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SCEA accused Hotz of violating federal law by posting online information and software about how to circumvent the PS3's security system, thus allowing users to play pirated videogames. Hotz denies any wrongdoing on his part, though he was required to take down the postings challenged by SCEA.
"Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us," Riley Russell, General Counsel for SCEA, said in a statement. "Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal. We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices and products in a safe and fun environment and we want to protect the hard work of the talented engineers, artists, musicians and game designers who make PlayStation games and support the PlayStation Network. We appreciate Mr. Hotz's willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution."
"It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier," Hotz said in a statement. "I'm happy to have the litigation behind me."
Sony's legal attacks against the hackers that released the PS3 root key and custom firmware began three months ago. The group known as fail0verflow was 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.
Looking back, Sony largely won this legal battle. The company succeed in getting GeoHot to hand over his hardware, even demanding two copies of the data, one in encrypted and one in decrypted form. A federal judge allowed Sony to obtain the IP addresses of everyone who visited GeoHot's personal website for a period of 26 months (since January 2009) as well as the account names of anyone who has accessed a PS3 jailbreak video on the 21-year-old's YouTube account, his tweets relating to the hacking on Twitter, information on people who posted comments to his blog on Blogspot, and information about his account on the PSX-Scene website. The same judge also later granted the company access to GeoHot's PayPal account for the last two years.
Sony's official stance remains if you crack your PS3, you'll get banned. GeoHot meanwhile previously said "beating them in court is just a start." Apparently, settling is the same thing as winning.
User Comments: 28
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It is important to note that SONY never considers you, the purchaser, as the actual owner of the console. Their mindset is that you are licensing, on a permanent basis, their console and as such are bound by their terms for the use of such a console.
Come to think of it I could have sworn I saw an old PS2 EULA that said something to that effect, although as far as I know current license agreements don't contain such an archaic concept. It is clear that it is still their mindset, however.
The problem here is that Sony acquired the information they wanted before the legal process even really started. In the discovery phase they got everything they needed: all of Geohot's data and the IP addresses of each potential abuser. They had no need to continue the process and be seen as "picking on the little guy"--they wanted information (including potential information Geohot may have containing other ways of cracking the PS3 that he hadn't released yet--iPhone jailbreak dev team members often hold back some exploits in hopes that Apple won't find and patch them before their next version, giving them the chance to jailbreak yet another version).
The trial itself was never anything Sony wanted to get into; they could have willingly dropped the case and still been considered the victor--they have your IP's, Geohot's data (including any lists of exploits he hadn't yet mentioned so they can patch those as well), and the ability to delay the PS3 cracking scene by a decent period of time.
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It is important to note that SONY never considers you, the purchaser, as the actual owner of the console. Their mindset is that you are licensing, on a permanent basis, their console and as such are bound by their terms for the use of such a console.
Agreed, this is sadly the position of many tech companies now and one I firmly disagree with. "I bought it, I own it" principle that has been around for ages in my opinion should still be used, as it is one of the few consumer protections we have.
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How about this latest breach where user names, email, passwords, date of birth, address and possible credit card info has been compromised. Time for a negligence class action suit against Sony. When you ask your loyal customers for that kind of information and then make security an afterthought because your main goal is getting more revenue from your customers that is the epitome of negligence.
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