Evil-doers caught in Nation-wide bust on modchips (rant)

[Snark]

http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/newsreleases ... ington.htm

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

Urg...

First, there's the supposed ammount of money lost that's just plain bullshit...Essantially,here's how it works:

1 download = net cash lost. Sooooo...basically if Joe.Average Student downloads 100 000 songs each year, that's effectively 100 000 X x$ "lost". Nevermind that Joe Student never HAD 100 000$ each year to begin with and that his montly budget for music or games has been stable over the years, even long after internet downloads became common...He still would have bought for ...3000$ up to 10M$ in music...given his revenue that's a mathematical impossibility but don't let that stop the big companies...And since we're talking purely immaterial stuff here, you can't claim you have lost cash because no physical object was ever involved. "Research and development" is another issue.


Note: I'm not discussing the legality/illegality or morality/imorality of downloading copyrighted material...that's another matter entirely.

But the fact that big companies are allowed to give any numbers over their supposed "lost" is sick.



Now let's take an even more insane example:


Suppose 10 000 people are downloading a torrent cointaining the whole GoodNES (US and Japan NES games) with something like a thousand unique games in it...How much Nintendo just lost?

Let's see...1000 times...let's round this to 50$ a game so 50 000$ TIMES 10 000 equals...whew... 500M$...crap, half a Billion $...and that's just for the NES library

Same thing for Microsoft, according to them, each pirated copy of Windows is hundred of dollars "lost"... Nevermind that many poorer country basically only have pirated versions...that's still quagillions of dollars they have lost...

Basically, how can you "lost" something you never had? You'd have to prove that all or the majority of these people would have bought the product, and that is of course simply not true.

Again, talking about the number given by the companies...NOT about the legality of pirated software/music.

And secondly...well, don't you know? Big companies like Microsoft DESERVE Zillions of dollars each year...it's a divine right. And also contribute in making a better world, and stuff.

[blackmyst]

Your rant has been made countless times before.

Note that MS actually doesn't care much about piracy in China and other such areas. "If they have to pirate something, let it be our OS and not the competitor's". They'll figure out how to make them pay, later. It's like those stories about how cigarette sellers used to go out and throw out hundreds of free cigarette packs out onto the street - once people were addicted to smoking, they'd start charging.

DRM is, among other things, one attempt by MS to finally squeeze out that huge amount of potential revenue that's been collecting in those countries all this time.


As for ROMs, I don't recall anyone ever suing individuals for ROM possession like the RIAA does with MP3's. AFAIK they usually only go after ROM sites (like what happened with Cherry roms), or mod chip sellers.


And let's be honest here. They're right about one thing: what else is a modchip for but to play games for free (talking about the ones that allow any code to be run, not the purely region-circumventing methods such as Freeloader)? You can argue about homebrew all day long, but that's what virtually everyone uses them for.

[Deathlike2]

WARNING WARNING

The thread is embarking on Oskar_Hanberg territory.

And let's be honest here. They're right about one thing: what else is a modchip for but to play games for free (talking about the ones that allow any code to be run, not the purely region-circumventing methods such as Freeloader)? You can argue about homebrew all day long, but that's what virtually everyone uses them for.

The facts can't be avoided.. people try to justify anything and everything with "I'm poor" or "the companies are greedy" and that's just too much BS for my head.

[Joe Camacho]

Oh my, I feel like a Kid in a Candy Store. Sorry dude, you are just asking for this:

Do all the "math" you want, but you can't find a powerful argument to take what you aren't allowed to get by the original authors/creators.

The "They don't have money to pay for them anyway" argument is one of the biggest piles of turd people like to throw at the "Evil Corporate Companie$" Guess what? If you don't have the money to buy something as trivial as music.. You don't have a right to steal it/copy it/infringe copyright for it. Oh man, I want that car. But I don't have money to buy it!... I should steal it, I don't have the money to buy it anyway.

And I find it nice that you:

"Note: I'm not discussing the legality/illegality or morality/imorality of downloading copyrighted material...that's another matter entirely."

Still, all your post is full of excuses for why should copyright infringement should be allowed/THEY AREN'T LOSING MONEY LOL/ MICRO$OFT

Now, I'll explain you something really quick. People create things, if you create something before someone else, you have the right to sell them your creation to them, they use concepts like PATENTS and COPYRIGHTS to do so. Even an IDEA can be sold. It's the right of someone to make a profit from their creativity, invention, discovery, etc.

