Australian Court Rules 'Mod Chips' Legal

The Washington Post ^ | October 6, 2005 | MERAIAH FOLEY

[seacapn]

SYDNEY, Australia -- Australia's High Court ruled unanimously Thursday that modifying Sony PlayStation consoles so that they can play cheaper overseas versions of the company's games does not violate Australian copyright laws.

The decision ends a four-year legal battle between entertainment and Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. and Sydney-based business owner Eddy Stevens, who supplied and installed "mod chips" in PlayStation devices.

Sony divides the global gaming market into regions and programs its PlayStation consoles so that games sold in the United States or Asia cannot be played on consoles sold in Australia. The so-called mod chips bypass Sony's regional coding and allow users to run cheaper games made for markets outside Australia on their PlayStation machines.

The High Court ruled that while making a pirated copy of a game is illegal, playing a game using a mod chip is not.

[seacapn]

An interesting case... in some ways, a victory for common sense. As markets get more global, people will expect to be able to play foreign DVDs and games on their exisiting consoles - and if they can't, they will modify them to do so.

[Sinner6]

The case is quite intresting. I believe Europe, Spain in particular, has gone the otherway on this ruling modchips are illegal.

[seacapn]

Yup. The UK, too. We're moving toward a divided system where modchips are legal in some countries, but not others. I'm not exactly sure on the law in the US, but it sounds like modchips would violate the DMCA/Disney Bill.

[Sinner6]

Some backround info about modchips for those who don't know.

A modchip allows you to play foreign games, and watch foreign movies.
It also allows you to play "backups". You can make these backups yourself or download them off the internet. These chips CAN be used to play pirated games which is where the controversy is.
If the console has a hard drive you can use these chips to "rip" aka copy, a game to the consoles hard drive and play it off of there, without the disk.
There are even more advantages like using the console as a cheap file server.

In my opinion the "killer apps" of modding are playing games off the hard drive and XBMC.

[BreitbartSentMe]

Hey, if I get a 'Mod Chip' installed, can I zot people and play with the kitties? ('jes askin....)

[Sinner6]

In the US, the chips themselves aren't illegal, and MicroSoft has yet to pursue any one but pirates, and have publicly stated that is their plan to deal with piracy. That is they leave installers alone but are quite happy to shut down those a-holes at "Pandoras Cube", who are scummy pirates and give proper installers a bad name. More info about the Pandoras Cube case here. http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEkylFZEpVEnAbLbPd.php

The "hacked" bios that allows the chip to run "the good stuff" is currently in a gray area, because it is base of code that was copyrighted by MicroSoft.

[Publius6961]

A most wise and practical decision. Common sense in an unusual place.

[Publius6961]

What's XBMC?

I belong to AAAAA and can't do acronyms!

[Sinner6]

XBox Media Center
It is an app the runs on a modded XBox. It can do a lot.

It can play movies, cds, and regular video clips( AVI, MPG, ... ).
It can play video clips off of a network share (SMB).
It supports the PAL, and NTSC( both US and Asian standards).
iTunes via DAAP support is being worked on.
It can act as a MythTV frontend. (MythTV is an open source tivo like program for your computer).
It can tell you the Weather via Weather Channel.
It can display RSS feeds.
It has a python script executer.
In short just about anything.

Here is a full list
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/info_project.htm

[FreedomFarmer]