Feds going after gaming pirates

[Narrock]

Federal agents go after gaming pirates By DAN CATERINICCHIA, AP Business Writer
Wed Aug 1, 2:32 PM ET



WASHINGTON - Federal customs agents Wednesday raided more than 30 businesses and homes in 16 states, looking for devices that allow pirated video games to play on Wiis, PlayStation 2s and Xboxes.



The alleged sale and distribution of illegal modification chips and copyright circumvention devices for the popular consoles and others included 32 search warrants in 16 states, said the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE declined to release the names of those targeted but said they are allegedly responsible for importing, installing, selling and distributing foreign-made devices smuggled into the U.S.

Illegal chips and other devices used on gaming consoles violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Sales of counterfeit or illegally obtained games costs the industry about $3 billion a year globally, not including Internet piracy, estimates the Entertainment Software Association trade group.

Piracy losses for Nintendo and its game developers and publishers likely totaled $762 million last year alone, said Jodi Daugherty, senior director of anti-piracy at Redmond, Wash.-based Nintendo America.

Daugherty's five-person team coordinates global anti-piracy efforts for Nintendo's Japan-based parent company. Since April, the company has helped law enforcement agencies worldwide seize 61,000 counterfeit Wii modification chips, she said.

Wednesday's federal raids came after a yearlong investigation conducted by ICE's Office of the Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Cleveland, which coordinated with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio and the Department of Justice's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section. ICE said it also received assistance from companies and industry trade groups.

"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, said in a release. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. issued a statement applauding ICE's efforts to reduce piracy and protect the gaming industry's intellectual property. A company spokeswoman would not divulge Microsoft's individual piracy losses.

The raids were conducted in: California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin.

[Harrison]

They're fucking morons.

They're not going to stop anything. Every time they do something like this they just make it easier for us to get our hands on something even sneakier and less invasive. They are creating a whole new problem.

[Dimuza]

You only needed to add a maniacal laugh at the end of that speech, & you would be the evil supergenius of game pirating

[brinstar]

glad we have the money and resources set aside to chase video game players

i'd much rather see them caught and punished than, oh, say, the people that flew planes into our buildings

[Harrison]

You forget, this is costing companies BILLIONS!



Fucking propagandistic bullshit.

[Markarado]

It's not propoganda. I'd be 90% of the users in Asia have had their systems modified and are buying pirated goods. I don't know a single person who doesn't here in Malaysia. $3 for games... hehe... I would too if I had a system.

[KaiineTN]

So they literally "raid" a house over video game pirating? That's great. I can just see it, a bunch of stoners smoking weed and playing their Xbox... Cops come raid the place and the video game systems would have priority over the drugs.

[Harrison]

There are no copyright laws in most Asian countries to my knowledge, anyways.

They aren't losing shit in comparison to the number they're inflating and fabricating entirely otherwise.

I almost always download a game before I decide to throw money at it. If the game doesn't suck, I will pay for it.(and have too many times to list, but the most recent being RE4's port to PC, and M2: Total War)

I refuse to pay money for a shitty game, and have saved myself a lot of money by not paying for shitty games in the past. If you want to argue they lost the POTENTIAL sale by ripping me off for a shittily made game I would have bought unknowingly, go for it.

They are full of shit, just not as much as the MPAA and the RIAA. Those two are 100% full of shit and are destroying their respective industries little by little.

[Zanchief]

I almost always download a game before I decide to throw money at it.

I'm the same way. I download a game and if it's really good I buy it, even if I never plan on replaying it because they deserve the cash. A lot of games I would have never bought had I not been able to download it first. There are just way to many crapy games to blindly purchase them.

[Lyion]

I might be wrong, but I believe they are raiding places that sell en masse illegal DMCA stuff.

The alleged sale and distribution of illegal modification chips and copyright circumvention devices for the popular consoles and others included 32 search warrants in 16 states, said the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Zan, I'd guess you are the exception. Most people who download them do so to circumvent the process of paying for them.

Stealing is stealing. I know some don't care for laws, but that shouldn't mean people should be able to ignore them.

[Harrison]

I'm not one for being told what to do.

I don't physically remove anything from anyone, or any place. No one is suffering as a result of my actions. That is not stealing by its very definition.

1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner

I don't think I removed anything from anyone's possession, odd.

[Lyion]

Intellectual Property is still property. Someone created it. Do you think it's cool if someone decides to reprint a novel for sale and give it to all their friends, so they don't have to buy it?

As I've argued before, by your definition, creating one's own money also would be A-OK because it's not 'stealing'. Hey, not paying taxes isn't stealing either. That should be fine, too, eh?

This ignores the basis of law, and also refutes common sense.

People spent time and money to create that game. It is their 'property'. They sell it to make a profit. As a consumer, you have the right to buy it, or not. Downloading it illegaly is theft, whether you agree with it or not. You are stealing money directly from the people who made that game, as if you took right from their bank account.

[Harrison]

When I download that game, does their bank account immediately deduct $59.99?

If I copy the pages of a book and give it to a friend, does the author lose $20.00?

Now if I were to download the game or copy the book and sell copies, I see that being illegal.

[Zanchief]

People spent time and money to create that game. It is their 'property'. They sell it to make a profit. As a consumer, you have the right to buy it, or not. Downloading it illegaly is theft, whether you agree with it or not. You are stealing money directly from the people who made that game, as if you took right from their bank account.

You agree that people who try and re-create the colonel secret recipe deserve to be put in jail for theft, Lyion. People who mix their own drinks and use recipes that have a copyright? What about the nerd who writes Star Trek fan fiction and gives it to all his friends?

It's not theft, its copyright laws. It's only important now because corporations think they can make more money and stooge politicians all want to please the money makers.

[Naethyn]

I used to download a lot of software. Then I got a call from an Army recruiter asking me if I was interested in "top secret government information." I said "No thank you I have a job." I then ask him how and why he would contact me about this. He simply said it was classified. Ever since then I haven't touched shit lol.

[Lyion]

Zan, none of your first paragraph violates IP laws. That's all legal. However, If the person worked at KFC and wrote down the secret recipe and tried to sell it or give it away, that would be theft. Can you see the difference?

Likewise, fan fiction does not violate copyright laws. However, if someone decided to distribute copies of 'Wrath of Khan', that would.

By your reasoning, only one copy of any game or movie or song should ever be sold, and everyone else should be free to download it on the Internet. I'm sorry, I completely disagree.

You are stealing someone else property.

By your logic embezzlement isn't a big deal, either. It's just those stooge bankers and corporate cronies, eh?

[Zanchief]

Fan Fiction is against copyright law.

How does anyone have a right to tell me what I can and can't do with my own computer?

If they want to stop piracy get some better protection. Valves was pretty good, I'm sure there are ways to by-pass it but they were beyond my ability.

All my example were exactly the same as pirating a game because the end result is that the manufacturer is only losing the potential for making money, they aren't actually losing any income whatsoever.

[Lyion]

Fan Fiction is against copyright law.

No, it's not. There is a large legal gray area, and fan fiction is almost always at least tolerated, and Star Trek, Star Wars, and others IP owners actually encourage it!

How does anyone have a right to tell me what I can and can't do with my own computer?

Auntie, remember the law!

Anyways, aren't you downloading a copy of a game that someone made available on the internet, both sides ignoring the law? That wasn't on your computer, and the Feds have every right to track you and arrest you if they catch you. It's no different then if you decide to hook yourself up to free cable, or change your electric usage meter, since those are on your property. All of that constitutes some form of theft.

If they want to stop piracy get some better protection. Valves was pretty good, I'm sure there are ways to by-pass it but they were beyond my ability.

I like computer games. I dislike the fact that there are so few new and innovative games because of illegal downloads and ignoring IP laws.

Anyways, sending in the FBI, heavy fines, and jail time seems a good way to stop piracy to me. I hope all those people get that. They are crooks.

