Suspected PAX Breach Code Thief Goes Fugitive

Apr 28, 2008
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Asehujiko said:
Irridium said:
Would an innocent man flee?
From a case that he's going to loose regardless of his actual guilt because being tagged as "pirate" by the big corporations is a certain way of getting convicted for anything the corporate lawyers can be bothered to write down? I wouldn't blame him.

And this ridiculous one sided reporting on everything surrounding piracy has to stop. It is a highly debated issue and trying to pass off your opinion about it as a fact only makes you look like bigots.
True, but considering he did basically steal Forza 3 just because he wanted to "play it early with friends" doesn't exactly help his case.

Wait, did I just contradict myself? Crap...

But still, he stole, whether it was Forza 3 or this, and stealing is a crime.
 

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Asehujiko said:
Irridium said:
Would an innocent man flee?
From a case that he's going to loose regardless of his actual guilt because being tagged as "pirate" by the big corporations is a certain way of getting convicted for anything the corporate lawyers can be bothered to write down? I wouldn't blame him.

And this ridiculous one sided reporting on everything surrounding piracy has to stop. It is a highly debated issue and trying to pass off your opinion about it as a fact only makes you look like bigots.
We have an adamant anti-piracy stance here at The Escapist and make no apologies for it. How is being against crime in any way bigotry? Pirates are jerks, end of story*.

Besides, whether or not he's a pirate has nothing to do with him being an actual thief (allegedly) and a dumbass.

*I realize that there are some countries where piracy is pretty much the default option because the "legitimate" route is either tremendously infeasible or literally impossible. This is the only real "gray area" as far as I'm concerned. Yes, copyright law is extremely problematic, but that does not for a moment excuse the theft of something that people spent years of their life working on.
 

PopcornAvenger

New member
Jul 15, 2008
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When your banned from Xbox live, is that just being excluded from multiplayer?

Just wondering how they're tracking his gamertag if he's banned.
 

Outamyhead

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Feb 25, 2009
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What the...so instead of facing the possibility of a suspended sentence or probation, possibly even no charges at all (because seeing him and hearing him attempt to pull the game code is one thing, proving is another), he now faces a definite charge of attempted escape from custody.

Kid obviously has issues if he had to get away because of DLC for a game, methinks some rehab is in order, although he may get that being in jail at this rate.
 

Blimey

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Nov 10, 2009
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There is but one thing I can show to perfectly illustrate my feelings on this matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPXnoLAEUSQ&feature=related
 

Shjade

Chaos in Jeans
Feb 2, 2010
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ColdStorage said:
As evident by John Funks previous article where the following happened;

But oh wait, it gets even better: The very same suspect was at a panel earlier at PAX East with Stephen Toulouse, director of policy and enforcement for Xbox Live, during which he asked if he could please have his Gamertag unbanned from the service. When asked why he'd been banned, the alleged thief said that he'd played Forza 3 early - and as it turned out, it had been an illegally downloaded copy of the game, too.
So, uh...I'm guessing that was a "no" on that request there?

I see two likely reasons for the bail-jumping:

1 - he's guilty and thinks he's better off on the run and/or doesn't understand the full consequences of his actions - he just doesn't realize how deep he's digging that hole.

2 - he completely forgot to show up. Unrealistic to think so? Maybe, but I know I've forgotten a lot of important things for no good reason.

...but I'm still betting it's not #2.

Edit: bonus contender #3 - innocent but too scared to show up anyway. Stranger things have happened.
 

Doc Incognito

Currently AFK
Nov 17, 2009
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Blimey said:
There is but one thing I can show to perfectly illustrate my feelings on this matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPXnoLAEUSQ&feature=related
It's not so much that the law won, it's only that Hackerman lost. Completely, utterly, and spectacularly.
 

scotth266

Wait when did I get a sub
Jan 10, 2009
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Asehujiko said:
Irridium said:
Would an innocent man flee?
From a case that he's going to loose regardless of his actual guilt
Which is pretty much proven? I mean, you don't get much guiltier than

A) Having part of the game downloaded on your laptop
B) Having non-company eyewitnesses that say they saw you running cables between your laptop and the machine the game was on
C) Fleeing the scene when confronted and last, but certainly not the least (or most stupid)
D) Attempting to bribe the cops to let you go. Oh, and the not-showing-up-for-court thing probably wasn't the brightest thing either.

Sure, the company lawyers would probably take him to the cleaners, but them's the breaks when you try to steal shit from huge companies.

