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Australian Commisssion Defends Playstation Mod-Chipping
newt writes "The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is intervening in a court case to defend Sony Playstation owners' right to modify their consoles to play imported games. The ACCC is submitting a friend of the court brief, arguing that Sony's regional playback controls are unlawful. This has implications for DVD region zoning too: The ACCC has previously
published its concerns about DVD regioning, and its latest press release about this case reiterates the problems presented to Australian consumers by Sony's practices."
Lucky Australians!
graspee
I'm glad some countries have some sense.
What is the difference between a mod chip'd console and a non-modded console? Besides being able to play foreign games, of course.
What is the technical difference?
I doubt it would ever happen in the United States, which would also mean it probably wouldn't ever happen in Canada either.
Pity.
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
Hey, excuse my American ignorance: do they drive on the left or right side of the road down under?
In simulators like GT3, realism's important, after all...
They've taken their guns.
They'll never take.. their mod chips!
Glad to see some common sense returning to AU. Got some friends down their who constantly complain about the regional encoding crap - for both games and DVD's. They never get anything on time (If they get it at all!)..
is sense I don't need
All they have to do is make sure that all their releases have some content that is banned in Australia, and sponsor raids against the importers. Then they get legislation passed REQUIRING them to add region control.
It would seem that the U.S. is no longer the defender of the free world - for a country which values freedom so much, we are doing less than others to protect it. Why is it that Australia, the EU, and Russia (yes, our former enemy) are going to bat to defend the liberties of individual citizens while our government is actively taking them away?
I used to be proud to be an American.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The thing is that most Ozzies have multisystem tvs and dvd players, which allow one to play DVD sold in Australia as well as from America. The mod chips for the games is far play as far as I'm concerned.
1. region encoding work around.
:-(
2. copied game work around.
I think the second will hold up in court
... when I purchase a piece of hardware, can't I do whatever I want with it? Recognizing that it might void the warranty, of course...
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Countries don't have sense. People do. Australia's internet policy is so astoundingly fucked up, and the environment there becoming quite censorious. This one development is a good one, but the civil liberties grass is NOT greener on that side of the Big Lake.
I would rather live in a country founded by convicts, that one founded by puritans.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
As far as I know, VHS can be played everywhere (pal/ntsc versions) and computer software isnt limited to specific regions, so why are DVDs and Video Games?
Anything else limited this way? I can understand that diffrent countries have diffrent ratings and what not, but the fact that digital formats can block usage in diffrent regions of the world seems like a backwards thing to be doing in this time of freedom and what not.
spend money here
That's one complex way to describe a simple game of Pong.
Damn I wish ATM's let you play pong or some such while you're waiting for your money to spit out. That would be nice. Instead, they're playing advertisements now.
security through obscurity = modding down anti-linux posts so maybe noone will see them
Of course, Australia has to beat the region controls first. Let's assume they do.
I'm guessing the remedy would be to require players sold in Australia to be capable of playing all regions.
This would result in Australian DVD players being exported to other countries. This gets done already but usually they require mods or they're expensive. But if you have a legit source of "official" DVD players, I think they'll prove popular.
US DVD Player manufacturers will either see this as a threat(because people will buy Aussie DVD players instead of American ones) or as an extra cost of business(because they'll have to effectively produce two different types of the same players) and start lobbying for the right to produce region-free players here as well.
...
Then Sony brings down the wrath of the WTO and crushes this newly gained freedom in Australia and the fantasy comes to an end.
NO it is actually more like 1/50 australians are decendents of convicts
Given what the U.S. did to the Ukraine recently, I wouldn't be surprised if success by the ACCC would eventually find Australia up against sanctions. If the mod chips are allowed, then dvd region encoding will have a much easier time being banned or legally cracked in Australia. Any government that bans or allows cracks of region-encoding is circumventing the DMCA and even though the DMCA isn't international law you can be damn sure we're going to protect ourselves from terrorists like those in Australia. USA! USA! (Come on, chant with me...) Attica! Attica! I mean... USA! USA!
IMHO I think that once you pay several hundred dollars for a product it's yours and you're more than welcome to do anything to it you wish. If you feel the need to weld a lava lamp to the MB of the thing that's you're prerogative, ditto with a mod chip. Now, Motorola isn't required to offer warranty service on it after that, but if you're willing to risk the consequences you should be allowed to. Many industrialized nations are killing themselves slowly by over-lawing everything. To many laws do not a good country make.... Communications Decency Act anyone?
