I am all for mod chips because cds/dvds are easy to wreck one little scratch and you either have to buy a new one or go without makes more sence to store things on the hard drive.

I miss the good old nintendo snes and n64 games those things were almost indestructable stepped on throw across a room or quickly thrown into the entertaiment center for a quick clean up and still work good as new.

Booo! Ron Paul for president!

Why does the RIAA get to use the government as lackeys!??

Let's spend the money on education instead, a******s!

I need to get one of these chips for testing purposes...no funny business I promise. Anyone know where i can find one?

Finally!!! This is a very good thing. There is now plenty of interrogation-obtained evidence that 90% of the money from pirated games is being diverted to terrorists' training camps, IED weapons procurement, pay-to-pray porn sites, and suntan lotion.

True, after all we did have the evident that Iraq is producing WMD.

Well I suppose it may be a problem for Rented games or something but somehow I doubt it. I have several consoles, and up till recent years it was all about porting it to a Emulator to play it in your laptop on the fly, instead of toting around your bulky console everywhere with you. Never had issue with that. And its your business what you do to your Console. if you buy it and want to take it apart and upgrade it well thats your business. No harm no foul. But I can see the issue with the people that RENT games and copy them to be played anytime they want. but the question is why? Most console games you play for a few weeks and then shelve anyways. Heck I have several consoles that I doubt will ever see the light of day again. Especially the Sony PS3 (upgrade from PS2) what a waste of money that was. I much prefer a computer to play games on. However the Nintendo Wii started me thinking twice on that statement. Its revolutionary in style and design. so I give them credit there, but it never really mattered much prior in my opinion.

Absolutely go after the criminals that are going out making copies and selling them on the streets of Taiwan and San Fransisco for $2 a piece. Thats always been a criminal offense. go get em. as far as console moders, well if they have to , i guess, but I question the legitimacy of that being criminal, cause the end product they are upgrading is theirs... so its their business. its not like they are renting the thing from the producer or anything so its no ones business what they do with it. If they take it up and drop it off a skyscraper, well thats their right now isn't it? Just hope it don't hit someone on the way down with it. That maybe a bit of a liability then... ;P

"but I question the legitimacy of that being criminal, cause the end product they are upgrading is theirs... so its their business."

The DMCA is absolutely crystal clear. You cannot use/create something that circumvents copyright protection and this is what these chips do. Whether you do it for personal use or to sell, there's no difference - you're not allowed to use them or even be in possession of them.

"$200 and $250 billion per year and has resulted in the loss of 750,000 jobs"

Where the fu@k they dig up that 750,000 number. Sounds to me like Davey had something to do with the 'statistical' values here...

"Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE)"

So let me get this straight, they are spending my tax dollars fighting a software problem when they could concentrate on immigration and keeping illegal guns and drugs out of this country?

P.S. Raiding U.S. mod chip distributors won't affect much. It will just bump sales in Canada, UK, and China. So I see this as a step forward for the little guys and a huge step back for us :'( Thank you ICE, I just wonder if our borders are unattended right now and anyone and their mom can just walk through them.

http://www.ice.gov/about/faq.htm
"What does ICE investigate?

ICE investigates a wide range of national security, financial and smuggling violations including drug smuggling, human trafficking, illegal arms exports, financial crimes, commercial fraud, human smuggling, document fraud, money laundering, child pornography/exploitation and immigration fraud."

You guys think anything on that list was more worthy of our tax dollars?

I would love to see how much padding there is involved in these numbers. So the gaming industry would be how big of a revenue generator if 250 Billion is added to it? I bet that is more money then the entire industry right now generates combined not that I went and added up every companies revenue or anything. So if they eliminated gaming piracy and mod chips everyone would buy the games and the money would flow like a river to these companies right?

Nope they wouldn't only a select people pirate games and spend the time or money to mod their gaming system. Most likely they do it because they can't afford the games or they are hard core hackers who are bored. So no money would be gained by making it impossible to hack these boxes. So it's a waste of government time and resources in my opinion.

