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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."
The man convicted in Ottawa says he plans to move to Australia once his sentence is finished.
CLIT. Are you a memb
It is called civil disobedience, and it is often the only way to get injustice corrected (and the DMCA is extremely unjust).
If enough people are arrested for outrageously stupid reasons, public awareness of what is happening will be raised. I remember telling a non-technical friend of mine, who is a pilot for a major airline and served in the airforce (and saw combat in Yugoslavia), about the arrest of Dmitry and he was outraged. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen him as angry as he was that day. He took that injustice very personally, as do most people who believe in the ideals of democracy and not the rule of corporate oligarchs, cartels, and monopolists.
The more lay people that are made aware of these injustices the better, and this guy is going a long way toward accomplishing this. The excesses of copyright have only succeeded these last decades because the awareness of what has happened (chronic copyright extentions, and now fundamental changes in its nature from a civil to a criminal law, and from a largely commercial regulation to a profoundly invasive personal one) has been absent. Copyright law, in its current form, will likely not withstand public scruitiny very well, which is something that would be good for every one of us (returning it back to its pre-1970 duration, if not repealing the notion altogether and replacing it with a gentler, non-monopolistic regime for compensating authors and artists, but that is a discussion for another day).
Raising public awareness of these issues is probably one of the most important things we can be doing, and if we as technically knowledgable people do not do so, no one will. This guy should be applauded for stepping up to the plate and putting his personal liberty on the line for the greater public good.
If we had more people willing to do this sort of thing when the despots seize personal liberty after personal liberty we would live in a much better world. He is a man who clearly feels strongly enough about software freedom to risk jail time, up to 5 years, which is a hell of a lot more grave than the $17,000 fine mentioned in the article (I wonder why they played that down. That makes his actions even more impressive).
The correct ABC link is here.
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Wasn't the Ottawa case more about copied games then teh mod-chip? If he was just arrested for a mod-chip then the comparison would be valid, but selling burned games is an entirely different matter.
Secondly, the story about the Ottowa man who was jailed for "selling modchips" was actually jailed because he had 417 pirated games that he was selling to customers. Christ, people, read more than the headline next time!
Finally, I don't see how it could possibly be illegal to modchip a Playstation. I bought a piece of hardware (PSX). I bought another piece of hardware (modchip). When I buy them, I buy the rights to modify them in whatever way I want. There is no EULA on hardware. There is no contract that says "I will not modify this piece of hardware." What I do with my toaster/PSX on my own time is my own business. Is this one of those stupid "DMCA illegalities" that we keep running into?
Why should copy protection matter? Once you buy the hardware, you logically should be able to do what you like with it, since you own it.
...
This will undoubtably apply to palladium hardware too then. I wish
The trouble is that just because something is sensible or correct, doesn't make it legal.
Here is the perfect example - mod chips are legal in one country, and illegal in another. A bit like EULA's in Europe vs USA.
You can't predict the law based on what seems sensible.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
The judgement cites the following Web site as the source of some games acquired for "chipped" Playstations:
:-)
http://superia.iwarp.com
But don't bother going there, unless you want to "mod" or "chip" a certain popular body part.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
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
mod chip. austrailian for fair use.
stupid advertisement
www.angstmonster.org
I put it to you that if anyone actaully does make backups of their PS game, they are an anal freak.
But being an anal freak is not in itself illegal yet.
There is a massive difference between "the only reason to mod a ps is to play pirate games" and "the only reason to mod a ps is to play pirate games unless you have a personality that I will sneer at".
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
The Federal Court is the court of original jurisdiction for this case and hence this case hasn't passed even one appelate court yet.
:) so don't get too excited
Also our High Court (our highest court of appeal) has the nifty habit of disagreeing with lower courts (as most high courts do
Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied. -Otto von Bismarck
"Does anyone REALLy backup their games / CD's before use? Just what exactly is wrong with their PS that they get so scratched?"
You obviously don't have any younger siblings.
Bork!
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
There are many ways even the awful recent laws could be interpreted out of existence, so to speak. To really get what they want (which is impossible, but regardless), the big media industries not only need these draconian laws and worse, but they need very "conservative" enforcement in the courts.
Strictly speaking, I tend to agree with the Australians; security on the consoles (and proposed security in other systems) is far from being "primarily" a tool to prevent theft. It has many other purposes, stated and unstated.
We often call fair use a victim of the media industry's war on customers (or perhaps a war on civil liberties, or on sane contract and criminal law). Region coding aside, one thing in particular that frequently gets swept away in the "copy control" race is the notion of backups.
