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Sony vs Modchips
Cryptnotic writes "Sony
has decided to instigate legal action against companies distributing two new Playstation 2 modchips, the Messiah and the NEO4. Sony has previously ignored modchip makers who made products which were only capable of playing CD-R copies of games. These new modchips, however, have legitimate uses, such as playing original import games or out-of-region DVD's. Aparrantly this is what has angered Sony." If I could read Kanji I'd probably care a bit more ;)
Sony, as a member of the MPAA and RIAA, probably cares a great deal about you playing out-of-region DVDs.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I guess none of us should be surprised at this. After all, we know how the big distribution houses like to do things, and how we (the consumers) really have no choice.
Well, I hope this gets people angry, because it's really such an obvious ploy to line Sony's pockets with our money. I really don't see how these companies can keep this sort of thing up without any sort of outcry from those of us that own the products that we can't do what we want to with.
I mean, geez, if Sony doesn't want me hacking up it's boxes, why did it _sell_ them to me? Come on Sony, ligthen up!
If Sony curbs modchips, then people won't be able to bypass the copy protection. Your case with the Dell is flawed, because the PC is open hardware. PS2 is closed to the max, and they are attached to both the hardware (which they don't make money off of) and the software.
Not to say that this is fair in a legal respect, but Sony isn't thinking about law (like every other corporation); they are thinking about money. Again, blame the creation of the stock market for creating this mentality in businesses.
Zodiac Survey
I find regional coding abhorrent myself, but in terms of law, providing the capability of running software that isn't licensed for a release in a given region is one of the specific things the DMCA was meant to stop. It was practically written by Sony (and its cohorts).
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
The solution is obvious, boycott the Sony Playstation 2 until they change their attitude. After all, there are alternatives.
SONY never went after MOD chip makers because there was no legal precendent. With the DMCA and the broad enforcement and wide interpretation of it's laws, SONY probably feels - make that probably does - have a clear victory in this case. But this is just another case of a major corporation essentially sueing the people by going after a few companies. Armed with the DMCA and the legal standard that legitimate use doesn't matter, large, entrenched companies can continue to use the DMCA to prevent other, legitimate, businesses from eating their market share.
Not that it really matters - people will always make these mod chips and sell them, or instructions to make them, on the internet. Heck, even X-Box hacking is gaining steam against M$'s weak protections. The problem is companies want to control more than just their product - they want to control if you can buy it, use it, how you use it and for how long. Yeah, right - I'm going to sit back and pay money so some other company can control a small part of my life.
If we've learned nothing from history, you only own what you can control, and you can't control people or technology... for long.
RC
- The only reason I would buy, or make, a chip would be to play legally-bought imports, because:
- Some PAL conversions suck.
- Some games never even get released here! (ala Tsugunai)
- The ever-present release/conversion delay.
- Prices
- I wouldn't, but with this in mind, and a chip installed, other people might be more tempted to buy illegal or counterfeit copies, since they already have the chip to run them.
- (So) buy basically forcing me to chip my playstation to play legally[1] imported games, they may well have increased piracy... Ooops.
[1] My PS2 is legally bought, my imports (would be) legally bought, all my games and peripherals are Sony branded, yet I cannot play games I legally buy. The same stupid situation exists with DVDs.According to TheRegister article, its actually the opposite that has Sony "annoyed".
... free users to use titles from any zone" in regards to playing games and DVDs region free. It continues on to say "However, the chips can also be used to play copied and pirated titles on the console, which is where Sony starts to get annoyed;...".
The article says "Mod-chips
It really doesn't take much to proof read an article quickly before posting a story to make sure everything lines up...
then sales would go up
This would be a bad thing for Sony - if PS2 sales go up without an increase on games, Sony loses money.
Reboot macht Frei.
I suspect you're referring to 17 USC 602 (a), which reads as follows:
But one important thing you've neglected to do is to read further. 17 USC 602 (a) (2) goes on to say:There's also exemptions for government use, scholarly, religion, and educational purposes, and for libraries. You should read all of 17 USC 602 (a) before jumping to conclusions about whether it's legal to import games for personal use or to play lawfully imported games.
Just like the medical marijuana movement, there is a great deal of intellectual dishonesty in the gaming community surrounding mod chips. The illegitimate uses of these paticular chips far outweight the semi-legit ones.
Backups are a red herring - it is technically infeasable right now to back up PS2 games, and may remain so well into the future. I don't think PS2s will even read DVD-Rs... The only possible use for the 'backup' features is software piracy. To say otherwise is to brand yourself an idiot. Be honest here people, you just want to play 'backups' downloaded off IRC. Stop whining about this and just admit you want to steal games, and accept that Sony is going to try and do something about it!
In a perfect world, there would be exactly two functions performed by a PS2 mod chip - DVD region code breaking and PS2 region breaking. Region coding is the biggest bunch of bullshit that the world has ever seen, and circumventing it doesn't even result in lost revenues.
There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
The article write up is a bit demonising and misleading IMHO. These new modchips are the first ones that allow users to play import games, but they're also the first ones which allow you to play copied DVDs (previous ones could only do CD-Rs). Now, I can't be bothered to get into the copyright debate, but it does annoy me that both the mod-makers and the console designers lump import games and copied games together. I don't give a crap about copied games, but the console makers shouldn't make a fuss about their region-locking. If they aren't delivering what I want, and I can get it from the US or Japan then that's their problem. In fact, I'm half-suprised that they can legally attempt all this region-locking stuff.
I will not buy a PS2 until I can backup my game collection.
Yeah, right.
What Sony need to do is make it absolutely clear that a PS2 disc is only a carrier for some intellectual property you have licenced. If the disc gets borked, take it to a shop and ask for another - and they will swap it without even blinking. Of course, we have just about no chance of this actually happening, but it would get around a whole bunch of "backup" issues.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
IIRC, Square is still on board with Sony, exclusively. IIRC, Konami, Capcom, and most developers are making games for all three major consoles right now as well.