Isn't 1/20 americans in Jail now?
...we know the real reason behind it.
The politicians can't get enough Hentai Dating Simulation games. Never underestimate the power of a school girl uniform and a 20 foot long penis-tentacle.
USA has the highest rate of incarceration of any industrialized nation. (no industrialized country, and likely NO country at all, has a higher percentage of its populace in jail than does the USA). This includes that bastion of civil liberties, China.
..industry groups have been heavily pressuring the government to remove the current head of the ACCC (Dr Fells, who is rapidly becomming a hero of mine) and to limit their powers :P
This guy has challenged the CD monopoly of studios within Australia, is currently going after the British publishing houses that have sewed our book market shut..and now region coding..
Any wonder they are trying to remove him?
I said no text!
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Outside of the US though, all we see is that we are paying higher prices to get movies long after they have been released in the US. It just feels anticompetitive to us as we could often import them more cheaply or buy them on holiday in the US.
Now the music companies are also trying to make music CD's you can't play/copy onto computers. I was interested to read that, Philips who licences the CD formats to other companies, isn't going along with this. Apparently if the music companies modify CD's not to play on computers, they mustn't use the standard "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo, as their modifications fall outside of this standard according to Philips. Philips is even looking at making CD writers that could cope with the modified CDs anyway.
See the article: Philips, the co-creator of the CD, is refusing to play along with music CDs that are designed to prevent playback on PCs
Over here, the government guarantees a "reasonable" minimum warranty on all purchased items, ignoring any "lets screw the customer" EULA-s or the like. I suspect that suing Microsoft for faulty software would succeed in Australia, but would fail in the US.
Let's restrict lot's and lot's of people from getting a product that makes their device use more products so that they won't be able to buy more products so that they can't give us more money, so that we can gouge them for more and more money, so that we can complain about how all their products that we want banned are actualy driving away money we don't have to begin with.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I wonder how long DVD region encoding would've lasted if it was the USofA that had to wait months for titles to be released (if at all)?
I want my Hollywood revisionist history epics now, dammit!!!!
---
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Heck, in the next week or so, a few discs I had ordered from the US will arrive. They will play perfectly (thankfully the dvd player also converts NTSC-out to PAL-out).
beannachdan oirbh.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie...."
Nimheil
First of all, it is written by an Aussie that thinks he knows so much about US law and political history that he claims that Americans have a ho-hum attitude about their rights.
:P
/.
in America, those groups simply claim that the government can't do that (whatever that may be) because of the Constitution - hence some people simply say "oh well, doesn't seem too important anyway
Wow! I didn't know I thought that way. Thanks Aussie! It clarifies a lot about my personality. God bless that Aussie insight! Cuz I don't know where I'd be without pedantic generalizations.
Here's another great zinger...
in Australia, we value those freedoms much more
Which explains that 'Aussie War of Independence'.... and the fact that the Aussies have had entire generations spending billions of dollars promoting democracies all over the globe. Unlike those xenophobic Americans that closed off their borders. LOL.
At the end of the day I would just like to say please ask the people what they think instead of relying on conjecture and dinner party talk.
LOL... when you see +5 insightful on a post like that, you really need a sense of humor on
DISCLAIMER: I'm not in favor of this, I'm just speculating as to the motivations behind it.
The problem I forsee is that Sony could stop selling Playstations in Austraila altogethor. If they think they might lose money over it, I'm sure they would seriously consider it.
Well that makes it alright then. What do you give non USA-citzens that you put in jail
Instead of making laws, why don't governments simply educate the general population as to how much they are getting ripped off by DVDs, Playstations and Microsoft. If I was in charge I would fund a series of adverts that showed people exactly how much profit these companies make, how cheap it really is to press a CD, and how production costs aren't that high when split over millions of customers.
I would show them how they could live in a world where DVDs could be watched anywhere, where they weren't restricted as to when they could fast-forward, or copy, and how these massive companies bribe governments to restrict freedom. I would introduce them to the idea of operating systems other than Microsoft Windows(R) that were free and open so you couldn't hide malicious code in them.
