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Pirated Games

Business Owner Sentenced for Selling Pirated Games, Modified XBoxes

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 15, 2005 - 11:06am.
Washington -- Biren Amin, the owner of Pandora's Cube, a major retailer of pirated games and illegally modified Microsoft Xboxes in the DC area, has been sentenced to five months in prison with three years of supervised release, including five months of home confinement, the DC-based Entertainment Software Association (ESA) said on Thursday. Amin was also fined $247,000 and ordered to complete 80 hours of community service as part of his sentence. "Sentences of this magnitude send a clear message to game retailers that selling pirate products has serious consequences," said Douglas Lowenstein, president of ESA, the trade association representing U.S. computer and video game publishers. Four employees from Pandora's Cube, which has locations in College Park, Springfield and White Marsh, have now been found guilty of conspiring to commit felony copyright infringement and conspiring to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The employees modified Xbox consoles and turned them into what the store called "Super Xboxes," designed to defeat the Xbox's copyright protection system and permit the user to avoid paying for legitimate Xbox games. They also loaded illegal copies of video games onto the hard drives of the Super Xboxes.
tags: Law | Business Owner | Sentenced | Pirated Games | Modified XBoxes |

Pirated Games, Modified Game Consoles Reaping Profits in China

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 27, 2004 - 7:14am.
Beijing -- While Sony's PlayStation 2 sells for $240 in China -- about a quarter of the average annual income of an urban worker -- and games go for between $24 and $50, illegally modified consoles that sell for $180 and can play pirated games are outselling official models by two or three times, Reuters reported. "The scenario which occurs in the United States where the PS2 is cheaper than the PC just doesn't work over here," said Chen Danian, COO of Chinese online games firm Shanda Interactive Games. Although Sony has only released six official PlayStation 2 games in China since launching the console there in January, gamers can find most titles on the black market for about $0.85 each. Sony rival Microsoft has yet to launch its Xbox game console in China.
tags: China | Profits | Pirated Games | Modified Games |