PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, made a joint announcement with Sony today, saying the two parties have settled the lawsuit SCEA against Hotz. In the announcement, GeoHot made a brief statement saying that he never wanted to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier, and that he was happy to have the litigation behind him. On his blog, GeoHot got sued, however, he let his true thoughts on Sony out.
"As of 4/11/11, I am joining the Sony boycott," GeoHot said in a statement. "I will never purchase another Sony product. I encourage you to do the same. And if you bought something Sony recently, return it. Why would you not boycott a company who feels this way about you? There is much more to come on this blog."
The words "this way" are a link to a rant by George Ouzounian, also known as Maddox, titled "I'm tired of Sony's bullshit" on his satirical website The Best Page in the Universe. It appears that when it comes to Sony, GeoHot believes Maddox says it best.
Last week, the hacker group Anonymous launched Operation Sony, which included a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against its various online properties. In the settlement today, it was explicitly stated that GeoHot had nothing to do with the attacks on Sony's internet services and websites. Nevertheless, GeoHot is apparently very interested in the offline plan Anonymous has for Sony.
Most Anonymous are online-only attacks, but Operation Sony also features a protest on April 16, 2011 where gamers from all around the world gather at their local Sony stores to complain in person. The lawsuit may be over, but as GeoHot puts it beating them in court is just a start" (though as we already said, he didn't win, he settled).
Protesting the lawsuit won't achieve much, since it is pretty much over, but many still want Sony to allow its customers to do anything they want with the products they buy from the company. Will you be protesting this weekend?