A college student was arrested by Homeland Security, yes those folks who are protecting us from terrorist, for modding Xbox 360s and other consoles for a fee and there by violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) .
Matthew Crippen a Cal State Fullerton liberal arts student is charged with two counts of “…willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage and private financial gain, circumvented a technological measure that effectively controlled access to a copyrighted work,…” In other words he for a fee would take your 360 and do some software hacks and make it so it would play non-orignal Xbox discs. Now these discs could be could be either pirated copies or backup copies of games you already own. But under the DCMA circumventing copyright protections is illegal.
Now if Crippen was just doing it for a couple of friends he might have stayed under the radar but someone told the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) what he was doing and the ESA informed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the Homeland Security Department about his operation. After sending in a couple of undercover agents who got two Xboxs modded he was arrested. Crippen is currently out on bail and if convected faces up to 10 years in prison.
My question is how does DCMA enforcement end up in the hands of Immigration and Customs? Also if he wasn’t charging for doing it would they still have arrested him?
See the full story over at Wired.com
You know, I often use my toaster as a pizza oven
This story is all sorts of dodgy, mostly because of the idea that once you buy something it should be yours to do with as you please (within reasonable limits). Now obviously he was doing it so people could play pirated games, but he wasn’t selling pirated games, and in that lies the difference. Just a little disturbing.
Yea the DCMA is all kinds of suck. It is not about protecting copyright but telling you what you can and can’t do with stuff you own.