Yes, just simple backups. I'm in the habit of keeping things backed up when I can, and you should be too. Of course, don't take my word for it. You'll be a believer after you lose your first important batch of data, just like I did.
The media guys just want the backup issue to go away. They ignore it at every opportunity, and they hope you will too. But why can't we make backup copies of our CDs, DVDs, and, yes, playstation (etc etc) games? They get scratched, they wear out... even if you buy into the most apocalyptic notions about time shifting and space shifting, backups are still legit. And not only us, why can't _libraries_ and _rental places_ make backups? 100x as important for them as for us; they get a lot of wear and tear.
The "security" systems, as exemplified by the PS2 and other consoles aren't just for preventing theft. They're for preventing backups. You damage "your" property? Buy another copy. But is that legitimate?
This debate is filled with similar examples. Where's the "security" in region coding? It's entirely arbitrary! And the list goes on.
You see, there's a continuous conflict here, between big media's power grab, and fair use (making backups, quoting, time shifting, space shifting, etc), basic freedoms (like privacy, for DRM systems which "happen" to report what you do back to HQ), and elementary contract law (parties explicitly agree, implied contracts, no "surprising" fine print conditions, you own what you buy, etc - actually comes pretty close to the rule of least astonishment).
They want to abolish fair use altogether (along with getting special status for contract law and enforcement, etc) - that's the only way they can try to stop all theft. While they're at it, they're going to get fringe benefits that far outweight the value of their stated goal - control over all media devices? Carte blanche to dictate any kind of terms they want whenever they sell you anything? The ability to asses and collect taxes? Yet right now all the pieces aren't in place yet, and if you have to rule on the law, you still have the option to look objectively at the facts and conclude that mod chips and other game copying tools have legitimate uses and must be legal. I don't even think it's a stretch.
Until they explicitly eliminate fair use at the legislative level (which they might - who knows! anything's possible, apparently), that's always a possibility. Of course, controlling the courts isn't impossible either, perhaps... One thing the last few years should have taught us is that when it comes to corrupting influences in politics, politicians have a unique appreciation for the power of those who control the media.
We're on the road to Tycho.
The DMCA (arguably) forbids making, owning, or even discussing how to make mod chips.
The law is convoluted, badly written, and in practice self-contradictory. But the net effect may be that your mod chip could get you in trouble.
The media guys know it's a shaky defense; that's why they're not rushing to test its limits right away. Rather than sic the feds on everyone (as they certainly could), they're going for what we like to call a chilling effect; they want practices to change as people are _afraid_ of prosecution, and they want the law to age a bit. Recent laws always look like potential victims to a high court, so the theory goes. But once its 10 years, 20 years old, it starts to take on a certain "legitimacy."
Don't ask me. I only live here.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Don't let facts get in the way of a good rant against "The Man"
Australia rules that selling pirated games is illegal.
:-)
The guy in Canada was mostly burned for selling the pirated games, not for installing the mod chips. It just looks better in an article to emphasize the mod chip aspect. We have no laws against modding equipment, even if it breaks copyright. Hell, if you can find a good Canadian server that will let it on, you can have DeCSS online up here.
~ kjrose
Mate (pronounced "Maaaaaate"), that should be _Australian_ [Latin: australis, from auster, austr-, south.]
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.
A long time ago, when I was innocent and mostly unaware of DMCA, I got my PSX modchipped. This was one of the earliest mod chips (this becomes important later in the story). I was in Virginia working for my cousins software company (a defense contractor) and they had this cool video game store there that sold a lot of imported games. Well, they had just gotten in Samurai Spirits 1 & 2 for the Playstation. I bought it and brought it home, and tried to use the "swap method" to play it. (The swap method is where you prop the Playstation open while keeping the closed button under the lid pressed down. You then put an American game in your Playstation, and after it starts to boot swap it with an import.)
Well, this was a failure, so (long story short) I mailed my Playstation to a friend of mine and had him install a modchip. I finally got my Playstation back and spent many happy hours playing Samurai Spirits.
Well, a while later Sony got Capcom to tweak their software so it wouldn't work in modded Playstations. I found this out after buying two games. The first was Rockman III, a very expensive game that I can only play using Bleem! (I'm unwilling to rechip my Playstation with a newer "stealth chip" and I certainly won't ever buy another one.) The second was the American version of Dino Crisis! I solved that problem by getting my friend to ship me a patched CD-R of Dino Crisis, which worked fine in my modded Playstation.
