RCMP arrest Canadian man for modding console

with the corporate owned governments of this world, a crime against a corporation is deserving of a punishment harsher than you would get for rape or manslaughter.

What I want to know is, was he under the radar for selling said modded consoles/games. Or was it personal use? Its usually unheard of RCMP getting involved for personal use only

Quote:

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modifying a console and computer is considered an illegal act under Section 342.1 of the Criminal Code and is punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years.

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Originally posted by cyprusrom:

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Quote:

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modifying a console and computer is considered an illegal act under Section 342.1 of the Criminal Code and is punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years.

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What exactly do they mean by "modifying a computer"? If you can build the damn thing from scratch, how can you "modify" one and break the law?

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http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/qc/nouv-news/c...100401a-eng.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_code_section_342
http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepa...puter-crime_673
http://www.crime-research.org/library/Canada_Code.html

Originally posted by DXR88:

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Originally posted by cyprusrom:

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Quote:

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modifying a console and computer is considered an illegal act under Section 342.1 of the Criminal Code and is punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years.

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What exactly do they mean by "modifying a computer"? If you can build the damn thing from scratch, how can you "modify" one and break the law?

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what are ya talking aboot,eh.

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"modifying a console and computer is considered an illegal act under Section 342.1 of the Criminal Code and is punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years."

I think that quote must be taken out of context...otherwise it would be a crime to install ram in your home PC. Still BS though...I should be able to mod my console to do whatever I want it to do. If I mod it so it can play pirated games (and do many other (legal) activities), and then never pirate a game, I should not have to live in fear of prosecution.

read my links.

Nice link DDP, that answers my question so I quote off the first one:

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The RCMP takes action and investigates this type of crime if there are grounds to believe that material has been copied for the purpose of commercial distribution, or to such an extent as to be prejudicial to the copyright holder. Every person who copies or reproduces a video game for the purpose of commercial distribution or sale commits an offense under the Copyright Act.

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Criminal Code of Canada 2010

Sec. 342.1 (1) Unauthorized use of computer - Everyone who, fraudulently and without color of right.
(a) obtains, directly or indirectly, any computer service,

(b) by means of an electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, intercepts or causes to be intercepted, directly ot indirectly, any function of a computer system, or

(c) uses or causes to be used, directly or indirectly, a computer system with intent to commit an offense under paragraph (a) or (b) or an offense under section 430 (Mischief) in relation to data or a computer system, or

(d) uses, posesses, traffics in or permits another person to have access to a computer password that would enable a person to commit an offence under paragraph (a),(b) or (c)

is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years, or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction (6 months jail and/or $2,000 fine)

Hope this helps some people. (got a pocket Criminal Code 2010 in my bureau) ;o)

but like Mystic said if it's his own PC/ console he's modding it will be thrown out and they won't be able to go after him for copyright violations due to the fact that private personal use is hardwired into the law itself!

yeah like everyone said here that's it's ours stuff, doing modded dont have to be ilegal but maybe about the protect right of property like we are dowloading iso games they are right , but just dont saled use at u own and becareful to no to said to anyone else what you can do with you sofmoded sistem because a lotte of people they just use for criminal thing

'Offences against Rights of Property'

CuChO_Mex, edit your sig to conform to forum specs ASAP. yours is 369x196 pixels, 61,809 bytes & 3 lines of text.
2. An image-only signature should be less than 50kb in size, and be at most 500 pixels wide and 200 pixels tall.
4. If you want to use both text and image in your signature the image should not be more than 500 pixels wide and 100 pixels tall, and you can use up to three lines of text.

sorry and thanks for the advice

"modifying a console and computer is considered an illegal act under Section 342.1 of the Criminal Code and is punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years" is a lot different than the actual law that Xenon posted...not that Xenon posted the full law.

It is not illegal to add ram. It is not illegal to buy online services, to use card readers, or to have your own passwords (it isn't even illegal to have other people's passwords, so long as you don't do anything "without the color of right". What is illegal is to start a business where you say, "I'll mod your XboX360 so that you can play pirated games; I also sell pirated games, so I'm your one-stop piracy shop."

agreed on the last paragraph.

KillerBug.

no it's not the full law just the pertinent section that was quoted in the story. which IMHO isn't even the section that should even been used by the RCMP, it's too vague/grey area. I'm not even sure if the crown attorney would agree on convicting on that section based on what it says.

What qualifies under "computer modding"?

Dont OC your stealing money from hardware vendors that like to sell you the same chip with faster speeds for $80 More.

Dame im giving them idea's

Hardware Modding shouldn't be illegal, however blatantly selling software you don't have the right to is illegal.

Hardware modding would allow,independent devs access to a resource they would otherwise never get. in return a new generation of free games would come about that don't suck this in return would force multibillion dollar Game devs to compete ether with lower prices or better longer games.

in short making modding illegal, guarantees they will never have to release quality and they never have to drop the price of games.

Most of these comments are incorrect in how the subsection is written/sounds.
The gist of the section means it's illegal to modify gaming console chips to allow illegal content to run. The same is meant for computer (consoles) which "may" contain proprietary chips the disallow certain functions to be run without first purchasing access to said functions.
This is a very oversimplified explanation, but the law certainly does NOT stop people from changing h'ware in their computers in Canada! It's only meant for someone changing a chips' EEPROM/BIOS/CMOS, that is explicitly forbidden under the manufacturers' EULA.