Nintendo Supports Mod Chip Raids
By William on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 3:43 PM PST In Nintendo
Yesterday, David discussed how federal agents made a huge sweep against mod chip people. Some companies including Nintendo released their opinions on the matter. I’m sorry, but I really do not see this as a priority in life right now. On the long list of crimes taking place in the United States daily, people modding video game systems just doesn’t seem all that important to me. I can think of many issues more pressing at the moment and it’s a shame that we waste federal resources on the relatively minor problems such as this one. Nintendo mentions how much money they have lost since 2006 due to modders, but I definitely do not buy their statistics. Many people with modded games and systems wouldn’t buy them at retail cost, so how exactly are they losing that much money? It’s basically just like the music industry’s figures for losses based on how many songs people download for free off the internet. The statisitcs are simply not true, because the people doing all the downloading wouldn’t have purchased the songs even if that was the only option available. I understand Nintendo’s concern, but at the same time I cannot feel sorry for them. Nintendo isn’t exactly starving at the moment. The press release follows the break.
Nintendo Supports U.S. Raids On Copyright Circumvention Devices
Aug. 1, 2007
Today U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents executed 32 federal search warrants in 16 states as part of an investigation into the alleged sale and distribution of illegal modification chips for various video game consoles, including Nintendo’s Wii™ home video game system. The mod chips designed for the Wii console circumvent the security embedded in the hardware and allow users to play counterfeit Wii software.
This Immigrations and Customs Enforcement investigation represents the largest national enforcement action of its kind targeting video game piracy. Nintendo has worked closely with this branch of the Department of Homeland Security, and fully supports its actions and other investigations currently underway.
“Nintendo and its developers and publishers lost an estimated $762 million in sales in 2006 due to piracy of its products,†said Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo of America’s senior director of anti-piracy. “Nintendo’s anti-piracy team works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to seize mod chips and counterfeit software. Since April, Nintendo has seized more than 91,000 counterfeit Wii discs globally.
So, it’s ok to steal BMWs and Mercedes because I wouldn’t buy them anyway? I’m not sure I follow the logic in this argument. Maybe police shouldn’t go after a car thief since, by your logic, the thief wouldn’t have bought the car to begin with???
Are you arguing that somehow the method used to circumvent theft can then justify the theft? Does the motive of the thief exempt stealing?
I’m confused. Have I fallen into an alternate universe where black=white or down is really up?
“Are you arguing that somehow the method used to circumvent theft can then justify the theft? Does the motive of the thief exempt stealing?”
Copying video games is not stealing, its copyright infringement. There is a difference. In theft, like stealing a car, the dealership loses something tangible. In copyright infringement, nothing tangible is taken. If I walk into a bookstore, and walk out with a book, the bookstore not only does not sell the book to me, they lose the ability to someone else. If I walk in and photocopy every page and walk out, they may have not sold the book to me, but they did not lose the book itself.
Also, all those issues aside, this makes me upset because mod-chips are also used by games who want to be able to play Japanese or home-brew games at home. They do not download or copy games.
[quote]So, it’s ok to steal BMWs and Mercedes because I wouldn’t buy them anyway? I’m not sure I follow the logic in this argument. Maybe police shouldn’t go after a car thief since, by your logic, the thief wouldn’t have bought the car to begin with???
Are you arguing that somehow the method used to circumvent theft can then justify the theft? Does the motive of the thief exempt stealing?
I’m confused. Have I fallen into an alternate universe where black=white or down is really up?[/quote]
Perhaps because when a vehicle is stolen, the victimized party is at a loss?
It’s like a coffee company cracking down on the Enterprise because it replicated a special brew of coffee.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not supporting piracy, but from what I read I think the whole point of the article comment is that the law should focus on returning lost goods to victims instead of catching people who create a replica of your product from thin air without any direct victims.
Well Walt there’s a very BIG difference between a video game mod and a BMW. It’s like comparing apples to say planets and I think that’s the point being made here. Guess we’ll just have to have them shipped from china in a plain unlabeled box like everything else.
