Neowin.net - Australian Man Wins "Mod Chip" Case Against Sony

Australian Man Wins "Mod Chip" Case Against Sony

Posted by stncttr908 on 06 October 2005 - 20:12 · 23 comments & 5788 views

Eddie Stevens, an Australian computer technician who owns a business inserting mod chips into Playstation and Xbox consoles, has won a four year legal battle against Sony after the industry giant sued him 2001.

The mod chips that Mr. Stevens' company placed in Playstation 2 consoles allowed for playing of cheaper imported and copied games, which Sony claimed was in violation of a copyright. Stevens had represented himself and won the first round of the lawsuit in 2001 in front of a single judge of the Federal Court.

Stevens charged between $145 and $195 to insert the mod chips, depending on the model. After an appeal in 2003 it was deemed illegal by the Federal Courts. However, yesterday the High Court unanimously deemed that the mod chips were in no way in violation of copyright laws as long as they were not designed to circumvent systems in the machine that prevented or inhibited copying of games.

News source: The Australian

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(4 replies) #1 Posted by iconboy on 06 Oct 2005 - 20:18: "... as long as they were not designed to circumvent systems in the machine that prevented or inhibited copying of games."

uhh isnt that exactly what a mod chip does?

#2 Posted by Rudy on 06 Oct 2005 - 20:21: thats good

#3 Posted by krasch on 06 Oct 2005 - 20:42

QUOTE

"... as long as they were not designed to circumvent systems in the machine that prevented or inhibited copying of games."

uhh isnt that exactly what a mod chip does?

Actually no, a mod chip does not in any way circumvent systems to prevent or inhibit copying of games. It specifically circumvents the systems to prevent the PLAYING of copied games. If it broke the protection systems in place on the games themselves in order to allow them to be copied (much in the same way that DeCSS breaks the Macrovision encoding for movies), then it would be a problem.

All it does is prevent the PS2 from refusing to play an already copied game.

#4 Posted by krasch on 06 Oct 2005 - 20:43: What he said... lol

#5 Posted by beetlejuice on 06 Oct 2005 - 20:46: No, a mod chip allows you to "play" a copied or backed up game on the system. It does not allow you to "make copies" of those games using the machine, therefore no copyrights are affected.

#6 Posted by markyp23 on 06 Oct 2005 - 21:50: But still, how blantant is it

#7 Posted by Endo. on 06 Oct 2005 - 21:57: round 3. KO!

#8 Posted by Jelly2003 on 06 Oct 2005 - 22:30

In Australia it is ILLEGAL to circumvent a system designed to prevent the use of copied materials.

The reason that he won is because:

QUOTE

From: ABC Australia News
Lawyers for Sony argued that Mr Stevens' modifications were illegal, but the High Court ruled that the devices used by Sony did not meet the legislative definition of "technological protection measures" under the Copyright Act.

Link to article

#9 Posted by ninjakarl on 07 Oct 2005 - 01:29: Aussies for the win!
As the owner of a modded XBox this is a good thing to hear (although I don't know how it applies to Microsoft).

#10 Posted by sp0rk on 07 Oct 2005 - 03:09: I don't know anything about PS2, but doesn't it allow you to copy games as well? If you have a harddrive, then you're able to rip a game to the harddrive because of the modchip.

#11 Posted by Dirtie on 07 Oct 2005 - 05:15: They'll never touch New Zealand, why bother with little-ole-NZ?

(1 reply) #12 Posted by Wiggz on 07 Oct 2005 - 06:42: So effectively, Mr Stevens didn't win, Sony screwed up.

They decided to persue a case upon shakey legal grounds. You would have thought that they would know they exact definition or their machine content wouldn't you.

Still - nice one. I'm not a Pirate fan....but I do believe that it forces some companies to re-evaluate their strategy. Take valve for instance. They managed to come up with a reasonably effective countermeasure. (OK HL2 was cracked...but it was by far the most botched job of any crack to date - there are various reasons for this which I won't go into now)

So Go Mr Stevens.....our console, our decision what to do with it.

#13 Posted by AMDPOX on 07 Oct 2005 - 08:23: haha... that's a really cheap workaround, cant believe he won it

#14 Posted by bongo on 07 Oct 2005 - 09:34: another win for Australia..

just another reason why I still call it home..

#1 anyone? got oz?

#15 Posted by Swift on 07 Oct 2005 - 10:23: If the modchip allows you to play imported games.
american region on a european region Console. then its ok

(1 reply) #16 Posted by badgats on 07 Oct 2005 - 13:56: u guys are missing something very simple about this, all you see is the pirate angle of this all but modchips can also give you extra features . See a example is the media station for the xbox . They also let you emulate old games that are out of copyright and run linux . See there are many other things you can do aswell that are legal . Think of it this way , for example if you brought a dvd player off Sony and said to you for $100 i could get it to play bluray discs , in this case Sony wouldn't possible sue me but they would void all warrantys on all the modded players. In this case you mod a device you own to do things it couldn't do as a standard device .

I mean i probably dont make any sense but modding doesnt mean straight off illegal , and if they are saying that modding a xbox or ps2 is piracy because it gives people the ability to pirate then shouldn't gun companys stop selling guns because they give poeple the ability to kill.

#17 Posted by halloween_david on 10 Oct 2005 - 05:00

QUOTE

Copyrights on games don't expire for anywhere between 50 to 75 years, hence the reason a company like Nintendo is such a bitch when it comes to emulating their old games.

When games aren't made anymore and tech support isn't offered for it or anything along those lines the game is considered abandonware. A LOT of game companies release older games for free. The small amount of companies that don't usually re-release them in stores just to make a few extra buks that they don't need.

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