Australian Law lets modders back into consoles Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Australian Law lets modders back into consoles Posted by XanTium | December 6 00:13 EST

From australianit.news.com.au: [QUOTE] Games console makers such as Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft may need to re-engineer anti-piracy technology in consoles made for the Australian market to stop consumers using illegal game titles, according to law firm Minter Ellison. Amendments to Australia's copyright laws expected to be passed this week will make it legal for consumers to use modified chips (mod-chips) that circumvent anti-piracy technology built into game consoles if they also overcome measures that restrict the use of DVDs and games titles purchased legally in other regions. Minter Ellison special counsel Carolyn Dalton said technology measures designed to restrict use of copyright material in geographic regions, including coding built into DVD players and games consoles, won't be given special protection under the law. Games manufacturers will need to have technology in their consoles to deal with region coding and copyright protection that operate independently. [/QUOTE] Read More: australianit.news.com.au

[tom_mandory]

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE



yesterday we spanked the poms
now lets spank region coding

[dynt]

sounds like a aus console will be the one to have as it will have to be region free in the future

[0794]

"Games manufacturers will need to have technology in their consoles to deal with region coding and copyright protection that operate independently."

now that all of the next-gen consoles have been released, do you really think that they will rewrite any software code to address this law...doubt it...still good news overall for the modding community

interesting news, gotta get to Australia some day

[bourke]

I contacted the the author of that article, Andrew, yesterday and he agreed to fix two mistakes:

1. The title was wrong - as it has ALWAYS (i.e. for ever) been legal to modify games consoles (and DVD players) in Australia. A common misconception.

2. He had the date of the Stevens vs Sony High Court case wrong (February) it is now corrected (October).

However there are still two errors with the article:

1. The Senate has never recommended removing the region coding exemption from legal protection. He misread one of the committee's recomendations about the access control TPM definition. Region coding is covered in a different area.

2. Mod-chip is the abbreviation of 'modification chip' and is not a 'modified chip' as he suggests!


However overall it is as accurate an article as could be expected from a journalist!



Cheers,
Bourkie

This post has been edited by bourke: Dec 6 2006, 06:39 AM

[mas10]

Us Aussies only mod our 360s, because we get everything delayed. Some games take up to 3months to come to Australia. By the way im picking up my Wii in 5 hours. midnight launch tonight peoples!!!!!!!!

This post has been edited by mas10: Dec 6 2006, 07:37 AM

[bourke]

Here is the updated Australian IT article (as the old one seems to still exist as well):



http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0...5E15306,00.html

[OmegaSupreme]

the aussie's get 20 cool points.
never will i doubt the powers of the aussie's ever again.

[Minotaur]

Unfortunately it's still difficult to advertise if you offer mods to the public. One of the main publications here, the Trading Post, disallow any modding ads that mention you can play homebrew or backups.

[patto]

that's a win!

[scottmuller28]

This guy does not know what is going on. The federal Government are still implementing the new DMCA law which will outlaw modifications on Jan 1 07. This is still going ahead as I have double checked from a few different sources. There has not been any admendments to allow modding in Australia as it is allows been legal. He is quoting from old 05 articles (stevens vs Sony) and linking it to whats going on now. These are two unrelated cases and will not effect the new admendments. The draft is in review and will be passed through the Senate in the next couple of weeks. Sad but true!! Just check the Australia Government web site.

This post has been edited by scottmuller28: Dec 7 2006, 02:51 PM

[scottmuller28]

Here are some useful about the topic links

http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/MinisterRuddo...alace_-_0882006

http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/...A2571EE0082AD42

There are no press releases about this at all, as it has not get gone through the Senate yet.


http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/...A2571F700194D91

This post has been edited by scottmuller28: Dec 7 2006, 03:22 PM

[bourke]

This guy does not know what is going on. The federal Government are still implementing the new DMCA law which will outlaw modifications on Jan 1 07. This is still going ahead as I have double checked from a few different sources. There has not been any admendments to allow modding in Australia as it is allows been legal. He is quoting from old 05 articles (stevens vs Sony) and linking it to whats going on now. These are two unrelated cases and will not effect the new admendments. The draft is in review and will be passed through the Senate in the next couple of weeks. Sad but true!! Just check the Australia Government web site.

Errr actually you are wrong - it actually passed throught Parliament days ago:

http://www.lawfont.com/2006/12/06/copyrigh...-house-of-reps/

There are no press releases about this at all, as it has not get gone through the Senate yet.

What do you call this then?!

http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/MinisterRuddo...opyright_Reform

I know, because my birthday is the 6th :-)

This post has been edited by bourke: Dec 10 2006, 08:44 AM

[Mr_Metabolism]

Wow. So we can legally install modchips, but we can't have EPG's because of copyright breaches, and the way things are headed, it will be illegal to own ipods, or computers, or VCR's. Way to go Johnnie.

[Darkness_au]

Unfortunately it's still difficult to advertise if you offer mods to the public. One of the main publications here, the Trading Post, disallow any modding ads that mention you can play homebrew or backups.

Err have you looked in the Trading Post lately ?

There are quite a few mod chipper adds in it.. its all in the wording