Now go raid all of the companies that are openly hiring illegal aliens. It's so blatantly obvious that the government is run by special interest groups and big corporations that we've almost become numb to it. What the hell does it take to make people realize this and get a government that actually serves the people?? (Move along, nothing to see here...)

But I bet you don't b**** about the fact that in real terms, you're paying half the price for stuff you were paying a decade ago thanks to these "illegals".

I'd gladly pay more if required, but that doesn't have to be the case necessarily. The point I was trying to make is that it seems that the govt is cherry picking issues to deal with and they don't seem to be so "random."

Yes, and your taxes are paying for the increase in free health care, welfare, crime etc, etc..
I guess "illegal" is a very flexible term depending on what you think you're getting from it.

*laughs*

Oh, their not even "illegal" anymore according to the media (aka Libs). They're just "undocumented Americans".

Apparently, even though they are not here legally, calling them "illegal" didn't quite fit with the impression the Libs wanted the sheep to have of them.

Isn't playing with words fun? If you want to change people's opinion of something, start with what you call it.

Copyright infringement = Piracy (oooh...bad)

Illegal Aliens = Undocumented Americans (Oh, that means they're Americans, right? We like to help Americans!)

It's all fun and games until the revolution.

Eh, then we'll just pirate more games onto pc's since they don't require any mod chips :D

I have a soft modded Xbox, and I love being able to put games on my hard drive to ensure the discs will age well and just for better load times and convenience, I use all my own games that I've bought fairly...and some friends borrowed games :D

Considering DVD media is made for cents on the dollar, and pirating does not account for billions in losses; the govt is just appeasing company owners who wanna keep lining their pockets.

Makes you wonder if Microsoft made faulty Xbox 360 drives to force people to buy more copies and increase profits :D

While the media may cost 'cents on the dollar' as you put it - the content of said media in most cases cost the company who produced it MILLIONS of dollars.

Just thought I would point that little piece of information out to those who seem to think that just because a piece of plastic costs pennies to product it is legal to pirate its contents because it hurts no one - your wrong.

Now are these companies lining their pockets with the purchase prices they are charge? Hell yes they are - welcome to the Entrepreneurial spirit at its finest - make money! Folks seem to conveniently forget that without the incentive to make money we would not have most of what we have today...

Sorry for the mini-rant lol

"While the media may cost 'cents on the dollar' as you put it - the content of said media in most cases cost the company who produced it MILLIONS of dollars."

Then how about they sell entertainment media the same way they do corporate media. I pay for the "License to Use" and any time i need "replacement discs" i pay a small fee (usually around 10 dollars) for them to resend new media. Another option i get from many companies is to redownload the program rather then getting replacement media.

If i have a game with a "Valid" license code, then i should be entitled to replacement media to use with the same code... Seems fair enough no?

"Then how about they sell entertainment media the same way they do corporate media. I pay for the "License to Use" and any time i need "replacement discs" i pay a small fee (usually around 10 dollars) for them to resend new media."

You mean exactly the way you can now? Virstually all companies offer a disc replacement programme although some are harder to find than others.

Behold the results of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it illegal to circumvent a copy protection system even if you use it for fair and legal purposes and don't pirate any material. The law that makes it a felony to rip a DVD you legally purchased even though it conflicts with earlier fair use laws.

The DMCA is a bunch of crap and needs to be thrown out. It was basically written by the entertainment industry, they shouldn't be writing laws.

Yep, written by entertainment industries' lawyers.

That's why they haven't carried us all away to prison, it's really not that big of a deal.

Hell, they consider fair-use to be buying a dvd for only one player, or a game for only one pc in your home, or a cd/mp3 file for only one player...

"Behold the results of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it illegal to circumvent a copy protection system even if you use it for fair and legal purposes and don't pirate any material. The law that makes it a felony to rip a DVD you legally purchased even though it conflicts with earlier fair use laws."