So, essentially, Sony had convinced Capcom to tweak their software so that legitimate copies of their software wouldn't run on my chipped Playstation, but "pirate" games would work fine.
After this experience, I decided Sony was run by the Devil incarnate, something which was only confirmed by their later behavior.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
If I walk into my local Best Buy and walk out with a PlayStation, I no longer have to care about "Sony's rules". I have bought that piece of hardware. It is mine. If I want to rearrange the guts in any way, it is my choice to do so.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Not True.
If you gain a mod chip for a PS it generally does three things for you:
1) Allows you to play non-'original' disks. (A semi-dodgy area, fair use says a backup is permitted)
2) Allows you to play discs from other regions (No illegality here.)
3) Allows you to play DVDs from other regions. (Perfectly legal)
One of the selling points on a PS2 is that it plays DVDs, and hence you can factor in that cost of a DVD player when buying a PS2, and as pretty much ANYBODY in a country that does not fall into region 1 knows DVDs are somewhat more expensive there... Not mentioned the staggered release dates, region 1, then 6 months later the rest of the world.
Games are also 'zoned' in a similar manner, brought out eariler, different pricing, and in fact different games (well features I guess)..
Why companies playing in a global market should attempt to segment, purely for the purpose of increasing profit... If you import DVDs from the states to the UK you still pay the VAT, and hence the tax arguement doesn't really cut it with me. Some items really are value added for the zones, but so far I've only noticed this on cars, not Computer related items.
And so to sum this up, there are perfectly legal and legitimate reasons for installing / purchasing a mod chip. I'm not saying that everyone has these goals in mind when they buy or sell them, but I am saying that to tar everyone with the same brush is a little harsh, and wrong.
To reply to the quote in the parent: This was totally unrelated to the first sale principle, it was the selling of mod-chips (oh and those copied games). Once you have bought the hardware there is nothing illegal about altering it. Sure the DMCA may come into force if you circumvent copy-protection, BUT I'm not sure if that applies if you don't distribute the 'crack'. At least nobody will know since there will be no publicity.. If you buy a ps2, crush it and use it as a doorstop, you can, and there is NOTHING Sony can do about it, even if you publish it, hell that probably violates the DMCA since the copy-protection is circumvented... Hmm I wonder what happens to scrapped machines??
Sony (and Sega, MS, etc) want to stop this because traditionally Europeans (and other areas, sorry about the view - I'm from Europe) will tolerate much higher pricing than their American counterparts, thus better profit margins..
Z.
P.S. I believe PS2 Games are zoned, although I'm not 100% sure.
i would post a link to the playstation message boards, but i am at work and the site is blocked here...its not to hard to find with google tho...
basically, playstation 2 has a *huge* problem with the laser unit actually scratching the disc (the evil circular scratches too, not the easy-to-fix straight ones), especially if you stand up the unit. other problems involve the laser unit becoming "decalibrated" and unable to read discs until fixed, but that doesnt cause scratches.
after buying gran turismo 3 for the second time, i have started making backups of all of my games and using those instead of my originals as it seems that sony has somehow gotten away with engineering a product that will eventually destroy your games. maybe that last part isnt true, but im a paranoid freak about these things.
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
This isn't off-topic, although it might sound that way to begin with.
Lots of posters have waved their arms about with "it's my hardware, I can modify it however I please" - besides being completely beside the point of the article, is plain simplistic.
In most parts of the world, I can't re-arrange petrol (sorry, "gas"), glass bottles, torn rags and a box of matches into makeshift grenades and stack them in my garage, because posession of such weapons is illegal.
I can't even let junk pile up in my garden in case rats infest my place, and threaten my neighbours' comfortable enjoyment of their own property.
If you follow that through, it's easier to explain how I can't alter a Playstation in order to allow me to deprive Sony of money, if that's what I end up doing with it.
It's all about balancing the rights of others with selfish acts (I use the word non-perjoratively). That's why we have laws in the first place!!
disclaimer: Down with Sony, anyway, I say.
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
I'm just as against the DRM/"protection" stuff as you, trying to prevent people making hardware mods seems unfair and stupid. But, just to play devil's advocate, you say here...
:)
The "security" systems, as exemplified by the PS2 and other consoles aren't just for preventing theft. They're for preventing backups. You damage "your" property? Buy another copy. But is that legitimate?
