GeoHot Claims Sony Is Misleading the Courts in PS3 Legal Battle

[Nachtmahr]

People cannot keep donating to GeoHot. He may be popular now, but people get bored, they get tired of how long this takes and soon they will only roll their eyes every time another article about GeoHot is published.

I predict in 6 months he can no longer pay those big-shot lawyers he has now. And even now, the court is letting Sony do whatever the hell they want. It's a losing battle for him. I'm glad for that, because honestly, Sony is in the right here. GeoHot stepped over the line.

 

[health-bar]

lol...

isn't misdirecting the courts to think certain ways 95% of a legal battle?
sounds to me like Sony's just playing the game(pun not intended).

 

[Aeshi]

Gotta love how he starts whining when Sony pulls the "technically legal" card against him despite it being the only reason people support him.

Here's hoping they can somehow make his punishment "Be beaten over the head with every device that's ever had the rootkey on it until one of the two breaks."

 

[CrystalShadow]

Well, whatever method that Sony uses, I just hope that they win this one. If they lose, then piracy will skyrocket. That's not good

And if they win, corporations will take it as a sign that they can blindly impose any terms and conditions they like because they own 'copyrights'. (That was never what copyright was meant to accomplish, but that's what it's turning into.)

Consumer rights? Ever heard of those? Because we are willingly giving corporations the ability to walk all over us, and ignore all of the rights we used to have...

 

[CrystalShadow]

Well, whatever method that Sony uses, I just hope that they win this one. If they lose, then piracy will skyrocket. That's not good

And if they win, corporations will take it as a sign that they can blindly impose any terms and conditions they like because they own 'copyrights'. (That was never what copyright was meant to accomplish, but that's what it's turning into.)

Consumer rights? Ever heard of those? Because we are willingly giving corporations the ability to walk all over us, and ignore all of the rights we used to have...

If they lose, consumers can just blindly impose on companies. Costumer is always right...isn't he?

Pretty much.
Not that it means piracy becomes any more legal, but consider how many rights we've lost, or compare the amount of rights you have for say, a fridge, or even a TV, then compare that to what companies get away with when it's a 'computer'.

Why is it I can't return a PC game when it doesn't work?

Why is it for that matter, that a PC that doesn't work reliably can't be returned, when consumer rights laws actually say you can return something 5 years old irrespective of warranty or not.

Point is, we've already lost so many consumer rights (or don't even realise we have them) that we shouldn't be encouraging companies to go even further.

Could that result in things swinging too far back the other way?
Yes.

But corporations have gotten to the point that what they're doing these days really just taking the piss.

 

[Fenring]

Just speculating, but I think Sony is out for Hotz's computers so they can copy his PS3 jialbreak SDK then implement a patch to negate it completely. It does make sense in that context.

Supposedly it's already been patched up. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-new-firmware-resecures-ps3

 

[Kaymish]

i really hope sony wins because if they dont it will lead to the console game designers stacking up PC style DRM to protect them selves from the script kiddy pirates that sony will be powerless to stop and we will end up having to lease the next generation of consoles
the legal precedent is bad but if geohot wins its worse since we the law abiding consumer get screwed over by arsehole pirates cracking and hacking the protections make games fun rather than an exercise in futility with speed and wall hacks in MFPS's or what else in other genres

 

[Starke]

No, because SONY would be DESTORYED if they found out that SONY looked at the computer files for any other reason. The risk simply isn't worth the money they're throwing into this, or the trouble they are going through. Plus, if the court rules in favor of Hotz, then what? They lose, and they can't protect themselves from this jail breaking anyways.

Honestly... what?

The reason Sony is fighting this so fiercely is because if it's revealed they deliberately mislead the court their case is basically screwed. Particularly on the subject of jurisdiction. Any Danish court will toss them out on their ass, as will, and probably any EU court for that matter, because they already tried to poach the case out of their jurisdiction.

Anything beyond that and you're kidding yourself. Remember, most gamers don't follow game relevant media at all. But anything short of Nokia winning it's patent case against the PS3 and ending Sony's ability to distribute the PS3 to the western hemisphere, none of this will have a serious effect on sales.

