This guy (SlyRJ) is funny, I think he drinks too much. J/K

I can't buy content and resell it unless I have the rights to do so correct? why should video games be any different? those chips allow you to play pirated software,same difference

i'm not against it,fuck it if you can get away with it go for it,but when your ass gets caught don't blame the fuckin government for doing something right for once...

If you're caught pirating, it's a crime. To my knowledge, though, ISONEWS has never actually distributed any software at all. Also, punishment should fit the crime. Piracy laws are INSANE. They were clearly written by the producers of the material and not in the interest of the public.

SpaceAce

like all laws the ones who got the cash and contribute the most get things done their way

That's not true. How deep do your pockets have to be to fight the government? Many people just give in when they know they can't win.

SpaceAce

You got that right!

They need to get rid of pornographers too! Just ask the Rush Limbaugh crowd here on GFY. These geniuses will be chanting pro-Bush propaganda as they are hauled off to jail. Wait, I voted for Bush, wait, I love A*s*h*c*r*o*f*t, I hate the constitution too, wait, I'll vote for Bush again if you let me,....

Let's hope Bush can save America from sinners and stoners!

Those chips also let you play backup copies of your own games. Not saying thats what most if any people use them for but that's not something the government should be able to decide. The more the government roots around in shit the more problems there will be for everyone.

And I pose the same question to you that I did to Sly. Are you pushing illegal porn right now?

if this is only over having banners for 'mod-chips', then it is pretty fucked up... there are some pretty legitimate uses for mod-chips (running Linux on the xBox, etc.), and i don't see how they can really be considered anywhere near as criminal as say, equipment who's sole purpose is to pirate satellite tv and such... this does not bode well for any of us really..

maybe he can get tried under terrorism laws.. economic terrorist perhaps!

well just like the mod chip selling guys,nothing I do is illegal until they say it is...is that right? no not really but thats the way this "democracy" is headed... I guess to catch a few crooks you have to accuse some innocent victims,I can live with that..for now :glugglug

5:)

Unfortunately by Federal law if you are showing ANY actual sex regardless of m/f, f/f, m/m, or whatever it is illegal. So you don't mind going to jail for the rest of us to learn from your mistake?

what law is that? drop me a url of something to read on it

hahah.. you know those Ad Council commercials are just damn eerie aren't they ?

Freedom. Appreciate it. Cherish it. Protect it.

http://moonbeam.net/sfhs/articles/Br...es/adcncl2.jpg

I highly doubt it. There ones thing about the FEDS ...they wont go after you unless your guilty and committed a crime. When they comma knocking your ass is COOKED because they usually have your case nailed tight. I believe the federal conviction rate goes something like this...85-90% of people indicted usually plead guilty and the ones that fight it and go to court i think the feds are right around a 97% conviction rate

look when they come to your door they already have copis of all your emails, all your phone calls on tape, all sites you went too, every transaction you made etc.

illegal in both Australia and USA under new Digital Millenium Copyright Act which because of trade agreements...is American law enforceable worldwide.

Exactly. Another thing the FEDS will let you keep commiting a crime, they will watch you for years and pile on the charges. They have tons of money to keep an investigation going. In federal court they slam people away for 20-30 years on a regular basis...they are fucking ruthless

Exactly, they have watched people commit murder after murder and shit just so they can have a better case on someone else

another story:

Feds seizing domain names


By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
February 26, 2003, 8:10 PM PT
http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2100-1023...d&subj=cnetnews

WASHINGTON--Federal police have adopted a novel crime-fighting tactic: Seizing control of domain names for Web sites that allegedly violate the law.
Attorney General John Ashhahahahaha said Monday that the domain names for several Web sites allegedly set up to sell illegal "drug paraphernalia" would be pointed at servers located at the Drug Enforcement Administration. A federal judge in Pittsburgh granted the U.S. Department of Justice permission to do so until a trial can take place, the government said.

Wednesday afternoon, the DOJ said it had taken over the iSoNews.com domain, whose owner pleaded guilty to felony copyright crimes under the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). David Rocci, 22, pleaded guilty in December to using his site to sell "mod" chips that let Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation owners modify their devices so they can use them to play illegally copied games, or "warez."



