Post by Dan @ 04:39pm 13/01/11 | 20 Comments
According to documentation posted by Hotz on his website Sony is accusing the defendants of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) among other acts and local state laws of California and is requesting a Temporary Restraining Order against him in an attempt to stem any further hacking progress and publishing of hack-related info.
The charges referred to are numerous, but probably the biggest example of their over-zealousness is the alleged "Intent to Extort" accusation:
Finally, SCEA will likely prevail on its claim under §1030(a)(7)(B), which prohibits “intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value” by threatening “to obtain information from a protected computer without authorization or in excess of authorization or to impair the confidentiality of information obtained from a protected computer without authorization or by exceeding authorized access.” Hotz violated this provision when, in the same post in which the published SCEA’s Keys, he attempted to obtain from SCEA “a thing of value” in the form of employment: “if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me.”Despite Hotz's often egotistical musings that have made him very unpopular among some vocal online observers, it's difficult for the average consumer to view Sony as anything but the big bad guy in this scenario.
Additionally, despite Hotz's continued contributions to unlocking iPhone hardware, Apple have yet to pursue any similar legal action against him.
Hotz, the Fail0verflow team and many of the other prominent hackers in the PlayStation mod scene have also made many efforts to display a hard-line anti-piracy ethos, claiming that their efforts are purely for unlocking the hardware for homebrew development.
Whatever the result of these legal actions, it is unlikely to have any affect on the future modability of existing PlayStation 3 (or PlayStation Portable) consoles as the cat is now already well and truly out of the proverbial bag.
Latest Comments
20 Comments
Show
Follow Us
Advertisement
Log In
Posted 04:49pm 13/1/11
Posted 04:56pm 13/1/11
Posted 05:17pm 13/1/11
Not like it matters anyway. The damage is done, and there's nothing they can do to undo it. Their console is wide open for anybody to write their own code, and I'm bloody happy about it. Can't wait to see the awesome applications of this.
Posted 05:23pm 13/1/11
This is the part that s**** me, what protected computer? what authorisation?
If its something you purchased, its YOUR computer, and the only authorisation you need is from yourself, its not like they hacked into sony and stole data, they extracted data from a device that they owned.
Posted 05:24pm 13/1/11
Posted 05:38pm 13/1/11
Posted 05:47pm 13/1/11
Result: Judge blasted the s*** out of the prosecutors for a good 30 minutes and put the trial on hold.
Posted 08:07pm 13/1/11
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/GeoHot/
Posted 07:35pm 13/1/11
haha spitting in the wind, f*** thats funny to watch when it back fires
Posted 07:38pm 13/1/11
Seconded.
Posted 08:14pm 13/1/11
http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/scea-vs-geohot-day-2-more-court-files-75658/
Well before Sony filed any claims against him, George Hotz repeatedly posted on his site that he isn't asking for donations, and anyone saying otherwise is scamming. This is f*****g retarded if it's true.
Posted 10:03am 14/1/11
Posted 10:41am 14/1/11
On one hand there was the ban of modchips in the UK which was overturned a while back when the judge agreed that if a person purchased a device then they owned that device and had full rights to mod it.
On the other hand there is the recent case in which a person attempted to take Sony to court when they released an update that removed functionality (other OS) from the PS3. The judge ruled that Sony owned intellectual rights and had full right to change, modify and disable the device.
Even though this should breach several fair trade laws it set a precedent that allowed Microsoft to activate a section of AP2.5 on their consoles that corrupts files and profiles on a persons Xbox 360.
Basically if Sony wins this then it puts the proverbial nail in the coffin for consumer rights, and effectively there will be no sense of first party ownership left.
Posted 11:56am 14/1/11
i would imagine international precedents are largely irrelevent, the only precedents that would matter would be the ones given in the jurisdiction/s sony are initiating this legal action under.
i am no lawyer, though.
Posted 11:57am 14/1/11
Heres hoping the case fails.
Posted 11:58am 14/1/11
Posted 02:41pm 14/1/11
Posted 02:52pm 14/1/11
Posted 10:23pm 08/3/11
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/03/judge-allows-sony-to-see-ips-of-those-visiting-ps3-jailbreak-site.ars
Posted 10:35pm 08/3/11