Sony's loss 'one for the battlers
 

Sony's loss 'one for the battlers'
Tracy Ong
October 07, 2005

A SYDNEY man has won a four-year battle against global entertainment giant Sony after the High Court yesterday found backyard modifications to games consoles that allow pirated or overseas games to be played are legal.

Eddie Stevens, a computer technician who owns a business inserting modification chips into PlayStation and Xbox games consoles, said the ruling was a victory for low-income parents who could not afford the games for their children, which retail at up to $100 each.

Sony originally sued Mr Stevens because he was selling Australian-made PlayStations in which he put "mod chips", overcoming regional coding blocks that stopped the machine playing cheaper imported or copied games.

The company claimed he was violating its copyright.

Representing himself, Mr Stevens had won round one before a single judge of the Federal Court in 2001.


Depending on the model, Mr Stevens charged between $145 and $195 to insert the "mod chip" into a games console before the Federal Court deemed it illegal on appeal in 2003.

The High Court found yesterday that Mr Stevens's "mod chips" did not constitute a breach of Australian copyright laws. In a unanimous decision, the High Court accepted the finding of Federal Court judge Ronald Sackville that the "mod chips" would only breach copyright if they were designed to circumvent systems in the machine that prevented or inhibited copying of games.

Mr Stevens said consumers should be able to play copies of "your own legal software and games from overseas".

"We've got to think about unmarried mothers or people not in a position to buy games for their kids," he said.

Mr Stevens, who runs his business from his home in Kensington, in Sydney's east, intends to resume chipping as soon as possible as a result of yesterday's ruling.

His lawyer, Gadens senior associate Nathan Mattock, said the ruling could force Sony and rival games empire Microsoft to change its consoles to prevent chipping.

Manager of legal and business affairs for Sony Computer Entertainment, Leah Sherriff, said Sony was still analysing the decision and was not in a position to comment.

A spokesperson for Microsoft's Xbox also declined to comment.

Microsoft is due to release the successor to its highly popular Xbox console, the 360, in the US in November and in Australia early next year.


Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...5E2702,00.html

Finally, a judge with some f***ing common-sense. :mad:

I just wish we had some judges like that over in this country - instead we just have a load of stuck-up old toss-pots who know jack sh*t :mad:

Yeah its pretty much the same here in the states as well :(

Yea.. Lets all move to Amsterdam.. I hear eeeeverything is legal there.

Here is another article about the Mod chips and the court case. Its only a small article but does have one of the better arguments for it being allowed in Australia, that being:

"In Australia, PlayStation games come in PAL format, as they also do in Europe, but imported games from regions such as North America or Southeast Asia requires a console that will play NTSC games; without a modchip, an Australian PlayStation console can't play an NTSC game."

Like PC games, in Australia, we can get them in from either region! One day we can buy a game and it will be a US release, next day we can go buy another game and it will be the European release! Us poor 'old' Aussies dont know where we stand when it comes to obtaining patches etc? Do we go for the US or Euro updates? ;)

WOW! :eek: