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Saturday, December 24, 2005

Trio Charged With Modifying Xboxes To Pirate Video Games

Trio Charged With Modifying Xboxes To Pirate Video Games

"The game consoles were modified with a new control chip and a 250-gigabyte hard drive. The embedded software on the chip creates a new start menu to play any of a number of pirated games, authorities say.

Two store owners and a third man were charged on Monday in a federal copyright infringement case for allegedly selling modified Microsoft Corp. Xbox consoles that allowed them to play pirated video games copied onto a multi-gigabyte hard drive.

The game consoles were modified with a new control chip and a 250 gigabyte hard drive. The embedded software on the chip creates a new start menu. "Turn on the Xbox, and the software comes up with the name of the modification chip," said Thomas Loeser, assistant United States attorney in Los Angeles. "You'll page through a menu similar to Windows browser to select any internal game to play it."

A criminal complaint filed in a Los Angeles federal court accuses Jason Jones, 34, Jonathan Bryant, 44, both of Los Angeles, and Pei "Patrick" Cai, 32, of Pico Rivera, Calif., of conspiring to traffic technology used to outwit a copyright protection system and conspire to commit criminal copyright infringement.

The complaint affidavit alleges Jones and Bryant, who co-own the ACME Game Store in Los Angeles, sold Xbox game consoles, that Cai modified. The chips and hard drives apparently allowed the user to copy rented or borrowed games onto the consoles for future playback."


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