If an artist wants EVERYONE to hear their music, they have the option to give them to the public domain. If an artist is poor, and needs financing, gets a record company for finance, and needs to pay back the money, well fuck, they will protect their investment.

And sure, comparing current mp3 songs with roms from more than 10 years ago is a very fair analogy. Not. And even so, Nintendo started to act against roms with the start of the VC in the Wii, so there you have it.

Microsoft: When you buy software, you buy the license to use said software, you don't own the software itself. Hell, how much does a CD cost? 1 dollar? How much Pressing it? let's say 5. Why is Windows XP so damn expensive? Because there is R&R, license and other stuff in the price, not just the physical copy.

They lose money, because having the pirate version makes them not buy it. And fuck all this "THEY ARE POOR AND DON'T HAVE MONEY TO GET IT", are we talking about those poor nations in which people can't even eat? They should have better things to do than downloading the latest Emo Song, or getting Windows Media Player 11. There are free options for OS and other software. They lose money, because people are using their software without their permission.

In any litis, or at any conflict, there needs to exist two confronting rights, and during the process, one of them will be awarded more importance, compared to the other. In the case of "internet pirates"...

What's the right you are trying to defend here? Your right to take away someone's inventions/discoveries/ideas.. Because you are too cheap to buy them yourself?

When someone copies an mp3, the artist/company just doesn’t lose money because they lost a "sale", they also lose money because you aren't allowed to do copies, because you don't got their permission to do so.

The authorities are protecting the Creator's copyrights and patents, what's so wrong with that?

....

Still, if we go to the numbers, yes. They lose all that money. Because everyone that gets a copy, will stop being a potential sale, still may buy it, but the possibilities will be greatly reduced. If you have 500,000 original copies, but the market is already flooded with 200,000 pirate copies, which give no renevue to the company that invested in it, YES, they are losing money. If people wouldn't download so much FOR FREE, the numbers wouldn't be so LARGE.. Don't you think?

Boo Fucking Boo, Microsoft makes a lot of money, it should be evil.. Do you go to work? Do you work for money? YOU MUST BE EVIL TOO! But a small evil, because you might as well not have as much money as Microsoft.

[PHoNyMiKe]

yes regarding mod chips, the only way someone can defend a mod chip being legal is if they have not a single copied game in their ownership. these persons that use mod chips solely for playing import games they bought and/or homebrew constitute 0.01% of mod chip owners. granted the numbers of lost sales aren't as high as they claim, the numbers still are higher than if no mod chips existed. digital media is a funny thing about ownership as it can be obtained through other ways than purchasing a physical copy (we all know this.)

I do love the lost revenue = 1,000 games * game value numbers though. I bought a wii a while back for 1 reason, zelda. I played zelda with my cousins day and night around christmas. after that time, I had not touched zelda once. I did buy a few virtual console titles, but that's about it. after months of not being used, it just sat collecting dust. then I found out you can get mod chips for the wii, so I got one. now I just download every game I can find. moral of the story is I would have never bought another game other than zelda to begin with, as I don't find the time anymore to actually play video games. so had mod chips not existed, nintendo would not have got a penny more from me anyways. however that's just my case. ps2 on the other hand is different, I bought one of those and a mod chip for the sole purpose of not buying games.

[Gil_Hamilton]

yes regarding mod chips, the only way someone can defend a mod chip being legal is if they have not a single copied game in their ownership. these persons that use mod chips solely for playing import games they bought and/or homebrew constitute 0.01% of mod chip owners.

Not true.
At least in the US, you are legally entitled to back up legally-purchased software.

Mod chips enable you to do that, thereby ensuring a damaged disk doesn't leave you out whatever it costs to get the game. Which, in the case of some software, can be quite significant.

[PHoNyMiKe]

even so, mod chips bypass the security on consoles, which is illegal due to the DMCA. so every time the console is turned on, the security is disabled.

for a random number guess of mine, the percentage of people who own a mod chip, and only use it to play games they actually paid for is less than 1%. even me, I don't even play my legit disk of zelda, I downloaded it off the net and burned it (have yet to play it) while my copy is stored in the closet. most people don't even have the capability to backup their own wii games, so that lowers the number of legit backup users. downloading a game you own is still illegal.

[Snark]

Oh my, I feel like a Kid in a Candy Store

Yeah I noticed. And what's more is that you had zero well-thought out arguments. Admit it, you're only in for the flamming. Nothing wrong with that, let's just be honest about our motivations here...

