Modifying consoles as a commercial buisness

[fgghjjkll]

Hey. I was a tad curious of how much people don:t know how to use the internet to look for guides of how to hack their own consoles I wanted money for 3DS and so I set up this ad on craigslist+gumtree.

I had my first customer over to get his PSP hacked and after friendly greetings, hacking and farewell, my father wanted me to stop this buisness immediately.
Reasons for stopping:
1. What I am doing is a grey area.
2. Privacy concerns.

Wouldn't it be up to the customer itself to decide whether to hand over 10 bucks to have his console hacked or not?
Even though it's a closed system, What I hack has nothing to do with what my customer/s do with their hacked consoles.
What If I just say I'm modifying the console to remove some restrictions enforced by the manufacturer?

 

[Rydian]

Based on the UK case I saw, if it's for running homebrew it's fine, but if you advertise it for running backups, (or even show them how to run backups) it crosses the border... which is going to kill off a lot of your customer base if you have to tell them it's not for piracy (and the big companies are happy with that).

EDIT: You could advertise that the system will be hacked to run emulators, which could interest people, but if THEY ask you if it'll run pirated games and you say yes that might be enough to get you in trouble. :\

 

[The Pi]

if THEY ask you if it'll run pirated games and you say yes that might be enough to get you in trouble. :\

In that case the whole "It's possible, yes but piracy is bad don't do it" thing can be used.

 

[fgghjjkll]

Based on the UK case I saw, if it's for running homebrew it's fine, but if you advertise it for running backups, (or even show them how to run backups) it crosses the border... which is going to kill off a lot of your customer base if you have to tell them it's not for piracy (and the big companies are happy with that).

EDIT: You could advertise that the system will be hacked to run emulators, which could interest people, but if THEY ask you if it'll run pirated games and you say yes that might be enough to get you in trouble. :\

Yes, I tried telling my father that but he still thinks that it's what you do to the closed system is the grey area. I DID advertise it to allowing homebrew applications and your own backups... But even if I remove the backup bit, he still thinks what i'm doing can get me sued.

 

[The Catboy]

Honestly, I have read no where in any law that said it was illegal. I mean if it's not being used for piracy, then you just hit a grey area depending on the system you are modding.

 

[fgghjjkll]

Honestly, I have read no where in any law that said it was illegal. I mean if it's not being used for piracy, then you just hit a grey area depending on the system you are modding.

And the grey area is what is worrying my father.

 

[Rafinesque]

The laws are written now so just doing the modification is technically illegal, and people are getting arrested for modifying consoles for money. I'd say it's not worth the risk.

Just get a part time job doing something legit (depending on how old you are). Even if you're not old enough to get a job in a store or something, you could mow lawns, and do other odd jobs for people. You'll probably make more money that way, and learn more...

 

[Recorderdude]

What will most likely happen if you keep it up is that someone under-cover for a company or the local police/govt will come and ask for a console mod, and try to get you to slip up and say something like "it'll run backups" or "it'll run emulators" (emulators still use commercial ROMs, remember?) And then after they have either video or audio footage (using a small mic or camera) they'll try you and fine you for a lot of money and/or sentence you to a few months to a few years of jailtime. I've seen it happen, and so I only ever hack things for myself, and keep said hacking quiet (not having friends helps, but I'm trying to find some now so I need to be extra-careful)

One more thing I wanna say, even if you keep on hacking consoles despite what I've said, DO NOT HACK PSPs/PS3s FOR MONEY ANYMORE, at least not for now. Sony has been on an absolute rampage recently with police raids and lawsuits on hackers, they could shift their focus to pirates in a millisecond. The way you're doing this so publicly, you'd be easy to catch and make a perfect example for them of "I hacked and Sony got me for it, don't do it or you'll be screwed like me"

Also, I agree with rafin. Get a legit job, you'll feel better knowing you bought a 3DS that way anyway

The only thing that I could honestly believe you could legally do realted to Homebrew on PSP would be for you to show them how to patch homebrew for OFW, since the PSP is open, but even then it could be argued that you are directly charging for a product that's supposed to be free, and there's not too many non-emulator homebrews for PSP anyway (the only ones most people know about are the web browsers/youtube players and the PSP ports of SmashGPSP and cave story anyway)

You could also sell R4s for $10 (charging only a little more since you had to import them and all) and claim they're only for running the many, many DS homebrew games like StillAlive DS, but importing a bunch to sell might make customs suspicious.

 

[The Catboy]

Honestly, I have read no where in any law that said it was illegal. I mean if it's not being used for piracy, then you just hit a grey area depending on the system you are modding.
And the grey area is what is worrying my father.

Of course I only know US law and Canadian law, I have no idea where Australia stands on modifications and honestly I think it would best too look into that first
QUOTE(Rafinesque @ Mar 6 2011, 12:48 PM)

The laws are written now so just doing the modification is technically illegal, and people are getting arrested for modifying consoles for money. I'd say it's not worth the risk.

That's only in the US, where as in some countries it's a totally different story.

 

[AlanJohn]

Its not Illegal to mod console's... Its illegal to play pirated games on it... You can't get charged in any way since your just "doing the job" its the customers decision to it or not. Charging you for him playing pirated games is like charging the person who gave you a PC that your internet connection is slow...

 

[TheViolentOne]

EveryThing is LEGAL is turkey

if you kill someone there is a %80 possibility that you wont go to jail.if I hack a website ..Ill probally go to jail for 1 or 2 moths and be out on the streets again.see what I mean?

I love turkey what a flickin stupid country this is!