Two Leaders of Videogame Piracy Group Arrested (justice.gov) 45
On Friday America's Department of Justice announced:
Two leaders of one of the world's most notorious videogame piracy groups, Team Xecuter, have been arrested and are in custody facing charges filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle... The indictment alleges the defendants were leaders of a criminal enterprise that developed and sold illegal devices that hacked popular videogame consoles so they could be used to play unauthorized, or pirated, copies of videogames. The enterprise targeted popular consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition, the Sony PlayStation Classic, and the Microsoft Xbox.
"These defendants were allegedly leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of U.S. companies," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "These arrests show that the department will hold accountable hackers who seek to commandeer and exploit the intellectual property of American companies for financial gain, no matter where they may be located."
"These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers — even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games," said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington. "This conduct doesn't just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry."
"Theft of intellectual property hurts U.S. industry, game developers and exploits legitimate gaming customers, all of which threaten the legitimacy of the commercial video game industry," said Acting Special Agent in Charge Eben Roberts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, Seattle. "We are committed to working with our international partners to find criminals like these who steal copyrighted material and bring cyber criminals to justice...."
According to the indictment, Team Xecuter at times cloaked its illegal activity with a purported desire to support gaming enthusiasts who wanted to design their own videogames for noncommercial use. However, the overwhelming demand and use for the enterprise's devices was to play pirated videogames.
"These defendants were allegedly leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of U.S. companies," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "These arrests show that the department will hold accountable hackers who seek to commandeer and exploit the intellectual property of American companies for financial gain, no matter where they may be located."
"These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers — even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games," said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington. "This conduct doesn't just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry."
"Theft of intellectual property hurts U.S. industry, game developers and exploits legitimate gaming customers, all of which threaten the legitimacy of the commercial video game industry," said Acting Special Agent in Charge Eben Roberts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, Seattle. "We are committed to working with our international partners to find criminals like these who steal copyrighted material and bring cyber criminals to justice...."
According to the indictment, Team Xecuter at times cloaked its illegal activity with a purported desire to support gaming enthusiasts who wanted to design their own videogames for noncommercial use. However, the overwhelming demand and use for the enterprise's devices was to play pirated videogames.
Oooohhh (Score:1)
They want us to be very scared.
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The goal of this post is to create a cohesive strategy for awakening our people and eventually generating a modern European cultural renaissance. It is less of a nuts-and-bolts solution, and is more of an over-arching philosophy and lifestyle, an ethos for white nationalists to follow which will allow solutions to occur and to move us forward towards the results that we want. These ideas aren't necessarily things that I invented. I am attempting to synthesize, f
Did something change (Score:4, Interesting)
When did mod chips become illegal? I thought backups were covered under some litigation years ago.
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You are not allowed to share how to break the protection
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.sig.. sorry
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When did mod chips become illegal? I thought backups were covered under some litigation years ago.
Since the DMCA was enacted in 2001, mod chips (and other circumvention methods - cracks etc.) are prohibited by 17 U.S. Code 1201 ("Circumvention of copyright protection systems. No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.").
About that word 'effectively': US courts have decided that even if "DRM" protection has been broken before, it's still considered circumvention to do it again. It is still considered an effective measure for
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> About that word 'effectively': US courts have decided that even if "DRM" protection has been broken before, it's still considered circumvention to do it again.
That's not a court thing. The actual text of the DMCA has always redefined the word "effectively" into complete meaninglessness. The statute makes it crystal clear that any attempt at DRM, no matter how trivial, broken, or ineffective, is still "effective".
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Thanks for posting this, I was wondering what actual law was broken. The DCMA should render butter knives illegal then. That’s was what I used for the “swap trick” on the PlayStation 2 to circumvent its DRM.
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It certainly rendered first sale doctrine illegal.
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In this small sense, you'd have more freedom living in China than in the US.