You would think people would know this already, but you would be surprised how many non-slashdot readers honestly think that it costs _that_much_ to make a DVD, even though the studio has already made a massive box-office profit. People actually don't realise how much they are being ripped off and controlled. They have been completely conditioned.
Obviously I would probably be sued if I had these public-service-announcements made and showen, but thats how the world works.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
If you login then we can reward your kind words with some karma.
Games play advertisments too now, so it's a lose/lost situation I'm afraid.
Incompetence .. perhaps .. but more so inconsistency. I think that it shows some editors don't see the implications of some stories and how they relate to /.
:-)
Other editors do see it. Luck of the draw I suppose, but that doesn't mean I still won't feel robbed
last i checked GT3 is a racing game
GT == Gran Turismo. GTA == Grand Theft Auto. Yes, they do tend to be released in pairs (GT a couple months before the GTA with the same number) but they're not related.
how may car races have you seen where there are two opposing lanes of traffic?
In Cruis'n USA, sometimes you have to avoid oncoming traffic.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: ... (xviii.) Copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade marks
Unlike the U.S. Constitution, this doesn't even specify a weak "limited times" guarantee. Therefore, Australia's Parliament has the right to pass a perpetual copyright on a given work.
Also it is a reasonably common enough occurance for the Commonwealth to convince all the states to pass a law, in effect making a commonwealth law that they are not supposed to make.
The US does this too, saying in effect "Pass these laws, or we take away your highway construction money." It puts a new spin on the term "highway robbery."
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well, you can see on TV what they get in the Cuba base. Certainly no TV, not even the shopping channel and as for weight lifting they get to carry chains along with them wherever they go. I think the USA is the only country in the world that chains inmates. Even the much maligned South Africa, where I used to live, treat prisoners better - there they can become president...
For the record, Australian was a British colony populated by convicts and many others, and was not founded in an way by 'convicts'. And America, while perhaps founded by Puritans, isn't close to being populated 100% by Puritans.
g'day mite.
Probably more than what they'd get living in the shithole from whence they came. Of course one freedom they won't have in jail will be planning their next attack. "Culturally appropriate" meals? Such picky eaters.
I wouldn't exactly call the Christian Right puritans .. LOLBut if you remember your history, America was also an English prison colony. It was only after the war of independence that the English had to find somewhere else to ship their convicts to. So I salute your brave ancestors, as without them, I would be speaking with some strange North American accent! (Which you do, as you have confused the Australian "a" sound with the North American "i" sound - Its G'day mate")
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Sometimes it seems Australia is the only place that actually has a good stance on the various region protection systems and copyrights. Shame they go and screw it all up with their censorship laws.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
no. what about the new aussie censorship bill? dont be foolish - all governments will take away rights. learn your subject matter before you post...I mean, china is certainly an industrialized country...
Electronic Frontiers Australia
Australia is no worse than the US- but that doesnt make it better.
Anyone remember this article only a couple of weeks ago? More and more, courts from around the world are disagreeing with one another in regards to copyright issues and technology. Are DVDs software or film?
This is only the beginning of a slew of court rulings and laws that will confict with each other and throw the already confused state of affairs into absolute chaos.
And why would someone like me want to study this in grad school? Because it's f**king cool - that's why =)
taco
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
I bought a chair from WalMart. I then went and bought a cushion for that chair. I wonder if I have to pay a royalty for using the chair technology.
And if I sell you some, prove to me that it's not!
may not be screwed out of all the PS2 games that they were on PSX. As an avid PSX RPG fan, I'd have been damn pissed if Final Fantasy Tactics was released late, slightly censored, and with new ugly text boxes.
That got butchered in Europe too, only the japanese and american versions didn't. I wonder why?
Anyone can tell me why I can buy a mod chip for my car not for my console?
The car mod chip can disable emission controls, increase horsepower, and do other things that are possibly a danger to life.
According to the Department of Justice, there are only 1,381,892 prisoners in the Federal Prison system.
A Far cry from 5%.
I'll grant that the U.S. is turning into a police state at a rather disconcerting pace, but we're not yet a prison state, and we've certainly not reached 5% of incarceration.
That having been said, according to sentencingproject.org we do incarcerate more people than any other nation.
If you wanna look at interesting US Prison statistics, consider the disenfranchisement of African Americans and Hispanic Americans quoted in this Scientific American article.
