Pandora's Cube Raided by U.S. Dept of Homeland Security

Doth Togo said:
Borghe, stop arguing morality. Your resistance is futile. Like it or not, it's the law of the land. Congress balanced out the measure between copyright interests and technology interests. If you think DMCA is bad now, you should shudder to think about what copyright interests would have liked. PurePwnage.
Where's the balance? What about the DMCA is good for the average person?

Just because the DMCA isn't everything the media companies would've liked doesn't mean that it's a balanced approach. If I threaten to burglarize someone's entire house and kill their dog, that doesn't make just swiping their TV and chopping off their two of their dog's legs 'balanced'. I get a TV, and the people I took it from just have to watch thier dog roll around on his little cart for entertainment.

And folks, if you're concerned about this stuff (as you should be), write your Congressmen and let them know how you feel. Just because this junk isn't being enforced on a large scale now doesn't mean it won't be in the future. The More You Know
 
borghe said:
so how is preventing PS2 users from importing games protecting copyrights? last time I checked territorial distribution control had only one reasoning behind them: profits.

How is preventing XBox users from running XBMC protecting copyrights? Oh yeah, it allows for some MS license to release a less featured media center and make money off of it...

Modchips, HDloaders, region free mods.... it is like banning the sales of VCRs because they can be used to copy tapes... I got an idea, how about cracking down on the PIRATES, the torrent sites, IRC channels, etc... the places that are actually BREAKING decades old copyright laws....

I am not taking the moral high ground.. I am using a very real example. I have bought 4 games for my XBox over two years. I have come across one copied game just to see the nude hack (gee, which game could that be). So how in two years and with only four games has my xbox seen hundreds of hours of use? Oh yeah.. XBMP and XBMC... Used to watch foreign TV shows covered under fair use... What do I use my region free DVD player for? Oh yeah, to watch DVDs from other territories because companies suck too much to not release them over here.

So here I am, not actually violating single fucking copyright, yet I could go to jail under the letter of the law.

It isn't the moral high ground, it's real life.

Believe it or not, I DON'T want to see the DMCA completely done away with. I don't want companies' copyrights potentially stomped all over. I am just saying as the law is written there are legitimate and COMMON reasons that someone might unknowingly (or knowingly) break the law even though they aren't and have no intention of breaking the copyrights that are trying to be protected BY said law.

Hey dude, I don't have time to play with you any more on the issue. Sorry. Get a JD, run for Congress and change the law.
 
Yup, these guys were pirating/stealing games left and right. They sold so called "Super Xboxes" (a modded Xbox with a bigger HDD and 20 games of your choice pre-installed) for around $600. That right there is reason enough for them to be locked up.

They have been selling those for years. They didn't even try to hide it either. There is a sign in the store in plain sight!
 
Doth Togo said:
Borghe, stop arguing morality. Your resistance is futile. Like it or not, it's the law of the land. Congress balanced out the measure between copyright interests and technology interests. If you think DMCA is bad now, you should shudder to think about what copyright interests would have liked. PurePwnage.

In other words, the law is not perfect, but the circumvention elements have been upheld consistently. The only parts of DMCA under contention are the notice-and-takedown provisions and subpoena provisions (see: P2P users). Those areas are the only areas that the ...as you may put it... "evil copyright barons" have suffered losses.

This message has been sponsored by DJ Demon J.
Aw... poor rich motherfuckers are losing a few pence from someone downloading a game or movie? Excuse me while I cry a river over here.

Before I go off here, I'm just going to say that busting a store that was doing what Pandora's Cube was doing is fine by me. Charging that much and flagrantly breaking the law in such an open manner is retarded and I'm glad they were punished. I have never pirated a game or movie and never plan to.

THAT BEING SAID, the DMCA is a flaming pile of horseshit. If you want to call it "balancing" copyright and technology interests, then your definition of balancing must look like Fat Albert and Urkel enjoying some quality time on the see saw. Guess who Fat Albert is in this case? The DMCA is just another cog in the wheel of selling off everything under the sun. You might have heard George W. Bush talking about an "ownership society" in relation to privitizing social security and helping small businesses out. That's not what he means- what he means is that eventually there will be an OWNED goverment. Hell, we're already mostly there with the way lobbying works. I know the DMCA was passed under Clinton, but he's a piece of shit too and I would punch him in the fucking genitals if I ever got the chance.

