Australian Federal Court Overturns Legal Modchip Sales 177
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, the Australian Federal Court overruled the previous ruling on modchips in Australia. I am pretty sure the overruled case is the mainstay for the 'legal' use of modchips in Australia (predominantly Linux on the Xbox). Haven't seen this hit the media yet, with the exception of the Australian Financial Review referring to it in the Free Trade Agreement context. The ruling can be found here. Although not a lawyer, it appears the original judgement was made on the basis that Sony did not provide a copy protection system. Also noted is that there is limited commercial use for the mod other than circumvention. Wonder what will happen to modchips for the Xbox, given that it can be argued that running Linux could easily be seen as commercial."
Reader silne adds "According to the article in The Australian's IT section, it's not illegal to possess or use a mod chip, just illegal to sell them. Looks like another win for Sony. Hopefully the ACCC is going to appeal this one." Bigthecat supplies a link to coverage at news.com.au, as well.
This is Disappointing (Score:5, Interesting)
Essentially a mod chip allows a consumer to run whatever they like on the hardware they bought, not only what company X says they can.
The problem is that company X has total control over what can be run on the hardware without mod chips. This means they can sell a product and then say you can only run a select list of programs on the hardware from companies as dictated by them. This is third party tying, and this is illegal in Australia.
In short, mod chips return to Australian consumers the rights they're entitled to under Australian law. This rulling removes them again.
Ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
Go to Google and try to find a method for saving a Quicktime video stream. It can be done but you have to be persistant. Now try the same thing with Media Player... Google goes nuts showing you freeware up the wazzo to do just this very thing.
I am not worried.
Case opens (Score:3, Interesting)
Two years ago Mr Eddy Stevens sold unauthorised copies of computer games on CD-ROMs for use on Sony PlayStations. He also supplied and installed modifying chips in PlayStation consoles
Case closed. We really need to find better cause celebres rather than letting rights owners pick the fights.
Several Issues (Score:2, Interesting)
In Australia it is illegal for vendors to 'lock' products with products from third parties.
This ruling seems to side with the manufacturers without addressing any of their failings. There is possibly wrongdoing on both sides here (ie offering a product for sale that does not comply with these 'third party lock in' laws)
With respect to the 'could reasonably know that a device would be used for copyright infringement' or 'that commercial viability of non-infringing uses for such device would be minimal' there are a couple of cases in point:
The playing of legally purchased games from overseas.
The use of backup copies of legally purchased material.
One way a number of companies remove the need to allow backup copies is to offer exchange at no or minimal cost of damaged media. I have not seen any examples of game manufacturers offering this service.
Wny doesnt someone make a modchip that... (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, it could be built to boot bootable cdroms (such as a sutably modified knoppix disk or something), so that you could e.g. modify the installer for a sutable linux distro and make a set of ISOs ready to install that would give you e.g. red hat or mandrake or whatever with sutable mods for xbox and xbox h/w
Since the digital signature on xbox disks is the "access control" and since this doesnt allow one to play xbox games, pirated or otherwise and since it doesnt circumvent the "access control" as far as I can see (although IANAL and I dont know exactly what the relavent laws say)
Given that the chip would be flashable, someone would come up with a bootable ISO that will put some other bios (such as "lets you play pirate games" one) on there but since the chip makers arent selling it or even linking to it, they cant get in trouble for it.
Re:I have this crazy idea (Score:3, Interesting)
But then, I'm kind of a Luddite.
i don't get it ... it's mine or is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
it's like buying a calculator and then the law forbids me to use it to calculate how much plutonium i will need to reach critical mass!!! damn!
Re:This is Disappointing (Score:3, Interesting)
Except for the region coding factor. If I buy LEGAL games from overseas, either by visiting those countries or by mail order, I cannot play them. This reduces consumer choice, and is exactly why the ACCC were interested in this case.
The ACCC kicked up a fuss about DVD region coding some time back, now pretty much any DVD player you buy in Oz is region free. I bought a DVD player last week, and there was a sticker on the box saying 'this product has been modified to conform to Australian regulations'. It had been de-region-ified.
So anyway, if I was to buy a console now (I currently don't have one, but I could be a potential customer within 12 months) then the Sony PS2 would definitely be OFF my list.
Game Backups (Score:4, Interesting)
Since then I haven't bought any of their games, and I'd also strongly argue the case for me to backup the ones I do.
Re:FTA = Bend Over (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:erm... that's for an MSX-box, not psx (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I have this crazy idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Modchips that don't allow copied games to run? (Score:3, Interesting)
(Cue alternate history lesson)
It was the early 1990s. UNIX workstations were DRM protected to only allow us to run the flavour of UNIX that was sold with them. Under purchaser pressure, the workstation/UNIX sellers caved in and allowed us to run any version of commercial UNIX that we wanted. Huzzah!
Then along came this guy calling himself "Lunis", who claimed that he wanted to write his own kernel! How dumb did he think we were? He just wanted to pirate commercial UNIX kernels. Nobody writes their own kernels from scratch. What a crazy idea!
(Cut to present day) Get the point? Having a short list of approved software precludes anyone doing what Linus did ever again. And "ever" is a long time.
Re:It sure is. You need to be licensed. (Score:3, Interesting)
> Nintendo, and Microsoft. You need licenses.
Fortunatly in the US, this doesnt matter for most of those companys.
Due to first sale laws on the hardware, you can do anything you want with it and any part of it that is not under copyright.
And even the parts under copyright you can do alot with, you just cant distribute them. So claiming a BIOS is copyrighted is fine, you just cant give out the BIOS code. You can still USE it. You can even change it to your hearts content, you just cant give out the new code, or arguably the changed code. A patch file (a difference between the old and new) is OK.
Half the code in a diff file is copyrighted by you. The other half is indeed copyright by them, but has always fallen under fair-use laws because the small snippits are only used for context, and can not be used in and of themselfs for any other purpose except finding context in the origonal.
Of course, you also cant USE this patch file unless you too have a licence to the BIOS, but as long as you bought your PS2 or whatever console, you do.
That is why companys try adding encryption. The only console that its currently illegal to program for is the xbox, and only under the dmca laws due to encryption for accessing the system.
Of course breaking encryption to read the game media is illegal, but this is only if you dont own the copyright on the media.
If you write your own software, and its yours, you own the copyright. You are allowed to encrypt your data as needed by the console to play it, AND decrypt it again if you so choose because you are the copyright owner.
Sony has no more right to tell you what you can and cant run on your property than Intel can tell you what you use your new p4 for.