Xbox pirate ops capsized

Trio of California men busted for selling modded consoles; the three face up to five years in prison.

Three men were charged with copyright infringement for their roles in a modified Xbox racket in Southern California. Jason Jones, 34, and Jonathan Bryant, 44, sold Xboxes illegally modified by Pei Cai, 32. All three, if convicted, face up to five years of jail time. The consoles, which allowed users to illegally copy games onto installed hard drives, were sold out of ACME Game Store on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, with some fetching more than $500. The store made news earlier this year when it cohosted a show featuring artists paying homage to retro games.

68 Comments

  • GKBeetle

    Posted Dec 22, 2005 7:48 am PT

    Wow. I can't believe how many crime supporters we have on this board. Pirating is stealing any way way you do it. Just because it is not a violent crime, it does hurt people. If game companies are making less money, that means less innovation for one thing. Also, maybe it means lees people can get into the gaming business, which could also impact innovation or could mean that if you wanted to get a job in a gaming company that there would be none available for you. I always buy all my games because more money for the game companies means better games for me. For anybody who condones pirating, I hope you get something stolen from you to teach you a lesson.

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Dec 22, 2005 5:56 am PT

    LOL they should lock them up longer than that

  • clsnbrdr616

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 10:36 pm PT

    Why are all of you saying the law is stupid for going after the modders than "real" criminals? The law wasn't hunting these guys down; these guys handed themselves over on a silver platter when they went on the news. The law just gratiously took it and arrested them. Think about it! It's the people that were stupid, not the law!

  • yagamikrm

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 3:18 pm PT

    so whaaaat...

  • yagamikrm

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 3:16 pm PT

    So what...

  • umbrae

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 3:02 pm PT

    And to think that Bush authorized illegal wire-tapping on thousands of US citizens and will probably continue to do it without punishment.

  • topcatgamer

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 11:36 am PT

    Someone doing 100mph on the highway poses a much greater threat to society -- but they just get a fine not five years! This goes to show u the power of certain industries to skew the idea of a punishment reflecting the crime.

    Many industries want to have strong IP laws and harsh punsihments for violations for one reason only, regardless of what they say, and that is to protect their money making. Hell, if they could get us to approve execution for these pirates believe me they would.

    We are the fools for letting our politicans do their bidding.

  • microwaveman

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 10:14 am PT

    hahaha, this is amazing. i stabbed somebody, and i got off with only 2 weeks in juvi, and these sorry bastards are getting 5 YEARS over video games, hahahahaha

  • CSM55

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 9:51 am PT

    Scare tactic. I doubt it's even true

  • cusoker

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 9:37 am PT

    Oh and one other thing, dont justify your need to pirate games, and do other illegal activities by saying that the gameing industry is wrong for pricing games. You choose to do what you do, dont pull some flimsy excuse out. Take responsability for your actions and dont blame them on someone else.

  • cusoker

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 9:34 am PT

    Stop all your complaining about this. They committed an illegal act. They got caught for doing it. Which means they will go to trail and probably be convicted for thier illegal act. Dont let you being a "gamer" blind you people to the fact a law was broken. Being a "gamer" doesn't give anyone the right to pirate games on modded systems. It's not thier "property" to pirate, it belongs to the developers et al. And for the love of God stop complaining about murderers, drug dealers, and 360 shortages.

  • crystos

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 9:32 am PT

    So what did these guys do again??? Oh they modified xbox systems?? wow that is such a cardinal sin..... Man u americans get get ur priorites str8... get the hate groups.rapists.murderers..and the other dregs of teh earth off ur streets 1st!

  • spade0013

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 9:13 am PT

    pirates suck, ninjas forever!

  • mr_goodbyte

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 7:46 am PT

    oh come on. who cares about game pirates when Microsoft is screwing all of us by creating such a shortage of xbox 360s in america. i mean, just go to ebay, and see how people are selling their consoles for $1000+. that REALLY pisses me off. i hope those pirates sold enough xboxs to screw over MS, but looks like they were not even smart enough to pull that off.

