No they banned the selling of the hack chip. If you built your own hack chip, and installed it on your own PS3, and never sold or distributed it... betcha Sony couldn't make you stop.

You can't *sell* something that's intent is to cause copyright infringement.

APE992: Given you call it a "hack chip" I'm going to assume you don't have your GED in electronics or law.

Correct, I do not.

Doc Daneeka: Not that I have any illusions about piracy, but the "intent" of these devices is an awfully difficult thing to prove in court.

I'm sure its not the easiest thing, but its certainly possible. It would be hard to market the thing without explaining that it does allow you to copy games illegally, and giving instructions on doing just that.

randomjsa: I see the usual group of 'We want to steal things and use false moral arguments to make ourselves feel better' types are already out in full force.

No, its the "we really, really want to back up things... hell, we love backing up games so much, we rent them from Gamefly and back up games for Gamefly... and then we love to trade backups just to make sure our games are backed up in multiple locations."

Sony has until August 31 to makes its case to the court for a permanent ban.

Did Sony have to post a bond to cover defense costs if the court changes its mind? (Court web site didn't work for me.)

IIRC, the U.S. standard for copyright violation devices being legal was "substantial non-infringing use" prior to the DMCA. The standard was set in large part by the Betamax case where defendants offered testimony by public television officials saying they liked having their programs recorded. So the VCR was a device that really was frequently used legally, for recording with consent as well as for time shifting which was found to be another legal use.

The DMCA made the law stricter.

If a similar rule applies to the Australian dongle case, the defendants would have to show that the dongle really was frequently used for what the law recognizes as legitimate purposes. And, probably, that they didn't advertise it as a lawbreaking device. Some defendants lost in American court when they advertised their file sharing service as a copyright violation aid.

PSJailbreak says there is no copyrighted Sony code in the jig.

From what I've seen over the past week or so, this device is the result of modders getting their hands on the "Official" Sony service jig, and uses the low-level protocol (it plugs into the USB port, but Sony uses a custom ASIC that operates BEFORE the port "works" as a USB port, i.e. the jig is not actually a "USB" device.) the service jig uses, to inject code through an exploit and switch the retail box into a "Dev box"-like mode that allows unsigned code to run.

If this is the case, then the Australian case is a non-starter - Sony has no recourse if the device does not contained any copyrighted code. The case will end up being found in the modchip sellers' favor. The device isn't even a 1:1 copy of the service jig - it just uses the protocol of the service jig to exploit the console.

What the jig enables is the use of homebrew software, just like the original XBox mod, the Xbox 360 JTAG mod, and of course, the Wii softmods. A side effect is enabling the running of PS3 games from the hard drive (internal or external) - but Sony brought this on themselves by removing the "Install Other OS" feature.

In short, Sony might have shot themselves in the foot by removing the feature. Now there's justification, from a certain esoteric standpoint, for mod chips to be legal for the PS3.

/Has my GED in mod chip and scene-ology.

Myria: The device has already been reverse engineered (new window). It will only be a matter of time before some other company not in Australia or the U.S. makes a clone.

The device isn't made in Australia, nor is PSJailbreak based in Australia. Sony sued the three major mod chip distributors in Australia who were official resellers.

There also is a clone close to market, the X3... it expects to sell for US$49. They've shown pictures of unpopulated circuit boards (the chip was identified, and I believe the code can be read out).

Read my post above.

Unless the judge is a total retard or completely on the take, the lawsuit won't stand in Australia, anyway. Mod chips are legal if they do not come with any copyrighted code, and PSJailBreak has stated there is no copyrighted code in their device.

downstairs: No they banned the selling of the hack chip. If you built your own hack chip, and installed it on your own PS3, and never sold or distributed it... betcha Sony couldn't make you stop.

You can't *sell* something that's intent is to cause copyright infringement.

You do realize that projects like multimedia center software Boxee was born out of the homebrew scene (XBMP/XBMC) that developed from all those nasty little mod chips people sold for the original Xbox, right? I wrote the first "complete" homebrew game for the Xbox back in the summer of 2002 (X-Marbles, which had scoring, sound, music and it "ended" - unlike the Pong game that came out shortly before).

Likewise, the Wii's softmod has resulted in a flood of homebrew for that console.

People are already chomping at the bit for writing homebrew on the PS3, especially after Sony removed the "Install other OS" option. Ironically, removing that option makes the legal position for a PS3 modchip stronger.