I think Sony is more pissed that people are pirating games.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Insightful? It's an insight into the mind of someone who knows exactly nothing about what a PS2 modchip is/does.
You really should read actsofgord, which explains this nicely. There are two sorts of modchips: the ones that defeat copy protection, and the ones that defeat region protection. The latter are what we're talking about; the only use for them is playing legitimate, bought-and-paid-for games from different regions.
There is only one reason to have region "protection", and that's simply control. The only thing I can see this gains for companies is by letting them use this artificial monopoly to increase the price in certain regions. Technological controls keep them from importing. This is not a copyright-protection issue. It is only an issue of control and artificial price inflation.
I have a PS2 (not to mention lots of peripherals and 15 legitimate games I paid full price for, not to mention the load of legitimate PSX games I also bought), and I love the games, and I'd love to import stuff. Sony's wanting to rip another $400+ out of me for an import PS2 is just pure greed. They lost against Bleem, I hope they lose here, too.
I love the games. I want the games. But this is ridiculous.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
You don't need a license to use software. You only need to have lawfully aquired a copy of that software. According to 17 USC 602 (a) (2), copies imported for personal use have been lawfully aquired. Also, see 17 USC 117 (a) (1), which specificly makes copies made as "an essential step in the utilization of the computer program" non-infringing. 17 USC 117 (a) (1)'s exemption certainly includes copies made while loading the program into memory, a popular excuse used by those who argue that a license is required in order to use software. Your arguments that either obtaining or using imported copies is infringing or unlawful are at best unconvincing.
The text of 17 USC 602 (a) (2) follows:
There's also exemptions for government use, scholarly, religion, and educational purposes, and for libraries. You should read all of 17 USC 602 (a) before jumping to conclusions about whether it's legal to import games for personal use or to play lawfully imported games.
... the problem with the entertainment industry is that it is often tied to disposable income (if you don't watch TV you're not going to die regardless of what kids think). As such there is serious competition for our attention ranging from walking in parks (NY muggings excepted) to window-shopping in malls (a legitimate form of entertainment as shown by theme parks taking this philosophy to extremes such as Disney). Groups such as Sony have to come up with ever more inventive ways of parting you from your money ... err catching your attention and delivering amusement. This problem is exasperated by the fact that different countries value leisure differently. A third world sweat shop worker just simply has better things to buy (like education for their kids) than light entertainment. Hence global companies cannot charge the same price for the same item (CD) in different countries. Hence their desire for market segmentation tools such as multi-zoning.
... up to the point of lobbying legislators (cough*DCMA*cough) to exterminate what they view as inappropriate economic conduct.
Now is this considered fair? Places like Australia don't believe so as their competitive watchdog recently ruled that multi-zoing was anti-competitive as it hindered parallel importing (is source CD from other countries). On the other hand companies argue that it is like passenger classes in planes, first-class still get there at the same time as cattle-class but pay significantly more. Many companies (esp software/pharmaceuticals) use the high prices of their products in 1st world countries to cross-subsidise less developed markets. Given the increasing connectivity of world trade this is becoming increasingly difficult.
Computers with digital rights management (aka service variability) is one mechanism to enforce this market segmentation, especially if it can be enforced through fixed/controlled end-points (cough*Xbox*cough). This is why companies hate mod-chipers and related products (satellite decodes, overclockers, etc) as it allows individuals to exploit the artificial price differential between 1st/3rd world pricing strategies. The end-result is a technological arms race (embedded ids, self-destruct, registrations, etc) in order to maintain this separation between high-margin customers and more marginal users. A person collecting warez for bragging rights is *NOT* willing to pay the same recommended price as someone looking to kill time by renting an evening game.
Anyone who thinks a company is going to destroy their global economic model just to please a small (but vocal) group of (from their point of view) "parasites". A large enough business entity can tolerate a small percentage of free-riders but is likely to come down hard on any systematic or organised threats to their business provided they can distance themselves from any media-fallout (cough*Adobe*cough)
Fortunately the free market (e.g. open source movement) has a little influence in moderating the extreme behaviour of the more pervasive global corporations.
LL
If Sony started selling a $200 more expensive version of the PS2 with the mod chip already installed, I'd be willing to bet they would make more money on game consoles than from games.
You're absolutely right. That's because they would sell exacly 1 copy of each game published, for the very brief period before developers abandoned PS2 developement altogether.
Cartels that artificially control prices and distribution may be legal, but many people, myself included, believe that they are wrong. Slavery, prohibition, and preventing women from voting were all legal once in the U.S.
And there are plenty of instances where "copy protection" causes problems for legitimate users. I've had many rented VHS tapes with Macrovision where the tracking was screwed up. Some of my games require me to have a CD in the drive even though I installed everything on the hard disk. I do not copy these things. I paid for them legitimately.
-Kevin
I mean, geez, if Sony doesn't want me hacking up it's [sic] boxes, why did it _sell_ them to me? Come on Sony, ligthen up!
Now that's rich. "I mean, geez, if Pac Bell doesn't want me phone phreaking, why did they _sell_ me a phone line? Come on, Pac Bell, lighten up!".
FYI: Sony doesn't make money off the boxes, they make money off sold games.
Modchip = #1 way to enable piracy for the masses = immense loss of profit for Sony AND game developers AND publishers. And since I'm in that group, I can say that Sony, by trying to get rid of modchips, promotes security for my very job.
Okay, I haven't bought a PS2 yet. I'm waiting for a price drop before I do. So does this mean in the interest of playing old PSX backups, I need to buy a modchip now? Or are the modchips the articles referring to (reading them didn't clear this up any) only related to imports and imported DVDs? Call me crazy, but I don't know Eastern languages very well, so getting games and movies that only speak those aren't any fun. If those are the only modchips going away in the very near future, then that's fine with me (and maybe only me).