I'd say it is. If I damage my car, I have to buy a new one, no backups there. If I damage my TV, oops, better get over to Circuit City. The difference here (and it's the only difference) is that with data (in general) it is _possible_ to make perfect backups at low cost. In most "real world" situations it is not possible, physical objects cannot usually be cloned. So data backups are really the special case. What is happening here is that Sony are saying, well sorry, but we're going to do our best to prevent you being able to make that backup, we're making our product more like a regular "thing". I can bet you that if I went up to someone in the street and said, if you lost your copy of a CD, or PS2 game, or if your child snapped the disc in half, should you be entitled to a free new one? They'd say no, you'd have to buy the replacement, just the same as if that child broke your cellphone, or you lost your umbrella. What's the solution? Well, the same as for any other normal posession, if you value it, insure it. That's the meatspace version of backups
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
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.
A while ago, a Sony executive said that he believed that one of the reasons why the Playstation became so popular was when people modded their Playstations, they could play pirated games, thus dicovering more game titles than they would be otherwise. Sometimes piracy is a good thing. Anime studios look the other way when their work is fansubbed worldwide, and series like Rurouni Kenshin were lisenced in the US partially because of their immense popularity with hardcore fans. When will companies realize that the more chances people have to sample their wares, the more likely their sales will increase?
"Tabemono, tabemono, arimasu ka? Nai desu ka? Arimasu ka?" - Ed
The opinion is not lowering the threshold on what can be considered a "technological protection measure". All these last few paragraphs say is that it is irrelevant whether the mod chips are truly circumvention devices because the access code was not proven to be a protection device that was circumvented.
The main points of the case are as follows:
1) The access code does not protect the copyrighted work from being copied, 2) the access code merely causes the copied work to be unplayable, 3) the mod chip makes the copied work playable, and 4) the key here is that the work is already copied, regardless of the presence of the mod chip.
Even further, the text also supports the notion that even if the access code WERE a technological protection measure, the mod chip may still not have been considered a circumvention device because the protection measure would have also prevented the legal playing of American games and backup copies.
Sony was in fact two hurdles away from winning this case. I don't think this lowers the hurdle on what can be considered "technological protection measures" Rather, it clarifies (according to Australian law, unless they have an appeal process from this level) that mod chips are legal because they are not circumventing a protection device.
Clearly Sony must take additional steps to protect their games.
Ya ya ya. This might be true for 95% of the time, but the idea that the modchip itself should be illegal is wrong. There are other legal uses for a mod chip (such as to play valid copies, or even so you can run your own games/programs on it).
What if they decided to implement this type of method in PCs so you can only run what the company wants you to run? Sure, it might help with piracy, but it would seriously limit the box as well as hurt private and 3rd party programmers. Wait a minute.....Palladium....Microsoft....NOOO!!!!! *drops on the floor and shakes violently*
"I bet I'll get blamed for this." --Mayor Quimby
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
If I break my disk I should have to buy a new one? I'll accept that IF the cost is for the new disk, and not for the game that I already paid for. That is I send a broken disk to Sony with a check for $1.00 ($0.30 for the disk, and $0.70 for postage, both of which are high estimates) and 6 weeks latter I get a new disk in the mail. Oh, and this offer is good forever, 40 years from now when I get out my old playstation for nostalgias sake and discover the disk has suffered bit-rot I expect they will still send me a copy. (price adjusted for inflation if nessicary, but still dirt cheap)
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Exactly, voiding the warranty is the manufacturer's ONLY recourse.
And technically, you can add a "fart pipe" if you want. You just can't operate the vehicle if that would mean you would violate a noise ordinance. It's not the modification that gets the fine, it's the violation of the noise ordinance.
Same thing with the chip. You can install it. you can use it for legitimate purposes (backups, imports) you just can't play pirated stiff with it.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
And technically, you can add a "fart pipe" if you want. You just can't operate the vehicle if that would mean you would violate a noise ordinance. It's not the modification that gets the fine, it's the violation of the noise ordinance.
This is a very good point. The result of the modification is illegal. But the modification itself is not. Nobody can stop you from putting the fart pipe on your car. Just dont drive it on public roads - you violate a noise ordinance, thus breaking the law.
The courts shouldnt be able to make it illegal to put mod chips in game consoles because it can be used to do illegal things.
Im not quite sure this ruling is actually stating that mod chips are illegal - since the guy was essentially conviced for selling pirated games. Thats illegal any way you slice it.
Not use copied games though.
