Over 450 consoles seized in the UK for modding

A little over 450 consoles and handhelds have been seized from a residential home in the UK for modding. Along with the consoles and handhelds are over 300 pirated games and 5000 "illegal discs". This marks the largest confiscation of illegal modding and pirating in the UK.

The act was prompted when officials raided a stall in Halifax Market. When they searched the tradesman's home they found 246 Nintendo Wii consoles, 168 Xbox 360s, 19 PSPs, 12 DS Lites, 6 PlayStation 2s, and 6 PlayStation 3s. The 5000 illegal discs they found amounted to a retail value of £50,000. All of them are now under the possession of the Anti-Piracy Unit of the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA).

Graham Hebblethwaite, chief officer of West Yorkshire Trading Standard, says about the raid:

Copyright crime is driven by greed and causes a loss of millions of pounds to retailers of West Yorkshire and to members of the music and entertainment industry every year. [...] The haul of items from this operation should send out a clear warning to individuals involved in the illegal copyright industry that they will dealt with severely. This sort of crime carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.

Source :http://pspupdates.qj.net/Over-450-consoles-seized-in-the-UK-for-modding/pg/49/aid/99383#comments

Do you think that what the governments are trying to do to stop piracy is right? And is game console modding illegal?
I think the government is retraded and they're not really gonna do anything to stop piracy.

 

Government is retarded, they should waste less time with piracy and more with war issues and such. I mean in the US Hillary Clinton funded a 90 million dollar study to prove that video games are worse then drugs and guns. Yes 90 million, with that they could've done more important things, such as funding medical research, or using it for military purposes. The UK government is starting to get just as worse.

 

yea game console modding is illegal but i still do it, if gaming companies think im going to pay $70+ for a game then they are crazy, i rather just buy the console and rent games / burn em.

and like 1337_byte said above, they could be putting their money to way better use then trying to get rid of pirates (who are doing to harm to anyone).

 

90 million there dumb as shit just to get a result that no ones gonna care about and will still play video games none the less it could be spent on way better things like u said piracy is the least of our problems.

 

450 thats alot... Where you get money for all that?

 

So that's why there's no Nintendo Wii's in stores...

 

Haha, too bad it'll be nearly impossible to burn games for the PS3 in the future because of the blue-ray disc.

 

I doubt the people looking after the seized products at ELSPA will ever get bored.

You can buy Blue-ray discs and burners now so I don't see a problem.

 

thats pretty shitty why does everyone have to fuck with gamers?!

 

Since when was game console modding illegal? I've seen Xbox mod chips for sale at the mall.

 

The government is fucking retarded when it comes to piracy. They spend way too much money coming up with all these campaigns and whatnot. They should be using it to fund things that are REAL problems. How about cancer research? That sounds a lot better than "We just finished a $90 million research that concludes that video games are worse than drugs and guns."

 

Yeah and they blame almost every problem in society with video gaming.

"Oh that killer rapist guy plays games, all gamers must be killers."

I mean seriously cmon I bet everyone's played at least one game in their life.

 

wow really? im pretty sure it is because your not paying for the games...

 

Ouch. Only 450? That's nothing...everyone will keep doing it, it won't be stopped. I think it's right to stop pirasm, but it's ridiculous. It's basically impossible to end it, unless they start killing people that they see selling pirated items.

 

Wow, I never knew how to burn playstation games. I remember I tried, and it said it completed without a hitch. I put it into my ps2, and apperently it only burned the music on the game lol.

It's not going to stop. Even with all reposed they are still saving/making money off doing it

 

i agree piracy is a problem but i wouldnt "waste" $90million on a way to stop something not as bad as oh idk...the war! cancer! diabetes! something that actually helps ppl!

 

they should resell the games !~

 

Hilary Clinton is more of a retarded fuck than her husband.

 

I modded my PSP and no one came and arrested me... 3.03 OE-C FiremWare FTW!

 

Agreed.