[Linux-aus] Petition draft text: No DMCA blanket anti-circumvention law in Australia!

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On Tuesday 06 June 2006 13:14, jason king <pizza at netspace.net.au> wrote:
> > This also means that we must be able to create, buy and sell devices or
> > services to do these things: region-free DVD players, and other
>
> wasn't region coding meant to be illegal due to UN resolutions , or
> australian law? If it is, its worth explicitly pointing this out in a
> petition.

I believe that the ACCC ruled that region encoding was an anti-competitive 
practice, since it disallowed the viewing of foreign DVDs on localised 
(Region 4) players. Consequently, many DVD players sold in Australia are 
either regionless (Region 0) or are easily unlocked.

Incidentally, the same stance was taken in Australia in regards to modchips 
for games consoles (most notably the PlayStation 2). The modchips were 
determined to be legal since they could be used to play games legitimately 
purchased overseas.

-- 
Sridhar Dhanapalan  [Yama | http://www.pclinuxonline.com/]
  {GnuPG/OpenPGP: http://dhanapalan.webhop.net/yama.asc
   0x049D38B4 : A7A9 8A02 78CB AB1B FCE4 EEC6 2DD9 249B 049D 38B4}

"The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the 
weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers 
from abroad." - James Madison, 4th US president (1751-1836)
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