The High Court ruled today that it was legal to “mod-chip” Sony PlayStation game consoles so as to play games sold outside Australia.
Mod-chips are electronic devices that can be connected to consoles such as the PlayStation, allowing the use of games with non-Australian regional codes.
The consumer watchdog has argued in the Federal Court that the games industry unfairly uses regional coding to set different prices in different parts of the world.
Sydney businessman Eddy Stevens had fought a four-year legal battle against Sony, which claimed mod-chipping breached its copyright and circumvented technology within the PlayStation console to prevent the use of what it called unauthorised games.
A lawyer for Mr Stevens said today: “All six judges of the High Court held that widely-used ‘mod-chips’ were legal, with far-reaching implications for the manufacturers of computer games [Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft] and consumers.
“Mod-chips allow gamers to ignore manufacturers’ regional coding systems and purchase cheaper games designed for markets outside Australia.”
The High Court found playing a computer program on a PlayStation did not involve reproducing it, so copyright law was not breached.
The right to Mod hardware you OWN goes on around the world!
This whole case from Sony is a bunch of crap. Following their logic Ford or GM could sue West Coast Custom or some other Hot Rod shop for changing their product to use non-authorized products or for changing the program in the ignition module.
When we buy a product what do we own? Reuse and re-invention are hall marks of intelligent users. I guess Sony only wants stupid people to buy their products.
But that’s just Australia, right? It’s still illegal to do so in the U.S. or so Sony claims..
So is sodomy in some parts of the USA and you don’t see ppl getting jailed from giving some head.
Would “Fair Use” doctrine hold up here?