apcmiller Posted December 20, 2005 Share Posted December 20, 2005 p2p news / p2pnet: Jason Jones and Jonathan Bryant, owners of the ACME Game Store in Los Angeles, are said to have sold old Xboxes modified by Pei Cai, of Pico Rivera, California, to allow the consoles to play "pirated" video games"Cai allegedly equipped the Xbox consoles with modification chips and large hard drives to allow the user to copy rented or borrowed games onto the device for future playback," says CNET News. "Buyers would pay from $225 to more than $500 for the changes."The three men are now accused of "conspiring to traffic in a technology used to circumvent a copyright protection system and conspiring to commit criminal copyright infringement," in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, says the US attorney's office for the Central District of California."The consoles involved in this case were of the first-generation Xbox, not the recently launched Xbox 360," CNET has a "representative for the prosecution" saying.All three men how face up to five years in jail if they're found guilty.P2PNet News Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myidisbb Posted December 20, 2005 Share Posted December 20, 2005 this is why they where targeted and busted.During the investigation, undercover agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid $265 to have a modification chip, a hard drive and 77 pirated games installed on an Xbox, according to the criminal complaint.the modders got greedy and installed games that the buyer didnt already own. oh 77 pirated games doesnt mean xbox ones. bit should be like old atria stuff etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nsane Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 still, these greedy corporations have twisted the laws to where modding an xbox is illegal..."conspiring to traffic in a technology used to circumvent a copyright protection system"...basicly, if i modded your xbox to play YOUR games off the HDD (so you don't have to worry about damaging YOUR discs). i could be locked up because you could use it illegaly copy rented games (and they call this country free) :)so really, your not responsible for your own actions any more, it's the people who make the technology (whether it was intended for LEGAL usage or not) <_> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myidisbb Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 still, these greedy corporations have twisted the laws to where modding an xbox is illegal..."conspiring to traffic in a technology used to circumvent a copyright protection system"...basicly, if i modded your xbox to play YOUR games off the HDD (so you don't have to worry about damaging YOUR discs). i could be locked up because you could use it illegaly copy rented games (and they call this country free) :)so really, your not responsible for your own actions any more, it's the people who make the technology (whether it was intended for LEGAL usage or not) :)im not sure where current usa law stand on mod chips. i beleive its legal just that most mod installers like to put extra stuff in them. dang dmca law allows for certain things to be legal in their yearly review. like being able to hack ebooks to you can make is disable friendly.Australia mod chips of any kind are legal. so that should be interesting for the future consoles. i remember a brit getting busted last year in britain for mod chips but i think he was adding extra stuff too.i remember in the 80's all those different computers that didnt like each other. playing a TI in kmart. tandy and others. when they dont like each other its basically a console with keyboard. mod consoles = faster harddrive game load up and no D & D error. you can already region free them with AE or game shark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex626av Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 ha if they got caught it is there own fault Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myidisbb Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 ha if they got caught it is there own faultmodding wasnt the problem. it was because they install extra game software from old systems (ROMs) which was part of the sale pitch. a bit of an old story anyway. might need a date cut off on old stuff like in newsgroups :frusty: joking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pHant0m Posted April 7, 2007 Share Posted April 7, 2007 Xbox modding is right up my alley. Assuming you live in the US, a modchip, or "modification chip" ( :frusty: ), is legal to own. It is also legal to flash the bios of a modchip with a linux built bios. The place when it becomes illegal is when you flash the chip with a hacked Microsoft bios. Those who have experience with the Xbox modding scene have probably heard of Xecuter bioses, IND-BIOS'es, EvoX M7, EvoX M8, and so on.... These are basically Microsoft bioses that have been modified to allow exceptions to standard bios rules/limitations. Even if the bios is considered to be "homebrew" or "open source" it's still illegal if it's built with XDK (Xbox Development Kit). If built with an open source development kit (such as Open XDK), it is legal.To go further with this, "open source" apps such as Xbox Media Center follow similar terms. An Xbox executable is called an .xbe. If an open source app for Xbox is built with XDK, it's illegal. If built with Open XDK, it's legal. At the moment, very few apps can be built with Open XDK (it's very basic as of right now, and hasnt had updates for a while), but once it progresses enough (assuming it will), Xbox modding for homebrew apps could one day become legal. Microsoft's XDK software is copyrighted and only issued to people Microsoft chooses, so this is where the problem is. So really, it's illegal for more than just the fact that you "could" go to blockbuster and copy their games. It's because in the process of making a console ready, something illegal is obtained and used (bios and .xbe's). The only legal bioses out there as of now can't load xbe's. Even further, the only legal bioses have been built with linux, and usually only have the purpose of flashing a new (hacked most likely :P ) bios. Some will use that bios, FlashBIOS, to actually flash a new legal bios on to their chip for the purpose of running linux on the machine. I personally own a system running Gentoox Linux, and that is perfectly legal for me to run. No illegal bioses are being used, and no XDK .xbe's are used to load Gentoox (although there is a way to load it that way.. an alternate to flashing a linux bios.). Usually people will use the alternate method so they can still play their Xbox games, but the non-cheap types that choose to flash to a chip (and not the onboard TSOP) can still play games. They just have to install a second hard drive on a DPDT switch, or install to the E partition (gamesaves partition. about 5gb, 4gb is used for gentoox). Also, a HD can be upgraded from 10GB to a larger drive to host a linux install on the F partition (F is not found on stock drives).The only legal bioses I know of for Xbox are SmartXX OS, SmartXX OS Lite, EdOnChip, Xenium OS, X-Changer OS, SpiderGX OS, Cromwell, Gentoox Loader and FlashBIOS.. All of which either load linux, flash a new bios, or load a second bios flashed to a chip and a few other features like locking/unlocking harddrives to the Xbox motherboard (more specifically, the Xbox eeprom). Lastly, the only reason modchips are needed for homebrew applications (regardless of what it was built with) is the fact that a stock Xbox BIOS is not allowed to run a non Microsoft signed .xbe. Xbox Media Center has inquired Microsoft to sign their .xbe (they legally build xbmc with legitimately gained XDK from what i hear) so retail consoles can run the app, but Microsoft declined if I remember right. Funny though... because XBMC won best multimedia and also best game categories at Sourceforge.net's 2006 Community Choice Awards..Anyhow this post is a lot larger than I intended to make it, but I suppose knowing a lot about a subject can do that. :mellow: .... Hope this post is a good read for people just skimming through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n00biSh Posted April 15, 2007 Share Posted April 15, 2007 what a stupid thin line when it comes to mods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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