't stand arguments like this. Yes, there are bigger and badder things in the world, but NO, we should not shut down all of society just to deal with them. According to the logic presented here (regarding global terrorism), we should also stop fining speeders, no longer arrest thieves, and really.. is rape even worth it? There IS terrorism, you know.

Yeah, sure, maybe there are other issues to pursue, but you still have to take care of the other issues as well. Even if you don't approve of which issues they're looking after (modchips, etc), the whole argument is stupid.

[homebrew1973]

I visited that car boot sale on that day and left about half an hour before it was raided. There was over a dozen stalls selling pirate games and new films on DVD such as Harry Potter and The Simpsons, yet only 3 people were arrested! And the way the police swooped on the place it was like they were hunting for terrorists or escaped killers, the word over-zealous is an understatement...

And we`re constantly being fed that rubbish that such things fund the likes of terrorism, prostitution, people smuggling blah blah blah. I always laugh whenever they say it funds drug dealing, especially when you consider how many pop/film stars and actors are drug addicts, surely in that respect people buying films etc in the shops are funding drug dealers even more?

It`s all a rip-off and scam from officialdom! Designed to take more freedoms away from us in the name of things like that totally bogus war on terror (war OF terror would be more accurate). Politicians lie, you can always tell that when they speak.

If companies want bigger sales rather than bigger piracy they can start by reducing prices, releasing games on the same day worldwide and at the same price, else the pre-owned and import markets will just get bigger. Will they be their lawyers` next target? Remember Lik-Sang....

[acn010]

thatsts just plain retarded, i better think that is reasonable people getting fined, buy omg arrested??? ha ha h ha

[stedaman]

Steadman, the problem is that it was a huge waste of money. Modchips have completely legitimate uses - Homebrew, imports, and backups. I played Sega Genesis roms (yes, that's edgy, I know) and Japanese RPGS on my Dreamcast, and I play ScummVM on my DS. On my XBox, I have XBMC (for playing movies and music), and I put the games I own on my harddrive because they load much, much faster that way.

Are you really going to sit here and tell me that what I've done is strictly illegal? Because it's not. Stealing games is illegal. So, those disks are illegal. The chipped consoles, while they might be illegal, should not be. Once you buy a piece of hardware, it's yours. You should be able to do whatever you want to it, and that includes buying a small chip and soldering in a few wires.

The other thing is that (this also happened in the USA, almost the exact same story) it's a waste of the taxpayer's money. They took money out of your pocket, out of my pocket, to go "raid" modchip dealers. So yes, there are definitely better things these thousands of pounds could be going to, from education to healthcare to any number of programs. Or, it could've gone back to the taxpayer instead of being sucked up by a "need" to get rid of "stolen" material.

And they even have the gall to throw out the "millions of pounds" statistic for how much money they've lost. Where do they get these numbers? Do they realize that most of these pirates would buy little to none of the material they've stolen? It's not lost revenue. Doing this will not likely help the businesses in the area. In fact, I bet there are any number of things they could have done with the money they spent on this program that would have a bigger, more positive impact on the community's economy. They're making things up to get uninformed people on their side.

Yes, piracy is wrong, clearly. But our already stretched-thin police force shouldn't be focusing on crimes that have little impact on society.

Also, Steadman, you should look up what the "strawman" argument is. Much of what you said was not said by the people who you think you're refuting. You're setting up false arguments so that you can easily beat them. It's a fallacy.

Your joking right?

If he had just copied the games then fine, but the fact that he was selling illegal copies makes it ten times worse. Ofcourse its lost revenue, people buying there illegally copied games, making companies like Ninteod lose money.

This is the police force, they do there job. We aint paying anymore for them to do a special raid. What are you on about? Do you send some money for the Police task force on piracy unit or are you just being scammed ? :D

"Yes, piracy is wrong, clearly. But our already stretched-thin police force shouldn't be focusing on crimes that have little impact on society."

Your crazy!, a good job by the police in a raid on piracy, and your saying that. So now all our polcie forces are focussing on crime involved with piracy and theres no-one catching murders etc?

I havent really sat here and said, that your doing soemthing illegal. That was your first post, that would have been a miracle...
You say yourself that stealing the games is illegal, so what is your arguement?

So they shouldn't have bothred with this petty small raid and let him sell games and make millions from illegal activities. YES NICE IDEA. At the residential state he was selling 500 consoles mized and 5000 games all illegally copied, and you think thats acceptable ?

Don't get me wrong, the prices charged for games and dvd's are extautionate, and lead to more priacy, but for someone to make a profit off of it is a disgrace. If this was a raid on someone who ahd copied things for himself, that would have beena waste ofr esources as so amny people copy dvd's and games. But to sell them its retarded and sohuld be dealt with by the police.

There's is nothing anyone can say that can argue against that!

Sounds like to me you do a bit of illegal piracy selling yourself!

[stedaman]

False arguements?, how can an arguement be false. The arguement is what we set it as.

[ish420ism]

I don't see how a piece of hardware can be illegal. If these mod retailers had only mod chips and no games would they be safe from procecution??

[homebrew1973]

Forgot to add; when the local paper reported it they also claim that copies of GTA IV and Halo 3 were seized! By whom, time-travellers posing as police? Honestly, those intellectual prostitutes and the crap they print make me :rofl: