News UK bans PlayStation 'chipping'

From the Beeb:

The selling of "mod chips" for Sony PlayStation 2 game consoles has been ruled illegal by a UK high court.
A PlayStation 2 with a modified chip installed can play imported or pirated copies of the console's video games.

Mr Justice Laddie backed Sony's legal argument that its intellectual property was being infringed by people selling the chips to console owners.

The ruling is thought to be one of the first brought under a controversial European Union directive on copyright.

Sony brought its case against a man called David Ball who was accused of selling about 1,500 "Messiah" mod chips.

In the High Court, Mr Justice Laddie ruled that Mr Ball was acting illegally in selling the chips which get around the built-in copy protection system on Sony's console.

As well as declaring the sale of the mod chips illegal, Mr Laddie said that the use, advertising or possession of them for commercial purposes should be considered illegal too.

More here

So you'll just have to buy them from Australia!

 

Well good for Australia. Of course if you're using a mod chip to play a pirated game, you probably don't really care if using the mod chip is illegal since the copy of the game would be too. *hates copy protection*

 

As long as they're sold without copy-right infringing code what's the problem?

You paid for the PS2, you paid for the mod-chip.

What's next TCPA in the PS3?

 

Hang on, they're only talking about Playstations right, not xbox or Gamecube. (but I suppose the ruling will probably apply to them as well)

 

Again people only concentrating on the negatives. If we did that then CDRW/DVDRW would also be banned (oo dont push it). People use mod chips to play backups of stuff they've bought, if they wanna keep the originals in mint condition. Also - some people wanna play imports. Jap have some good games that are NEVER released over here

Sheesh, its a crazy pesamistic (corrupt - i wonder how much "legal muscle" Sony put behind it) world.

 

To quote Babylon 5 (I'm not sure where JMS got it from):-

Kosh: "Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."

Or, in english, most people who want to mod their consoles have already done so!

It'll be DVD players next. Oh well, I'll just have to buy more Anime instead of
Hollywood blockbusters. (Japan is R2, just like Europe, South Africa too).

 

If you can understand japanese, that's fine.

 

That's what evening classes are for.

(I passed NVQ level 1 Japanese at 100%! It's just tourist stuff, but it's a start)

 

Given time its something i wanna do. You do evening classes or something?? Ive got a book on it and i can understand a lot of the phonics from the copious qty of subbed stuff i watch but i really need to be taught.