14 DAY TRIAL // With this avalanche of consoles coming our way - and by "we" I mean Europe - modders were bound to come out of the closet. Europe and Great Britain have quite a problem with modified consoles and mod chips in general. A new British law concerning this issue made its first victim: Stephen Fitzgerald. This comes a few days after Australia declared mod chips legal and it was shocking to see the consequences of this illegal activity. Mister Fitzgerald will have to pay a ?2,500 fine or spend the next 3 months in jail. He'll have enough time to pay it, till May 2007, but somebody won't be modding XBOX chips anymore. This surely scared a lots of guys out there that did this with no shame, putting up ads on sites or having mod chip stores.
Not realizing that he was in fact, a criminal, not abiding the new laws, Mister Fitzgerald had to plead guilty to nine charges. However, he claimed that chip modding was like making a legal copy of a computer program to him and wasn't covered by the law. In case you wonder what law this is, it's the British Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and all of you criminal out there better watch it! This is a premiere in the UK, but considering that this was done after two years of investigations, it might seem worthwhile for the authorities to set an example. Especially when you take into consideration the new consoles that are just entering Europe as we speak and I bet we'll see more modders being caught soon.