Blame those who abuse such things and theive stuff they're not entitled to.

Thank god my government is cracking down on pirated games and not terrorists. I found the whole keeping us safe from terrorist attacks was a waste of money anyway.

They're also not realizing another thing, discs can be used as weapons!

Bungie, EA, all those movie giants, all potential terrorists!

...Good point though :D They'll waste our tax dollars for the sake of entertainment companies that have INCREASING PROFITS ALL THE TIME and put less attention on our flawed law and healthcare systems...and that terrorist thing.

Fair use allows you to make backups of games, dvds, cds, etc. What about those people that just want to prevent their original copies from getting messed up?

Apparently the DMCA overrides fair use. Something is really messed up with our laws.

Blame the people whose actions resulted in the need for those laws, mainly the theives. (I refuse to call them pirates).

Without offending anyone... The US has way too many problems going on to be dealing with people burning console games...

i'm from AUS but I love the US and some things shock me... don't get me wrong we also have a bunch of idiots running our country...

And what country does not? The bottom line is laws are being broken and turning your back on a non violent crime isn't the answer either. Broken laws need to be prosecuted plain and simple.

Spot on

wonder what country country of origin they were made in ? CHINA?

company's LMFAO...

By the way, those gray chips just as often allow users to put their discs on hard drives. That doesn't mean that they don't pay for them. In fact, it's fair use to "rip" your own games.

"The industry claims these chips cause billions of dollars in lost revenue each year."

Of course that's just fud. If all these chips etc. vanished now the industry wouldn't see billions of dollars of revenue suddenly appear, and they know it. But it doesn't sound as dramatic if one tells the truth.

But it's good to see at least some pirates get what's due to them.

What? Come take my hacked PS1, PS2, and XB360...

oh and btw, they are just for playing MY OWN BACKUPS, LOL

Slow down there, cowboy. They're not taking modded systems, they're taking the chips and devices from the folks who sell 'em.

There's a big difference there. no need to worry about them knocking on your door unless you're selling the things.

Ah - but you see, this is completely and utterly logical. If you didn't have backups, when your sole copy broke, you'd buy another one, thus giving the publishers more money, or, erm, causing the publishers not to loose as much money?

I guess their lobbyists didn't pass differential calculus.

You don't think that they obtained customer lists and records when they raided these companies?

People that mod consoles know how illegal it is and hence there's no list unless they are really stupid. And besides if their customers found out they kept a list they would stay away from the idiot who is doing it.

"If you didn't have backups, when your sole copy broke, you'd buy another one, thus giving the publishers more money, or, erm, causing the publishers not to loose as much money?"

Ahh... this is what they have referred to as
"The industry claims these chips cause billions of dollars in lost revenue each year."

What about the billions they earned by selling them?? They never mention about that in every single case of piracy...
Just because someone plays a pirated game, doesn't mean he would have bought it if he could not get the pirated version.

It seems, in future, every single piece of equipment you buy is just licensed to you, and you are not the owner of it and you dont have rights to modify it.[would be similar to software licensing crap]

If they want to stop piracy, go behind the pirates. They cannot arrest the people who sell these chips, because they mod the device which is actually owned(not licensed) and with the owners permission.

And yet again, you didn't bother reading the article.

"Government officials say the targets of the raids were company's that produce devices to circumvent copyright protections on Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360, and Nintendo's Wii, among others. The industry claims these chips cause billions of dollars in lost revenue each year."
Seems pretty clear to me.
Why are people defending these actions? Fair use or not these machines were not designed to play copys. Have a problem with that? Dont get one.
Its quite obvious that these chips are largly being used for people to play games they either download or obtained from other sources.

This is precisely why I don't buy mod-chips from the U.S. All my chips are from China :-D

Please, Oh "brilliant" one, show me *any* portion of the article that says *anything* about going into people's homes after their personal systems.

No?

Then perhaps you should try reading the article yourself, Einstein.