Charges Dropped Against Xbox Modder

Matthew Crippen was being charged with 2 counts of violating anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Mr. Crippen was allegedly running a chip-modding business where he would modify an Xbox so that it could run copies of games. Normally, and Xbox can only run official copies of games, and games that are burned to DVDs will not play. Modifying allows the Xbox to play backup copies of games you already own, but it also allows you to play pirated games you downloaded from the web.

Needing to prove Mens rea, that the defendant willfully broke the law, the Prosecution's first witness testified that he secretly videotaped Matthew Crippen modify an xbox and tested the mod job with a pirated copy of a game. While relevant, the testimony that Mr. Crippen tested his modification with a pirated game was not first submitted to Mr. Crippen's attorneys, a huge procedural misstep. In addition, the act of secretly videotaping the defendant was likely in violation of California's privacy laws.

Prosecutor Allen Chiu admitted that the evidence should have been shared with the defendant's attorneys beforehand and requested the case be dropped for “fairness and justice.”

This was an interesting case and I will dig deeper into the facts and pleadings in later installments.

See also Wired's reporting of the case.

BlueBeat CEO Hank Risan discusses the Lawsuit and the "Psychoacoustics" Defense

BlueBeat Chief Executive Hank Risan participated in a Q&A with Pop & Hiss, the L.A. Times Music Blog, and went into further detail of how BlueBeat "transformed" the Beatles' songs using "Psychoacoustics".

If you actually listen to our 320 [Kbps MP3] recordings versus the actual CDs, you’ll hear a remarkable difference. They’re created with the intention of recreating a live musical performance. When you listen to them, they’re done in a virtual soundstage of using psychoacoustic simulation, and the intention is to create a live performance -- as if you are there listening to the actual performers doing the work as opposed to a copy or a phonorecord or CD of the work.

Hank Risan went on to say that "Psychoacoustics" is about "how the brain perceives sound. You can then create new sounds that may very well be similar to the original sounds, but you can control how you create those sounds using parametrics like timbre, loudness, other pitch." It sounds like Mr. Risan is argueing that by tweaking the volume and EQ, you can make a fair use copy of someone's music and even sell it as your own. Talk about a stretch...