And I find it nice that you:

"Note: I'm not discussing the legality/illegality or morality/imorality of downloading copyrighted material...that's another matter entirely."

Still, all your post is full of excuses for why should copyright infringement should be allowed/THEY AREN'T LOSING MONEY LOL/ MICRO$OFT

Nope. It's written right there. Black on white.

Not discussing the legality of it, I'm talking the real amount lost by the companies

You can go back to your regular scheduled flamming, and high horse riding hypocrisy...

Now, I'll explain you something really quick. People create things, if you create something before someone else, you have the right to sell them your creation to them, they use concepts like PATENTS and COPYRIGHTS to do so. Even an IDEA can be sold. It's the right of someone to make a profit from their creativity, invention, discovery, etc.

If an artist wants EVERYONE to hear their music, they have the option to give them to the public domain. If an artist is poor, and needs financing, gets a record company for finance, and needs to pay back the money, well fuck, they will protect their investment.

What did I just said?

I'm talking about the real amount of cash lost by the companies.
No need to give me the lecture.

Of course, according to sanctimonious big companies apologists, if we don't stop piracy,well......THEY'LL BE NO MUSIC LEFT!!!1!!!MUSIC WILL DISSAPEAR!! Never mind the fact that humans made music long before it could ever be "copyrighted".

But....that's Zealots for you.

And sure, comparing current mp3 songs with roms from more than 10 years ago is a very fair analogy. Not. And even so, Nintendo started to act against roms with the start of the VC in the Wii, so there you have it.

Microsoft: When you buy software, you buy the license to use said software, you don't own the software itself. Hell, how much does a CD cost? 1 dollar? How much Pressing it? let's say 5. Why is Windows XP so damn expensive? Because there is R&R, license and other stuff in the price, not just the physical copy.

God... are you a lawyer for the companies?

Yeah ok, everyone get it. Legally speaking they are allowed to charge whatever they are legally able to. Again, missed the point. If in the future comapnies says you are allowed to read that book only once, then you're allowed to read the book only once. Of course it will be difficult to enforce but so is enforcing the legal use of Windows

In any litis, or at any conflict, there needs to exist two confronting rights, and during the process, one of them will be awarded more importance, compared to the other. In the case of "internet pirates"...

What's the right you are trying to defend here? Your right to take away someone's inventions/discoveries/ideas.. Because you are too cheap to buy them yourself?

Not at all. I buy legitimate software on regular basis. And I'm not in favor of having no patents for inventions...What the fuck was THAT all about? I guess flamming makes one incoherent. You just jumped on the conclusions because well, it's good fun to flamme.

Why the hypocrisy btw? Have you never downloaded copyrighted music? Hell, don't even try to tell me every game you played on Snes emulators are games you own and only games you own. As was said, the fact the console is dead doesn't make it ok because of the potential for the Virtual Console.

Clearly. you deserve to burn in Hell.

The authorities are protecting the Creator's copyrights and patents, what's so wrong with that?

Nothing. Had you not been so hasty you would have noticed I never said or even implied that they shouldn't be patents, copyrights and such.

But I suppose you think it's ok for them to own everything right? Inclusing maybe the human genome? Make no mistake, if the big companies could patent your genes they would. I'm serious. And then they could legally Pwn you...In just about every sense of the word.

Still, if we go to the numbers, yes. They lose all that money. Because everyone that gets a copy, will stop being a potential sale, still may buy it, but the possibilities will be greatly reduced. If you have 500,000 original copies, but the market is already flooded with 200,000 pirate copies, which give no renevue to the company that invested in it, YES, they are losing money. If people wouldn't download so much FOR FREE, the numbers wouldn't be so LARGE.. Don't you think?

Dudez yeah like lol wtf and stuff tey says they lose zillionz of dollars so it must be true maybe? Yeah ok ok.

Boo Fucking Boo, Microsoft makes a lot of money, it should be evil.. Do you go to work? Do you work for money? YOU MUST BE EVIL TOO! But a small evil, because you might as well not have as much money as Microsoft.

Whatever. I hope the big comapnies one day will own the world and everyone in it and when someone like you complains I'll just go "Boo hoo,stop complaining.". Man, the stupidity never cease to amaze me. It's one thing to discuss the legality of the issue but it's another to bow before M$ and co. and start going Christian all over the place. Wake up man, M$,WalMart and others hyper-mega-world-owning huge corporation are not good for the world...Period. What do you personally get out of glorifying or defending them? Coupons at the local Walmart? They don't care about you or anyone you love.

