Microsoft: No Xbox for You!

Markel writes "According this this story in the Sydney Morning Herald, Microsoft is very concerned about a man having been acquitted after allegedly selling [mod chips for a PlayStation]. So concerned in fact, that they are saying: change the law, or they will have to reconsider selling the Xbox in Australia. Not selling the Xbox is well within their rights, but putting it in a (I paraphrase slightly) "change the law or we'll .." context seems assuming a bit too much. I guess well see how many of our MPs are XBox gameheads."

Comments

Misleading Summary

[Rura Penthe]

The trial in question was actually about a man who sold PS2 mod chips to allow PS2s to play imported and copied games. Not some magical chip that allows the Xbox to play PS2 games.

Excellent editing there. :)

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

I would assume they're worried that it will set a precedent for people who sell any kind of mods in Australia.

It more than sets a precedent, it re-asserts our fair use rights.

A bit of context would help. The modchips that were allowed on the PS/2 bypass the region restrictions. This allows someone to import a game from the US and play it on an Australian PS/2. Clear and obvious example of fair use. Similarly, under Australian law, it's not legal to sell a zonded DVD player. Or prevent someone using a backup of their game.

It's not saying that you can sell a modchip to bypass, say, anti-piracy protection. Of course, your anti-piracy protection better not interfere with someone using a backup of a game they legitimately own, or someone can legally install a modchip (which can be legally sold) to bypass it.

Decision in the case

[ghostrider_one]

The decision in the case (Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment v Stevens [2002] FCA 906) is available here

This was the first attempted prosecution in Australia under the changes introduced in the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000, and Sony has vowed to appeal the above adverse decision to the full bench of the Federal Court.

Re:Seven Sold

[jonadab]

> I believe six of then are called Bruce

They are only called Bruce by eachother, and only to keep things clear. Their real names are Eric.

Mod chips aren't exactly illegal in Oz

[Mithrandir]

IN oz, the mod chips aren't defined as an illegal device. They aren't legal either, but there is no law saying you cannot do it. For DVD players, stores openly advertise region-free devices or mod chips to make them region free.

Also, there are a number of other laws that contribute to this - reverse engineering is a legal right, so someone can build mod chips in Oz (where do you think the majority of Samba core developers are?). In addition, our local consumer & competition board are investigating the whole region locking thing. From the various news reports going around, it seems like they are about to make region locking illegal because it is classed as anti-competitive. If that does happen (probably >80% chance given previous actions of Prof Fels) then mod chips will most definitely be legal in Oz.

Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

Couple of items.

1) Now is a really, really bad time to be telling us what to do about our own laws. We are in a state of mourning over the Bali Terrorist attack. A foreign company telling us to change our laws will go down like a lead ballon. The desires of a company to sell products is right at the bottom of important things list.

2) The regional encoding is likely to illegal under the Trade Practices Act (similar to the US Anti-Trust law by wider ranging). Currrently the ACCC (the statutory authority assigned to oversea compliance with the TPA) is taking DVD producers to court over this very issue. If the ACCC wins then regional encoding of games will also be illegal.

that is why in australia...

[BlueboyX]

That is possibly why the guy in australia got off. Their gov was doing an 'investigation' to decide whether sony was guilty of price fixing. Which they are; the whole idea is that people in different regions are willing/able to pay different amounts for a produce. They want their prices for each region to be as high as possible, without going over that region's consumer price limit.

Re:that is why in australia...

[thogard]

Australia has laws allowing one to preserve ones culture with stiff fines for violators. If your culture involves playing Japanese video games, then no company in Australia can leagaly prevent you from doing so. I think it would be difficult to show in court that playing video games (in ones native language) with friends isn't in importaint part of Japanese social bonding of kids. If that example taken to the court and the company lost, the fines could be somewhere in the range of AU$50,000 per "disadvantaged" kid. I don't see MS or anyone else pushing the region codes in games too far here because they will lose in a very big way.

Re:So,

[Babbster]

So Sony's business model was "fucked up" too, eh? They're the ones who kicked the "sell console below cost and make it up in games" business model into high gear and now they're on top of the industry. Think before you rant.

Re:NTSC games run in PAL/M on modded Euro consoles

[SkulkCU]

they have a policy of only releasing a game after translating it to the local language

Then why not simultaneously release in the United States and the United Kingdom?


They have to add all those U's.

The resolution of TV

[yerricde]

NTSC, PAL and SECAM don't have resolutions at all.

NTSC, PAL, and SECAM specify a number of scanlines for a signal, the timing used for each scanline, the bandwidth of the main carrier, and the bandwidth of a color subcarrier. The Nyquist theorem guarantees a sample frequency given bandwidth or vice versa, and multiplying that by the length of a scanline gives a pixel count per line. Thus, you have a HxV pixel count, which is what computer users typically call "resolution".