Rocci "attempted to profit by marketing circumvention devices to (the gaming) community knowing they would be used to play pirated games," Michael Chertoff, the assistant attorney general for the DOJ's criminal division, said in a statement. "He thought that there were no risks associated with his actions. He was wrong, and everyone engaged in the warez scene should take note."

As previously reported, manufacturers like Sony have waged an international fight against mod chips, with Canadian police targeting an Ottawa man last July for selling mod chips for the PlayStation 2. A Hong Kong video game retailer, Lik-Sang, has been sued by game console makers Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

But this case appears to have been the first such prosecution in the United States under the DMCA, a 1998 copyright law that generally restricts anyone from circumventing copy protection technologies or distributing software or hardware designed for circumvention purposes. The DMCA says commercial violators "shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense."

The Justice Department did not release a copy of Rocci's plea agreement, but said that he will be sentenced on March 7 before U.S. District Judge James Cacheris in Alexandria, Va.

"Rocci used his Web site as the exclusive means to advertise and market the sale of mod chips to individuals in the online warez community," the government said in a statement. "The iSoNews Web site was dedicated to providing information about copyright infringement and piracy, and included pages with news on the illegal warez scene, discussion forums on piracy, and up-to-date listings of all of the latest pirated products that were available. The site had over 100,000 registered users and claimed to receive over 140,000 hits each day."

Rocci allegedly sold the Enigmah chip, which cost between $45 and $60 apiece. Like other mod chips, the Enigmah defeats security systems in the Xbox, allowing owners to play legally and illegally copied games, run unauthorized software and play games intended for other geographic regions.

Some hackers have seized on mod chips as a vehicle to run Linux on the Xbox. Advocates argue such legitimate, nonpiracy uses of mod chips disqualify them as "circumvention devices" under the DMCA.

Visitors to iSoNews.com on Wednesday saw a notice saying: "The domain and Web site were surrendered to U.S. law enforcement pursuant to a federal prosecution and felony plea agreement for conspiracy to violate criminal copyright laws."

But the Web site is still online and accessible via means other than the domain name. iSoNews.com regulars have resorted to using the site's numeric IP address--66.201.243.170--and are continuing to discuss the case. "Thanks to everyone for your support in this site, we all appreciate it and will continue to do so," one person wrote.

In October 2000, Sega had threatened iSoNews.com with a cease-and-desist letter, but Jennifer Granick, the attorney representing the site at the time, said Wednesday that no suit had been filed.

An attorney for Rocci could not be reached Wednesday.

Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said Monday that redirecting Web visitors to Justice Department sites becomes a kind of "electronic flypaper" that raises novel legal questions.

The privacy policy on the Justice Department's site permits the DOJ to hand personal information about visitors to the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. It says, "We may take additional steps to identify you based on this information, and we may share this information, including your identity, with other government agencies."

At least four drug-related Web sites targeted by the Justice Department--PipesForYou.com, ColorChangingGlass.com, 420now.com, and OmniLounge.com--now sport government messages. The text says: "By application of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, the Web site you are attempting to visit has been restrained by the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania."

Federal law prohibits selling any product that is "primarily intended" for use with illegal drugs, including water pipes, roach clips and small spoons used with cocaine.

Huh?
Dude, I *wish* the obscenity laws were written that clearly.

How can the government legally take your domain name before you are convicted of a crime?

What if they took Hustler Magazine away from Flynt before he was convicted of any crime? Then he wouldn't have had the money to fight the charges and eventually win in the Supreme Court.

They are cutting off your business, your source of income, before a judge or jury decides it's even illegal.

This seems unconstitutional to the extreme.

Like I said welcome to the new soviet you have seen nothing yet

it was seized as part of a plea agreement.

I'm talking about all the bong sites too. Apparently they are redirecting all of them. How can this possibly be constitutional? What about due process?

Again, think about Larry Flynt. He was charged with all kinds of things and he eventually had almost all of them thrown out by the Supreme Court. What if they would have taken Hustler Magazine away from him when they first accused him of a crime? He wouldn't have had the money to fight the charges, which turned out to be false.

