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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."
A good description of (psx) mod chipping can be found here:
http://www.vguys.com/modchip.htm
Basically, modchips allow the console to boot discs from another region, by changing CD subcodes to a universal format. It makes it so that other region disks boot, with the side effect of allowing CD-R copies to be played. So it's a region and copy protection go around.
Other consoles (Gamecube, Saturn) have simple switch mods that allow region changing, and some (Xbox, Gameboy color/advance) have no region checking.
BBK
Most likely not, politicians all over the world have been busy selling out the little guys rights to big corporations for the last few decades. See stuff like MAI and fast track
Exactly - it's important not to confuse government policy (currently stupid and restrictive) with the ACCC - a government-funded but independent body that never gets listened to, except by the media.
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
Isn't 1/20 americans in Jail now?
..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?
Imagine if your car would only accept gasoline from your homestate (let's say California).
When you take a vacation to Arizona, the gas is much, much cheaper, but alas won't run in your car because the signature chemical is missing. You have to buy special "California" gas at a premimum.
Techincally, there's no difference between an AZ car and a CA car, except that artificial price controlling mechanisms have been put in both cars making the fuel from one state non-interchangable with the other. It's a way to create an artificial market and shut out competition.
Do you get it now?
I have never really understodd this. Why do video games and dvd's only play in certain parts of the world? What is the rationelle behind this?
Region coding does make sense with DVDs. You see, there's often a long delay before US movies are released in other countries.
Take Memento: I had imported the DVD in September 2001 - but the movie didn't play in theaters in that country until December!
Movies cost a fortune, and the main income is still what flows through the box office. Now if a movie is released on DVD before it appears in theaters (and that happens very often), both movie theaters and studios would suffer.
VHS didn't have that region coding option, of course, because it was technically impossible at that time. But with DVD technology they've been thoughful enough to add it.
And as for games, well. My best guess is that SCEA, SCEE and SCEI are somewhat independent (they have different TRCs and regulations). And similar to movies, the release dates for the individual regions differ. Without a protection, Europeans would import the US version, SCEE would make less money. This may sound ridiculous cause "Sony is Sony", but keep in my that SCEE and SCEA have their own staff and budgets. A very prominent incident which touches this issue is the Infogrames Civ3 dilemma.
My personal stance about this whole thing is that it's a big hypocrisy. 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 99% of all cases, the mod chip is used to play pirated games. Hey, we had this discussion before.
There was a chip for the PSX which allowed to circumvent the region coding but still prevented using CD-Rs. That's more like it. They should build one like that for the PS2 too. Let's see how many people care or even KNOW about that chip then.
Australia has nothing like a bill of rights, the Australian constitution limits the powers the Federal Government has over the States, and also limits what the domain of the State governments a bit as well. The only limitations I can find are:
41. No adult person who has or acquires a right to vote at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of a State shall, while the right continues, be prevented by any law of the Commonwealth from voting at elections for either House of the Parliament of the Commonwealth.
51.(i.) Taxation; but so as not to discriminate between States or parts of States:
51.(xxiiiA.) The provision of maternity allowances, widows' pensions, child endowment, unemployment, pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital benefits, medical and dental services (but not so as to authorize any form of civil conscription), benefits to students and family allowances:
99. The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade, commerce, or revenue, give preference to one State or any part thereof over another State or any part thereof.
100. The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.
Whereas the list of things they can do is quite a bit longer:
51. 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:-
(i.) Trade and commerce with other countries, and among the States:
(ii.) Taxation; but so as not to discriminate between States or parts of States:
(iii.) Bounties on the production or export of goods, but so that such bounties shall be uniform throughout the Commonwealth:
(iv.) Borrowing money on the public credit of the Commonwealth:
(v.) Postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services:
(vi.) The naval and military defence of the Commonwealth and of the several States, and the control of the forces to execute and maintain the laws of the Commonwealth.