It doesn't make any sense. Modchips help sales of the psx and ps2..why kill them? I doubt sony is under any legal obligation to make sure that the hardware they SELL to people is being used for legitamte purposes (ie. for playing properly-regioned DVDs). shouldn't it be the responsibility of the movie makers to go after these dvd playing chips?
Bzzt. There's no law that prevents you from importing software that is otherwise legal.
Except the EULA printed on the back of the box: "Licensed for use only with products bearing the PlayStation logo and [NTSC|U/C] designation." Any other use violates the patents on the PlayStation hardware.
even if they are subject to licenses, which is certainly fairly doubtful
The console licenses are more explicit than PC software EULAs, as the terms for consoles and games are printed right on the back of the package, next to the UPC symbol, as opposed to being hidden inside the shrinkwrapped box like PC software licenses.
the validity of the licenses themselves are in doubt
Even that doesn't prevent Sony from abusing the legal system, filing frivolous lawsuits against small businesses in order to run up the small businesses' legal bills. The legal system is broken, and Congress has shown itself to be too bought to fix it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sony makes a profit on the PS2 hardware.
I don't really care about import games, and I'm not particularly interested in pirating domestic releases, either. Let's face it, there aren't enough good games to make piracy worthwhile... I'll just buy the handful that don't suck. But I'm interested in a mod chip so that I can play burned copies of the games I've licensed and leave the originals in their cases. If Sony would happily replace any disc that got damaged (for a nominal replication fee, even), my interest in a mod chip would be nil.
Of course, Sony isn't exactly "customer-oriented", so we'll probably never be so lucky. I think the PS2 is going to be my last Sony electronics purchase... the DVD issues (with absolutely no information on their new drivers, other than that you can buy them with a $20 remote) have pretty much sealed that for me.
What happens when Sony goes out of business (unlikely, I admit) as other software companies that used this as an excuse for intrusive copy protection have?
Hmmm, good point. I could blabber something about escrow, but it'd be crap because there is no way Sony are putting 100,000 GT3 disks in a warehouse in case somebody like me scratches one. BTW - have you actually seen a GT3 disk? They have this messed up "PS" logo watermark on the read side. The read side. God, that'd be a bastard to pirate properly.
Placing the word backup in quotes as you did looks like it is meant to indirectly accuse anyone who makes backup copies of programs or games they have purchased of copyright infringement.
Guilty, but that's what the vast majority of modchips are used for, unfortunately. As an aside, I'm not exactly snow white when it comes to this issue myself. I have pirated (PC) games in the past - they generally get installed, cracked, and played for up to (generally) 24 hours. Anything that keeps my attention for longer than that warrants going out and buying a copy. For the last couple of years that's been Quake3 and UT, everything else has been chucked, forgotten, and not missed in the slightest.
For the PS2 this problem is solved with video game rental from your local video shop. SSX - buy. Ridge Racer - don't buy.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Man I can't believe you got an insightful on that, you obviously don't know sega's history with consoles.
In the beginning there was NES and master sytem. Both were good, but as soon as NES gained %10 market share and NEC decided to bring the PC duo to the states as the turbo grafX sega got scared and went back to make an even better system. Main thing that killed the system more than anything was sega thought they would port their own games to it and make a bundle, so not too many 3rd parties produced games for it.
The better system came to be known as the Genesis, or megadrive in japan. Oooh ahh parellax scrolling backgrounds, 128x128 sprites, 16 bit. FM sound! Even better yet it was based on system-B hardware from the arcades! Arcade (cough sega) games could easily be ported. Again sega gambles that they could not be dethroned because their share of the arcade market was so strong. SNES arrives on the scene along with TurbografX. Sega tries to compete with Nintendo's polygon games by introducing the 32X, terrbible failure, nobody wanted to pay for an extra peripheral to poly's. Worse yet was their try to compete with the TurbografX by releasing an overpowered (but well priced) CD addon that was mostly used to show the girl from Different strokes running around in scantily clad lingerage. The FMV games sucked really bad, they just plain stunk. Dragons lair was cool, thats about it. Again sega gambles on their brand name to compete in the console arena.
To further add to the confusion and to compete with the N64and atari jaguar (yes atari was still trying) sega released the saturn with maybe 10 games at the most written for it. Developers said it was a pain to code for (i'm just repeating what I read) Sega was left to develop most of the games in house. Again they gamle on their own games and lost.
Ok lets go to the dreamcast. I'm not gonna long wind it anymore, im outta steam but sega gets scared by Xbox and PS2 and heads for the hills yet again.
Most of the gamers I know, we were like 14-16 years of age back in 1984-85 when consoles really started to move. . Between me and my friends we got close to 17-19 years experience with buying, selling, trading, and most importantly playing consoles. Every one of them i've ever talked to felt completely screwed by sega. It is a pattern they repeat over and over again which in my opinion will eventually drive the company out of business, and that is, "When anyone steps up to us we're gonna run away run away!" because that is exactly what sega has allways done.
They make great games, and they make great console systems. They COULD turn it around by taking nintendo's and playstations approach of "Lets hire a great team, and push this system to its limits for many years" DK3 on the SNES really pushed the envelope for platformers IMHO and is a shining example of what new development tools and methods can do to boost the life of a console.
Sega, if you're reading this, if you really want my money listen up. Don't be so ready to give up on the DC yet. Make an X server for that graphics chip you use that runs on both the DC and PC hardware (my buddy has a PC based version of your DC graphics chip, no X server exists) Make sure you ship ethernet adapters, keyboards, mice, hard drive adaptors and some friggen version of linux with the thing. I for one would gladly pay $200-300 for a completely custamizable system than can be used as an X terminal on any TV. I will guarantee you millions of dollars in revenue because THIS SITE WOULD REPORT IT. You would have millions of geeks rushing out to buy them cause they would be cool. The usability of the system would be stretched out for many years if you did this and as the price of hardware got cheaper and your volume of sales larger, there would be a good profit in it for you.