I don't know about the laws of Australia, but here in the United States, it isn't copyright infringement to make a legitimate backup copy of a computer program if you own a genuine copy.
And there is NO OTHER reason why you would want to chip your PS
Ever heard of homebrew software development? The only part of the PS2 that the Linux Kit doesn't grant you access to is the I/O subsystem, which is apparently similar to a PS1. Perhaps once somebody figures out the PS1, he or she might be able to 1) write clustering software for a network of PS1 consoles, or 2) rewrite PS2 Linux's hypervisor (which runs on its I/O processor) and make a *real* linux port.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If you import DVDs from the states to the UK you still pay the VAT, and hence the tax arguement doesn't really cut it with me.
If Disney sells copies of Return to Never Land in the United States, Disney pays royalties only to the DVD Forum, MPEG LA, and Dolby for use of the patents involved in DVD coding. If, on the other hand, Disney sells copies of that movie in the United Kingdom, Disney must pay additional royalties to Great Ormond Street Hospital, owner of the copyright on James M. Barrie's Peter Pan in the United Kingdom. (Read More...)
Will I retire or break 10K?
If I break my car, should I have to buy a new one?
If I leave a banana sitting around for 40 years, then for nostalgia's sake decide to eat it, only to discover that it suffered from rot-rot, should I expect the Chaquita company to send me a replacement banana?
Nobody ever promised you that your games are indestructable. Take care of your stuff, dude.
Now, to be fair, there's still a question as to what your money is going toward - owning a copy of the game on a medium, or purchasing the right to *play* the game. The EULA seems to want to have it both ways, or rather, niether way.
GMFTatsujin
Although some moron moderator marked this as offtopic, it isn't. The statement that the Ottowa man was jailed came from the Slashdot headline of the story about it -- it isn't true, and didn't come from the article. (This was pointed out many times in the discussion that followed -- but obviously the editors don't read articles or messages.) The Ottowa man wasn't jailed; he was fined and given a year of probation.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
If you want your warrentee service, dont touch the hardware. If you dont care - then there isnt anything stopping you from modding.
That only affects a manufacturers warrentee. Which in most parts of the world is in addition to a whole host of statutory obligations of retailers. If the retailer were to make the mod then the whatever had generally better still work.
Now: There is such thing as an illegal modifiaction to hardware. You buy a car you can do almost anything you want to it. Add better intakes, add a turbocharger, etc. It is illegal, however, in most places to replace your muffler with a "Fart Pipe" so that it makes as much noise as possible. Doing that will get you fined.
Making such a mod isn't illegal. It's more that a vehicle so modified is no longer "street legal". So you can't drive it on public roads.
I think you are (more skillfully) getting at what I'm trying to say: the courts have the power, even under the DMCA, to do the right thing. The problem is that, here as well as abroad, when faced with a decision about whether a "significant non-infringing use" exists (in the DeCSS case, for instance), judges have been alarmingly wrong on the point.
Which was the idea when the law was written, but still.
Thank you,
-David
We're on the road to Tycho.
Mod chipping is still legal in Canada.
Get a GRIP, Slashdot!
I appreciate the spirit of your argument. However, as a consumer and a citizen, I simply say, I do not accept that analogy. It has no intrinsic legitimacy and no utility for myself or society as a whole. I consider the attempt to make it an unnecessary favor to the media businesses at the expense of much larger and more important concerns.
There are many reasons for taking this point of view on the matter. Others are at this moment elsewhere on this topic making far more detailed arguments to the point than I care to here. But I will leave you with an example.
In 100 years, after Sony is long bankrupt and we're all long dead, the only way we will see a lot of what's been copy-protected today is from the "pirates" who broke the protection and allowed it to be stored in general purpose, redundant media.
I often chuckle at the crackers, and their demos and intros that I see today, because in generations to come, we may see their work enshrined in the nations libraries and museums...
We're on the road to Tycho.
Yes, some people do. But even if nobody did, so what? The fact that someone could use a modded PS to play copied games (thus committing a crime) is actually irrelevant to the argument. Yes, modding a PS or PS2 provides you with the ability to play "pirated" games. So what? Studying martial arts provides you with the ability to kill someone with your bare hands. Studying martial arts is not a crime. Killing someone with your bare hands is.