(vii.) Lighthouses, lightships, beacons and buoys:
(viii.) Astronomical and metereological observations:
(ix.) Quarantine:
(x.) Fisheries in Australian waters beyond territorial limits:
(xi.) Census and statistics:
(xii.) Currency, coinage, and legal tender:
(xiii.) Banking, other than State banking; also State banking extending beyond the limits of the State concerned, the incorporation of banks, and the issue of paper money:
(xiv.) Insurance, other than State insurance; also State insurance extending beyond the limits of the State concerned:
(xv.) Weights and measures:
(xvi.) Bills of exchanging and promissory notes:
(xvii.) Bankruptcy and insolvency:
(xviii.) Copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade marks:
(xix.) Naturalization and aliens:
(xx.) Foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth:
(xxi.) Marriage:
(xxii.) Divorce and matrimonial causes; and in relation thereto, parental rights, and the custody and guardianship of infants:
(xxiii.) Invalid and old-age pensions:
(xxiiiA.) The provision of maternity allowances, widows' pensions, child endowment, unemployment, pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital benefits, medical and dental services (but not so as to authorize any form of civil conscription), benefits to students and family allowances:
(xxiv.) The service and execution throughout the Commonwealth of the civil and criminal process and the judgements of the courts of the States:
(xxv.) The recognition throughout the Commonwealth of the laws, the public Acts and records, and the judicial proceedings of the States:
(xxvi.) The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws:
(xxvii.) Immigration and emigration:
(xxviii.) The influx of criminals:
(xxix.) External Affairs:
(xxx.) The relations of the Commonwealth with the islands of the Pacific:
(xxxi.) The acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make laws:
(xxxii.) The control of railways with respect to transport for the naval and military purposes of the Commonwealth:
(xxxiii.) The acquisition, with the consent of a State, of any railways of the State on terms arranged between the Commonwealth and the State:
(xxxiv.) Railway construction and extension in any State with the consent of that State:
(xxxv.) Conciliation and arbitration for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State:
(xxxvi.) Matters in respect of which this Constitution makes provision until the Parliament otherwise provides:
(xxxvii.) Matters referred to the Parliament of the Commonwealth by the Parliament or Parliaments of any State or States, but so that the law shall extend only to States by whose Parliaments the matter is referred, or which afterwards adopt the law:
(xxxviii.) The exercise within the Commonwealth, at the request or with the concurrence of the Parliaments of all the States directly concerned, of any power which can at the establishment of this Constitution be exercised only by the Parliament of the United Kingdom or by the Federal Council of Australasia:
(xxxix.) Matters incidental to the execution of any power vested by this Constitution in the Parliament or in either House thereof, or in the Government of the Commonwealth, or in the Federal Judicature, or in any department or officer of the Commonwealth.
Note that over time the States have transferred some of their powers to the Commonwealth giving them a larger domain than indicated. 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. I guess this is *much* easier in Australia with only 6 states than in the US.
We have universal gun control in this country - something campaigned for by the Commonwealth government.
In the state I live we have 'move-on' laws, so the police can force you to leave a public area, public assembly without approval is illegal, distribution of pamphletes without authority is illegal, broadcasting without authority is illegal (having your walkman up to loud is a crime), skateboarding, bike riding, and the wonderful phrase to have in law 'anything of that nature' in a public space is illegal without authority, you can be banned from said public space for life for breaching those laws, the police can enter a permise without a warrant if they think it is being used for drug crimes...
It's amazing what the government will do when it doesn't have a bill of rights restructing it when something like the Olympics comes along.
Of course these laws are not enforced in a manner that makes it a police state - but that's not the point, they could be in the future.
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.
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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?
Lucky Australians!
Unfortunately we still have that luddite of the Millenia "Brian Harradene", grrr. I must admit that i like the ACCC they seem to be the only government department that actually sticks up for the little people!
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
Freedom of Speech and Press: the US is one of the few countries in their world where we don't have government operated newspapers, radio and television stations. Are you saying that having dozens of independently owned newspapers, multiple privately owned TV networks and several private radio stations in each city doesn't make your press free if there's even _one_ government owned station? I'm sure the people of Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, France, Italy and a lot of other European nations would be happy to hear that. The issue is not what the government puts on the airwaves itself. The issue is what it does to restrict or prevent private individuals using the airwaves.