
Prosecutors dismiss Xbox-modding case mid-trial - lotusleaf1987
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/prosecutors-dismiss-xbox-modding-case-mid-trial.ars
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bediger
Is this case the best that the Feds could do? It sounds like a real farce,
where the witnesses were at least as culpable as the accused, and maybe even
committed more crimes than the accused did.

So, really, is this the best case to try hardware mods as being illegal under
the DMCA?

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chopsueyar
_Jurors, who heard only one day of testimony, left the courthouse with mixed
opinions on the case. “When we left yesterday, I was thinking, ‘What are we
doing here?’” said juror Paul Dietz, a 27-year-old actor. He said he “probably
would have” acquitted.

Another juror, Jerry Griffin, a 63-year-old trial attorney, said “I think
Microsoft has a right to protect its proprietary information.”_

Generational bias or lawyer bias?

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VladRussian
DMCA : prohibits a natural act of human brain - the analysis/synthesis cycle

Software patents: prohibit another natural act - to take an idea and develop
it further or develop a new one using existing as building blocks

Basically it is legal fences in the mental space.

~~~
electromagnetic
I've noticed a huge difference between patents and copyright.

Patents keep technology the same.

Copyright protects (at least in intention) an author's work and future works,
but not its ideas. IIRC the first usage of a school for wizards was in A
Wizard of Earthsea. If Ursula K. Le Guin had a patent on the idea, Harry
Potter would never have been able to appear (at least without a huge legal
trial and consider that without hindsight this book was considered lucky to
get a 1000 book print run) even though the usage and responses are enormously
different.

Copyright is essentially a security fence, it stops people breaking in and
stealing all your money. While a patent is like constructing a concrete dome
over your house and making it criminal for anyone to even look at your house
and borrow the architecture.

~~~
chopsueyar
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government)
to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for
a public disclosure of an invention.

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by the law of a jurisdiction to
the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy,
distribute and adapt the work. Exceptions and limitations to these rights
strive to balance the public interest in the wide distribution of the material
produced and to encourage creativity. Exceptions include fair dealing and fair
use, and such use does not require the permission of the copyright owner. All
other uses require permission and copyright owners can license or permanently
transfer or assign their exclusive rights to others.

Copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression or fixation. In most
jurisdictions, copyright arises upon fixation and does not need to be
registered. Copyright protection applies for a specific period of time, after
which the work is said to enter the public domain.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright>

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JWLong
>Gutierrez ruled that the government had to prove Crippen knew he was breaking
the law by modding Xboxes.

What bullcrap!

All I heard my entire life was "Ignorance of the law is no excuse..." So which
is it?

~~~
streety
The ars technica article which was posted yesterday has more on this:

"The fair-use issue came up as the judge berated prosecutor Allen Chiu’s
proposed jury instructions, which included the assertion that the government
need not prove that Crippen “willfully” breached the law, in what is known as
“mens rea” in legal parlance. The judge noted that the government’s own
intellectual property crimes manual concerning the 1998 DMCA says the
defendant has to have some knowledge that he was breaking the law.

“The first prosecution 12 years later, and you’re suggesting a mens rea that
is akin to exactly contrary to the IP manual: that ignorance of the law is no
excuse?” the judge barked."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1960161> [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2010/12/judge-in-xbo...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2010/12/judge-in-xbox-modding-trial-berates-prosecution-halts-
trial.ars)

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Semiapies
_"based on fairness and justice"_

In other words, after the judge pinned back the prosecutor's ears on the
bullshit he was trying to ram through, they gave up.