This dude says that he was only going to play the game (and let his friends try it out), but how do you know that he's not going to do the Mario [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.174175-Nintendo-Pirate-Settles-Dispute-for-1-5-Million] and seed it to kingdom come? Because that, like it or not, was probably his intention.
 

Asehujiko

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Feb 25, 2008
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John Funk said:
How is being against crime in any way bigotry?
Because Legality=/=Instinctual Morality. With enough money, you can get anything criminalized. If I were to throw a couple of billions at the government of whatever country you live in to make staircases illegal, could I count on the escapist to provide a bunch of extremely biased pro-elevator articles without mentioning anywhere that they are pro-elevator unless somebody calls you out on it the comments? Of course not, that would be silly and so is this. Big media corporations have money in spades and repeatedly used it to push through laws that don't protect anybody except said corporations(and not the artists themselves) and if that fails, they bribe judges to convict people anyway. For example, the Pirate Bay trial. They were convicted for breaking a law that hadn't even passed(and it still hasn't). A law (still) being lobbied for almost exclusively by the same group that represented their "victims" in court, collected the monetary reparations on their behalf, provided the prosecutor, the judge that convicted them and the judge that denied their request for an investigation into the first judge about a possible conflict of interest. If you are pro law, media companies do not deserve your support.

Being a bigot is not having an opinion on the subject, being a bigot is having an opinion on the subject and passing it off as an absolute truth.
 

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Asehujiko said:
John Funk said:
How is being against crime in any way bigotry?
Because Legality=/=Instinctual Morality. With enough money, you can get anything criminalized. If I were to throw a couple of billions at the government of whatever country you live in to make staircases illegal, could I count on the escapist to provide a bunch of extremely biased pro-elevator articles without mentioning anywhere that they are pro-elevator unless somebody calls you out on it the comments? Of course not, that would be silly and so is this. Big media corporations have money in spades and repeatedly used it to push through laws that don't protect anybody except said corporations(and not the artists themselves) and if that fails, they bribe judges to convict people anyway. For example, the Pirate Bay trial. They were convicted for breaking a law that hadn't even passed(and it still hasn't). A law (still) being lobbied for almost exclusively by the same group that represented their "victims" in court, collected the monetary reparations on their behalf, provided the prosecutor, the judge that convicted them and the judge that denied their request for an investigation into the first judge about a possible conflict of interest. If you are pro law, media companies do not deserve your support.

Being a bigot is not having an opinion on the subject, being a bigot is having an opinion on the subject and passing it off as an absolute truth.
I'm not going to disagree with you that copyright law is a horrendous mess right now, and that people getting sued for millions of dollars for downloading a song or two is messed up.

But regardless of whether or not the punishments are way out of proportion to the crimes (they are) or whether or not copyright law is seriously messed up (it is), that doesn't change the fact that piracy itself is morally wrong. You are taking something that people spent months if not years working on to create, and you are being a leech. You are taking peoples' hard work for free; and that is utterly and completely indefensible unless, as I mentioned before, you live in a country where it's otherwise impractical.

With very, very, very few exceptions, pirates are scum. This doesn't mean we agree with what's being done to curb piracy like draconian DRM or ridiculous legislation (have you seen our articles on the subject, ffs?) it just means that we vehemently disagree with piracy. This isn't a binary switch, dude. "If you hate piracy, this means you're 100% on board with what's being done to stop it." That's just a fallacy.

And our editorial stances on things is publicly available, dude [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/positions]. Don't say that we don't mention it anywhere if you don't look.
 

Susan Arendt

Nerd Queen
Jan 9, 2007
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Asehujiko said:
John Funk said:
How is being against crime in any way bigotry?
Because Legality=/=Instinctual Morality. With enough money, you can get anything criminalized. If I were to throw a couple of billions at the government of whatever country you live in to make staircases illegal, could I count on the escapist to provide a bunch of extremely biased pro-elevator articles without mentioning anywhere that they are pro-elevator unless somebody calls you out on it the comments? Of course not, that would be silly and so is this. Big media corporations have money in spades and repeatedly used it to push through laws that don't protect anybody except said corporations(and not the artists themselves) and if that fails, they bribe judges to convict people anyway. For example, the Pirate Bay trial. They were convicted for breaking a law that hadn't even passed(and it still hasn't). A law (still) being lobbied for almost exclusively by the same group that represented their "victims" in court, collected the monetary reparations on their behalf, provided the prosecutor, the judge that convicted them and the judge that denied their request for an investigation into the first judge about a possible conflict of interest. If you are pro law, media companies do not deserve your support.