Also, his business would have been ruined even though he was innocent.

How can they constitutionally seize property before there is a conviction?

A plea agreement IS a conviction. As to the bong sites I haven't followed that story so . . .

What's more interesting to me would have been to see the Feds publishing Hustler magazine :Graucho

Here is one article I can think of off hand. It's an interview with Bruce Taylor the attorney general in the 90's. It's long but a very interesting read.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ws/taylor.html

Read the entire thing if you are really interested.

Here is a small part of it.

Is the definition of hardcore a moving definition now?

I think the definition of hardcore has not changed since the Supreme Court started talking about it in the 1960s. Back in those years, in the Warren court, Frankfurter and Black and a lot of the more famous judges were instrumental in defining obscenity in the early days. They used to draw a distinction between the state's ability and the state's right to have obscenity laws that applied to maybe hardcore and softcore pornography -- more simulated than actual, not penetration.

But they also came to the conclusion that that it should be limited to hardcore pornography for the federal constitution and the federal law. Some of the states went that way, too. California and New York said, "Our obscenity laws only apply to hardcore pornography." They were talking about actual sex acts, people really doing it on the set, rather than acting on the set. If somebody made a movie, an R-rated love scene, where they were sort of naked and pretending to have sex, that's acting. But in the hardcore film, nobody's acting. It's prostitution.

... So, to me, hardcore pornography -- under the definition used by the Supreme Court, with penetration clearly visible -- is the kind of material we prosecuted in Cleveland. It's the kind that all the federal courts have prosecuted since Deep Throat and a lot of those regular movies.

And it is still the standard by which the Justice Department and most prosecutors enforce obscenity laws anywhere in this country. ... That's why we could say safely, without blaspheming or defaming anybody, that just about everything on the Internet and almost everything in the video stores and everything in the adult bookstores is still prosecutable -- illegal obscenity.


Just to be clear about it for people -- is any kind of oral sex the equivalent of penetration?

The Supreme Court in 1973 also gave us some examples of the kind of sexual conduct that could be found to be obscene by the jury. They said it could be ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, and it could include masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibitions of the genitals.

Because it includes lewd exhibition of the genitals and descriptions of sexual acts, magazines like Hustler and Penthouse have been found obscene by state and federal courts back in the 1970s and 1980s. But because they said that it could be actual or simulated, the states could go after simulated sex. Some of the cable versions of porno movies are prosecutable, and some prosecutors have prosecuted and gotten indictments against some of the Playboy Channel films and cable companies in years past.

Read the article I mentioned above. There is a ton of info in there to take into account when considering the possibilities. Long but interesting read.

Agreed 100%. If you think mod-chips and glass you can smoke from are more of a priority than adult sites you are crazy. Going after porn sites on obscenity is actually profitable from what that article says. They make more money than they spend. It's only a matter of time before porn has a major bullseye on it and the Feds will be throwing everything they have at it.

I'll read the article and get back to you tomorrow on this one stock :glugglug

This whole illegal mod chip thing is gay. Mod chips are like VCRs. It can be used legally or illegally. Legal to play your backups(i think) and illegal to play pirated games. Legal to play video tapes and illegal to copy rented video tapes.

Like a gun? Or a bullet? Or a knife?

Ya but what's next??

Hopefully they'll put all the "liberals" in concentration camps. They're the ones ruining the country, not Bush or A-h-c--ft.

lol yeah thats why those ppl on deathrow is getting out now! :thumbsup

http://www.nforce.nl/site/index.php

out with old, in with the new.

LOL

Games are a waste of time -- who cares. :Graucho

The hackers will just get more crafty. It's the nature of technology -- you can hack any system. I remember the days when you needed personal references to access Zero-day Warez... If the USA is really worried about lost revenue, just <i>legalize-it</i> and apologize to Saddam and the tourism industry will pick back up full swing... Who wants to vacation in the USA when we are on some "high alert" bullshit and you can't smoke weed... :1orglaugh

Welcum to the USA = United Soviets of America

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

yep and talking about how stupid the liberals are hahaha