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PS2 Mod Chips Legal In Australia

Posted by Zonk on from the wow dept.

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.

4 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. About time that somebody started fighting back... by Antifuse · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Video games down - next step, region-encoded dvd's? If only...

  2. It's about time... by samj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Australia led the way instead of being the global village idiot. I wonder what effect (if any) this will have on xbox-linux etc.

  3. Always hoping they'd shoot themselves in the foot by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Regional lockouts and restrictions always struck me as a potentially risky idea for the companies precisely because there is quite a reasonable argument that they prevent people from doing perfectly legal acts. Therefore circumventing them shouldn't be a crime. It's nice to see the Australian court more or less agreeing with me.

    I wonder if this may make them reconsider regional lockouts for the next version of their console. Piracy must cost them a lot more than grey imports. At least the grey imports count as a sale, and it's a lot more hassle to get hole of them than copying a disc from a friend.

  4. Am I the only... by benzzene · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... person with a legitimate reason to own a modchip? I am Australian and I bought my PS2 in Australia. I've never owned pirated games or DVDs. This year I moved to Finland and if I want to buy new PS2 games I would have to get a friend in Australia to send them (it's not easy to get online companies to deliver region specific things internationally). Also, I can't watch DVDs I buy here on my PS2. I'm pretty sure I didn't break any laws by moving to Finland, Why am I being punished?