PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, is asking for donations to help pay for legal defense fees in his fight against Sony. He specifically calls the electronic giant a bully and then outlines why he needs financial help:
Media, I need your help. This is the first time I have ever asked. Please, if you support this cause, help me out and spread the word.
I want, by the time this goes to trial, to have Sony facing some of the hardest hitting lawyers in the business.
Together, we can help fix the system
Donations here are for legal defense ONLY
I checked with my lawyers before setting this up
If you have another substantial way to donate aside from money, let me know
GeoHot says he would hate to lose this case due to resource starvation and so he needs the support of the masses to set a precedent for consoles and all closed systems to come. He insists that Sony sued the wrong guy since he is an advocate against mass piracy and does not distribute anyone's copyrighted work but his own. His goal for the PS3 is to provide users a legitimate path to homebrew, which should be legal according to previous non-console court cases. He also notes that his rap video in which he attacks Sony was just an attempt at humor and he really does take the whole legal matter very seriously.
Although GeoHot doesn't specify how much you should donate, he does indicate that Sony has five lawyers while he has two, and that he already has racked up over $10,000 in legal bills. He also notes that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has provided some legal help and so leftover donations will go to them. If Sony were to settle, "I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it," he notes. "It'd be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it. I'm also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted."
Sony's legal attacks against the hackers that released the PS3 root key and custom firmware began last month. The group known as fail0verflow is accused of posting a rudimentary hack in December 2010 after finding security codes for the PS3. It was refined by GeoHot weeks later when he independently found and published the PS3 root key. The resulting hacks allow homebrew apps and pirated software to run on unmodified consoles. Sony is still threatening to sue anybody posting or distributing PS3 jailbreak code, despite the fact that the company accidentally tweeted the PlayStation 3 security key. Sony's official stance is if you crack your PS3, you'll get banned.