p2p news / p2pnet:- Modding Sony PlayStation consoles is legal – in Australia, at least.

Six High Court judges have unanimously ruled that mod-chips are legal and that playing a game on a consumer’s machine doesn’t constitute an illegal copy, says the Sydney Morning Herald.

Mod chips let gamers ignore the despised regional coding and run games made for foreign markets..

The Oz court’s decision represents the end of a a four-year legal battle against Sony for Sydney small business owner Eddy Stevens, says the story, going on, “The decision has far-reaching implications for consumers and the manufacturers of computer games. Mod chips allow gamers to ignore manufacturers’ regional coding systems and run cheaper games – made for markets outside Australia – on their consoles.

“The free trade agreement which Australia signed with the US last year and which came into effect this year stipulates that copyright laws here have to be aligned with those in the US by 2007. According to the FTA, consumers cannot circumvent ‘effective technological measures’ that control access to a tech device.”

The SMH has lawyer Nathan Mattock, who represented Stevens, saying, "Fortunately for the consumer, the court has prevented a multinational corporation from further eroding consumer rights."

Here’s the time line, as per the Sydney Morning Herald:

• 2001: Sony files against Stevens, who’s running one of many Oz businesses that supply and install mod-chips which get around Sony’s regional coding
• July, 2002: After analysing the way in which the PlayStation console operated, the Australian Federal Court concludes playing a copied game doesn’t involve breach of copyright.
• September, 2002: Sony appeals
• July 30, 2003: The full bench upholds the appeal and, “Following this decision, other modders shut down operations,” says the story.
• Stevens’ lawyers go to the High Court, which ultimately accepts Stevens’ argument that while making a pirated copy of a game is illegal, playing a game by using a mod-chip isn’t.

“Justice Ronald Sackville ruled that in order to be a ‘technological protection measure’ a device must prevent the disks from being copied, not simply prevent copied disks from playing,” says Smart Office News.

“The second issue is whether the act of playing a computer game – which necessitates copying data on the Random Access Memory (RAM) of the computer or game console – is a breach of copyright in circumstances where the manufacturer does not specifically grant a licence to copy the data on RAM.

“The court held that by merely playing a Playstation game, the consumer is not making an illegal copy of the game in the Playstation module.”

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See:-
Sydney Morning Herald – Playstation mods legal, says High Court, October 6, 2005
Smart Office News – Mod Chips Get Thumbs Up In Big Loss For Sony, October 6, 2005

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