PS2 Mod Chips Legal In Australia

Buccaneer-American writes "Over here on Groklaw, PJ is reporting that PS2 mod chips are now legal in Australia. The highest Australian court decided in Stevens v. Sony to overturn a lower court ruling that PS2 mod chips were 'technological protection measures' which would run afoul of the Australian DMCA-equivalent. Because they do not protect copyrights per se, but are rather region coding devices, they were ruled to be regional coding devices. In short, we have Sony to thank for being a loser yet again and establishing some of our rights in case law, albeit sometimes inadvertantly." The High Court's decision is online, with some legal commentary from the Australian court. More coverage of this story available at The Age and SMH.

Comments

Region Coding

[ViX44]

And why, exactly, is region coding something that should be protected? *insert "buy a book in New York, read it in Paris, sell it in London" arguement here*

Re:Region Coding

[l2718]

In fact, region coding is not protected. That's what the court said, but also clearly understood by Sony. While Sony's main motivation to oppose modchips may be their desire to enfore a price discrimination system, their legal argument was that the locked-down state of the PS2 is needed to prevent copyright infringement, and therefore the modchip should be thought of as a device to circumventa copy-protection system. Thankfully, the court didn't buy their argument.

Re:Mod chips have two uses

[NeMon'ess]

It's sony's fault for integrating region enforcement into the same chip that also prevents burned copies of games from playing.