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Australian Federal Court Finds Mod Chips Not Illegal
Friendless writes "In contrast to the story earlier this week about the Ottawa man who was jailed for selling and installing mod chips, the the Australian ABC reports that the Australian Federal Court has found that installing mod chips is not illegal, because Sony failed to prove that a copyright protection measure was installed in the PlayStation in the first place. Here is the full judgement."
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
But surely that's against Sony's rules too.
Tough poo to Sony. Region coding is a restraint of trade, so Sony shouldn't be able to go crying to a court about it.
Just what exactly is wrong with their PS that they get so scratched?
Some people do, yes. Its not the PS2 that scratches them, its kids and careless owners who don't look after them and leave their disks lying around in a heap on their bedroom floor etc. that scratches them.
From the very bottom of the article:
<snip>
165 In view of the failure of the applicants to establish that the copyright work was protected by a technological protection measure, it is not necessary for me to determine whether the devices installed by Mr Stevens in the PlayStation consoles were circumvention devices.
166 In an affidavit read on the last day of the hearing, Mr Nabarro expressed the opinion that the chips had no purpose other than overriding the anti-piracy devices of the applicants. The price Mr Bannon paid for being permitted to read the affidavit at such a late stage (Mr Nabarro being already on his way to the airport) was that he conceded that Mr Nabarro's evidence was not literally true. In particular, Mr Bannon accepted that the installation of the chip enabled the owner of the console also to play a back-up copy of the PlayStation game which lacked the access code.
167 On the evidence, I would have held that the chips installed by Mr Stevens had only a limited commercially significant use other than circumventing or facilitating the circumvention of the access code. Thus, if the access code had been a "technological protection measure", the chips would have been circumvention devices. I would also have found that Mr Stevens sold or promoted (through advertisements in the Trading Post) the circumvention devices and that he knew that the devices would be used to circumvent or facilitate the circumvention of a technological protection measure.
</snip>
(Emphasis added)
So despite the fact that the judge thought it unnecessary to determine whether the mod chips were a "circumvention device", he goes ahead and expresses the opinion that they blatantly are, and he would have prefered to rule in the opposite direction.
At least it sets some kind of lower threshold on what can be considered a "technological protection measure", thus raising the bar slightly higher for companies trying to stifle fair use of their products. But in the end, the wrong law was passed, and the wrong law is still on the statute books. So how great this ruling really is, I don't know.
And it was nice to see the old chestnut of "loading into RAM is theft" re-appearing; I thought that one was already put to rest for good!
These sigs are more interesting tha
The Japan one I can go with. But surely that's against Sony's rules too.
:( )
The fact that Sony may not like you playing import games doesn't mean it's any less of a fair use of the mod chip. Who cares what Sony says - all that matters is the law (then again, in this day and age the lines are becoming blurrier
He's being psuedononymous because he ripped the entire comment off the previous article.
I back up all of my new CD's when I buy them, and keep the originals in perfect condition. Therefore if someone "borrows" one, or if it gets ruined (scratched), then I just pull out the original, and make another copy. I am not a gamer, but if I was I would surely back up the games right when I bring them home.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Another au link.Case was bought by this regulator that is headed by a proffr alan Fels that many in big business want dead.(He is kinda early Naderish.)Shame he cant take on the STATE.I asked him to once.http://www.accc.gov.au/
An Example,
Smoking Pot in your house is evading the law.
Smoking Pot at the police station where they can see you is civil disobedience.
In the first case it's apparant that you simply refuse to obey a law because you don't feel like it. Big deal, a bank robber does the same thing. The second case shows that you're disobeying the law as a protest against a law that you consider to be unjust.
Before anyone attempts to question if anyone would actually do the second act, I have been arrested for doing this as part of a protest against Marijunia laws.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
For me to accept this, they must stop selling a "license to use" the software, and just charge for the media. As it is, the media charge is a tiny component of the total price, most of which is the software license.
A failure of the media does not invalidate that license to use the software.
And your car analogy. I get my car fixed when it is broken... I even get the tires fixed. You can fix, to some extent, analogue audio and video tape if the damage is minor enough. (You'll lose a few frames around the splice, but hey, you can still watch the movie or listen to the album.)
But software is different from hardware. It's about the ideas, not the device containing them--that's why it is called software.