Ars Technica reports that Federal authorities in the criminal Xbox modding trial dropped their case yesterday.

“The government has decided to dismiss the indictment,” prosecutor Allen Chiu told the judge.

The government had charged 28 year-old Matthew Crippen, a hotel car-parking manager who ran a small business from his Anaheim home modifying the firmware on Xbox 360 optical drives to make them capable of running pirated or unauthorized games. It was to be the first jury trial to test the anti-circumvention provisions of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act as applied to game consoles. The law makes it a crime to offer a product or service that circumvents a technological measure designed to protect copyright material. Each of the two charges carried a maximum five years.