Aussie High Court rule in Playstation2 mod chip case

The High Court of Australia (the highest court in the land) has made its ruling in Stevens v Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment. From the press release:

"The High Court of Australia today allowed an appeal against a finding that Mr Stevens’s modifications to Sony PlayStation consoles to allow unauthorised copies of games to be played were illegal."

This is the first time a country's highest court has ruled in a so called "mod-chip" case, to deal with "technological protection measures" (a form of digital rights management). At least two men have been jailed in the US for installing mod chips on gameboxes such as Sony's Playstation2 or Microsoft's Xbox.

At issue was Steven's installation of mod chips in Sony Playstation2s, which allowed users to play Playstation2 games legitimately bought in the US, for example (or other noncompatible geographic zone). Sony's Playstations, like most DVD players, have digital locks which prevent the device playing games sourced from a different geographic zone from which the machine itself was bought. The digital lock system allows the PlayStation2 to search CDs or DVDs for embedded codes identifying them as authorised games which the console will play. If it can't find the codes, it will not play the CD or DVD.

As in the US and the EU it is illegal in Australia to bypass copyright protection technologies and it seems the case turned on the specific definition of "technological protection measures." The court decided that Sony's digital locks did not qualify as "technological protection measures" because they didn't inhibit copyright infringement.

By contrast, Sony efforts to shut down similar mod chipping operations in the UK have proved successful, most notably in the Sony v Owen case which is very similar to the Stevens case in Australia.

Thanks to Pamela Jones for the news. Kim Weatherall will be producing a commentary shortly.

And since my own University will be releasing my internet law course openly soon (again), I'd better update the part that deals with the mod chip cases!