As an Asian-American, the fact that the justice system is so racially skewed is truly frightening.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
anyone remember that kazaa recently moved to australia?
Hey, you spelled "commission" "commisssion".
Unfortunately that is too true.
I'm an Aussie, and am no longer pround of being an Australian. Because of 9 straight years of a very conservative govenment (like bush), there is no money left in universities.
Hell, who am I to complain? its alot better than america! up until the late 80's, university was FREE!... no more.. and the government tried to make students pay full fees! (luckily that didn't work)
I can only hope in 3 years we get the greens forming government!
that would be the end of the current bullshit with the government trying to remove free speech.
I swear if another conservative government gets in next election, i'm leaving this fucked up country.
You really think it costs more to get a DVD to market in Japan, rather than Florida?. Not likely.
Where do you think the DVDs are stamped anyway?
how close can the media get to the woomera detention centre?? 1km!
its rediculous! I think freedom should be in our constitution. I wish other western governments would say "hey, you shouldn't be allowed to do that. let in the media. we want to see what is happening there!"
alas they're too concerned something small like that would damage relationships or some bullshit like that. Can't countries learn to take criticism and respond properly, taking the concerns into account?? is that too much to ask?
it appears it is
is sense I don't need [slashdot.org]
How the FUCK is this insighful/informative?
What value does it bring to the conversation? It's just a list of stories that have been posted about australia!!!
If I was not on the $rtbl (dispite being at Karma 50 cap), I would mod you down myself.
A high degree of muslim men have homosexual tendencies.
In the west, we no longer see homosexuality as a stigma, it is simply accepted.
However, in the middle east, its far different.
That explains the poor treatment of women by muslim men; they are gay, repressed, and as a result they act out their brutal fantasies towards women.
I was talking to a group of young, thoughtful muslim men, and despite being raised in the US, they still had ideas that are indicative of poorly conditioned minds. For example, they believe women are raped in the US because of "short skirts". Interestingly, this probably is more a mirror of their conflicted inner self which is telling them to "protect" women and at the same time, they have a great deal of anger towards the same women because it conflicts with their repressed homosexual urges.
I realize you think this is nonsense, but it is a fact that the muslim prisoners in cuba attempt to punish the US guards by masturbating, and flinging the ejaculate at American guards.
Again, its an interesting thought process that goes on. There is a real sexual tension of being locked up with another man, but at the same time, the same self-loathing makes them believe their ejaculate is the foulest substance in their body. They feel their ejacualate is the worst thing that comes from their body. But notice, this is the same thing they use to conceive a child with a woman. Therefore, they view women and their own sexuality in the lowest terms.
You think I'm full of crap, but I'm dead on with this analysis. Muslim men are very confused, and the 21st century genuinely scares them because it hits at the weakest part of their beliefs.
Secretly, every muslim man cheered the September 11th attack, because it validates that primal feeling that modern life, as practiced in the USA, brings out the confused feelings about their sexuality, women, and their relationship with other people. Its hard to deal with if you've been sheltered your entire life.
Isnt' it a fact that there exists not only federal, but state prisons in US?
The cost of distributing products to the shelf in Japan is very expensive compared to the states. Think of NYC, trying to get anything in to NYC is a nightmare. Japan is very similar.
...in this regard. Sure, they're on the "right side" in this one particular case. But Grand Theft Auto 3 is illegal in Australia, while it's the best-selling PS2 game in the U.S., where it's perfectly legal.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That would make sense if only new DVDs come out with regional encoding, but my copy of "Alien" here - which was released quite a while back - is limited to Code 2. Everything gets coded, ancient or still on the big screen. This makes the "delay" argument look kinda silly.
I mean, people are bitching about how their rights are being taken away and everything, but let's face it: How many of them are actually using imports?
In Europe (somewhat more than 360 million people, I should point out), a lot of people. This is because there is a greater selection of DVDs in the U.S. than in Europe. Also, some DVDs are in German translation only ("Flash Gordon", the new version with Queen's music, is one of them). And third and most important, DVDs from different countries are censored in different ways. Europeans (especially Germans) take out the violence (the German version of "Fight Club" is somewhat of a joke), while the U.S. has this problem with nudity and sex ("Color of Night" is one that comes to mind).
