New proposed laws target modchip users in Australia

September 16, 2006

heystoopid used our news submit to tell us: "Here is an
interesting conundrum, as part and parcel of the Australia-US free trade
agreement, Australia is required to outlaw all forms of modchips and chipped
game consoles period and pay very strict compliance to all US Copyright control
laws as well!

Ah, to be caught between a rock and a hard
place under the new law, as the penalty for the end user is AUD$6600 and the
supplier is AUD$60,500. Me thinks, that, the enforcement of this proposed law
would break the back of the Australian Court System period! And in the
words of one US Army General in 1944, "NUTS!", is an appropriate response
here."

Users of modchipped gaming consoles could face fines of thousands of dollars when new copyright protection laws are introduced this year by the Federal Government. The new laws, which were released in draft form last week, are being introduced to honour Australia"s free trade agreement obligations with the US, and will effectively prohibit the use of devices and services designed to circumvent copy control technological protection measures (TPMs).

Until now, it has only been illegal to
distribute or sell services or devices seeking to disable or override copy
control technologies, but now users of such tools will also fall foul of
the law once the legislation is introduced later this year.

Technological protection measures are
broadly defined as software locks or password controls created
specifically to prevent copyright infringement, said Caroline Dalton,
special council for copyright and Communications at law firm Minter
Ellison.

Speaking of conundrums, the article goes on to say this
new legislation is expected to "harmonize" with a gracious gift of allowing
Aussies to rip CD tracks to an MP3 player or record a television program: "where
copy control technologies allow". I think we can all see where this is going,
not just in Australia but all over the world. We are going to be charged to
exercise what were once our Fair Use rights with products we had purchased. Once
proper legal and DRM controls are in place, then content providers can begin to
use DRM as a tool to control and thus charge for our actions.

It's time to stand up to this nonsense and raise heck with our
Representatives, no matter where we live. Or at least boycott the use of
products that would make use of such controls in the future. The story can
be read in its entirety, by following this link to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald