Owners of PlayStation consoles who modify their machines to play games bought overseas have had a win in the Federal Court. Sony Computer Entertainment has failed in its claim that "chipping" breaks copyright laws...

Sony launched legal proceedings against a Sydney man, Eddy Stevens, for allegedly selling pirated games and also providing and installing modification chips. PlayStation consoles in Australia are different from those in the US and Japan because of the different television formats.

The court was told "chipping" allows people to play legitimately bought overseas games and copies of games, but also pirated games.

The judgement by Federal Court Justice Ronald Sackville says Sony failed to prove that PlayStation consoles have a copyright protection measure installed in the first place and therefore could not rule that a mod chip breaks copyright legislation. Mr Stevens was found to have infringed trademark rules in relation to the pirated games he sold a matter which will come before the court again next month.