Thanks to Max_TMP we know that the Italian authorities have ruled that "it's illegal to prohibit certain uses of commercial products." This means that the Italian court believes that it's not illegal for people to chip their Sony PlayStation 2 consoles. Simply said, chipping of a console means that a chip is added to the console to make it accept back-up copies of games.
The Bolzano court decided that the purpose of converter chips is to "avoid monopolistic positions and improve the possibilities for use of the PlayStation". Moreover, when considering if the Italian civil code permitted a company to prohibit a specific use of one of its products, the court decided: "The response is negative; the product's owner can use it as they see fit." The report on the case was published by the Alcei (Association pour la Liberté dans les Communications Electroniques Interactives), which is affiliated to the EFF in the US. The court also labelled "absurd" the limits that Sony puts on its console's disc-reading ability. It noted that as well as acting as an antipiracy measure, the limits disable any homemade copies of games, restricting players to those published by the Japanese manufacturer; and that even then, only titles from the specific geographical regions unlocked on the machine will work. "It's a little like Fiat marketing its cars while banning them from being driven by non-European citizens or outside towns," the court said. It remains to be seen if this interpretation will affect technological locks in place on other commercially available products. |
Unfortunately the article doesn't mention if Sony has responded to the ruling. The article does add that the ruling could create complications for other manufacturers, notably Microsoft, which gives access to certain services (like Xbox Live online gaming) only on condition that the console's components aren't tampered with.
Source: silicon.com
