Sony's PS3 Lawsuit Is About Control, Not Piracy

from the can't-let-go dept

Wed, Feb 23rd 2011 7:40am — Mike Masnick

As GeoHot/George Hotz continues to fight his legal battle against Sony for daring to restore functionality to Sony PS3s that Sony had deleted, he's apparently been able to raise a bunch of money for his legal fund through donations. That's nice to see. He's also put up this amusing (and seriously NSFW) rap about the lawsuit: Seems like he didn't need copyright as an incentive to create that one, huh? Anyway, what struck me as the most prescient statement in the linked article above, however, was this line:

"Sony tried to sue a guy for getting his AIBO to do non-Sony approved tricks, making it apparent that they don�t really care about piracy, they care about control."

We actually wrote about Sony's response to AIBO hacks a decade ago, and it's absolutely true. Copyright is supposed to be about incentives to create. But it's generally been twisted into a tool for control against "stuff we don't like."

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: control, copyright, geohot, ps3
Companies: sony

22 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Spaceboy (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 7:46am

It's always been about control with Sony. And questionable legal tactics are nothing new either. Anyone remember what Sony did to Bleem?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem!

Sony sued them into bankruptcy even though Sony lost every lawsuit against them. They will try the same tactic with Geohot.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2011 @ 7:49am

Geohot might do himself a favor by not putting up stuff that could get dragged into court of show his ill intent.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
:Lobo Santo (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 7:56am

Re:
Comment think I not wording advance thought proof-reading elk silt pie.

;-P
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2011 @ 7:59am

Re: Re:
manure eating you like.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
CarlWeathersForPres (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:00am

Mike,
How many IP lawsuits aren't about control of your product?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
:Lobo Santo (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:08am

Re: Re: Re:
Ooooh, tetchy!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dave (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:14am

And yet Sony is involved with AllVid
What I don't get is how Sony can constantly pull stunts like this, from the rootkit fiasco on down, yet latch on to AllVid and demand that cable companies open up their services to 3rd-party boxes. Seems like Sony is just asking big cable to cede control over to them, rather than actually "be more open." How can you trust a request to be more open from Sony?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
el_segfaulto (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:15am

Re:
Oh snap! I just put together a series of videos on how to do network penetration testing using some packet sniffing tools and common sense! Now I'll be responsible for everything anybody ever does with this...in perpetuity! Tell my girlfriend to water my plants.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dark Helmet (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:16am

Huh...
Color me a little bit surprised, but that nerdy white boy can flow....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The eejit (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:32am

Re: And yet Sony is involved with AllVid
Sony rolled a natural 1 on their Irony check.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2011 @ 9:21am

Re: Re: And yet Sony is involved with AllVid
"Sony rolled a natural 1 on their Irony check."

The geek is strong with this one......
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PRMan, 23 Feb 2011 @ 9:51am

Re:
"I'm just trying to put Other OS back, Sony sued me. Some guy made his robot dog do tricks, Sony sued him. I'm just trying to own my own stuff." (Paraphrase)

Yeah, real ill intent there.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2011 @ 9:52am

Re: Re:
It's an admission of guilt, no?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Gwiz (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 10:10am

Re: Huh...
*** searches through crayon box looking for color "Surprised" ***

Must be an extinct color, like "Indian Red" or "Flesh"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2011 @ 11:45am

There's a Sony fanboi here trying to defend Sony's hatred of consumer rights!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
HothMonster, 23 Feb 2011 @ 11:48am

Re: Re: Re:
There is doubt that he made the code. The question is whether or not it was illegal for him to do so.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 12:44pm

Re: Re: Re:
It's an admission of guilt, no?
Guilty of speaking in Gracechurch St.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TryLearnSomething, 23 Feb 2011 @ 12:50pm

Sony own the software the consumers don't.
The software license (EULU) states that Sony can remove the other os feature.
Too bad.
Don't like it?
Guess what it's stated on the back on the box when you buy it.
Don't like it?
Too bad go buy a computer and quite whining over a OS,
and remember YOU DON'T OWN THE SOFTWARE yea yea you own the hardware but not the software.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Gwiz (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 1:22pm

Re:
and remember YOU DON'T OWN THE SOFTWARE yea yea you own the hardware but not the software.

What is kind of ironic about your statement is that the "Other OS" being used in a lot of cases is GPL/Linux which is software expressly licensed to allow you to modify it as you see fit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
athe, 23 Feb 2011 @ 4:37pm

Re:
Problem is that their enforcement of the EULA in this manner contravenes consumer protection laws in some countries... You can't advertise that a product does something and then take that away.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
G Thompson (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 7:54pm

Re: Re:
Exactly, which is why the EULA is voidable in places such as Europe, South America, Australia, New Zealand, SE Asia. etc etc.

America is the only major country where consumers are not protected. isn't capitalism great! ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 5:14pm

Re: Re: Re:
So much for sensible criticism of capitalism.
[ link to this | view in thread ]