Personally I think this is a complete waste of everyone’s time and money including mine. I’d rather see my tax money spent towards arresting pedophiles, murderers, drug dealers, and identity thieves. Sadly though our government concentrates more on it’s corporate interests.
for the guy that answered with the BMW thing you are totally off the line we are talking about 2 different things if I steal a BMW i am affecting the person that owned the BMW. if I make a copy of a game I am not stealing from anybody I just made a duplicate of another item. yes it is software piracy I understand that but thrust me if there weren’t so many illegal copies of Windows, windows would probably not be as popular. I live in a country where an average person would have to pay 6 or 7 times what he makes in 1 month for a Windows vista License (not counting the price of the PC). now think about this. if piracy was totally impossible do you really think windows would have triumphed in this country??
piracy is a necessary evil.
now this would apply for many things take this for example if my neighbor has a brand new lawn mower and I can’t afford one but I have the items and tools to make an exact replica of his. is it considered stealing?? yes I am violating patents. but I am not stealing.
if they want to fight piracy they should fight evil with evil give incentives for buying original products. make cheaper distributions of original products. make a poor man’s version, and a rich man’s version. thousands and maybe even millions of people make illegal copies of products and a large quantity is because the can’t afford them. when I make a copy of a U2 dvd to give to my friend that can’t afford one but wants to listen to it is considered a crime!!!! then yes I am a pirate come to my country and arrest me.
I am still amazed of a girls mom who was arrested for downloading music over the Internet. Information should be for the world not just for some few who can afford it. we never know that the kid who got a pirate copy of windows in a poor country might learn and become the next Bill Gates, or the boy who downloaded illegal albums over the internet got inspired and becomes the next Elvis.
Well, by you guys’ logic, we shouldnt do anything to stop the robbers, because there are people killing others. Certainly, all the tax money should be spent on homicide cases as its more important. Also, stop spending the money on government support for the Arts. People are dying out there on the streets. Government should spend all its money to stop the murderers, not waste its on petty things as arts.
Everything needs to be done in moderation. Customs agents carried out 32 search warrants. Wow, that is going to take away so much of the tax dollars. All that money is not worth it to protect multi-billion dollar entertainment industry, that employs more jobs in America than modders could possibly employs.
It actually takes some time an research to do a lot of the “modding” that goes on
in the gaming community. While I don’t feel that piracy is justified, the reality is that wow a tiny insignificant number mod chip users have been caught big flippin deal.
If games weren’t such a rip-off i.e $60 for some high end titles maybe people wouldn’t be tempted to circumvent piracy laws. We all need to fight back against the BS piracy laws in this country, and have some common sense.
ajmwtpgjadmjgtwm
You have to figure in though that Nintendo is a Private Limited Company; they have stock owners to answer to which means under law tthey have to maximise earnings.
it sucks but its true.
Would I pirate a copy of Halo 3 for example (selling for upwards of $70)? Yeah, I could see wanting to.
But how would you feel, spending on average 3 years developing a game, and then discovering that it was getting pirated to hell?
I dont think piracy is ever going to be beaten outright but I honestly feel that a developer should get the respect of a couple years of earnings off their work – so what if in 5 years time when the game becomes 2nd hand and unmarketed that a few devotees go out and distribute it on the net.
But the Wii hasnt even been out a year. I’m sorry, but I have to side with Nintendo on this one. Its not like they are out waging war on ROM and Emulator sites or anything, for supplying game images from 15 years ago.
William, your logic is flawed on several fronts… First, “copyright infringement” is stealing. Plain and simple. You have stolen the fruits of some person, group, or corporation’s time, effort, investments and innovation. This notion that if you went into a bookstore and photocopied all of the pages of a book rather than buying it has no real effects on the bookstore is pure fantasy and very foolish.
Imagine you were to somehow get the complete production specs of a BMW and built said BMW in your garage. If BMW ever found out, you would find yourself in criminal and civil court for, guess what, copyright infringement… among other things.
Or, perhaps you put on a concert featuring you playing your cover of your favorite musician’s signature song to thousands of your fans. If you didn’t get permission from the artist, songwriter, record label, you should expect to get arrested and sued.
I’m all for people working away to “build a better mousetrap”, but if in your pursuit of improvement you violate someone else’s right to profit from their labor, then you should be arrested.
