lol 10 years!? thats a bit too harsh isn't it?

yeah, I hate cheaters as much as the next guy, but he just modded his console, I think the terminated warranty should be enough of a lesson when he gets red ring o' death. 10 years is a little freakin steep, we've got bigger problems to take care of in our court systems.

How is modding a console any different than say what they do on American Choppers or all the people out there that rebuild and mod cars. I'm not trying to sound ignorant here, but this just sounds like another case of someone who wants to get paid... Lars Ulrich anybody? I modded my PS1 back in the day, but I only burned games that I thought I wouldn't want to play, and you know what I never played them beyond the rental that required the initial burn. If a game was awesome enough I bought it - the same logic behind why most people download music.

So manslaugter and modding can result in the same amount of jailtime? Huh. Well, what if you modded a console to run Madworld?

Huh, I never heard about this case before. I don't see why Crippen had to have been personally aware of the DMCA in order to be culpable for the crime. That kind of logic would make only the most studious people culpable. Also, it's not like he was doing something completely innocent either. Maybe I'm just misreading the point though.

I say just make him live life for a few months w/o video games.

I mean if it's against the law it's against the law. Just like pirating music or software. A lot of people do it and then a handful get chosen to be made example of in court.

The judge isn't saying "I don't understand why this is against the law." the judge is slamming the prosecution for having an awful case (ie: using witnesses who themselves have broken the law... and for claiming that Crippen broke the law even though he didn't even know such a law existed). That second point is really big. How is a citizen suppose to know every single law in existence? This is why, for instance, we have street signs or policies that are posted (say in a store). You can't say you didn't know if it was posted for you to read, then your just ignorant. But I've seen the inside of an Xbox it doesn't say it's against the law. It says it'll void the warranty. So unless it says some legal mumbo-jumbo in the instruction manual when you get your Xbox, I see no case for him being culpable for the crime.

Getting away on a technicality has got to be a relief.  If the case get's dismissed, that is.  Also, I almost submitted this tip this morning. But I figured it would've been a waste of time because someone else would've submitted it before me.

Is that a giant hair on the paper in the picture above? Gross.

I hate modders, off with their heads!

Psh, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

That's messed up, so when you buy something you can't mess withit anymore?

That's messed up, so when you buy something you can't mess withit anymore?

I remember this one guy modded all the consoles and Sony's computer/t.v. device to create and all in one thingy, when you turned it on all the console parts(inside the t.v. itself.) would turn on and use very little enrgy, changing the input changed the power for said devices, and you could easily swap from ps3 to wii to xbox to computer. and he made a laptop version of a ps3 and 360, but sadly it was a tv special a couple years ago and i don't recall his name.

man i can get caught selling weed and get less time than that....lol

10 years is bloody outrageous. If he was just modifying them for himself than i don't consider that all too bad unless he was modifying others and selling them. But 10 years otherwise is too much, i'd say more like 5 or maybe less.

So can you mod you Xbox without getting band after this??

Well he should have found out whether this was legal or not before he did it.

they're lagging

Opening the X-Box voids your warranty, yes, but did he actually break the law here by modding the consoles? Because if all he was doing was modifying the hardware, he didn't necessarily make illegal copies of games, which is the major issue...right?