Australian court says importing okay
Sony takes on one too many small-time mod chippers
Sony has had litigation in an Australian court blow up in its face. Federal Court Judge Ronald Sackville determined that - first of all - PlayStation consoles don't have a copyright protection measure installed, and therefore he couldn't rule that mod chips go against any laws concerning copyrights. Furthermore, the court was told that chipping allows people to play games legitimately purchased overseas alongside pirated games, and Judge Sackville seemed to agree that there is nothing wrong with this. As you may recall, Australia has been rejecting Sony's claims about mod chips bringing about the downfall of humanity for quite some time. Sony has been litigating against mod chips and mod chippers worldwide for a while, quashing Neo and Messiah projects in Europe to a certain degree of success, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been standing up to the consumer electronics giant's claims on behalf of its consumers. Worse still for Sony, the ACCC has announced that it will review this latest judgement, not in the hope of overturning it, but because many down under still believe that Australian people are being denied access to lower priced games overseas. Effectively, the ACCC has turned the issue into one about imported software and not about piracy, which is something Sony had been doing however deliberately by continuing its aggressive court tactics apace. That's it - we're emigrating. Apart from beer, Christmas on the beach and the Minogue sisters, Australia seems to have government and judiciary institutions not entirely devoid of a clue. Related Feature - PlayStation Wars: Episode II