Government wasting resources to justify their budget or very existence. Shouldn’t these people be on the border? In reality this the fault of people who do not vote and who are not aware of what is going on in government. Government must be held accountable by its people.
I modded my xbox so I could load linux on the machine I purchased – I never once (yes, never ever) played a pirated game. To mod your console you have to circumvent the security features but that doesn’t mean you intend to do anything wrong. There’s a difference between illegal and wrong….just because somebody can get something on the books doesn’t mean that it should be prohibited. But gaming console companies don’t care about that, the fact that the line is obscured doesn’t matter to them because the console is a money making kiosk to them and if our personal rights are squashed in the process of protecting their investment from those who would do evil, fine with them. They don’t see the several hundred dollar box as being mine, but still theirs under their control. I paid $400 for my original XBOX when it came out and wanted it to be able to do more – I decided to invest more money and time into it to make it a computer that could do more (like media center and email and surf the web) – just like people mod their cars (yes they are their cars just like the xbox is mine) to get more performance. You can use anything for good or bad, think of that with regard to a hammer, or a gun, or yes cars and gaming consoles. But see they realize they cannot police it as effectively if they outlaw the act, so they outlaw other things that aren’t wrong in and of themselves to get what they want. The end justifies the means in their eyes and I believe they deserve to be paid for the hard work they put into intellectual property development. They just need to come up with some other method other than outlawing the alteration of a console.
Another thing that is skewed is the idea that every game pirated is money lost out of their pocket. That is a lie. People who use pirated software often do so because it is available to them without their having to pay – but wouldn’t bother otherwise. Their damages due to piracy are much limited in this light – here’s another thought – what if they would allow for us to use the console in a creative way and build our own software and tools and connect keyboards and mice to them – what if they joined in and poeple bought their devices because they were so versitile and they made even more money.
Hello I used to put mod chips in ps1 and x-boxes. Last i checked Mod chips were used to play games from japan and install linux on the xbox. I have seen people take apart council games and make them into old stand up games. I know people used the chips to play copied games and this ruined ruin the companies Microsoft and Sony lol. next thing you know they will go after gun manufactures and distributors for killing people.
What a waste of Homeland security. go after child molesters! or terrorist!
Stealing ideas is worse than stealing an actual item.
If you take a BMW, the dealer is out a single car. If you take the designs and can make them, the dealers are out many cars.
Think of what would happen if Nintendo were to take all the Final Fantasy games (at least the ones not out on a Nintendo console) and put them on a Nintendo console? I love Nintendo, but even I would admit, that would be downright wrong, but they would not be taking anything physical, had FFX mysteriously appeared on the Gamecube, but more damage would have been done than if Nintendo hired someone to steal one of the games from the store.
Copyright infrengement is worse for a company than someone physically stealing their product.
There may be bigger crimes out there, but for the resources you could spend on cathing, for instance, the Zodiac Killer, you could catch 10 thousand people doing this. The Zodiac Killer obviously did something much worse, but when you consider the resources spent on catching a murder, rapest, or burgler, it seems like catching a few people for copy right infrengement is a decent, if not totally even trade off.
End result, while there are worse crimes out there, its harder to catch and prosicute for those worse crimes, comsuming more time and resources, so its a better use of resources to catch a wide variety of criminals, getting a lot of small time criminals sent to jail, but also nailing the big time criminals as well.
When, in general, people’s conscience never consider piracy a crime how could some corporate-favoring governments create laws to treat piracy a crime?
Entertainment started with people who felt a strong urge to demonstrate their talents to others and to get others’ appreciation. Some people who really liked entertainer’s performance and were capable, would give them something from their posessions. Then it became a custom as entertainment became a business. In my opinion, even after thusands of years of evolution, our subconscious perspective for entertainers still is the same. I’ll only pay if I feel like otherwise not. Don’t we all have had experiences when we would give any money to a street-guitarist just because his music uplifted our mood and at the same time would not watch a movie of million-dollar earning movie star even when its coming for free on a movie channel.
Everybody talks about efforts of programmers, movie actors and you-know-what but what if I pay for a game/movie/music expecting it is going to be good, but does not provide entertainment to my satisfaction, who returns my money back? and what about my time that I spent on it?
