Sony Computer Entertainment Australia has been granted a temporary injunction to block the sale and distribution of those pesky mod chips. Until August 31st no one will be able to sell, import or export the devices and any firms with stock will have to release the units to Sony.
Sony has until the end of the month to convince the courts that a permanent ban should be in place, if they do not then sales will resume come September 1st. Here’s hoping Sony can do something to limit the potential for piracy that these chips present.
Source: Kotaku
gazzagb
4 days. Sony better get moving. I think they’ll get it easily enough though, I don’t see how anyone could defend the devices.
teflon
4 days is plenty of time for a big litigation team to assemble a major brief on how it will largely be used for piracy.
SHOULD be a piece of cake from here on for Sony.
cc_star
The actual device doesn’t circumvent copy protection, so if PSJailbreak (or a clone) have a big legal backing then they may be able to overturn the ban on this technicality.
The ‘Back-up manager’ which you download separately however is a different matter altogether depending on how it dumps the files from the Blu-ray to the HDD.
The bans on the R4 cards in the UK, Netherlands & Australia and elsewhere, is incomparable because that circumvents security measures as it boots up. and as such even if you wanted to legally run homebrew, you couldn’t do it without first circumventing security measure – which is the technicality Ninty won on.
I have no doubt that Sony’s enormous legal team will get the manufacture, distribution, advertising & importing of such devices banned everywhere there is copyright laws, but it would be interesting (from a legal point of view) if PSJailbreak had big legal backing
DJ-Katy
Glad we’re on the same page now cc :P
Klangaroo
This piracy device is a different scenario as it is a completely illegal copy of Sony’s internal service hardware. One was stolen from Sony and these copies of them were made. They all contain illegal copies of Sony’s service hardware and software.
Also please stop referring to this as a “Jailbreak”. It’s not an iPhone.
nemesisND1derboy
But its name is PSJailbreak, so that is what we refer to it as.
bunimomike
We had to endure Crocodile Dundee for years and they took sod-all action. Hypocrites.
BrendanCalls
What about Jason Donovan, Home and Away and the Minogue sisters.
Australia needs to be held accountable, LOL!!!
ico
To be fair only one of the Minogues is best forgotten. Dannii in case you’re wondering.
Pete_UK
I am still haunted by childhood memories of performing Donovan songs with a few others in primary school..
I closed my eyes, drew back the curtain
To see for certain what I thought I knew
Far far away, someone was hacking
But Sony was laughing
Any block will do
..or something like that.
Tuffcub
Oi no slagging off Dannii.
ico
Oops it appears I’ve offended TSA hierarchy. Surely not a good move. I’m afraid I find Dannii to be very bland (from what I’ve seen on the TV of course). Like Kate Thornton – pleasant to look at but seemingly little going on behind the eyes. Like any decent review though this is of course merely personal opinion :)
Tuffcub
I have to defend Dannii as A) She’s on my album and B) Signed ot the same label as me. As are N-Dubz. Please don’t hate me.
ico
Well Tuffcub when you put it like that who am I to argue. Go Dannii go Dannii! The fact that you are even on a label screams kudos. The closest I’ll get to signing on a label is when I write my name in the size label of my smalls in case I get lost in the woods again. My sure to use a laundry marker as when the rain comes the name will remain. Crafty.
mrfodder
They finally have. Hogan is not allow leave Australia until he pays up the tax they say he owes them.
cc_star
If only they could have stopped Lightening Jack leaving Australia
moshi
Whats wrong with Crocodile Dundee !!!!
sabbat7001
In the words of Kirk Lazarus “Pump your breaks, kid, that man’s a national treasure”. Hmmm, my last comment in the Top Gun trophies piece was Tropic Thunder related too. Maybe the gods are telling me I need to watch it again. :D
matty
Or maybe you’re obsessed and need to see someone about it :p
TSBonyman
This is fine from a legal point but i guess they will also find a way to target the functionality of the device, either disabling it fully or preventing it from accessing psn. Maybe they have a firmware update planned for 31st?
carson321
1000! woohoo!
Im guessing it is easier to get a ban on these things than it would be for say the DSTT carts seeing as it is marketed as a ‘back-up’ device, whereas these are just plain mofo hacks!
gotta ban ’em all!
Flash
Sony got it in the bag. Plus a firmware update should be out soon to further try and block the device I’m guessing?
Mick939
People people people !!!!
While your flagging off Jason Donovan isn’t he the voice of buzz?
Charmed_Fanatic
Get a firmware update quick
Dazbobaby
The dongles are made in China. The distributor is in Australia.
China wont give a shit, they’ll sell through someone else from a country without an embargo.
a inferior race
Yup. China can largely do what they want. In the event that Sony lose the legal challenge I don’t think they will be able to use FW to block the device as they could be seen as acting against the ruling of the court.
Dazbobaby
It might be a little detail, but the dongle doesn’t actually beat copy protection, thats the encrypted bit. It gets around it without using copyright code too (apparently).
So it doesn’t break the law to sell it.
But I’ve also read that clones are starting to appear and for as little as £40.00 it seems the floodgates are begining to buckle.
a inferior race
I suppose it comes down to whether or not Sony think they can win. If they can win they will smash these guys into the ground. If they can’t they can keep it tied up in court indefinately but still leave the legality of using FW to stop this. Especially with the potential class-action law-suit in America over the sledgehammer approach to stop Geohot.
Dazbobaby
But by pounding the current retailers into submission, all that will happen is the makers will switch to a country with liberal copyright laws. So thats either a middle east country, south america, or europe.
But thats all Sony have managed to do, to stop 3 retailers from selling a product for a few days, and thats not to say that Sony can or will win on Sept 1st.
amiga_dude
China view on IP issues are changing. So much that some small business owners have been given capital punishment because of it.
Luckly in Oz they will not go to that extreme.
a inferior race
Pounding western retailers will seriously harm the chances of this getting out. There is no way I would give money to a South American company for something that may not work, may not receive or could potentially damage my console. Then again all it takes is dodgy dave round the corner to have a supply of these devices and they will take off. A LoveFilm subscription, 1TB+ HDD and this device and you could have everything you could ever want.
Please note that I do not support this device.
a inferior race
Suppossed to be a reply to Dazbobaby.
Oops.
Dazbobaby
no problem, I thought it might be aimed at me.
Already there are clones popping up for sale, and some people think that it wont take long for designs to appear on the net, so someone with the right know how could make their own. When coders get their hands on a device and code it probably wont be long before a series of updates get around thus negating Sony’s firmware updates. Once it’s in the public domain it’s impossible to stop. The question is: has Sony done enough to stop the snowball? Can they update the PS3 hardware to prevent future copying? They can do that, but it wont prevent piracy on current consoles.
It’s at a point now that unsigned code can be executed by the PS3, if thats the case, can someone finally crack the hypervisor? If that ever happened then Sony can’t do anything more.
Personally I just want to see some dramatic improvements with the media player, more support for music and video files, better visualizations, and a better photo and web browser.
DJ-Katy
You’re all missing the key point:
Since when did the law ever stop any pirate?
yogdog
What katy said :)
I’m ashamed to admit it but a lot of my family are pirates and just don’t care, they laugh at me buying legal versions of everything. Same with some of my friends. This won’t stop them.
nemesisND1derboy
It didnt, and without doubt probably never will, but at least this will reduce the numbers sold and the ease of access to it. They can hardly sit by idly and do nothing.
theshockwave
Since the law employed ninjas.