GeoHot Claims Sony Is Misleading the Courts in PS3 Legal Battle

[ThisIsSnake]

The way some people talk it sounds like this OtherOS feature, that I never touched, cures cancer and gives you a real life pokemon. Sony loves cancer and hates pokemon so after twirling his mousetache and killing some of his puppy/kitten hybrids with a half brick he snatches it from the valiant internet knights.

One of these internet knights doesn't take that kind of crap from anyone and decides enough is enough. In order to restore the cancer curing, pikachu producing crystal he kills the monstrous ogre Rute Quay and rips the crystal from his fiery belly of horrors.

He parades around the city holding the crystal high in the air while the citizens cheer and celebrate, but all is not over yet, deep in his fortress built out of copies of mein kampf Sony is watching him through the orb of Sarakan.

He dispatches his best men, the great and terrible Stone Dragons of Ko Pi Reye't. Sir George responds by seeking the ruins of Nilus Nilus, after braving crocodile pits and time based lever puzzles he arrives in the antechamber.

The ghost of Nilus Nilus himself appears to him and produces a contract, he offers Sir George a dark and evil deal, his own stone dragon army to fight Sony with. The drawback of this offer is, every time the dragons are called to fight Sir George must sacrifice a jar of blood to Nilus. Faced with the prospect of being bled dry by Nilus, he has no choice but to accept.

The battle will surely live on forever in the minds of the people. Sony dons his sleek black armour and lifts his tremendous blue sword of Rey and cries out in a voice that cracks the very sky itself in two and rallies his Stone Dragon army, Sir George is doing the same. A battle of the ages is set to take place.

But then the two start arguing over whether they should fight in New York or California.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Seriously, people...

...I'm running out of popcorn for this...

Seconded.

I'm sick of this shit.

I'd want Sony to win if it means I don't have to listen to people argeuing over what is or is not OK.

 

[Firia]

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

From the sounds of this post, it sounds like you may not be aware what is at state. Both sides are not entirely on the right side of morality, but Geohot is legally posing a matter which could be sited in court battles for years, and become a legal ground for businesses like Sony, Microsoft, or any provider of electronic goods. That legal matter is legal ownership.

Yes, Geohot did some pirating. That's not even up for debate. However, his counter case is that this PS3 is his property, and he can do what he wants with goods he bought with his own money. Sonys case is that Geohot broke a terms of agreement (which is not a legal document, by the way), giving them the right to sue those that do, such as Geohot now, in the future.

This case is setting the grounds for ownership of goods you buy, and what you're allowed to do with these goods. Personally, if I by something like a dvd player, and I monkey around in there and find a way to upgrade it into a blu-ray player, that is my prerogative. If Sony wins, then that will be a matter that is up for legal debate (especially if I turned around and posted it online so others could emulate my technique).

 

[BabyRaptor]

Sony petitioned the caught for permission to search Hotz's computers for evidence of the SDK.

Methinks that should be "petitioned the court."

 

[Balimaar]

Just a gentle reminder people, just because something CAN be used illegally doesnt necessarily make that thing illegal.

 

[sb666]

ignore my post i dont want to be flamed

 

[BabyRaptor]

I find it despicable that there are people on this forum that are rooting for the big faceless corporation involved in this. Can you honestly say that you wouldn't be scared by the legal precedent set by Sony's victory in this case would do to the average consumer?
'Don't do things we don't like or we'll go Big Brother on your ass'
Personally I'd love to see one of these corporations that act like they control the world get taken down a notch...or twenty.

They're just so anti-piracy that they can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[MikeyW]

Question, if Geohotz had completely wiped his ps3 and wrote his own OS to run on it without any trace of Sony's software, would there be a problem? Because the hardware is bought by him and he owns it, but the software is a different matter entirely.

I ask because Sony has never worried about case modders and hardware upgrades like making PS3 laptops and such

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

[sup]And absolutely no one, no one, has ever explained to me what constitutes as mother-fucking Advertising. I still see people claim "Sony advertised Other OS, it's false advertising!" but I've never seen the feature mentioned except in the manual. Is that seriously advertising? And wouldn't they not be advertising it now?[/sup]

mentioning in the instruction manual does not constitute as advertising, basic rule of thumb is it only constitutes as advertising when it is a paid presentation designed specifically to influence someone into buying/agreeing to something*, and as that wasn't the case here, i'd say it wasn't advertised and all claims that 'otherOS' was are unsubstansiated until proven otherwise with actual hard evidence that it was advertised


* now before anyone starts yelling, "what if you read the manual from someone elses PS3?" irrelevant, as all instruction manuals are written in the context that the reader had already purchased said item, and thus cannot be a paid presentation designed to influence your decision as you would find out any information in said manual after the fact.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Question, if Geohotz had completely wiped his ps3 and wrote his own OS to run on it without any trace of Sony's software, would there be a problem? Because the hardware is bought by him and he owns it, but the software is a different matter entirely.