  • urpabo

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 7:41 am PT

    Also, people keep talking about how modding doesn't hurt the industry, and that people with pirated software would have never bought the product in the first place. Well, that has nothing to do with this scenario. These guys were selling pirated material. This means that the buyer purchases the stolen product from the modders, i.e spends money on a property that they intended to buy, but the money does not go to the owner of the property.

    This is no different than someone putting your car up for sale, then somebody who intends to buy it pays for it, but the salesman keeps the money.

  • urpabo

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 7:29 am PT

    I think the guys who got caught are morons. It is one thing to mod your xbox, another to copy games you don't own to it, another to mod an xbox and resale it for profit, but it is quite a step up from any of those to sell a modded box with 40 games illegally coppied to it. 30 games at 50 bucks is 1500$ in theft per unit sold.
    Like I said, these guys are morons.

  • Silencer786

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 6:16 am PT

    they got pwn3d

  • maknathol

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 5:53 am PT

    i'd like to comment on this subject as it affects me.
    You see i live in the middle east, a war torn area, and as you might have guessed i like to play video gamez.
    Now in a war torn area, video game company and publishers wouldnt risk to open up offices and risk money in the area as something might happen.
    So thats why im forced to buy copied illegal games, thats the only way i can have any game. We do have a virgin mega store in the capital, but you wouldnt believe the games they sell, so outdated, im talking about homeworld 1 and red alert 2, they dont even have WoW on shelfes. its pathetic, no new games and no publisher support so thats why were forced to buy illegal gamez, and im not happy about it because i cant play online because the serial number is used.

  • islandkiwi

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 5:23 am PT

    It's not just breaking the law; they sold them at their retail store, and talked about it on tv. A lot of you may break the law in the privacy of your home, so you're unlikely to get caught.

    So what do you do with lawbreakers that stand up waving their battle flag and screaming "we're over here breaking the law!!!". You throw the book at them.

  • roger_tyler

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 5:10 am PT

    I'd like to see all of these people that complain about strict copyright laws (and the consequences of breaking such laws and being caught) put a couple years of their life into a creative endevour that costs them both valuable time and much of their money. After you have done such things, you start to understand why these laws exist.

  • terminalhoser

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 3:37 am PT

    motorola_verizo, irregardless is not a word!

  • Vastet

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 3:23 am PT

    Normally I may ask if the cops had nothing better to do, but in this case the idiots advertised that they were breaking the law, and set up a commercial business based upon breaking the law. So instead I'm just going to chuckle quietly to myself at the incompetence of people.

  • hippobutt

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 2:37 am PT

    OOOH! PEOPLE ARE PIRATING!!! HOW DANGEROUS!!! silly government officials with topsy turvy priorities! money is not the only thing in the world!

  • xion2k4

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 2:35 am PT

    maybe if the police focused on other more important matters then they wouldn't go around aressting 3 guys with modded xbox's. maybe they might try catching some REAL crimanials for once

  • chinesehaohot

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 2:11 am PT

    Yes they totally deserver it! Breaking the law and all! wait a minute, M.Jackson is out free, so is OJ, so is Eron's CEOs, oh and even our president who ordered the spying on US citizens and got away with it.....Law? WHAT A JOKE!

  • JamezTown

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 1:32 am PT

    Good... they desever it. They need to pay money like everyone else. Stop breaking the law and then you might have room to complain

  • pungaboy

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 1:04 am PT

    You know what? It's jerks like this that are driving the price of games up. It's jerks like this that are flatlining the movie industry and it's jerks like this that put my job in peril, so I take it a little personally. You guys talk about the bigwigs that can't buy their 7th mansion, but really, they're just going to lay off a bunch of their employees (people like me that are working-class just like you and your daddy) and buy that house anyway.I hope they fine the crap out of these guys. (Jail time seems a bit harsh though.)