Illegal copying of games is, well, illegal. Doing something that provides the ability to commit a crime is not, or at least should not be, a crime. Actually committing the crime, is a crime. How hard is this for people to understand? There are legitimate uses for mod chips. If people use their mod chips to commit a crime, then punish them for committing that crime. But don't punish people for doing something that could allow them to commit a crime.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Chevy provides me the means to fix my car for the cost of parts, and I often buy aftermarket parts so they don't even make the money. I have already done that in fact. Even if chevy didn't provide the parts, with the right tools I can make a copy. (Unfortunatly computers I cannot copy, but they rarely break, compared to the mechanical parts I can copy). I expect I can keep my current car running for 30 years if I want to repair it. Eventially I will get sick of it, or the cost of parts will be more than it is worth, but I could keep it. You might argue that Chevy makes a profit on parts, and I wouldn't mind Sony mkaing a profit on replacement disks. (ie $5 for a replacement would be reasonable, $50 is not)
Bananas are a consumable, they have an expiration date. With a game, it appears that you own if forever, but in fact you don't. Try this: go to WalMart, and buy a new copy of Ballblazer cartrage for an Atari 8bit system (and excellent game, I highly recomend it). While your at it pick me up a copy of MULE. At one time I could do that. Now you will be hard pressed to find a legal copy of either game. In 40 years you can get a new banana. You completely failed to address how I can keep games that I love for 40 years. I consider myself luck to keep a CD for 5 years, and I try to take good care of them, but accidents happen. I have started burning copies of all CDs in desperation. Even if I'm willing to pay full price, I can't.
So really I had two points. Not just that I shouldn't have to pay full price for something I own, but also that I should be able to fix it even after the game/software isn't worth putting on shelves anymore.
For the time being.
But in a few decades it will be possible to clone physical objects for very little cost. And again, just like software, it'll be the WORK that goes into the product that is the real cost, not the media itself.
So yeah, you'll eventually be able to make a perfect "backup" of your car or your TV (via non-destructive molecular scanning). Just as with software though, you can either pay your fair/unfair share for the WORK that went into the design of the products, or you can "steal" its blueprint, or you can choose open-source hardware designs, (or you can wait for non-IP-owning, non-rent-paying, non-food-consuming, non-social-climbing slave AI to do the grunt work of development).
--
Power to the Peaceful
That is the way it should be. That is not the way it is. It will take Lawyers, Guns and Money to change that.
35 The applicants, by a late amendment to the pleadings, alleged that the PlayStation games embodied cinematograph films. They relied on the decision of the Full Court in Galaxy Electronics Pty Ltd v Sega Enterprises Ltd (1997) 75 FCR 8, for the proposition that the aggregate of visual images generated by the PlayStation games constituted a "cinematograph film" within the definition in s 10(1) of the Copyright Act and were thus the subject of copyright under Part IV of the Act. This was because the aggregate of visual images was "embodied" in the computer program stored on the CD-ROM. It was no objection to this conclusion that the images appearing on the screen were dependent on player input; nor that the computer program could also be the subject of copyright by virtue of Part III of the Copyright Act. The applicants were the persons who did all things necessary for the production of the first copy of the Films and thus copyright subsisted in them: Copyright Act, ss 22(4), 90. In any event, since the name of Sony Europe appeared on each copy of the Films, it was presumed to be the maker of the Films: Copyright Act, s 131.
It seems retarded to try and make every claim under the sun.. they probably would have been better off to make a somewhat valid claim and stick with it.. throwing in at the last minute that games are also movies, isn't really smart.. esp. considering the judge saw right through it.
Yes, but you can't have it both ways.. Either its a physical object that you buy with no strings attached, or its a physical object that is the delivery device for some licensed content. If its just a delivery device for some licensed content, then yes, you should expect a replacement of the content that you have licensed (minus of course the low cost of the delivery device). If its a physical object, you can't expect a cheap replacement, but you can expect sony to not bitch at you everytime you take it apart and modify it, the same way chevy can't bitch if you decide to lower the ass end of your 4x4 a few inches..
No, that really is the way it is. Unless you signed some contract when you bought you psx, you can do whatever you want with it assuming you don't make it into a bomb or something. Just because sony wants you to believe otherwise doesn't mean its not true.
If you live in the US, there's something called the DMCA. If your tinkering counts as circumventing a copyright protection mechanism, it's illegal.
Perhaps the evidence wasn't there. Maybe this Australian is just better at covering his tracks, or maybe Sony just had the wrong guy.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Actually, no. The only way it becomes illegal is if I distribute my circumvention device. Of course, mod chips probably fit this bill, but if I can make my own, I'm in the clear.
The DMCA is a bad law no matter how we look at it.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!