 

[Danpascooch]

personally, I think They're going to bleed down his expenses till he cant fight back regardless. All this extra time Hotz's lawyers have to cut through bureaucracy is costing him money and unlike with sony... this is eventually going to run out.

aren't there laws against doing that though?

Fuck that, he already has tons of donations for his legal fees, and if he starts to run dry I plan to contribute myself, because this is complete bullshit.

They can't stall the courts decision forever, donations are going to lead Geohotz to the win!

Exactly this, every penny I had saved up to buy a replacement PS3 before this war started? It's going to GeoHotz when he re-opens donations.

Sony burnt me when they sold me a feature that THEY showcased with the "Other OS" option only to rip it from me claiming piracy. **** Sony.

Yeah, let's see Sony try to stop people from donating legal fees, you know they will, but they have no basis for it.

 

[Defense]

Isn't Nintendo doing similar things by suing R4 companies?

Either way, I still think Sony is in the right. I can understand how removing features may irritate some people, but GeoHot unlocked almost all of Sony's keys, and he publicly released the code. I doubt Sony would've cared about him if he kept the code to himself.

personally, I think They're going to bleed down his expenses till he cant fight back regardless. All this extra time Hotz's lawyers have to cut through bureaucracy is costing him money and unlike with sony... this is eventually going to run out.

aren't there laws against doing that though?

Fuck that, he already has tons of donations for his legal fees, and if he starts to run dry I plan to contribute myself, because this is complete bullshit.

They can't stall the courts decision forever, donations are going to lead Geohotz to the win!

Exactly this, every penny I had saved up to buy a replacement PS3 before this war started? It's going to GeoHotz when he re-opens donations.

Sony burnt me when they sold me a feature that THEY showcased with the "Other OS" option only to rip it from me claiming piracy. **** Sony.

Honest question, did you ever once use OtherOS on your PS3?
(By the way, you got a choice in whether you wanted to upgrade or not.)

Corporations only look out for themselves. That's all they will ever do. That's all they're interested in - its own power, keeping it and expanding it whenever possible. The same can be said of all governments. So, in this case, and in all similar cases - fuck Sony.

Oh my god, a company is trying to make money. They're so evil.

 

[gundamrx101]

You know, if he didn't ditribute the rootkey none of this would have been happening. People would still be able to mod their consoles in peace and neither him nor Sony would be bickering. I may not support him (considering the user agreement states that the console is ours, the software isn't because Sony is suppling it) but neither of them are right. Sony is overstepping and he's a s*** disturber.

 

[Valanthe]

I haven't been following the case very closely, and so I've been relying on things like Wikipedia to catch me up and explain the language, so please, correct me if I'm wrong.

The way I understand it, Hotz is 'guilty' of creating and distributing a Jailbreak for the PS3. The way I understand it, is that jailbreaking is something a person does to allow themselves to write personal code for the system, such as installing Linux to it or something equally beyond my grasp of comprehension. Basically the same, as Medic-with-Shotgun above me put it, as reprogramming my microwave to play Yakkity Sax.

I was always under the impression that once you had legally purchased something, it was yours to do with/break/hack/explode/resell in any way you please and that while certain actions carried consequences (using hacks in multiplayer games gets you banned) the company wasn't allowed to interfere with your choice use of said product. Unless of course George is using software/hardware he -didn't- aquire legally, then all bets are off. Ugh, I'm giving myself a headache, ignorance truly is bliss.

 

[MorphingDragon]

OtherOS wasn't even anything special on the PS3

Are you kidding? OtherOS made history's cheapest supercomputer. It was used to break and further fortify SSL. How is that nothing special!?

 

[murphy7801]

I personally think he's in the right generally...but I also think he's probably breached the SDK agreement and is looking to wiggle out of it by knowing that no one ever roots for the corporation.

I've noticed that this kind of person in the software world tends to be very utilitarianistic, he's done whatever he had to to achieve his admittedly laudable end. Yes, he was perfectly within the law to change his hardware's functionality but if we're honest he probably did illegal things in order to achieve his goal.

Think your failing to understand even what battle is about mere modification of a companies software then release on to the web is fairly serious criminal act in the grand scheme things. Hardware really has nothing to do with it.