  • kaito2

    Posted Dec 21, 2005 12:01 am PT

    bornounce, "The fact is, MOST pirated software, whether it be games or PC applications, would never have been purchased in the first place!" Are you being serious!? People generally pirate POPULAR software, etc., because they know there will be a demand for it. Do you even buy the logic that people pirate software knowing that nobody will want to buy it? It was on this very site that had more than a few articles about the Source code being stolen, and pirated copies of Half-Life 2 showing up in Europe. Are you telling me that Half Life 2 was a game that "would never have been purchased in the first place?" Further, you missed the point about piracy and its costs. MS has no way of knowing how many Xboxes, games, pieces of software will be pirated, so it would have to make it harder for EVERY game/console/software to be pirated. The cost is an opportunity cost: the more money you spend on preventing piracy, the less money you have to spend on other areas, even if you are MS. (MS has a lot of money, but they don' t have an infinite amount of money--know one does.)

  • kaito2

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 11:38 pm PT

    Oddyssey, while I thought it was implied in my statement, thank you for pointing out that the price of video games hasn't changed. If developers could simply pass on the cost of piracy directly to consumers, it would likely have minimal consequences on the quality of games. However, since the price of games is set , piracy costs have to come out of other areas on the developer end, such as development. Further, if piracy (intellectual property) laws are not enforced, the overall quality of games begins to suffer as developers find it less profitable to spend more time and money on developing games. Why spend all your developing "The Next Big Game" when the chances are someone will pirate it anyway.

  • bornonce

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 11:17 pm PT

    To motorola_verizo:

    The MOST pirated programs in the world are MS Windows, AutoCad, and Microsoft Office. Last time I checked, neither Microsoft nor Autodesk were heading for bankruptcy.

    The idea that piracy "cost the industry billions" is B.S. The fact is, MOST pirated software, whether it be games or PC applications, would never have been purchased in the first place! (How many people do you know personally have AutoCad, MS Word, MS Excel, or the MS Office suite, and didn't purchase it? How many of them do you think WOULD have purchased it?).

    I am not condoning piracy; I merely have a more realistic look as to how damaging it really is. Certainly ANY store that blatantly sells pirated software should be prosecuted. Further, since the "intent" of the modchip was to specifically allow for pirated games, even the "modder" should be prosecuted.

    However, since there have been 22 million XBoxes sold, and probably fewer than 10,000 modchips, piracy on the XBox is not going to cause much of a dent to any developer's profits (since they sometimes make less than $5.00 for every game sold).

    To Mouthew: The same story on www.1up.com explicitly stated that they were selling modded XBoxes for between $250 and $500 depending on the NUMBER OF GAMES installed on the HDD (a 250 GB drive). As I said before, Gamespot's version is misleading. Every XBox sold had a 250 GB HDD and dozens of pirated games pre-installed.

  • GranTurismo_559

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 10:44 pm PT

    Damn!!!!! To bad for them, got caught red handed. What were they thinking going public about modding Xbox360's, should have kept it on the low, probaly would have not got caught.

  • Mouthew

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 10:43 pm PT

    There was no mention of them having pirated software, merely of them selling modded consoles that would allow piracy. By this logic shouldn't gun store owners be arrested for selling guns to "potential murderers"?

  • motorola_verizo

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 10:28 pm PT

    I'm glad these people were arrested, they deserve it. The morons that are making the remarks about how they police should being going after hard criminals instead of these people obviously dont understand the situation. Irregardless of whether a rape is a more henious crime that piracy, these people have still broken the law and deserve to be punished. Laws are not just put in place to make society safer and protect us from violence, they are also established to protect our intellectual property, something these imbeciles decided to steal. By stealing these games and taking money from the industry, we only hurt ourselves because it will become harder and harder for the industry to sustain itself when the profit motivation becomes less and less apparent. tequila_zaire, you are a damn fool sir. The laws purpose is not to make L.A. safer, it is to safeguard the ideas and creations of these great designers and programmers that spent years trying to make the best experiance that we can have in entertainment. Just imagine if you spent 3 years of your life trying to create a game and when you finally finish, you make no money because the games were copied or illegally downloaded, so for the $20 million your company spent on making the game they get nothing. Business practices like this wont last long, and if piracy continues to grow our favorite entertainment that we all love may not last long either.

  • Mit_Man

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 9:36 pm PT

    lol. (directed at article).


    Also, it isn't funny anymore to continue with the sarcastic remarks toward software pirates getting sent to jail rather than rapists and criminals. The only slightly original person who said this was the first person.

  • Tequila_Zaire

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 9:27 pm PT

    Whew...I'm so glad they're off the streets instead of the violent gang members, rapists, and child molesters. L.A. is a safer place without gaming geeks roaming the streets.

    Way to go justice system.

  • Talldude80

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 9:09 pm PT

    the article may be ''misleading' but only because it doesnt mention if the three men were actual software pirates (probably were). But still, its illegal to open up an xbox modify it and sell it to the public. I assume the guys running the store didnt include pirated copies of any games with these systems, but maybe they did. But up to 5 years? key word is UP TO. Everyone knows they wont spend 1 day in actual prison. Unless they find some sick porn on their modified Xboxes, i really doubt these morons will really go to prison. I dont think any amount of pirated software should send someone to prison. Maybe weekends of community service and huge fines, but we need to keep room in prisons for killers, rapists, dirty politicians, etc etc ....

    oh yeah and

    ARRRRRRRRRRRRRR make them walk the plank! feed em to the sharks!

  • bornonce

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 8:31 pm PT

    This article is misleading. From what I understand, they were selling pre-modded XBoxes with HDD and GAMES ALREADY INSTALLED. Of course this is about as blatant a violation of copyright law as can be. XBox media center, Linux, alternative dashboards, etc. all show other uses for a modified XBox that has nothing to do with pirated games. Copying a game to a HDD has so many inherent advantages (no disk read errors, fast loading times, etc.) that it is a shame that MS didn't allow it in the first place (for original games).

  • Sinister904

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 8:14 pm PT

    that's three less pirates that can steal my booty!

  • DecayingFlesh

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 7:55 pm PT

    Way to go AA7. Another fine example of console bigotry, close mindedness, and good ole fashioned penis envy.

  • odyssey64

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 7:55 pm PT

    Piracy is not the reason for the price of video games today. The average price for a game whether it be PC or console is $50. The price for games has been structured like this before there was video game piracy and I'm going way back to the early 80's. The new next-gen consoles (Xbox 360, PS3, Revolution) are the first wave of consoles where there will be a uniform price hike averaging about $60. Unfortunately this is pretty expensive for many people but it was only a matter of time before the prices did increase.

  • secily

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 7:50 pm PT

    just a small piece of the pie for cracking down on pirates
    arrrrrrrgh

  • kaito2

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 7:42 pm PT

    sibot13-No, it's not an excuse, but a fact. Piracy, and its prevention, cost game publishers in the millions of dollars each year. That is money that could be going into the development of games. Even the most profitable publishers don't have an unlimited pool of money. And, as the methods of piracy get increasingly sophisticated, the money publisher's need to spend to stop them increases. So, like someone mentioned, piracy really affects the average gamer, too.

  • floydfire

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 6:42 pm PT

    to anyone money is money, big corporations to the small margin of humanity that we are, no one cares about you and unforfunatly that's the way it's gonna stay

  • darkside5001

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 6:38 pm PT

    FRiedRyCe, so are the game developers, and now that there games are going for free they will lose alot of money.

  • darkside5001

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 6:36 pm PT

    Lol, sucks to be them.

  • jordan003

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 6:34 pm PT

    one word....wow

  • FRieDRyCe

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 6:22 pm PT

    They are just trying to make a decent living. Leave them alone.

  • nemes1s3000

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 6:15 pm PT

    I actually thought it'd be a little more than 5 years.

  • strahd01

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 6:06 pm PT

    w00t! give them the chair Buahahaha!

  • sibot13

    Posted Dec 20, 2005 5:42 pm PT

    Thats just the excuss the publishers use to raise prices on products. serious_sean is right in pointing out how rediculous the publishers have become about making their profit. some punk kid can break into my car and steal my stereo and all i get is a case number, but a big corporation loses a few units of merch, that they werent even going to make money on in the first place because the person that pirated it wasnt going to buy it unless they got it for free, and then the authorities take notice. got to love the way society is run

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