Your article doesn't say what the modded consoles were capable of doing, this makes it difficult to form an opinion of the situation.
Student Faces Ten-Year Sentence for Modding Consoles
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
He was doing something that is illegal and he knew it was wrong. A stiff punishment to be sure, but hardly undeserved.
Exactly. Well said.Flionk said:
It just like movie pirating. The feds aren't going to get anyone that's just copying for themselves. They are going to get people that are copying and distributing (i.e: seeding torrents or selling discs).
This being the only LEGITIMATE reason to mod a console. I'd still like to play the PS2 Macross game.avykins said:
I facepalmed hard when I read that. I bet his name got put in for promotion for looking "clever" when he used that line as well.Jumplion said:
I'd be interested to know the full details, but if he was modding people's consoles for profit I can see why they'd arrest him.Malygris said:
10 years though? Eh...bit excessive, even if it is just to make an example. If he does get that it might get reduced on appeal though.
This. Modding consoles and playing games without paying for them is basically stealing intellectual property.Jimmyjames said:
That said, "hello pot, my name is kettle..."
Haha this genuinely made me laugh, thanks! Now I can think about punching that insane, inane, bimbo in the face whilst I sleep!avykins said:
I can't stand the severity of the DMCA. Piracy isn't even as bad as stealing real goods yet the sentences tend to be worse (the reasons are all over the internet, so I'm not going to get into a large debate). It's just the government's pathetic "OH SHI-!" reaction to a trend they can't control.
I think a few of you are missing a key word here maximum. This is precisely the reason why crimes don't have a set sentence. From the facts given it's doubtful the judge with throw the maximum sentence at him. He will probably get a year or two of probation and hefty fines. So enough with this OMG 10 YEARS! tomfoolery. Now if he actually got sentenced to that than, you can come back and complain about it.
I agree that the sentence is too harsh, but he was definitely up to no good. I mean, nobody with 12 modded consoles is using it for personal use; he was obviously running some kind of modding business. I do think that nobody would have cared if he had just been using it himself.
The extremity of the punishments for such types of piracy are indicative of government priorities. It is more important to punish people who allegedly hurt sales than people who commit violent crime, actual burglary, etc.
The other option is that this isn't so much that they think it is a worse crime but that it is so much harder to prosecute this crime than others so anytime they do they try to make an example out of the person. The problem is, all the numbers they use to try and figure out how much piracy really goes on and how much this piracy effects the real money loss for companies is cooked up by the companies themselves.
Almost every pirate I have known would not buy the product in question if they could not pirate it. They would rather go without and they would go without if they could not find a way to pirate it, like a friend I had who modded a PS2 but could not mod a PS3 so he did not buy one or any games for it. So I am skeptical of data that indicates that piracy is killing entertainment industries.
The other option is that this isn't so much that they think it is a worse crime but that it is so much harder to prosecute this crime than others so anytime they do they try to make an example out of the person. The problem is, all the numbers they use to try and figure out how much piracy really goes on and how much this piracy effects the real money loss for companies is cooked up by the companies themselves.
Almost every pirate I have known would not buy the product in question if they could not pirate it. They would rather go without and they would go without if they could not find a way to pirate it, like a friend I had who modded a PS2 but could not mod a PS3 so he did not buy one or any games for it. So I am skeptical of data that indicates that piracy is killing entertainment industries.
Since when the hell do murderers get less than ten years in jail? Ever? Please, someone, go find me one case. Maybe a guy who like... accidentally dropped something from a tall building, causing it to land on and kill a 115 year old man, who had no friends or family.
This seems really crazy to me. And not even the verdict, but the article says they put a years worth of investigation into this guy to nab him. Don't the authorities have better things to spend a year on other than this? Think of all the wasted time and resources that investigation used. And instead of throwing the guy into jail why not make him do community service? Improve the world a bit, instead of locking him up and making him a drain to society. He's not a violent or dangerous offender so why lock him away from society?