...especially if it is HARDWARE!
If a "mod chip" is all that it takes to play "pirated" software, maybe they need to take a look at their copy protection scheme...
My question is whether the "regional issue" involves pricing or something else? Are titles selling at a price commensurate with the local economy? Would Sony LOSE money if these titles were imported through the "grey market" ? Or are they trying to protect the distribution infrastructure of various countries?
Imagine the implications if a company like Sony used virtually NO copyprotection and sold an item at a reasonable price... might not the sheer increase in volume of sales off-set the marginal effects of piracy? People have a finite amount of money they spend on games, music, movies, whatever... and the price merely determines HOW MANY of these items you actually purchase (for a relatively honest consumer). The same companies receive the same amounts of money (it's not like there are that many companies involved).
Whenever people talk about how much money is LOST to piracy, I always am left thinking that the money was never there in the first place- that those "pirates" would never have purchased the item anyway... so protection does more to piss off honest consumers than to increase revenue. How many ordinary people actually take the time or effort to mod a console (or overclock a PC) ?
Finally, if this regional protection issue gets out of hand, we'll all be purchasing items that will eventually only play on one machine.
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
It's not always the case that a modchip HAS to allow playing pirated games. For example, http://www.techtrix.co.uk/addtocart.asp?prod=13 is a modchip wchich lets you play original imports, but will disallow CD-R or CD-RWs, thus addressing Sony's concern that such chips promote piracy.
If more companies made such chips, perhaps Sony might see them in another light than just a "piracy" enabler.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Yes, I considered patents. The rights to use and resell a single instance of patented invention are granted when the invention is sold to an end user. After all, it's only fair that someone who's paid for an invention doesn't have to pay again every time they use it.
I'm sure Sony would like it very much if they were able to license their patented inventions. In the type of transaction through which the average playstation end user obtains their console, however, these patented inventions are sold, not rented, leased, or licensed.
Sony's exclusions on the use of their patented inventions inside the product have no more force than the words "for home use only" or "not for resale" as they might appear on the packing of a a toaster or voltmeter which contains patented technologies. The manufacturer still has no recourse if I use the toaster at a restaurant, the voltmeter as a part of a professional rework operation, or if I resell either of the items used.
The US likes to bandy about its ideals of freedom. They're right there in our Constitution. Its part of the propoganda that politicians use to rally the populas during times of crisis and drives our military volunteers to shoulder great risks. It is part of our history. It is the foundation of our identity as a nation.
And it is slowly being chipped away by special interest groups; in this case big business.
One has to wonder how other nations and their governments fare under this onslaught. Especially if "freedom" is not as prominent in the nation's identity.
In this example, it seems that the UK may not be doing any better than the US.
"The writer of the slashdot blurb probably assumed that people reading what he wrote would read the article, and thus notice" that the article said exactly the opposite of what he said.
Editorialising is usually adding an opinion to a fact, not completely obscuring the fact. Not to mention it's usually done by the editor. Taco's contribution was to not care about DVD zoning.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
the DVD issues (with absolutely no information on their new drivers, other than that you can buy them with a $20 remote) have pretty much sealed that for me.
Are you getting something where the sound and video drop out of sync?
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
A modchip is usually a piece of hardware that contains the software to bypass the copy protection. PROM modchips are typically used because the people who make them can make a whole batch of programmable chips, and if the mod is rendered useless, they can update the software and still make modchips out of the PROMs they've got.
Old modchips worked by flashing the Playstation BIOS, or replacing parts of it on boot, so that when the game would call on the copyprotection, the new BIOS would say that every disc in the unit was good.
PS2 is different, though. See, it's meant to be flashed every single time you put in a new disc. And since the code in memory can change every time a new game comes out, it's a bit difficult to make a BIOS modchip. You need something different.
The quick and dirty solution people came up with for the PS2 is to intercept the checks as they're heading to whereever, and change the signals so that they're the proper result. Thing is, each game can do this differently. Due to the nature of the PS2, the checks could be called from a vector unit, from the memory card processor.. or even the reader unit itself. And the modchip maker has to add a wire for each signal they need to intercept.
Nowadays, PS2 modchips require 20+ connections (probably even more by now) just to cover all of the different signals that can be sent during a check. And each check is cumulative; you have to keep the old checks while adding for new ones. This is kinda ridiculous, since this introduces modchip bloat.. a new modchip defeat comes out, and they have to add more connections... it can really suck for people if they need a new modchip every time a new game comes out.
Enter the Messiah. You wire it into the DVD-ROM reading hardware, rather than throughout the rest of the unit. Since all checks have to go through the DVD system anyways, this is only logical.. thing is, Sony made it really tough to figure it out. Which is why it took them over two years to get the chip made.
Without a link to NEO4, I can't say whether or not they've gone the same route, but if they have, these two chips could spell the end for Sony's PS2. Since all PS2 consoles use the same BIOS, flashed every time a game starts, Sony can't easily change the hardware design of any newer units coming onto the market. So if this modchip is undetectable, and it does all the things they're saying it does in hardware, this could be checkmate.
Make an X server for that graphics chip you use that runs on both the DC and PC hardware (my buddy has a PC based version of your DC graphics chip, no X server exists) Make sure you ship ethernet adapters, keyboards, mice, hard drive adaptors and some friggen version of linux with the thing. I for one would gladly pay $200-300 for a completely custamizable system than can be used as an X terminal on any TV
Sega don't (didn't) make the graphics chip, Videologic do. The (current) "PC Version" is the Kyro II, which uses a similar Tile Accelerator approach to the PVR chipset in the DC. There is an X server, and linux, and keyboards, and mice, and ethernet available for the DC. You would pay about $2-300 to do that (without a harddisk), once you'd found someone willing to sell you the ethernet (in short supply).
