Mod Chipping now Legal in Australia

Ste-

Mod Chipping now Legal in Australia

The high court in Australia has thrown out an appeal by Sony Australia against legal costs on an earlier appeal loss in the Federal court.

Lawyers for Sony took two Melbourne Electronics Companies to the Victorian Supreme court over Copyright infringement, after "discovering" an advertisement for Mod-Chipping Playstation 2 and Original Playstation consoles.

Sony Lost the original case and appealed to the Federal Court. In the Federal Court Sony were ordered to pay legal costs and publically apologise to the companies involved.

In the High court action, Sony acknowledged that though mod chips do not allow for the copying of games to actually happen in the console, Sony was more worried that piracy would spread given that the chips allowed Australian consumers to play games from Asia and the US.

Sony were ordered to pay legal costs (again) to publically apologise and pay compensation.

Sony will probably wish this was 25 years ago, when they would have been able to appeal the high court decision to the Privy council in London.

DiscoStu

about bloody time. maybe the chair of the australian supreme court was sick of being shafted with new releases on his ps2, gamecube and xbox

removing region coding from games will overnight remove any sence of legitamcy chippers have and make it an awful lot easier to prosecute them without the need for a draconian dmca type law. christ they dont even have to release the games at the same time just allow the option to those who want to play the game import it. the market is there as the many import game sites on the net proves(look at the top gamecube sellers on play.com, freeloader sels more than the majority of games there.)

Retr0gamer

Here, here discostu. If they remove the regions then the only reason for chipping your console would be to play pirates. This would remove the grey area that is keeping chipping legal. Making games different regions only infuriates gamers in countries like Europe and Australia (which is even worse for releases than Europe) and serves no purpose that I can see to the Publishers.

chernobyl

Originally posted by Retr0gamer
Here, here discostu. If they remove the regions then the only reason for chipping your console would be to play pirates.

Not true. There are many other legitmate reasons to chip your Xbox.

Retr0gamer

Good point. Forgot about emulation, etc. for the xbox.

Still if the silly companies who make the decision about putting in regions on games then they will find it far easier to crack down on chipping and piracy by winning cases against the companies who chip the consoles.

However,

Sony acknowledged that though mod chips do not allow for the copying of games to actually happen

they can't be responsible for other peoples actions either.

Jim

the phrase "throw out" always makes it sound so much better

bloggs

Is there a guy who chips Xboxes in Dublin? If so, could someone please PM me his address

Thanks a lot

Shinji

Got a source link for the original article, dj_ste? I've been away for a few days and missed this one...

monument

Google found it here... [edited: link removed]

darkmaster2

Another useful point about having a Modded PS2 is the ability to play your DVDr Backups of games as well as imports. Is Modchipping in Ireland actually illegal in the first place does anyone know?

Originally posted by darkmaster2
Another useful point about having a Modded PS2 is the ability to play your DVDr Backups of games.

Me thinks it's illegal to copy an original game regardless of whether you own it or not.

darkmaster2

There are a few countries in Europe where backing up a game you own is not illegal and perfectly within your legal rights. Not sure if Ireland is one of them

monument

Apparently (I'm told) the last Irish copyright act makes such actions illegal.

darkmaster2

Yeah,
I remember hearing in the news a couple of years ago that ireland had the strictest software copyright laws in Europe...

Ste-

Originally posted by monument
Google found it here... http://www.cherryroms.com/

I would posted the link but it's actully a roms site and we all know the rules.

KdjaCL

Originally posted by darkmaster2
Yeah,
I remember hearing in the news a couple of years ago that ireland had the strictest software copyright laws in Europe...

Thats cos most of it is made here. And certain companies forced the goverments hand on certain copyright laws.

kdjac

monument

Originally posted by dj_ste
I would posted the link but it's actully a roms site and we all know the rules.

I only looked at the article (even missed the sites name), I’ve removed the link on my post.

monument

The real story?...

http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=pub&aid=2160