Point is, this is not good. It should be no one's damn business if I want to have a larger harddrive in my xbox or play a PS2 game from Japan that never came out here. And don't even get me started on the retardation that is the DVD consortium. I'm sending them a box of shit for Christmas, and I usually don't give gifts! Fucking asshole rich corporate swine gouging for that extra penny of profit...

Oh, and let me tell you how pleased I am that my tax dollars are being sent to the Department of Homeland Security to stop people from pirating fucking videogames. That's a fucking gasser right there. I wonder how much got spent on enforcing digital copyright laws last year vs. how much got spent on taking on corporate crime? Maybe you know, Togo.

Now, I know it's just your job and you have your own beliefs and ideas, which you are certainly entitled to. But acting as big corporations muscle is certainly not what you would expect the Dept. of Homeland Security to be doing, is it? Does that signify a horribly fucking set of priorities or am I just dreaming?

For fuck's sakes. Ugh.
 
Raoul Duke said:
Aw... poor rich motherfuckers are losing a few pence from someone downloading a game or movie? Excuse me while I cry a river over here.

Before I go off here, I'm just going to say that busting a store that was doing what Pandora's Cube was doing is fine by me. Charging that much and flagrantly breaking the law in such an open manner is retarded and I'm glad they were punished. I have never pirated a game or movie and never plan to.

THAT BEING SAID, the DMCA is a flaming pile of horseshit. If you want to call it "balancing" copyright and technology interests, then your definition of balancing must look like Fat Albert and Urkel enjoying some quality time on the see saw. Guess who Fat Albert is in this case? The DMCA is just another cog in the wheel of selling off everything under the sun. You might have heard George W. Bush talking about an "ownership society" in relation to privitizing social security and helping small businesses out. That's not what he means- what he means is that eventually there will be an OWNED goverment. Hell, we're already mostly there with the way lobbying works. I know the DMCA was passed under Clinton, but he's a piece of shit too and I would punch him in the fucking genitals if I ever got the chance.

Point is, this is not good. It should be no one's damn business if I want to have a larger harddrive in my xbox or play a PS2 game from Japan that never came out here. And don't even get me started on the retardation that is the DVD consortium. I'm sending them a box of shit for Christmas, and I usually don't give gifts! Fucking asshole rich corporate swine gouging for that extra penny of profit...

Oh, and let me tell you how pleased I am that my tax dollars are being sent to the Department of Homeland Security to stop people from pirating fucking videogames. That's a fucking gasser right there. I wonder how much got spent on enforcing digital copyright laws last year vs. how much got spent on taking on corporate crime? Maybe you know, Togo.

Now, I know it's just your job and you have your own beliefs and ideas, which you are certainly entitled to. But acting as big corporations muscle is certainly not what you would expect the Dept. of Homeland Security to be doing, is it? Does that signify a horribly fucking set of priorities or am I just dreaming?

For fuck's sakes. Ugh.


When the pirates are terrorists funding their comrades overseas, then it's worth DHS' time. When the drug cartels take pirate IP money and invest it in explosives, drugs, guns, slaves, money laundering to fund their crazy ideas that will potentially hurt anyone that they don't like... then it's worth their time. Not saying that this is the case in this particular matter... As a matter of fact, I can't say at all, because the private sector doesn't always know all of the details. Shit, I don't want to know. However, there is a great deal of documented evidence supporting the argument that resources from IP piracy go to the mafias, cartels, syndicates and terrorist organizations who want to do very, very bad things to innocent people. In that matter, I am all for them fighting the unseen war.

There are more sides to the story than just what's reported.
 
segasonic said:
heiltothechief.jpg

I need a bigger version of that pic. :)
 
"They were burning games onto the hard drive and equipping the hard drive with copying software so that the average consumer could just go ahead and copy the software themselves," she said.
"Burning" games onto a HDD, lol. Also, the "copying" software is the same as a PC ftp program.
 
i remeber when i use to work at starland the owner was considering turning in an xbox that someone traded in that was from pandura cube. he took pictures and everything and was about to send it to microsoft but i guess he never did. this was some time last year.
 
Speaking of people selling modded Xboxs, checking Craiglist near my area for some gaming stuff...I see people sell modded Xboxs for like $700. I guess they think that having 100 games on a 200 GB hard drive raises the value of the console. I have to wonder if people actaully pay that much money just to get free games
 
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