You'd probably be better off getting something like this x86 settop box for the same money, which would be quieter (silent vs DC's noisy fan) and easier get binaries and bits for (but suck for games), and you can either add a 2.5" HDD to it, or keep it silent and boot off a dirt-cheap CompactFlash, your server, or DiskOnChip.
Personally, I would not use X on an 800x600 monitor, let alone my TV.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I for one think that it was definitely right to go after NEO4. Despite being hyped and anticipated by some PS2 people, it is basically a warez mod. At first I was interested in it, but later I found out that it doesn't work with original PS2-imports, only PS2-warez. PSX-imports work though, but NEO4 would be insanely expensive for that feature alone. If modchip makers don't want to get Sony after them they should make mods that work with original games only. I've seen NEO4 being advertised as the chip that makes all the warez possible, sheesh.
I'll probably get a PS2 next year, and I want to be able to play both PS2 and PSX imports with it. I still haven't seen a mod that would do both, and NEO4 isn't one either. I have several imported PSX games that haven't been released in Europe at all (like some of the best PSX titles including Chrono Cross and Xenogears), and those are the only reason I have mod for my PSX. Sooner or later there will be similar titles for PS2.
As for DVD regions, Region X package for PS2 is both cheap and well-working. I don't see why anyone would want an awkward modchip that costs several times more just to watch import-DVDs.
Linked story
It's some crazy story with no evidence to support its claims. I'll continue thinking Sony sells the hardware at a loss, thanks.
Evidence (of a circumstantial nature) coming right up!
Based on this, I would expect that Sony would be pushing harder for bundles if they were, in fact, taking a loss per unit. Since they're not, I'm going to have to disagree.
Reboot macht Frei.
They're probably more worried about the circumvention of DVD region coding.. if they get known to be distributing a multi-region DVD player, the DVDCCA could be down on their asses and take away their DVD decryption license. They probably already had trouble given the backdoor in the DVD software in the first Japanese revision of the PS2.
Sony do seem to have a bee in their bonnets about game imports.. which is a shame, because customers in Europe tend to have a bee in *their* bonnets about games being slowed down to run in PAL. Sony complained that Tekken 3 didn't sell well in Europe and blamed imports. They might have done better to blame the fact that the European Tekken 3 was slow as a lame dog because of the PAL conversion. What's even stupider is that the DC established that a PAL60-capable console is entirely feasible (and it's no extra work to implement, because the binary for the PAL60 version is usually just the same as the USA one), but Sony didn't copy it.
Also, somebody who should know has told me that the protection system on the Playstation 2 actually makes it harder to make an import-playing chip than a pirate-playing chip. The real protection on the PS2 is the DVD format and nothing has gotten around that yet.
Oh, and if you really want to protest, don't refuse to buy a PS2 - buy one and SMASH IT. Sony actually _loses_ money on selling PS2s which it hopes to pay back with games. If you buy one and smash it, they lose their subsidy, AND someone else can't buy that one. This could be especially good near to Christmas.. (actually, I'm surprised console firms don't do this to each other, but they'd probably get sued)
yeah, $20. Or you can get a cord extension ($8) and not worry about losing the remote.
Reboot macht Frei.
FYI, there is an interesting write-up on the early years of modchips at http://www.oldcrows.net/mcc.html
Then maybe you should also be taking an imported PS2.
I'm sure Sony and the Law doesn't have a problem with you buying two or three different (with respective region encoding) PS2's to play your games.
So yes, according the above legal sections, you can 'import' copyrighted material for personal use, but this doesn't explicitly 'undo' other laws (such as licensing a regional DVD for compatible regional DVD players) and allow the viewing of said material on unauthorized players.
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
The US government has today outlawed soldering irons, stating that they violate the DMCA in that they allow youngsters to MOD playstations and other games consoles. Civil liberties groups are outraged by the ruling and the American Soldering Association has said they will take this to the high court. Other groups have suggested alternatives, such as allowing soldering irons, but banning solder or visa-versa.
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Where's -1 Wrong when you need it?
GDROM games are not easy to copy; very few people have the hardware and software to do it, and they are keeping pretty quiet about the details. I'm presuming the easiest option is to write something for the Dreamcast which reads a GDROM and spits the data out the serial port. Having gotten this information though, it then needs to be cut down from 1GB or so to something that will fit on a notmal CDROM. It's not trivial.
The Dreamcast as a platform died due to some combination of Sega's financial troubles and the depressing effect of Sony's PS2 marketing machine. I don't know the relative weights of these contributions, though certainly Sony's efforts were the most visible.
I still can't see any justification for region-locking of console software, other than to artifically maintain otherwise unsupportable price differentials. People will still tend to buy the localized version of a game if it's available, just because it's much easier to read documentation and in-game text that's in your own language.
On the Dreamcast at least, it's pretty clear that most people who have a mod-chip installed are doing so for the ability to play imported games, given than the pirated CDROM cuts are typically self-booting.
I'm mad at Sony for not telling me whether their new drivers address such issues, and mad at Fox for selling me a transparent DVD (which I vaguely suspect may be the problem).
I'm working on a PS2/DVD compatibility database, and may or may not finish it. If I do, I'll put it online with a decent interface so people can update it with their own findings... the couple of lists I've found online are manually compiled and infrequently updated.
Pac Bell didn't sell you a phone line.
Don't believe me? Stop paying the bill. You don't own it.
Now that's rich. "I mean, geez, if Pac Bell doesn't want me phone phreaking, why did they _sell_ me a phone line? Come on, Pac Bell, lighten up!".
They don't sell you a phone line, they put a wire to your house so that they can sell you service. You can actualy buy a phone line of your own (a direct hardwired connection from one place to another) and do whatever you want with it. It generaly costs a lot of money.
