X-Box mods ruled legal

[Ramrod]

I don't usually venture into the xbox forum but I thought you guys might like to read this

Published Tuesday 27th April 2004 13:58 GMT
A Spanish judge has ruled that modifications to games consoles to allow them to play DVDs and games from other countries "are not illegal".

According to El PaÃÃâ€*’ÂÂÂÂ*s, the ruling comes after the Guardia Civil charged Barcelona video games shop Innovagames with offering its clients "alteration of Play Station 2 and X-Box games consoles to allow them to read games from other parts of the world or downloaded directly from the Internet... by carrying out modification of their components as per diagrams found on the premises".

The judge noted that such modifications "might constitute a crime against the intellectual property of the equipment manufacturers", but he concluded that there is a legal loophole in the "Ley de Propiedad Intelectual" (Intellectual Property Law) which means that they are, by default, legal.

The loophole exists in article 270 of the penal code, which mentions "the manufacture, distribution or possession of means to crack computer programme security codes". It does not, however, cover "components of video games players nor, in general, equipment designed to run image or sound software".

The judge concluded, therefore, that he must reject the Guardia Civil's case. ®

[zoombini]

So now lots of Xbox mod chip sites will be popping up in Spain & there's nowt that can be done against them.
wahay...

[Defiant]

Originally Posted by zoombini

So now lots of Xbox mod chip sites will be popping up in Spain & there's nowt that can be done against them.
wahay...

The sites are everywhere anyway

[hawkseye000]

i believe that it's right that you should be able to modify an xbox to play imported games - as long as you pay for the games in an import shop...
thank goodness the spanish have some sense... however, i suppose the problem is that most people are doing it so they can download the roms off the net...

[grindkid25]

http://www.thebroken.org

few guys who like modding consoles, especially the xb, adding a 120gig hard drive, a chip and a mini operating system so you can borrow a game from someone and then copy it to your hard drive...and there you have a game for free......

[Tezcatlipoca]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

I don't usually venture into the xbox forum but I thought you guys might like to read this

Interesting find, Ramrod

There was a similar thing in Italy back in Jan, where a judge there ruled that modding PS2s was legal

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=6909


But, I doubt either ruling would affect things as they stand here.

(which is a pity, as there are legitimate uses for modding...still, it doesn't matter, as it's still v easy to get it done anyway)

Originally Posted by grindkid25

...so you can borrow a game from someone and then copy it to your hard drive...and there you have a game for free......

...and have also just broken the law by committing copyright theft. So best not to talk about anything like that, please.