I ask because Sony has never worried about case modders and hardware upgrades like making PS3 laptops and such

Sony's big deal is that his mod used the basic firmware that Sony wrote for the PS3, and then modified it. That's what the case is about.

 

[Keava]

Love the US legal system, where it matters more which judge in which state takes the case than actual issue at hand. I really hope this ends bad for Sony and they, as well as all other console manufacturers loose the right to strictly control what end-user does with their won product they bought.
Want to have full control over your prodcuts Sony, stop selling them, switching to leasing, else it's not your business what i do in my house with that pile of cables, silicon and plastic i paid for. Control of manufacturer ends on the services they provides. You can ban people form PSN as much as you like if they modded their hardware but legal actions are a joke.

Hopefully this case will end the EULA nonsense. Quasi-legal agreements that you can't read before paying for a product should never be considered valid argument in courts and no company should ever have any influence over what you do with a product you legally -own-.

EDIT: By the way. I wonder. Since many EULA pop-ups appear on installation/Start-up of software/hardware, what if someone did not ever click Accept and modded the EULA out of the product? Would they still be breaching EULA despite never agreeing to it?

 

[spuddyt]

By this stage Hotz has set his drive to 0's, put a titanium drill through his HD, shoved a magnet across it and thrown it in an incinerator.

Even if Sony does get access to his computer, they won't find sweet jack all at this point.

I'm totally sure he wouldn't be found guilty based on the evidence that he has clearly been hiding relevant evidence. That would be the derpiest thing he could do.

 

[Reed Spacer]

This complaint seems to hinge on the exact wording of the PS3 Software Developer Kit. According to Sony, if it found the SDK on Hotz's computer, that would prove the connection between Hotz and California - where SCE America is based - and would thus settle any dispute over jurisdiction. Sony petitioned the caught for permission to search Hotz's computers for evidence of the SDK.

You misspelt court in the second paragraph. Damn homonyms!

Not necessarily:

This here problem seems to hinge on the truth of them's words for that there PS3 Softyware Developers Kit thingy. Sony dun'say if it finds it, maybe as one o' dem interbanet files, it would show Hotz and could be tried in Caiforny, cause they'd have juridistiction. Sony dun asked the judge and his caught to check this boy's computationer fror evidens evida proof.

 

[Nachtmahr]

Why do people keep bringing up the "consumer owns the hardware, they can do with it whatever they want" thing. It's irrelevant. This case is not about hardware. It's about GeoHot distributing something that was not his right to distribute. Where, when you buy a PS3, does it say that you may hack it and put security keys all over the internet? Seriously, where?

 

[Nachtmahr]

I am retarded? Why should Sony not care that some douche-bag hacker just released their security key all over the internet? There is no law saying that GeoHot should be allowed to do that. He could have hacked away in peace if he hadn't spread it around. Sony cares about his unlawful releasing of information.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Why do people keep bringing up the "consumer owns the hardware, they can do with it whatever they want" thing. It's irrelevant. This case is not about hardware. It's about GeoHot distributing something that was not his right to distribute. Where, when you buy a PS3, does it say that you may hack it and put security keys all over the internet? Seriously, where?

Seriously are you actually retarded? Why. The. HELL. Should sony be able to tell me what I do with MY STUFF.

Did you make the security key? No. Did you make the firmware (the software on the console)? No. Are you the one that upgrades the firmware? No. Therefore you don't own it. It's not your root key to distibute because you didn't make it. You're not a softare employee at Sony so you don't own any aspect of the software that runs on the PS3. You don't own the Playstasion Network when you access it. You don't own the serers for online gaming.

You should learn how things work before you call people retarded while looking stupid.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

First he says he's a freedom fighter, now he's crying about Sony's lawyers doing their job. He may have his legal fees paid but that doesn't mean he has good lawyers. Especially not compared to the guys Sony's money has access to. He broke the law, plain and simple.

Gotta love the people who hate the big corporation because they read some quotes by Che Guevera and think their cool.

 

[Pendragon9]

Geohot is a disgusting example of a hacker/pirate that I hope loses. I frankly don't care what dangerous legal precedent this sets. I refuse to support such a person.

So rather than innocent until proven guilty and justice, you'd rather have the courts set a legal precedent that we as consumers own neither the console we play the games on or the games themselves, simply because you don't like George Hotz?

I'm really glad you're in the minority on this one.

Yes, I'd rather that happen. The alternative is hackers like Geohot having free reign in all online and offline games, hacking as they please and having no legal recourse.

Better a corporate monarchy than a pirate anarchy, simply because I hate pirates with a passion.