If sony didn't want people dicking with their hardware, they could have leased it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
God damnit, where the fuck do people get these idiotic ideas!? Import games illegal? out of region DVDs illegal? WTF?! Despite what you might think, and what I'm sure the RIAA and MPAA would love, the law does not exist solely to increase corporate profits.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Look, I don't like the DMCA or whatever, but what I really can't stand are morons. As you clearly are. to wit, the poster said:
Sony is shutting down UK modchip distributors, and we have no such law here
Emphasis mine. Clearly, 'here' refers to the UK. The UK is not a part of the US. the DMCA is an American law. Therefore (making that last tenuous connection for you) Nothing he could ever do could fall "under" the DMCA. While England may have a similar law, he said they didn't. Brining up the DMCA does nothing aside from outing yourself as a complete fucking idiot.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Um, it actually is fairly trivial.
1 - purchase and hook up programmer's serial cable
2 - download dreamcast developer's kit.. if you feel like it. otherwise, acquire some dcwarez utilities (dreamrip)
3 - burn serial slave CDR, boot it up
4 - write program that sends files over serial cable (or just get dreamrip); swap in target GD-ROM and upload and run the program on Dreamcast. wait 25 hours for process to complete..
5 - take your cd-burning software, and add all files you yanked from the GD-ROM to the list
6 - find huge-looking music files. downgrade from stereo to mono using tools included in dreamrip, or just link those tracks to others, until you've got enough space for it all on the CDR + 3 megs
7 - burn to BIN image (not to disc)
8 - run bin2boot on image (this is the quickest way, but it's only available for windows afaik)
9 - burn resulting CDI to a CDR
10 - insert in Dreamcast and hit power button
You can get all the software you need from any of the irc warez channels and a visit to here. This should work for the earlier games.. don't know about later ones, because they started adding checks after a while. Those may take a little more work.
For legal backups only, blah blah blah..
Oh, and dismissing those inconvenienced by the region coding debacle as "fanboys of Japanese video games, scat films, bukakke movies, cartoons, etc." may be a trifle incorrect. Anything released by a non-US distribution house has the same region coding problem, and there's more film industries out there than you might realise.
But no, if all you get is from your own region (whatever that is), you *won't* realise the existence of the outside world. And is that ignorance a good thing, do you think?
More actsofgord links. People should read this site---in addition to being funny and evil, he really knows what he's talking about. In this case, console manufacturers typically do not lose money on each console. This includes Sony and Nintendo right now. Only Microsoft is losing money on each XBOX. According to his calculations, Sony is making a pretty penny, too. If you really want to hurt them, buy an XBOX (but do you really want to help MS?), or a GameCube (same applies to Nintendo, really).
They're pretty much all evil, I guess. Maybe I'll visit the bookstore. ;-)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
This is exactly the sort of thing that shouldn't happen in a free globalized market. Let's hope the WTO has some teeth to it and charges Sony and other companies with illegal trade practices.
Actualy the stockholder report linked indicates that sony makes a profit on each playstation sold because of the average number of games sold with it. If that number were to go below a certan level, then sony would no longer be making a profit.
Anyway, gord is a zelotous moron. Please don't take anything off his website as 'fact'
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If you don't like it or if you don't like the company, don't buy it. That goes for PS2 as much as Xbox. Technically and financially, I think you are better off with a PC anyway: better picture, more expandability, upgradability, etc.
See it from another direction:
I live in Region 2 but I have a lot of Region 1 DVDs because a) I'm english-speaking but live in a non-English-speaking country; and b) it's tough to get to the cinema when you've got 3 small kids. Anyhow, my region-free DVD player plays 'em all, so I'm happy.
But, I'd quite like a 2nd DVD player for the bedroom, and I'd quite like a PS2 too. Can't really put a good case to the Significant Other for buying both but if the PS2 played ALL my DVDs (rather than just the region 2 subset) then I'd be buying one right away.
However, Sony don't want me doing that. Kinda dumb of Sony I reckon, but I guess they know best.
Regards, Ralph.
If Sony started selling a $200 more expensive version of the PS2 with the mod chip already installed, I'd be willing to bet they would make more money on game consoles than from games.
I will not buy a PS2 until I can backup my game collection.
And I'm sure game developers would just love working with the system. You'd need to add another $500 subsidy to all the dev houses for lost revenue if you wanted them to continue developing. Now you're out $700. vs $20 for a mod chip.
I will not buy a PS2 until I can backup my game collection.
I'm sure sony cares, I really do (btw, those disks have warrantees)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
GDROM uses the same laser as a CD rom drive.
If you had a CD-rom drive with the right firmware you could read it easily
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
there is no way Sony are putting 100,000 GT3 disks in a warehouse in case somebody like me scratches one.
Why not, it's not like each disk costs them very much.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This may have been posted before, but anyways. SCEA is Sony Computer Entertainment of America. They do not get a cut of anything sold by sony in Japan. Region encoding is an attempt to ensure the bottom line for the local division. True it is ridiculous because it prevents consumers here from seeing lots of good games only released elsewhere. Those who would import games to begin with are a minority, a vocal minority but a minority nontheless, as has been proven many times before big business doesnt care about minorities, and only about $. I believe a large part of the reasoning on the part of SCEA is that because the FBI and its raids last weekend have alot of people scared it can take advantage of the situation and force its will upon those that could possibly undermine its bottom line.
For the purposes of qualifying for the exemption in 17 USC 602 (a) (2), the distinction is whether you've imported the copy for your own personal use or imported a whole bunch for resale. How you actually import the copy, whether it be travelling to to the foriegn place and carrying it back or having someone there ship it to you, is unimportant.
Several years ago I had a roommate in college who was *very* into gaming on the original Playstation. He even had his own review site on the WWW back before the gaming craze when everyone put one up. He specifically bought one of the early Playstations that came out with no region restrictions, so that he wouldn't need to install a modchip to play import titles.
