Washington DC Game Stores Raided Over Mod Chip Piracy

The trade organization the Entertainment Software Association has applauded a crackdown on what it described as 'a major pirate game retailer' in the Washington, DC area by federal government agencies. The agencies raided the retailer with the authority to seize circumvention devices, modified Xbox and Sony PlayStation 2 consoles, and copyrighted game software that was apparently being installed on 'modded' Xbox consoles. According to further information from a reader of the popular weblog BoingBoing who had allegedly visited the stores in the recent past, it's claimed that the stores in question were "selling modded systems with games already copied onto the hard-drive... They even printed up stickers with the list of included games and attached them to the packaging for each system." Interestingly, two employees of the game stores were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, as well as conspiracy to traffic in a device that circumvents technological protection measures, a violation of the sometimes controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The second part of these charges specifically relate to the selling of Xbox and PlayStation 2 mod chips, a charge for which major mod chip vendor David Rocci was sentenced to 5 months in prison in late 2003.