Anyway I see this wasn't a good idea because as usual it turned out into a flamme...

[Snark]

Your rant has been made countless times before.

Note that MS actually doesn't care much about piracy in China and other such areas. "If they have to pirate something, let it be our OS and not the competitor's". They'll figure out how to make them pay, later. It's like those stories about how cigarette sellers used to go out and throw out hundreds of free cigarette packs out onto the street - once people were addicted to smoking, they'd start charging.

An excellent point and well-thought out argument.

And let's be honest here. They're right about one thing: what else is a modchip for but to play games for free (talking about the ones that allow any code to be run, not the purely region-circumventing methods such as Freeloader)? You can argue about homebrew all day long, but that's what virtually everyone uses them for.

99% of it, yeah.

Commercially speaking though, it's far from clear that because John Smith has 500 pirated commercial games, that actually equals 500 losses for the company itself. Because "maybe" had he not got a modchip, he would have bought one game every three month and that's it.

Again, doesn't make it legal...But the number of losses they claim is a fallacy.

[Joe Camacho]

Yeah, big companies want to take over the WORLD. Yeah yeah, they shouldn't be allowed to make money, yeah yeah, you aren't: "discussing the morality/legality of all this, but companies are evil and shouldn't be allowed to make money."

If you go by the numbers, they ARE losing that money. They lose market share and renevue when someone get their product without paying for it. If an album that is sold for 15 dollars is downloaded 1,000,000 times. Yes, they lose 15,000,000 dollars, what's the big deal?

Of course someone with 1000000 songs in his harddrive DOESN'T have money to pay for them, that's why he downloaded them in the first place.

If he had the money to get the songs, he would buy them, at least, that's in the best case scenario. But "getting a copy, because he doesn't have money to get it otherwise" Is a really, really, REALLY stupid argument.

Hell, mod chips and other backup purpose hardware/software suffer more from this "culture" or "movement" compared to the companies enforcing their copyrights. Getting a bad reputation, getting busted in customs, know what I mean?

If the vast majority of people use this methods as piracy, it's only logical that the copyright holders will go after them, you can't blame the companies, why not blame the people missusing the hardware, huh?

Yeah, I download stuff, but I know what I'm doing, and I in no way try to justify my actions, I do it because I want to do it. Even if you don't believe me, I have spent years without downloading a song, I can't say the same about GBA games, but oh well.

Again, what's your point? That companies give LARGE numbers of losses? Well shit dude, people download A LOT of stuff, it's obvious the losses will be HUGE, are they "realistic" (As in, being able to "recover" those losses), hell no, but they are losses anyway. Even if they didn't felt the impact in physical copies.

[funkyass]

lol.

the value of a copyrighted work does not go down in value if mass produced.

[Deathlike2]

lol.

the value of a copyrighted work does not go down in value if mass produced.

Exactly.. it's not the same as like producing something like a processor or food and selling them at a discount on mass volume.

On the other hand, you can buy software in mass volume and more often than not, there is a discount for doing that. However, you still have to pay them handsomely for it.. which is generally very fair. The fact that you are paying them for it is the key thing.

[Joe Camacho]

lol.

the value of a copyrighted work does not go down in value if mass produced.

Exactly.. it's not the same as like producing something like a processor or food and selling them at a discount on mass volume.

On the other hand, you can buy software in mass volume and more often than not, there is a discount for doing that. However, you still have to pay them handsomely for it.. which is generally very fair. The fact that you are paying them for it is the key thing.

You can also get software via student/company discount, getting a package of the software designed to your area, or use a free alternative.

[corronchilejano]

1.)I support mod chips. If it weren't for them, my Wii would be useless, since I don't know from where the hell games come over here, but for some reason when I first got it I could only play Twiliight Princess.
2.)Companies do lose a lot of money on pirated copies. Yes, maybe they don't lose 100% of the nubmers they claim, but they lose at least 20% or 30% that amount. Don't have money to buy an OS (like me)? I stayed on 98 until the licenses for XP dropped to around 50US$ over here and THEN I got a copy. I'll be getting Vista in some years too...
3.)Being poor is a good excuse, but just an excuse.

[Neo Kaiser]

The companies do lose money when a person who had the money to buy a game like Odin Sphere for example decides to MOD the PS2 and copy the game from a clueless friend who bought the game and lend it to him. Then he decides to copy Shadow Hearts , Shadow Hearts 2 and Tales of the Abyss. This person earn enough money to buy at least 1 game per month but now he spend he's money on he's gold digger girlfriend. In this example the companies are clearly losing money because the person could help them.