And boy, did he play import titles. He spent most of his disposable income importing games from Japan 6 months before they'd hit the U.S., if ever. Cost an arm and a leg, but he was willing to do it to get the games early and often.
And there's nothing wrong with that. Sony exerts region controls through artificial means, sometimes never distributing a title in a given region at all. Why should we allow companies to arbitrarily cut up the world into marketing regions, so that they can maximize profits through regional licensing deals, at the detriment of the public at large? They shouldn't. In the U.S. at least, copyrights and patents are instituted not as a fundamental right of property ownership but rather to improve the public good through furthering the "useful arts and sciences." So, as far as I'm concerned companies shouldn't be allowed to divide the world up into marketing fiefdoms to the detriment of the public. There ought to be laws against that, and prior to corporations completely controlling Congress through big campaign contributions, there would have been.
Fortunately, the piracy-havens in the Far East are also the last bastions of the freedom to buy hardware that's region-free or to buy kits to make your hardware region-free. http://www.lik-sang.com is the place to go. Hong Kong may pirate everything, but they're no worse in the final analysis than the corporate assholes control what we can see, hear, and play in any given region. I think they're a necessary, counter-balancing force.
This is especially so when we reflect that Europeans are forbidden by their governments from ever seeing some American films and games in their entirety, and Americans are forbidden by corporate censorship from ever seeing some Japanese or European films and games. Why should a German be forbidden from seeing Nazi symbols and red blood in games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein? Why should an American not get to see the complete version of *The Professional*, which was actually a good movie while the American cut was dreck. (They finally released the full film in the U.S. many years later, as *Leon*, but I ordered it from France years before that.) And you'd never believe how many Japanese anime cartoons and games are censored and Bowdlerized before they ever reach the U.S. Oh, and Britain is utterly insane in the extent to which it censors American films for violence.
Technical controls to prevent you from seeing anything your government or corporate censors don't want you to see are being implemented. Sony, the DVD-CA and others are attempting to destroy ways around these controls. Just because current controls are minor and largely ineffectual means nothing. In the future they can be made (almost?) unbreakable and be applied to everything you see and hear, from games to movies to television to music to radio--maybe even to the Internet. Don't think that last is impossible--remember that the FBI has a plan to concentrate all Internet traffic at key points for monitoring purposes, so if the FBI can get the backbones to play along for this, who knows what might be orchestrated 10 years from now.
That's not a future I want to live in. That's a dystopia if ever there were one.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
If I happen to live in London for a year and buy a dozen movies there WHAT RIGHT does the movie industry have to tell me that I CAN'T play the movies I BOUGHT when I move back HOME!
They have every right; they've purchased those rights from your representatives in Congress. So shut your mouth, go buy all-new region-1 copies of movies all over again, take your soma, and be a happy little consumer.
-- Consumer of the United States of MicroSonyAOL
Yes. I can't get Microsoft's Macrovision-protected CD-ROMS to read in my NEC NR 770-A CD/R drive. It was annoying not being able to run Flight Simulator, but not being able to read the (pay) Y2K update for SourceSafe was a real problem. I had a painful period in late 2000 when Microsoft support kept sending me SourceSafe update disks, none of which worked, until finally support sent me the new rev instead of the update disk, which did work.
I've reported this to Macrovision, and ask if they support that drive, but they consider the list of drives that are Macrovision-incompatible "proprietary".
The way I see it, Sony may have kept some software pirates at bay by making it very difficult to boot a copied game, but they've also severely hurt the CONSOLE'S POTENTIAL by making it impossible for users to create their own software titles for PS2 (i.e. a linux bootable disc with a web browser or any other unix app).
Whatever game console eventually wins the majority of the market needs to have the ability for users to create their own bootable titles and burn them on ordinary CDR drives.
Imagine how much more powerful a device the PS2 could be if you could burn a photo-cd-like disc with an image viewer that runs on PS2? Imagine making a browser-on-a-disk for ps2. Imagine AOL for PS2 (note: AOL could still do that because they could pay sony whatever it costs to burn special PS2 cd/dvds.
My point is that there are a lot of killer apps that could be ported to ps2 easily and put on a CD with a bootable OS and some files that would be *fantastic* and really spur development on PS2 and PS2 *AS* *A* *HARDWARE* *PLATFORM*
We could have networked games for the PS2 already, we could have XMMS mp3/ogg players, we could have mame for ps2, we could have GNOME and KDE desktops on our TVs....
Frustrating....
I hope that some console makers start to realize that we need a console that is hacker-friendly to be used as a developer and hobbyist platform.
I want to dismiss the last point first, because it looks awfully like a strawman: most region-specific games are pretty much identical across the regions, with only names changed and language translated. Occasionally there is some censoring. If a local region version of the game satisfies local safety laws, the foreign one will too. At the end of the day, they are the same game!
There are exceptions of course, but most of the localization changes that are not direct translations, are done for marketting purposes only. Gwonga-Longa "Eye suprise!" teddy bears are completely irrelevant.
The other front - local distributors - has more weight. For starters, in Australia at least, there are already companies that do business by importing games from other regions. Their success of course is constrained by their limited market. One must ask though, in these heady days of globalization, why do local distributors have a right to make an artificial profit at the expense of their customers? Who is this helping ultimately, other than one or two distribution companies?
Look at Australia again as an example - because I live here :). Here, Dreamcast consoles and software were distributed by a company called Ozisoft, which I believe has now been acquired by Infogrames (is this true?). The local release saw: inflated local prices; roving release-dates, sometimes out by over 12 months!; an artificially imposed monopoly on net access with a single expensive ISP; a critically small number of titles; poor availability of hardware; and games that were available for less than 6 weeks before being discontinued. Some of this is sure to be a result of poor support from Sega, but a lot of the blame has to rest at Ozisoft's feet.