NOT a piracy group (Score:5, Informative)
They did not release pirated games - they marketed devices that let you gain control of your consoles.
Piracy was certainly the main reason people did this, of course, but that's a side effect. Describing Team Xecutor as a "piracy group" is a dishonest, blatant lie.
I feel bad for those guys, they did a lot for console modding, including the homebrew scene, from those early days on the original Xbox.
Yes, I am the same guy who was a moderator at xbox-scene and created MXM.
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Which came first with these guys. Havent they come from an era when there were no protections? The copying roms came first in their life is my guess, and not this subverting protections thing.
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They sell modchips, and they sell licenses for a custom firmware called SXOS. There is a open source custom firmware called "Atmosphere"
Re:NOT a piracy group (Score:5, Informative)
The indictment states otherwise.
According to the indictment, Team Xecuter at times cloaked its illegal activity with a purported desire to support gaming enthusiasts who wanted to design their own videogames for noncommercial use. However, the overwhelming demand and use for the enterprise’s devices was to play pirated videogames. To support this illegal activity, Team Xecuter allegedly helped create and support online libraries of pirated videogames for its customers, and several of the enterprise’s devices came preloaded with numerous pirated videogames. According to the indictment, Team Xecuter was so brazen that it even required customers to purchase a “license” to unlock the full features of its custom firmware, the SX OS, in order to enable the ability to play pirated videogames.
We'll see if this holds up in court, I guess.
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you don't own anything anymore. The DMCA and, "with a computer!" destroyed the last of your basic property rights.
Re:NOT a piracy group (Score:5, Informative)
If any of their products were packaged with pre-loaded games, it wasn't by them.
Team Xecutor was willing to skirt some gray areas in the past - for example, hacked BIOSes for the original Xbox were derived from the original BIOSes, and homebrew software was built using Microsoft's XDK, outside of developers' agreements and such. They never sold games. They tried to be scrupulous to avoid the direct ire of companies like Microsoft. Their real problem was that Nintendo doesn't make the same distinctions - Nintendo is almost pathologically averse to anybody exploiting their systems. They aren't even friendly to indie developers (I can easily port the PC games I write to Xbox and Playstation, but for Nintendo, I need to do a dog and pony show just to get an SDK and dev box)
As I said, they certainly created tools and supported users' ability to copy games into other media - but you could easily argue this was in service to providing backup support where the game companies provided none.
As far as piracy itself goes, well, there was a time I did such a thing, but I also owned more games than the average non-pirating console owner. Today, I don't pirate, but I still refuse to consider it a horrible crime. In my mind, this continues to be a matter of big companies meting out disproportional justice - more out of spite than their bottom dollar. I would even say that the effort to bring "piracy groups" to justice costs far more than the actual losses incurred.
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Donations for defence (Score:2)
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I grew up on a modded original xbox and watched hundreds (thousands) of hours of movies on XBMC. So much nostalgia. But I would not feel too bad for them, this case seems very cut and dry from the detailed released so far, they will gained millions in notoriety and new subscribers from this and it sounds like this was their career, not a hobby, so some legal hurdles are expected.
Looking online I see a website with a similar name selling a switch dungle. So they do not even touch the hardware, all they offer
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''and watched hundreds (thousands) of hours of movies on XBMC.''
Just because you may have used plugins that were not included in the XBMC/KODI executable doesn't make KODI a responsable party for what you viewed that may or may not have been without permission.
Should device manufactures or developers be responsable for your usage that may or may not be permissive? Who is the most compliant conspirator, the manufacturer of your mouse, keyboard, CPU, display, RAM,OS... who ?
Re:NOT a piracy group (Score:4, Insightful)
even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games
It's a pretty fine line between "releasing" pirated games, and charging a fee to allow people to play pirated games they obtained elsewhere. You can split hairs all you want, but the end result is the same - a 3rd party being paid in order for someone to play a game that they did not pay the original publisher for.
