Australian Supreme Court Wants To Mod-Chip Their Consoles
from the you-bought-it,-you-can-mod-it dept
In an Australian Supreme Court case that has received a fair bit of attention, the justices decided that using mod-chips on a gaming console do not violate anti-circumvention laws. As Michael Geist explains, this is a big deal, because it shows how a country can agree to the stringent WIPO treaty that more or less exports strict intellectual property laws from the US, but still carve out reasonable rulings in the courts. The court specifically discusses how this ruling doesn't violate the treaty. Also, the court points out the important rights that an individual has over any product he or she buys -- which seems to be a right that is disappearing in other parts of the world.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Laws only refer to region hacks
The anti-circumvention laws are in place to ensure that people do not upset international pricing by hacking a device intended for export. The court pretty much said that consumers have the right to do what they want to their own toys that they bought - fair play!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ah Australia....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Laws only refer to region hacks
The whole point with the mod-chips is that they didn't violate the law because the measures they circumvented weren't copyright protection but regional encoding. Australia has "parallel importatation" laws which ensure that Australians can import legal goods from anywhere in the world without worrying about actions from the copyright holders. Obviously, regional encoding attempts to prevent that, which runs counter to the spirit of the law...
Here's a suggestion: If the companies stop regional encoding there'll be no excuse for mod-chips...and they'll be participating in the "global economy" they keep touting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]