http://www.physorg.com/news105194834.html

AP should let go of Caterinicchia as soon as possible - This incompetent buffoon not only prominently quotes Myers saying that modchips have only "one purpose," but implicitly states the same fallacy the paragraph before.

Modchips enable open source developers with every right under their license to Linux to port that operating system to the XBOX, to create full-fledged media players that beat the iTV to market by YEARS, ala the XMBC. Additionally, these modchips have allowed hobby game developers to do just that for decades. The Wikipedia article and every vendor go to great lengths to point this out. Other modchips do NOTHING aside from disable region code lockouts on consoles and DVD players. This article is a joke.

Yeah, but the fact that people are getting raided isn't

It is indeed ridiculous to say that modchips are only used for piracy and stealing content.

I have owned two XBOX systems for years that were modded with Xenium chips and I have _never once_ played a single video game on them. Never. I don't own any, I don't play them, I have no interest whatsoever.

But I do run XBMC, which is a free piece of software, on these two systems.

So it is absurd to paint all modchips and modchip users with this brush, and it is very dangerous that there is a law (DMCA) that, technically, makes thousands of people who have never done anything in bad faith _criminals_.

A friend of mine has kidsthey have ruined many of his games, so he uses a mod chip to play his personal back-ups...What's wrong with that?

These economic figures are always twisted. Someone pirates $10,000 worth of something, that’s $10,000 lost for a company. So price makes no difference. That person would have bought $10,000 worth of something if he couldn’t get if for free? I usually look at the price of something before I buy it. If it’s cheaper I might even buy more. I don’t get a certain amount of something no matter what the cost.

This article is helping to misrepresent the material facts behind the mod chips. Mod chips are not used only for illegal purposes--they are used for fair use purposes--and not everyone is using the mod chips to break these questionable laws. Not only that, what the hell is the Department Of Homeland Security involved in this matter?

Why are the police priorities being perverted in such a way by corporate money? Are there no higher priorities? How could a few private companies (corporates) be allowed to pervert the priorities of the police away from real crimes such as drug dealers, theft, murder, rape, assault, etc?

There's absolutely no case law proving that even a single xbox mod chip is responsible for a single dollar lost. How on earth are these companies being allowed to claim such a thing to force action by the police when nothing other than their own privately funded research is being used.

Hopefully, some of these guys will pursue this with many avenues, such as challenging the fair use right, the fact that no actual damages can be proven, and that the DMCA is being abused and that is leading to the mis-appropriation of police authorities and taxpayer dollar.

If I buy something, I should be allowed to do anything I want to it. I own it. I am not licensing my XBOX from Microsoft. A modchip is an enhancement to a console that enables you to do many things, some of them illegal, but not illegal BECAUSE of the modification.

Analogy for fly-over state retards: "Dropping a Supercharged Ford 302 V-8 in my 1992 Volvo 240 suddenly makes it capable of triple the speed limit, but that alone does not make me a criminal!"

Full disclosure: The only console I ever modded was my beloved Saturn, and it was with a non-invasive cartridge that enabled me to play Radiant Silvergun (Original JP copy and I still own it biaznitches.) Also I am a fly-over state retard!

Love and respect.