Now we have another person who modded the PS2 and he only buys he's favorite games like Valkyries Profile Silmeria, Odin Sphere , All the FF Series and the Star Ocean Series and other good games like Tales of the Abyss and R-Type Final who he found cheap. However he copy the games that he didn't found too good for he's taste. Sometimes he buys the games but after he finds that the game is not as good as he wanted it to be, he copies them and gives the away at Game Stop for credit. In this case the companies lose money when he is aware that a game may not be that good and instead he borrows and copy it instead of buying the game for mistake. Also they lose money on average games that a person without a modded console would pick up out of curiosity.

Now we have the person who don't have a modded console. This person is very aware of the reviews on the internet because he don't wants to have a mistake when buying but sometimes the reviews misleads and he buys like 3 or 4 games in a year that are bad or boring and he have to give them on credits. In this case the companies don't lose anything.

The companies don't lose money if:

1- You copy a game that you know that is below average and you would never pay for it.
2- You copy a game that is out of production and it is impossible to find.
3- You copy a game and then you decide to buy it because you like the print art on the disc and the box.

I hope that you could understand my poorly English constructed paragraphs.

[funkyass]

Companies don't get revenue from games that are copied, thats generally considered a "lost sale".

the quality of a game, if its in production or you bought it after you copied it has no bearing on that.

[Deathlike2]

The companies don't lose money if:

1- You copy a game that you know that is below average and you would never pay for it.

You can't justify that position. If you really have to, just wait the pricing out (games that fail go dirt cheap easily).

[PHoNyMiKe]

yeah but imagine these people that got busted. they weren't just doing it for themselves, they were modding many peoples' consoles, causing exponential 'potential sales losses.' if one person votes it makes no difference, when many vote it does. I feel the same with piracy. some of these assholes even have the indecency to sell copied games. that's right, sell dvd-rs with games burned that they downloaded. now that is flat out wrong in my book!

[Neo Kaiser]

The companies don't lose money if:

1- You copy a game that you know that is below average and you would never pay for it.

You can't justify that position. If you really have to, just wait the pricing out (games that fail go dirt cheap easily).

If the game is not good enough then I won't bu it even if it cost $5 USD. By that time probably the game would be out of production.

[funkyass]

why bother copying it if it sucks? stuff that gets stolen is also indicator of how much people like it. If you keep on stealing crappy games, they keep on getting made.

if its crap, don't touch it please!

[Deathlike2]

why bother copying it if it sucks? stuff that gets stolen is also indicator of how much people like it. If you keep on stealing crappy games, they keep on getting made.

if its crap, don't touch it please!

I actually like what you said.

[Neo Kaiser]

why bother copying it if it sucks? stuff that gets stolen is also indicator of how much people like it. If you keep on stealing crappy games, they keep on getting made.

if its crap, don't touch it please!

For completion purposes! Let say that you want to have all FF games but you didn't like FF8 too much. You copy it and play it to say that you played it. Also games that you will only play once falls into this category but it still have to be a game that you would never buy. If you play those games only once but you would buy it if you didn't have your console modded then the company will lose money. Most people do this shit but IMO it is better to borrow a game from a friend if you want to play it once and once finished you give it back without wasting a blank DVD or CD on it. I know people who have more than 40 copied PS CDs just to collect dust and people who download many SNES ROMs that they won't even play.

Also I think that by the companies definition of losing money even the legal practice of renting a game will cost them money.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Also I think that by the companies definition of losing money even the legal practice of renting a game will cost them money.

Which is why Nintendo sued Blockbuster way back in the day.

They lost, of course.

[Johan_H]

I would totally copy or download a car if that was possible.

So does anyone else feel that some kind of global donation system would be a good idea for things like games and music? That you give as much money as you want if like something. It exists today, yes, I just wish it was a more common practice.
It makes more sense to me than to demand money beforehand.

[Deathlike2]

I would totally copy or download a car if that was possible.

So does anyone else feel that some kind of global donation system would be a good idea for things like games and music? That you give as much money as you want if like something. It exists today, yes, I just wish it was a more common practice.
It makes more sense to me than to demand money beforehand.

For stuff like this, perhaps. However, I don't think people's generousity will show.. it would be more of the same (people being too cheap to want to pay).