Being a bigot is not having an opinion on the subject, being a bigot is having an opinion on the subject and passing it off as an absolute truth.
You can't possibly be defending this guy's actions. You can't possibly be saying he was in any way, in the right to be stealing code from the show floor. You just can't be.
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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Susan Arendt said:
You can't possibly be defending this guy's actions. You can't possibly be saying he was in any way, in the right to be stealing code from the show floor. You just can't be.
To be fair to Asehujiko I think he see's parralel's between what happened at PAX and whats happened to The Pirate Bay, clearly he's pro TPB.

The huge corporations he's talking about is the Music Industry with regards to TPB, not Atomic Games tackling defenseless nerds.

Basically he's using that case in this argument, which is wrong, but hey.

*shrugs shoulders*

Edit;
Update from Joystiq, they've messaged him on Xbox Live.
Update 2: Added details about prison terms and fines. The person using May's Gamertag signed off after we contacted them.
Now it might hit him that he's only making it worse for himself.
 

dududf

New member
Aug 31, 2009
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John Funk said:
Asehujiko said:
Irridium said:
Would an innocent man flee?
From a case that he's going to loose regardless of his actual guilt because being tagged as "pirate" by the big corporations is a certain way of getting convicted for anything the corporate lawyers can be bothered to write down? I wouldn't blame him.

And this ridiculous one sided reporting on everything surrounding piracy has to stop. It is a highly debated issue and trying to pass off your opinion about it as a fact only makes you look like bigots.
We have an adamant anti-piracy stance here at The Escapist and make no apologies for it. How is being against crime in any way bigotry? Pirates are jerks, end of story.
Huh. That's fairly ignorant of yourself as well. Yes, you mentioned that countries that have funny copyright issues, but what about Old games? Is anyone who decides to get an Emulator for the Snes to play a Mario game a jerk as well?

*mumbles off about broad generalizations and how the piss this user off*
______________________
This guy is an idiot. First off, he was stealing a game that otherwise it appears he would have liked to buy, and it's not for demo purposes as HE HAS THE GAME RIGHT THERE, right in front of his face to be played. That annoys me heavily. He should man up, and account for his damn actions.
 

Awexsome

Were it so easy
Mar 25, 2009
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Now they'll just show up at his house...

"STOP! You've violated the law!" Yeah I bet the dude thinks that it's not a big deal. He's in for an unpleasant suprise.

And as for the whole piracy issue going on? I'm with Funk. Piracy is not good. The thing we should argue is how to fight it.

**I've heard rumor that he's willing to rat out some of his friends that are also in the same boat he is with pirating. Anyone else hear about that?
 

SoxFan96

New member
Mar 16, 2010
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Really playing Modern Warfare 2? Bad Company 2 is were it is at.

[/Jokes]

Anyway that is pretty funny. Idiotic thing to do though.
 

Blimey

New member
Nov 10, 2009
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Doc Incognito said:
Blimey said:
There is but one thing I can show to perfectly illustrate my feelings on this matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPXnoLAEUSQ&feature=related
It's not so much that the law won, it's only that Hackerman lost. Completely, utterly, and spectacularly.
Yeah, but just bear with me. I've been waiting to use that song for awhile now....
 

Quaidis

New member
Jun 1, 2008
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scotth266 said:
Asehujiko said:
Irridium said:
Would an innocent man flee?
From a case that he's going to loose regardless of his actual guilt
Which is pretty much proven? I mean, you don't get much guiltier than

A) Having part of the game downloaded on your laptop
B) Having non-company eyewitnesses that say they saw you running cables between your laptop and the machine the game was on
C) Fleeing the scene when confronted and last, but certainly not the least (or most stupid)
D) Attempting to bribe the cops to let you go. Oh, and the not-showing-up-for-court thing probably wasn't the brightest thing either.

Sure, the company lawyers would probably take him to the cleaners, but them's the breaks when you try to steal shit from huge companies.

This dude says that he was only going to play the game (and let his friends try it out), but how do you know that he's not going to do the Mario [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.174175-Nintendo-Pirate-Settles-Dispute-for-1-5-Million] and seed it to kingdom come? Because that, like it or not, was probably his intention.
Where does it say that he attempted to bribe cops? I failed to read that tidbit as of yet.





Personally, I believe that the idiot lives in some small world where, by playing on a computer or game system, he is invulnerable to the real world and any consequences for his actions. Such a mentality exists everywhere online. The fact that the police arrested him and he is charged for some serious crimes that he may or may not have committed probably has gone over his head to the point that he fully intended to 'wake up and pretend it never happened' the next day. Go to court? It would be far easier to escape into video games.