U.S. storms homes to snag gaming pirates.

Thaed

Based on the headline, it sounds like they are busting punk kids for mod chips. I certainly hope that they are really just going after big time operatives. Otherwise, I find this quite disturbing.

Here's the Kotaku link.

Apreche

I was under the impression that you could sue someone for doing this, but you couldn't go after them with police because it isn't a criminal offense. Also, while most people use mod chips for illegal purposes, they have a significant non-infringing use in that they allow you to run non-pirated software on hardware you own. This is why CD-ROMs are still legal despite the DMCA is because they have non-infringing uses. However, mod chips do one thing and one thing only, they circumvent DRM which is not allowed by the DMCA. However, we are in a situation where people are technologically forced to break the law in order to do an otherwise perfectly legal and harmless activity. You have to circumvent copy protection, and therefore violate the DMCA, in order to run software you legally own on hardware you legally own.

I can't say more about this particular case until the details emerge. However, I will say that hopefully one of these cases will leave an opening for the EFF to make a move in court.

HMTKSteve

Why are they picking on Pirates? They should be chasing down Ninjas...

Tasel

Ninjas are better at hiding. Pirates have huge flags that show where they are.

tuttle88

Can someone photoshop up a gaming Pirate?

Omnutia

I think this is going a step too far. Nothing against stopping people copying actual games but just the stuff that lets you get around the stupid copy protection is too much. And a whole raid team too.