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They also did not "hijacks the hard work of individuals working", the idea is laughable. We all have seen what really goes on, that has already happened, when most of the coders who created the game are laid off, now reward for them from the licence fees.
Mod chip development != piracy (Score:5, Informative)
This news release is disingenuous as claiming Home Depot is a “homicidal weapons dealer” because some people used their tools as murder weapons.
Team Xecuter sold DRM circumvention devices, which is outlawed by the DMCA unless granted a specific exemption.
As with the legal battle presently transpiring over “walled gardens” on mobile devices, gaming consoles also lock you out of the hardware you’ve paid for. I suppose the Ministry of Truth can’t have people realizing that Team Xecuter were actually the good guys, fighting against an unjust law.
Locked down hardware forever. (Score:1)
"As with the legal battle presently transpiring over âoewalled gardensâ on mobile devices, gaming consoles also lock you out of the hardware youâ(TM)ve paid for. I suppose the Ministry of Truth canâ(TM)t have people realizing that Team Xecuter were actually the good guys, fighting against an unjust law."
And the real bad guys have won. We are going to get buttfucked forevermore. Where are you going to run, to Nintendo's competition? Ha! They are doing the same thing. Run to the Kickstart
Re: Locked down hardware forever. (Score:2)
I don't know why this was modded down, because it's the truth. Are people rushing in droves to buy a Kickstarted console vs a Nintendo Switch or a Playstation?
Most gamers will happily put up with locked down hardware so they can play their happy shiny game. They should care that the hardware is locked against THEM, treating them like a potential criminal, but they don't.
There is no legal incentive for companies to stop locking down their hardware, and there is very minimal social incentive as well.
Mealy mouth cunts (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what our glorious "leaders " have become with this drek that they spewed out. That, and they willing to whore themselves out and get things like the DMCA passed which not one American citizen voted for.
Fuck them, and I bet plenty of the people who are going after this "ooh scary INTERNATIONAL hacking group" have child porn and other illegal material on their own computers.
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Re: Mealy mouth cunts (Score:2)
And these same people are supposed to represent the interests of the American people, not just companies. By passing the DMCA, they told most of the American people to go fuck themselves. If it were really up to a direct vote by American citizens, how many do you think would've voted for this? (I should've been more clear in my post as to what I meant by "nobody voted for this") I would say close to 0, provided they were not brainwashed with scary slow motion B&W images of faceless hackers working in a
Re: Mealy mouth cunts (Score:2)
"So your "not one American citizen voted for" is bullshit. Your own Senators and Representative voted for it. If you don't like the law, vote in somebody who will vote to repeal it."
WAY easier said than done. Provided we could even find one that can resist accepting a generous "gift" by 'special intetest groups' that want to get DMCA type laws passed.
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Hacking device for 3DS (Score:2)
Imagine paying money for something like that and not just installing Luma CFW.
Jesus (Score:2)
Remember kids (Score:2, Troll)
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That's because modern businesses are highly segmented operations. Typically, a small core company develops IP and retains the bulk of the profits, another company is saddled with the capital equipment and real estate, and a third company (if not many, such as caterers and janitors) extracts value from laborers and pays the bare minimum legally required benefits...sometimes. Frequently, they don't even bother to hide their illegal and abusive treatment of workers.
This system expands the wealth gap while ensu
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Was ruled legal 10 years ago by local court (Score:2)
Interesting article from 2009 :
https://www.eurogamer.net/arti... [eurogamer.net]
justice.gov twisting words again. (Score:1)
PIracy is worse than guns... (Score:1)
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Guns mainly kill poor black people.
Mod chips mainly deprive wealthy people of some profit.
ahh.. now I see what we need laws to protect us from mod chips.
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> One has to wonder how guns remain legal [...]
" The Gun is good."
"The Penis is evil. The Penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the Gun shoots death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals. Go forth, and kill! Zardoz has spoken!"
Low hanging fruit for police (Score:1)