Piracy is good! Stealing is a crime!
Every good thing in the life should be FREE!
Thats just retarded. If you had the resources and know-how to build a BMW, the amount of time, effort, and cost wouldn’t be worth it. If that’s reason to be arrested for, then there are a few thousand people who need to be for rebuilding old cars.
I actually think that these mods increase Nintendo’s business. I love the try before you buy scenario. This allows one to find games that are really enjoyable and then go purchase those games instead of most of the junk that gets published. By doing this the companies that put out good games get funding for future products.
I know not everyone is this honest but chances are they would not have purchased the game anyway.
I really don’t know why people are so outraged by a raid like this. From what i red online it was about stopping the imports of mod chips but mainly for the prevention of cash flow to the black market. You don’t know who that mod producing shop pays protection to.
the stuff with spending taxpayers hard earned cash thats exaggerated… just think about all the people that are in the loop when it comes to intelectual property. you have programmers, designers, managers, directors, marketing, sales are these people not paying enough taxes, in order for their products to be protected. when you look at a corporation you look at the money that they make not at the thousands of people that they employ and manage, that have a job and a decent living because of that corporation.
now i understand you want to put a mod in you’re xbox to give it some extra features… but what’s next xbox 360 and ps3…now that’s a different story. these consoles are, from what i read, equivalent to a approximately a $2000 gaming pc. Now if u put a mod in one of these systems and transform it into a pc…won’t other companies loose money to? not only ms and sony….which anyway loose money every time someone buys one.
I’m wondering something. Every country in this world
has different laws and intellectual property rights. In
China these same chips and the use of them wouldn’t even
cause someone to blink. Does this mean that China endorses
stealing? Steal from the Chinese Premiere and see what it
gets you (DEATH).
The reality is these are two different things. It’s like
screwing your sister in law vs looking at her twice because
she’s sexy. You can argue the 2nd is wrong but most of the
culture accepts it as reality because we’re human.
Key to this argument is fair use. You can argue that
someone copying discs illegally and playing them for
extended periods is breaking the law. Most of these
techies are learning to make PC’s in a console do
new things. Sure they might throw in a copied game
but it didn’t make them lose a sale any more than
arguing video rental stores exist to keep people from
having to buy DVD’s. I’m sorry but I rent a DVD, watch
a movie and return it *because* I’d never buy it…
Arguing that Blockbuster enabled me to use the studio’s
intellectual property without buying it is just silly.
The same applies here…
“The stuff with spending taxpayers hard earned cash thats exaggerated…”
No it isn’t exaggerated. I pay taxes and my car was stolen from me. Did I get federal agents on the case? NO, I got little more then “Fill this out and we’ll let you know if we come up with anything” at the local Police station.
There’s more drug dealers then cops in most towns in America. Surely I’d rather see my tax money go towards ridding the country of them.
Did you know there’s actually people still starving in the US?
“33 million Americans continue to live in households that did not have an adequate supply of food. Nearly one-third of these households contain adults or children who went hungry at some point in 2000″
Did you know there are still victims of Katrina living in FEMA trailers with seemingly no salvation in sight?
Did you know that approximately three quarters of our education system is underfunded, run down and in most cases classes are taught by substandard non qualified teachers?
I really could go on for hours pointing out many, many things of this nature but I think you have the picture.
So, myself and MANY other Americans are not “exaggerating” when we say that this is a huge waste of tax payer’s dollars because that is simply what it is. There are so many more important issues that should take precedent over this useless crap. It makes me sick to my stomach..
Walt, a BMW or Benz is a tangible item. Games that are being pirated are not. They typically purchase it and make a copy.. so if you could purchase a BMW and find a way to copy it, I’d have no problem with it.
I agree with the people above that this is a huge waste of tax money and also show out government’s completely mixed up set of priorities. It’s simply another case of corporations getting the special treatment and the benefit of our tax money.
Walt, another thing. My point with the fact that they wouldn’t have bought the game anyway was to prove that their statistics of lost revenue is total BS. How can they lose revenue from someone who wasn’t going to buy anything in the first place?
