Landmark Console Modding Conviction in UK

A 22-year-old was convicted today of illegally modifying Xbox consoles to play pirated games. He's been sentenced to 140 hours of community service and ordered to pay £750 (US $1,317). His equipment was also taken. The youth was known for removing the original hard drive from an Xbox and replacing it with a 200 gigabyte hard drive filled with pirated software. He sold the hacked consoles for over $650.

This harkens back to the halcyon days of yore when tossing a $50 at the local game repair shop would allow Playstation users to play "backup copies" of any game, including Japanese imports. No, sir, the console modders have grown up and now they have a business plan, illegal as it may be.

Read more from PC Pro's article.