How did one company manage to so completely and utterly drop the bundle with the Dreamcast? Through the artificial imposition of region-locking. No one benefitted from this with the possible exception of Ozisoft, who if they did, profitted through incompetence.
Remeber that there isn't a fundamental right for companies to make a profit; elsewise I could go out there with any hare-brained scheme and watch the dollars roll in. Artificial market protection can make sense when there are industries whose loss would have a severe impact on a country's economic sustainability. Outside of this domain - and game distribution is well removed - it just rewards inefficiency and effectively forces the consuming public to pay higher prices for goods unnecessarily.
There is room to support localized versions, as game buyers will typically prefer to have a game that supports their local video standard and comes in a language they can easily understand. This is independent of region locking though! They'd still prefer it even if it were easy to play a foreign version. Region locking is there only to protect markets. Those instances where a foreign version may violate local morality laws are already covered by those laws which prevent the importation of restricted material.
I just moved back to Europe after living in the US. I have a laptop that plays region 1 DVDs, another that plays region 2. So, I've paid my friggin' licence to play DVDs for region 1 AND 2. So, if I decided to mod a PS2 so I can play both, that SHOULD be legal, since I've already paid my fees. (I'm not going to be using the laptop to play DVDs at the same time as the PS2.)
The other issue is that say I already owned PS2 games. Now should I sell all those and buy more? Or should I fight with power adapters, cable adapters, and getting an NTSC compatible TV to play the games? I know that if my brother comes to visit and I have a PS2, he'll bring his games along.
These limitations are clearly designed to keep us all from buying things out of market, but that's what customs regulations are for. Customs doesn't question me because I have rights to acquire items on both sides of the Atlantic and move things between households. However, if I came back to Finland with a large stack of US PS2 games, well, they might have some questions, and they definitely would start charging me duty if I ordered them via the post.
Of course, if Sony, etc., didn't have all this crap locked down on the systems, MOD chips wouldn't be as interesting for legit buyers like myself. Besides, now that they are on DVD, who wants to spend more money to burn titles than they cost to buy? (Of course, the same argument has gone for the DVD films as well.) Too bad you have to pretty much make the chips "play anything" to get around all the region locks.
If you know a place in the Nordics selling the chip, and especially in Finland if they can do the install for me, that's be great. Go ahead and e-mail me then.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Let me guess. You're American, aren't you?
Firstly, you shouldn't be able to use your legal muscle to kill a company unless its actually breaking the law, I don't care how much effort your programming team put in.
Secondly, I only want a region chip because its cheaper to get one than it is to import the whole console. Believe me, if it was an either or situation without any cost or hassle implications I don't think a single person would buy the UK version of the PS2. I haven't got one at all, because these mods aren't known for their relibility, but I only want to play NTSC games, not the piece of junk PAL conversions we are given. I want to watch my collection of hundreds of (all legally bought) DVDs from around the world. I know a grand total of no people who have a DVD player incapable of playing US titles, and they don't see why it shouldn't be the same for games.
If you really feel what you're saying then just call anyone who bought a PS2 for Metal Gear Solid 2 an idiot - clearly thats how you feel about European gamers who want to do the same.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
The Business Week article leaves out Asia and Europe. The PS2 sold millions of units in Japan before it was even released in the US. Sony's latest quarterly report placed the worldwide sales of the PS2 hardware at "over 19.57 million units."
Thats all fantastic speculation there, save for the fact this is going down IN ENGLAND!!!!!!!
England is probably a worse place for the modchip makers to defend- that country seems to be even more deeply in the clutches of the IR (intellectual restricton) owners than the US.
With lidless eyes guarding an ever increasing proportion of the island, and a health care and national government network beholden to a software tyrant, England is becoming Mordor.
The complaint is about: Apparently there were DOZENS of mod chips available that let you play copied games, and Sony did not do anything about it. Now the first chip comes out that lets you play copied games, PLUS it lets you play imported disks, and Sony is suddenly attacking this one, and ignoring the others still! This would seem to imply they consider the ability to play imported games a real threat, as opposed to the copies.
Chip 1 allows people to play copied games. You can make the excuse that this is for "backups" but we all know this is for piracy. Sony does NOTHING.
Chip 2 does what Chip 1 does and also allows imported disks to be played. Sony SUES.
Now what is the difference between chip 1 and chip 2 that made Sony attack? Hmm, maybe the have different priorities than you think...
Of COURSE these chips are used for piracy. Only idiots (and yea a couple post on SlashDot) would think otherwise. The companies are continually feeding us the lie that they are worried about piracy, but their actions are pretty clear about where they really want control.
Think about this in the future, when even the pirated copy of your movie will not let you fast-forward through the commercials and requires you to pay a monthy bill to watch it.
Does a mod-chip allow access to the access-controled BIOS?
No.
The only reason people point out that a console contains a BIOS is to justify EULAs. (Since by using the console you're using software which requires a copy to be made in RAM, etc, etc).
However, that too is bunk because US copyright law (and most other counties) allows a temporary copy of software to be made if it's required for the use of the software. (ie, copied into RAM.)
The fact that these copies are made as soon as the machine is powered on and without any user intervention you could say either that Sony authorized to copying, or that it's required ('cause the PS2 don't work otherwise) and thus legal.
EULAs also aren't binding because they don't follow the necessary standards for contracts.
Pirating may be trivial on the DC, but that's not what did in the console. Nobody bought the freaking thing. This was due to a number of factors, none of which was piracy.
Retailers were skittish about Sega, because Sega had screwed them before by pulling support early on the Saturn and leaving them with tons of inventory and no games for them, so no buyers for them. 3rd party game companies felt similiarly. And the public wanted to wait and see the PS2 and the GameCube and the XBox, so they stayed away. The DC didn't die because everyone was getting free games, it died because nobody bought it.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.