Kaffee
10-09-2005, 10:28 PM
Oz judge OKs PlayStation 2 mods
Australian court rules in favor of PS2 chipper; ruling made to allow users to play nonregion copies of games, not piracy.
In America, the legal system has had no tolerance for modders, gamers who hack consoles to play copied games or imported games from different regions. A Maryland retailer recently went to jail for selling tricked-out Xboxes.
Down under, it's a different story.
In a case of Sony versus a modder, The High Court of Australia ruled in favor of Eddy Stevens, a retailer who sold modified PlayStation 2s. His PS2s were outfitted with a chip that bypassed regional encoding scripts, allowing gamers to play titles from other countries.
PS2s, like VCRs and DVD players, have specific region encoding that allows them to play games from either the NTSC or PAL format. Europe and Oceania use the PAL format, and other regions use the NTSC standard.
According to Stevens, the mods are made for customers to play imported games, which are often cheaper. The court declared that restricting PS2s to play regional games limited the rights of consumers and restricted global competition.
The High Court lays it down as such in the filing: "Sony, it appears, has divided the world (for the moment) into at least three spheres or markets. By the combined operation of the CD ROM access code and the Boot ROM in the PlayStation consoles, Sony sought to impose restrictions on the ordinary rights of owners, respectively of the CD ROMS and consoles, beyond those relevant to any copyright infringement as such. In effect, and apparently intentionally, those restrictions reduce global market competition. They inhibit rights ordinarily acquired by Australian owners of chattels to use and adapt the same, once acquired, to their advantage and for their use as they see fit."
By Tim Surette -- GameSpot
Australian court rules in favor of PS2 chipper; ruling made to allow users to play nonregion copies of games, not piracy.
In America, the legal system has had no tolerance for modders, gamers who hack consoles to play copied games or imported games from different regions. A Maryland retailer recently went to jail for selling tricked-out Xboxes.
Down under, it's a different story.
In a case of Sony versus a modder, The High Court of Australia ruled in favor of Eddy Stevens, a retailer who sold modified PlayStation 2s. His PS2s were outfitted with a chip that bypassed regional encoding scripts, allowing gamers to play titles from other countries.
PS2s, like VCRs and DVD players, have specific region encoding that allows them to play games from either the NTSC or PAL format. Europe and Oceania use the PAL format, and other regions use the NTSC standard.
According to Stevens, the mods are made for customers to play imported games, which are often cheaper. The court declared that restricting PS2s to play regional games limited the rights of consumers and restricted global competition.
The High Court lays it down as such in the filing: "Sony, it appears, has divided the world (for the moment) into at least three spheres or markets. By the combined operation of the CD ROM access code and the Boot ROM in the PlayStation consoles, Sony sought to impose restrictions on the ordinary rights of owners, respectively of the CD ROMS and consoles, beyond those relevant to any copyright infringement as such. In effect, and apparently intentionally, those restrictions reduce global market competition. They inhibit rights ordinarily acquired by Australian owners of chattels to use and adapt the same, once acquired, to their advantage and for their use as they see fit."
By Tim Surette -- GameSpot