First off, our tax money goes to a variety of different resources. From stopping piracy to stopping murderers. It isn’t as if they took your money out of a “stop murders” fund and put it in a “stop piracy” fund. There are dozens of departments designed for different things, and all of them get some sort of funding. And I’m willing to bet the more serious criminal offense departments get more funding.
Mod-chipping itself isn’t so much a problem as it is the piracy that’s the problem. There are a lot of people out there who don’t buy games at all, rather just get pirated copies. That isn’t fair to the company, and in my opinion, if you’re not willing to support a form of entertainment you apparantly enjoy, you shouldn’t be playing those games at all. I’m not saying go out and buy every game, but if you wanna try before you buy, rent it. There are a few online services, not to mention nearly every town in America has a video store.
Not to mention a majority of the time console developers make their money from games, not console sales (in fact, many lose money with each console…). Add in that there are dozens of people who work on these games for years, just to bring forth some entertainment to you. Then rather than actually try to support their hard work, you just steal it. Would you like it if someone came into your business and pretty much stole your hard work? It’s easy to say that “it’s entertainment, it should be free!” but that isn’t how the world works. It costs money to live, unfortunately. And it’s nice to get paid to entertain people, not to mention it’ll give you more time to be able to further entertain people because you can make a living doing it.
As for these oh-so-poor people who can’t afford the games… apparantly they can afford the systems and the modding. If you really want the game, save for it. Hell, if you really want the game, you should be more than willing to pay for it. Gaming isn’t exactly the cheapest hobby, and if you can’t afford it maybe you should look for some other form of entertainment. I knwo there are a lot of times where I haven’t been able to afford a game, but you know what I do? I save my money, because I feel the game designers deserve to be paid for their services.
I think it’s a sad state of affairs that today kids are growing up thinking it’s perfectly fine to download games, music, and movies and think there are no repercussions for doing so. It’s also sad that a lot of people think piracy doesn’t hurt any industries.
Modding doesn’t bother me… it’s the piracy that bothers me. If you were to never buy it in the first place, why even bother with it then? I’m willing to bet if there were no alternative means of getting it, you’d have bought it…
Lance,
Tell me please, if you can, how many of the people that u speck of are actually not able to work, because I know a lot of people that in case of a disaster like Katrina would loose everything, but all those people don’t work…because sometime in their life this thing happened that they got this social security grant and decided that they would ride their life out on this government check and they are perfectly able to work.
Now if you ask me what makes me more angry… spending government money on preventing crime like this one or giving checks to people that just decide to be lazy I think you already know what my answer will be.
Now I am really sorry that you’re car got stolen as I am sorry for the people that lost their homes in disasters but there is a system in this country that works really well in cases like this it is called insurance.
And if you don’t like you’re neighbor hood because of the crime… move to a cleaner place… that’s what I did.
“The stuff with spending taxpayers hard earned cash thats exaggerated…”
No it isn’t exaggerated. I pay taxes and my car was stolen from me. Did I get federal agents on the case? NO, I got little more then “Fill this out and we’ll let you know if we come up with anything” at the local Police station.
There’s more drug dealers then cops in most towns in America. Surely I’d rather see my tax money go towards ridding the country of them.
Did you know there’s actually people still starving in the US?
“33 million Americans continue to live in households that did not have an adequate supply of food. Nearly one-third of these households contain adults or children who went hungry at some point in 2000″
Did you know there are still victims of Katrina living in FEMA trailers with seemingly no salvation in sight?
“Did you know that approximately three quarters of our education system is underfunded, run down and in most cases classes are taught by substandard non qualified teachers?
I really could go on for hours pointing out many, many things of this nature but I think you have the picture.
So, myself and MANY other Americans are not “exaggerating” when we say that this is a huge waste of tax payer’s dollars because that is simply what it is. There are so many more important issues that should take precedent over this useless crap. It makes me sick to my stomach..”
You tell ‘em man.
Dave,
I completely agree. Someone mentioned the people affected by Katrina above as being lazy. It’s a sad fact that people are so misinformed in a supposedly open society like we have. Those people didn’t ask for everything they had to be destroyed.
I really do think we have some serious problems in this country when it comes to recognizing the real important issues. Many of us are fortunate enough to not have to deal with poverty and hunger, so it’s not really an issue we have to take personally… although I wish more people would.