Slashdot Mirror
UK High Court Rules Modchips Illegal
PhotoBoy writes "The Register has an article about the UK's High Court ruling PlayStation 2 modchips to be illegal. This means all homebrew and hobbyist coders in the UK can no longer modify their consoles to run games they have written. Gamers who like to mod their consoles to play games on import early are also out of luck. It's like saying you can't modify your car or your house or your clothes! Would Ford sue you for removing the rev limiter from your Focus?"
Given that the judge ruled that mod chips are illegal due to the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) and that other EU nations (Italy, Spain) have already ruled the chips to be legal, is there any scope for this ruling to be challenged in a higher court because of misinterpretation of the directive?
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
I wonder if this ruling also affects Gamecube modchips? After all, the GC copy protection hasn't been cracked by modchips and the only thing the chips do is circumvent the region lockout (can be done with a certain disk too). I wonder if region lockout is also considered a "copy protection" under the EUCD.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
How is this a big blow to piracy? Piracy was _already_ illegal. What does making a potential piracy tool illegal accomplish? Is piracy somehow now "more" illegal now that the digital equivalent of a lockpick has been outlawed?
It doesn't make it "more" illegal, but I'll bet it makes the mod chips much harder to find, thus making the illegally-burned games that much more difficult to play.
It also means that careful pirates, who keep their bootlegs hidden, can still be busted just for owning a modchipped console. To use your analogy, if you're caught with a lockpick, you can still be arrested, even if you're not breaking into a house at the time.
And those who get caught with the games can have an additional charge added on (posession of the modchip). So while it isn't more illegal, it might mean stiffer fines for those caught.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
While I don't know a lot of people using modchips in order to play customized or homebrew games, there are quite a few that use them for copied games of owned originals.
I myself just finished dumping a bunch of my old PS1 games to ISO images. The images will go on a single DVD, and I can use them on my emulators etc without the original. I still own the original so I haven't deprived anyone of a sale (and no bitching about legality of emulators, I have a PS2 it's just not as portable as a laptop).
Unfortunately, I'm too late for two of the disks as a few bad sectors bork the extraction on them - however I'm getting a copy of those off emule.
Gee, look at that. I'm downloading copyrighted material, ripping copyrighted material, using an emulator... I could even use a modchip for that - and ya know what NO "PIRACY" HAS OCCURED because I bought and paid for the original media.
If half the people with modchips do any of the above, I'd say there are a lot of legitimate cases of use. So unless you've got proof that everyone using these is definately pirating, I'd suggest that your eyes might be clearer if your head wasn't up your rear end.