If you want to see the film the way the director intended, sooner or later you're going to have to import you stuff.
ya know, i think you have something there... no sarcasm here, i mean it... it makes sense to me...
um, sure... ran out of your meds again, eh?
They drive on the left, along with basically all former British colonies outside of North America.
It's an interesting little historical digression as to why different countries drive on the sides of the road they do. It actually all goes back to Napoleonic Europe. Before Napoleon, everyone used the left side of the road. It just sort of naturally happened that way, most people are right handed after all, and if that passer-by jumps at you as he goes by, you want your strong hand (which might well be holding a sword, after all) between you. Or if you were in a chariot, or on a horse, the weapon typically would be in the right hand, the reins in the left - which leads to the same thing. So for centuries everyone in europe used the left side of the road.
Then came Napoleon. And the Napoleonic wars. Horrid bloody confused battles, gunsmoke obscuring view, troops arriving late and needing to tell friend from foe quickly when they marched into view along a roadway. Plus Napoleon was a bit of an iconoclast anyway. So he came up with a way that his armies could quickly tell friend from foe, even under the most confused conditions. He decreed that the French would now use the right side of the road, not the left. Anyone marching on the left side of the road was the enemy. He conquered nation after nation, and when they were conquered, they switched sides and used the right side of the road.
The British were never conquered. They still use the left to this day. So do their former colonies (with the exceptions mentioned.)
Sweden also he did not conquer. However, back in the 1960s, the Swedes did finally change over to be compatible with the nations around them. They had some rather confused motorists for a bit, as you might imagine, but eventually everyone got used to it. Most other European nations that Napoleon didn't conquer (such as Switzerland, for instance) nevertheless made that adjustment long before, for the sake of commerce with their neighbors.
Ahh but now the strange exception in North America. We actually went through a period of relative chaos on this issue - most early Americans were from England after all, but then again, we fought the British and those French had helped us... so there was some disagreement and regional variation, although the right side was probably more popular, particularly early on. Henry Ford actually was the one that put an end to it. He had a bit of a fetish about efficiency - you may know that he only put out his cars in one colour, for instance, to simplify the painting stage of production, not to mention his supply logistics. So it was natural he would want to decide to put the steering wheel on one side or the other, not both (an option his competitors catered to.) He settled on the left, it is said, because his left arm was weak from a childhood illness and he found it difficult to shift gears with it. So he put the steering wheel on the left, shifted with his right, and his cars became so successful that the entire continent was soon driving on the left side of the road.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
- I can choose between DVDs from different regions based upon technical merit. For example, the R1 Chasing Amy is far superior to the R4 version. And the R4 version of Trainspotting is censored, while the R2 version is not.
- DVDs are cheaper. DVDs in Australia are far far cheaper than anywhere else. I am constantly surprised that American super-discount-sale prices still exceed our own recommended prices.
So what is there not to like?S
harshbutfair: you know it makes sense
www.harshbutfair.org
Just don't try to play Grand Theft Auto 3 on that PlayStation! That's illegal!
No problems with the mod chips, though...
That sure makes a lot of sense.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
No, it's 1 in 20 will spend some time in prison during their life at current rates of imprisonment.
"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'm not going to claim it scales exactly, but as the region number gets higher, the prices generally get cheaper. Sure, region 1 gets it first almost every time, but at up to four times the retail price.
No retailer wirth his salt will sell a regionlocked DVD players. Consequently they are all designed to be piss easily unlocked (like have a miniscre switch on the PCB & a tiny access hole at the back that lines up with it). They only charge $100 for unlocking a DVD player when they think they are dealing with a complete moron who'll let him get away with charging him $100 extra.
Gez, right now they are selling DVD/MP3 players at the computer markets for about$170, unlocked (multi-region, not region-free, which makes them compatible with the latest Sony Studios DVDs too - the latest Sony DVDs won't work on DVD players set to regin 0, which is the regionfree setting, so you have to have a DVD player with a multi-region setting, where it automatically changes the region to match the DVD)
If the US keeps that shite up, the rest of the world will just carry on without them.
AFAIK the Northern Territory also allows X-rated videos. Dunno the national situation with fireworks.
;-). They only *visit* Canberra.
"solely for housing politicians". Silly bugger; the politicians are housed in the electorates of the people who elected the dickheads There is justice after all