selectparks - PS2 modchips now legal in Australia

A couple of years ago Sony tried to pull a "Games are just like digital music, because they're digital" citing the DMCA in an Australian Lower Court case against PS2 modchips salesman, 'Stevens' . These modchips allowed folk to use the hardware they'd bought to play games legally aquired in another region (like the US or Japan).

Eventually the matter was escalated to the High Court that promptly ruled in his favour on the grounds that technology native to PS2's used to stop people playing games , are not "technological prevention measures" in the same way that copy-protection can be considered so. In short, because copyright is not at stake here, the case against modifying this hardware had no merit on grounds of copyright breach. In the end, Stevens is spared from a lynching and the sale of mod-chips is apparently no longer considered an evil.

Sony is a contradictory and multiheaded creature,at one point they are trying to stopping you run games bought in other countries on DMCA like grounds, at another turn they are helping you circumvent their own digital music protection..