By: Dale Dietrich
Police actions taken against end users and video game industry participants.
A 45 year old man in South Wales was sentenced to the longest sentence ever imposed by a UK court for game piracy, three and a half years. John Lamb was caught with a counterfeited game inventory estimated at 1/4 Million pounds. He had marketed his pirated games with spam e-mails.
Sources: GameIndustry.biz | ELSPA Press Release | Play.tm
The British High Court has ruled that using, possessing, selling or advertising modded PS2 consoles is illegal. Justice Laddie ruled that Ball had violated the European Union Copyright Directive, which came into UK law in 2003. The defendant had sold some 1,500 Messiah 2 chips allowing customers to defeat both the PS2’s region coding restrictions and the PS2’s built-in piracy protections.
Sources: ZDNet | GameIndustry.biz | The Register | BBC | GamePlanet | Outlaw-com
China’s government is forming a committee to review and censor online games before they are released in the country.The committee will censor games based on violence, sex, and misrepresentations of the country.
Source: Gamasutra
Some communities now require anyone selling used video games to give fingerprints for police records. The question is: Why?
Dale’s Comment: My guess is its for possible subsequent video game hacking/modding/piracy prosecutions.
Source: GameSpot
A Spanish judge has ruled that modifications to games consoles to allow them to play DVDs and games from other countries “are not illegal”.
Source: The Register
A court in Italy has dealt a major blow to the efforts of console manufactures to crack down on mod chips, ruling that PS2 mod chip devices are designed to “avoid monopolistic positions.”
Sources: The Register | GameIndustry.biz | Silicon.com | Outlaw.com
Declining television ratings are prompting advertisers to reach the coveted young male demographic through games.
Source: GameSpot
An Australian Court Rules that modding consoles do not infringe copyright because Sony was unable to show that copy protection measures had been built into their consoles. The Australian consumer watchdog organization ACCC has fought Sony over region coding in the past as being anti-consumer by denying them the right to play genuinely purchased games from cheaper overseas sources.
Source: GameIndustry.biz
Channel Technology imported mod-chips from Russia that when installed in PS2’s to play games from all regions. Importantly, the chip also allows users to play pirated games. The U.K. High Court found Channel Technology in violation of a provision in the UK. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 that prohibits knowingly making, importing or selling any device specifically designed or adapted to circumvent copy-protection. Judge Jacob awarded Sony damages of £15,000 and costs of £45,000. Channel Technology has since closed.
Sources: The Register | ZDNet | Out-Law.com
Uri Geller, the millionaire paranormalist, is suing the computer giant Nintendo for more than £60m for allegedly using his image in its best-selling Pokemon game without his permission.
Sources: Gamasutra | Guardian Unlimited | The Register | ZDNet UK
In response to a shooting linked by the media to video games, Brazil’s Justice Ministry issued an order banning several game titles.
Sources: Gamasutra | The Register
Aureal has won its legal battle with arch-rival Creative technology when a US jury threw out Creative’s claim that Aureal Vortex sound processor chip violated Creative intellectual property.
Sources: Gamasutra | The Register
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