All my example were exactly the same as pirating a game because the end result is that the manufacturer is only losing the potential for making money, they aren't actually losing any income whatsoever.

Wrong. The millions of downloaded games are exactly stealing. The Manufacturer is losing cash due to someone illegaly taking their product. Fan fiction does not intrude on original works or games, anymore than C&C and Warcraft intrude on each other. If it crosses the line, they can legally be asked to remove it, but that rarely happens.

You don't respect copyright laws or IP. That's fine. I do. I feel someones work and product should be respected and they should be allowed to legally sell it.

[Harrison]

So because one is "tolerated" yet still illegal, it is more right than the other?

You prove to me that by downloading something, someone loses money somewhere, and I will concede that you are right.

This won't happen btw

If I buy a CD of a game, if they had it their way, they wouldn't let me give that game away when I was done with it. This is a crock of shit.

[Zanchief]

Fan Fiction is against copyright law.

No, it's not. There is a large legal gray area, and fan fiction is almost always at least tolerated, and Star Trek, Star Wars, and others IP owners actually encourage it!

They can encourage it all they want, it's still a gray area because it's against the law. The only difference is they don't have the political power to shut them down because there isn't any money changing hands. In essence it's the exact same thing.

Auntie, remember the law!

Anyways, aren't you downloading a copy of a game that someone made available on the internet, both sides ignoring the law? That wasn't on your computer, and the Feds have every right to track you and arrest you if they catch you. It's no different then if you decide to hook yourself up to free cable, or change your electric usage meter, since those are on your property. All of that constitutes some form of theft.

You're still confusing the term theft. It is not theft, no one is losing anything.

If they want to stop piracy get some better protection. Valves was pretty good, I'm sure there are ways to by-pass it but they were beyond my ability.

I like computer games. I dislike the fact that there are so few new and innovative games because of illegal downloads and ignoring IP laws.

This could not be further from the truth. Game companies are hurting because of illegal downloads even though the industry is still seeing huge growth despite the fact they exploit just about every employee that works for them? Poor them. I wish someone would cry on the internet about how horrible it is to be a video game company rolling the cash and giving nothing back to those who worked for it.

All my example were exactly the same as pirating a game because the end result is that the manufacturer is only losing the potential for making money, they aren't actually losing any income whatsoever.

Wrong. The millions of downloaded games are exactly stealing. The Manufacturer is losing cash due to someone illegally taking their product. Fan fiction does not intrude on original works or games, anymore than C&C and Warcraft intrude on each other. If it crosses the line, they can legally be asked to remove it, but that rarely happens.

So everyone who downloads a game is assumed to have bought it had they not downloaded it? That's pretty fucked up Lyion. If the numbers for game companies were hurting at all I would say you're theory had merrit but since it's not the case, then I guess me and Harri aren't the minority, and a lot of people still buy games they download. I'm just making sure my money is going to the right place.

[Lyion]

In the simplest terms, Theft constitutes illegally taking property. A game is property. If you download it without paying for it, you are illegally taking something. There's no way around it, anymore than saying someone who illegally hacks into a bank and adds cash to their account isn't really taking anything. Both are easily and legally shown as false.

Yes, it's more nebulous than if you stole a Ferrari, but it's no less theft because one doesn't think a game someone created is their property.

[Zanchief]

So fan fiction is theft to you.

[Lyion]

Fan fiction generally falls under the fair use copyright laws. Far different from overt stealing of anothers product, which is what downloading games generally is.

[Zanchief]

I'm talking about the definition. If you want to get into semantics then I think most people would agree that downloading games isn't in the strict intent of the meaning. You want to broaden your definition, then all those browncoats writing their Firefly novels are thieves.

[Lyion]

Except... My definition isn't mine.. It's, ya know, the law.

Harrison and your's is the exact opposite. It's ignoring the law because you don't care for it and feel programs or songs are ok to share, even though it's someone's creation.