Mod Chip Seller Has Had His Chips

In the same month that Microsoft cut off thousands of gamers who had modified their Xboxes to play pirated videogames, the Court of Appeal has, in the case of R v Gilham, upheld a conviction of a man who sold modification chips allowing gamers to play pirate or counterfeit games.

The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) makes it a criminal offence to sell or distribute "any device, product or component which is primarily designed or produced ... for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of effective technological measures". Broadly speaking effective technological measures ("EMTs") means any technology designed to protect a copyright work other than a computer program. To secure a conviction, the use of the device, product or component in question must have involved "substantial copying" of a copyright work.