Prosecutors Drop Charges in Xbox 360 Modding Trial

RhombusHatesYou

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mindlesspuppet said:
I wish this trial had played out to set some future precedent
That was never going to happen.

Crippen lucked out by his case turning into a pissing contest between the judge and the government. My reading of the case is that the judge was signed on for crucifying Crippen until the prosecution showed what he felt was a lack of respect for the law and legal procedure, at which point he blew a gasket and stacked the deck against them (well, restacked the deck so it no longer massively favoured them), knowing they'd have to drop their case for fear of having a binding precedent set that neutered the DMCA.

Which is to say he punished them for having such a pissweak case and knew they'd have no choice but to sit back and take it.
 

cheese_wizington

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Well I'm glad we wasted 6-12 peoples time with this shit.

I still think everything should be solved through gambling.
 

RhombusHatesYou

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Garak73 said:
To do that would legitimize the EULA. Plus, if gamers had to read all that legalese (which holds no legal power) before they bought a game, sales would drop alot so I think that even publishers don't REALLY want to push that issue.
Fuck the publishers.

I actually like EULAs... they enable me to return PC games regardless of what a store's policy on returns is. I just say I disagreed with the EULA and considering it wasn't made available for me to read before purchase, I am within my legal rights to demand reimbursement, store policy be fucked.

I only ever demand to read EULAs prepurchase to fuck with irritating sales staff. :D
 

RhombusHatesYou

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Garak73 said:
Suprised you don't get arrested. If I went into a local store and demanded that they take a game back when their policy prohibits it and I made a scene, I'd imagine I'd get a free ride in a police car.

In other words, you can't FORCE a refund. With that in mind, the EULA is worthless.
Under local law I can force a refund, we have pretty good consumer rights law and contract law here. So either way they want to play it I have them snookered. I don't use that particular ploy often though as forcing the issue usually results in me getting my money back AND a life ban from the store (or chain) in question. Also, I don't make a scene. Calm and confident is always better than childish dramatics, as is knowing a polite and non-threatening way of telling someone that if they don't comply you'll proceed to shove lawyers up their arse until they give in or burst.

A game's EULA's worth changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
 

twaddle

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so technically if the case were to have been pursued there is a chance that the key witnesses testimony, which seemed to be their primary evidence , could have been thrown out due to methods obtaining information were unlawful and also the testimony where he tested the modded xbox with a pirated disk was added to late for it to considered valid in trial. So the guy would have gotten off anyways because there was not "legal" evidence linking him to his crimes.
 

TechNoFear

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Garak73 said:
Gamers need to wake up and stop supporting such nonsense before they find themselves needing to ask permission to even turn on the hardware (sort of like always online software).
Expect the game business model to change soon.

Most game companies are/will move towards an online only model (especially as cloud computing becomes more common).

This move is being forced upon the game/software development industry by piracy rates.

Software development is very expensive, yet only produces an infinte, digital 'product' (one that can be copied, so is not 'scarce' and can not be 'easily' sold in the new internet age).

Online access is a 'scarce' finite 'product', that can be readily monetised, even if given away for free (ie Free to Play MMOs).

The days of offline single player mode games (which only generate revenue from selling a plastic disc) will soon end.

Games will be free to start/trial but will start to cost if the player decides to continue playing/advancing.

Which won't worry anyone here, as you all are in the 1% of players who buy the game (after trialing with a pirate copy), aren't you?
 

zelda2fanboy

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RhombusHatesYou said:
zelda2fanboy said:
That's not what they mean at all. Using a pirated game (and what if he was just using his own backed up game to test the system? what about that?) to show the system could play them would have been evidence that Crippen was not only aware of the ability to use modded consoles to play such games but was also displaying such ability to customers as a desirable outcome... which, in plain english, means he'd have shown intent for his mods to be used for playing pirated games and that would have taken a large shit on his grounds for defence on principles of 'fair use'.
I guess the wording by The Escapist is what confused me. Laws based on "intent" have always been nonsense to me anyways and this is just another one. You really can't prove (or disprove) someone's intentions. I realize most courts probably disagree with me on the matter. So if I were to sell bongs, put marijuana in a bong, and smoke it in front of a potential customer, does that make me a drug dealer, even though I never sold drugs to anyone?

The article about the judge yelling at the prosecution was a hoot. It's good to know someone else hates their job. Essentially, this man was about to go to jail because he disassembled a toy.
 

TechNoFear

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zelda2fanboy said:
So if I were to sell bongs, put marijuana in a bong, and smoke it in front of a potential customer, does that make me a drug dealer, even though I never sold drugs to anyone?
No, it does not make you a drug dealer.

But it would make it very hard for you to claim (in your defense) that you did not know the bong could be used to smoke a prohibited drug (an act that is illegal in many countries).
 

RhombusHatesYou

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zelda2fanboy said:
Laws based on "intent" have always been nonsense to me anyways and this is just another one. You really can't prove (or disprove) someone's intentions. I realize most courts probably disagree with me on the matter.
Most criminal law is based on intent. It's a fundamental principle along with action.

Also they only have to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt... If the cops pinged you for carrying an offensive weapon for walking down the street with a baseball bat, it's going to be hard for them to prove that you had intent to use the bat in any violent capacity if you were also carrying a bag of other baseball gear, it was a nice day and you'd arranged with a bunch of mates to play a pick up game. OTOH, if you had no other gear with you, it was 3am and in the middle of winter they probably wouldn't have such a hard time of it.
 

ionveau

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Anti file sharing laws are passed to help big company's help them selves

As they say help your fellow man, Your fellow man is your friend the people you see everyday, not faceless company's ready to throw you in jail for 25years for clicking copy

Dont forget the rich will never help you so stop spreading their lies