Sony win landmark court battle

PS2 News | Sony victory could kickstart push against modification of consoles.

Sony clinched a key victory over the 'chipping' of consoles in their latest High Court action yesterday. Sony's success in the case - the first to be brought in the UK under new laws relating to circumvention of copy protection and technical protection measures - is expected to trigger a surge of similar actions to be taken against those who breach the copy protection measures.

The victim of Sony's wrath was a Mr David Ball, who was found guilty of selling 1,500 Messiah 2 modification chips to customers in the UK. Once installed, the chips would circumvent the copy protection measures on the PS2, and allowed pirated copies of PS2 software and unlicensed Japanese and American PS2 games to be played.

Commenting on the success of the court action, David Reeves, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe said, "This case, together with the recent successful criminal case against chippers in Belgium, confirms in the clearest possible terms that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has the right to prevent the illegal infringement of our intellectual property rights, and those of third party games developers. We are sending a clear message to manufacturers and distributors of mod chips throughout the PAL territories that we will continue to pursue legal action against them".

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6 Comments

Gtpod

7 years ago

Go Sony. Never thought I'd say that..

Nice to see someone's taking action against the chippers.

Fido Dido

7 years ago

Hmmm, it's an interesting debate no? I can't help but feel that Sony are biting the hand that feeds them though - it's a well-documented belief that Sony sold millions of PS1 units purely because piracy was so well-spread. Without the pirates, would Sony be enjoying such a large userbase?

- Fido

Gtpod

7 years ago

I hope not. It'll give some real consoles more space, maybe even a new one will popup and Sony will be forgotten..

Anonymous

7 years ago

^^ Yea, but come on, that's not going to happen is it? The Playstation brand is just too large and ubiquitous to be seriously affected. But in a world without software pirates, I'm willing to bet that Sony may not have developed the iron grip it has on the market now.

Either way, that's purely hypothetical - piracy will never be wiped out, as whilst the technology is there, software will be pirated. It's like trying to wipe out terrorism (HA! Like anyone would try that!).

- Fido

Gtpod

7 years ago

True.

Is there a form of Freeloader for the PS2? 'Cause if people are chipping for multi-region support, why don't they just make money out of it like Nintendo? I bought a Freeloader and I have hardly any UK games, let alone any foreign.

ObsoletE

7 years ago

"real consoles" like the watered down PC?

meh, modchips have already been deemed perfectly legal in australia... just don't expect warranties to be upheld...

it's kind of a grey area here, since you are within your rights to make a copy of any digital media to which you own the original of for back-up purposes, this includes music, computer applications and game software, dvds and right down to little ol' games...

however as your all aware, you can't play these legally backed-up copies without a chip, hence the courts here ruled that playstation's were, in fact, the illegal components since this dis-allowed this course of action...

basically installers just have to give a warning that you can only use the chips to play copies of games you already own, anything else i am not liable...

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