In a landmark court ruling yesterday, media giants Sony took on the little guys and won a case that could have serious ramifications for all DVD player owners. The case involves a little known device called The Messiah, which allows users to circumvent the copy protection and regional coding mechanisms on Sony's Playstation 2 games console. The device's manufacturers, Channel Technology, were found liable under the Copyright and Patents Act 1988, for supplying a device which allows consumers to bypass copy protection security.
Channel argued that their device had a secondary purpose which '..dealt with defeating the region control aspect of the same protection, and thus allowed arguably legal functions such as the use of imported games" and was therefore protected in a similar way to the US ruling on Betamax (Universal vs Sony 1984). The judge in question, Justice Jacob, decided that this wasn't a good enough argument and even went so far as to say:
"Sony licensed games for the territory that they were issued. The licensing of these games did not allow for their use in other territories, therefore whether they were imported for private and domestic use by personal purchase, for instance via the internet, or purchased abroad on holiday, they were not allowed by Sony to be played outside of the licensed territory, this argument should be upheld."
Which is a particularly scary ruling for all UK importers of both video games and DVD titles because what he's saying here is that you can't legally use imported titles outside their area of license. The ruling is currently undergoing appeal but should it fail the case marks a dangerous precedent for mod chip companies and personal importers of all kinds across Europe.
Channel argued that their device had a secondary purpose which '..dealt with defeating the region control aspect of the same protection, and thus allowed arguably legal functions such as the use of imported games" and was therefore protected in a similar way to the US ruling on Betamax (Universal vs Sony 1984). The judge in question, Justice Jacob, decided that this wasn't a good enough argument and even went so far as to say:
"Sony licensed games for the territory that they were issued. The licensing of these games did not allow for their use in other territories, therefore whether they were imported for private and domestic use by personal purchase, for instance via the internet, or purchased abroad on holiday, they were not allowed by Sony to be played outside of the licensed territory, this argument should be upheld."
Which is a particularly scary ruling for all UK importers of both video games and DVD titles because what he's saying here is that you can't legally use imported titles outside their area of license. The ruling is currently undergoing appeal but should it fail the case marks a dangerous precedent for mod chip companies and personal importers of all kinds across Europe.
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