Sony Settles PS3 Jailbreaking Lawsuit Against Geohot
from the perhaps-it-was-getting-too-hot dept
Sony has been getting widely slammed across the gaming and tech press for its bizarre and self-destructive lawsuit against George Hotz (Geohot), for jailbreaking the PS3 in order to re-enable a feature that Sony had long-advertised, but then deleted off of people's existing PS3s. The entire lawsuit made little sense, and Sony's quixotic attempt to continue to pursue it just got more and more bizarre, with the company even seeking and gaining access to the IP addresses of people visiting his website or watching the YouTube video he put up. However, it appears that the two sides have now settled their lawsuit, with Geohot agreeing to an injunction of some sort that apparently bars him from helping make PS3s more valuable in the future. Congrats, Sony, you've made your gaming devices less valuable. Quite a legal "victory" there...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.
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Filed Under: geohot, george hotz, hacking, ps3
Companies: sony
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Win!!
*Where win = a bunch of lawyers got paid.
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Re: Win!!
At least the lawyers got fed.
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Re: Win!!
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Win for Microsoft
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Re: Win for Microsoft
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Re: Win for Microsoft
And before anyone says "But the Wii is..." Just stop. I'm older than 12.
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Re: Re: Win for Microsoft
ftfy
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Re: Re: Re: Win for Microsoft
I have one. Two, in fact. The wife uses it for the Wii Fit stuff, the kids play play 'em for their games, and I love the Super Mario Brothers, Smash Brothers, and MarioKart.
When I want some good M rated gaming, I go to the PC - forever the haven of a) great players, b) hardware that can keep up with the games (and vice versa), and anti-hacking mods. Plus, I can keep the kids out of the games, and, not play in a common area.
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Re: Win for Microsoft
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Re: Re: Re: Win for Microsoft
"If only the DRM, and the firmware, and the network, and... and... ad infinitum would let you use your legally purchased hardware to do what you want with it..."
Sure, there's lots of instances of oddities in DRM on the PC... But the most common issue I hear is somebody was doing something they weren't supposed to, got busted, and lost their account.
But... Here's the beauty, of some things like Steam... I can put my saves "in the cloud". I can play any of my games on ANY of my PCs (not at the same time), and I don't need to carry discs with me. I don't hack/cheat. I haven't had a single problem yet. Not like when the wife would misplace game discs on me.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Win for Microsoft
"If only the DRM, and the firmware, and the network, and... and... ad infinitum would let you use your legally purchased hardware to do what you want with it...""
All of that relates to PC games (hardware/driver updates, patches are required for online play as well as server access, etc.). But I've never had a console try to prevent me from playing a single player game because I was offline at the time - which some PC DRM does as a matter of course.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no kind of console fanboy. But generally speaking you have less expense and less problems with console gaming.
"But the most common issue I hear is somebody was doing something they weren't supposed to, got busted, and lost their account."
Funny, the most common thing I hear about is spyware infecting your machine (hosing it completely in extreme cases) and not allowing you to play even a single player game if you're not online.
No system's perfect, but the DRM crap put me off PC gaming a long time ago, along with the constant need to upgrade. Not to mention having to hack my legal property to play an installed game if my laptop and my discs were in different countries at the time, or the old game was just in a box somewhere.
It's been a good thing generally - I was never an RTS player, and not a hardcore FPS player so I just get games I like on 360/PS3 and don't have to worry about whether it will work by design or DRM failure. This has also allowed me to move everything I do outside of work on to Mac and Linux...
Steam's great, and I do have a couple of games on my Mac. But, I don't miss PC gaming at all. A shame that some people use mentions of consoles as a chance to act all fanboy (witness the mention of a Wii and its reaction elsewhere in this thread). I own all 3 current gen consoles, a PC, and iPhone and a Mac. It's only the PC that I don't use for any kind of gaming. Your opinion may differ, and that's fine, but no need to sell me on the benefits or otherwise of your preferred system.
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I can understand Geohot wanting to get out of the courtroom though and I can't fault him for taking what sounds like a pretty sweet settlement (basically, don't do it anymore, at least until the PS4 comes out).
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Re:
Sounds like political BS to me.
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I found it humorous because most of the commentators portray Sony as the best thing since sliced bread and GeoHot as satan's right hand man.
As far as I can tell, all GeoHot did was utilize his right to reverse engineer a product he had purchased in order to restore functionality that was taken away.
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* Does it only apply to his previously published work?
* Does it apply to PS3 modifications in general?
* Does it apply to modifying any Sony products in general?
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Re: Re:
The official document basically states that he is not to attempt to gain "unauthorized access" to *any* Sony product - nor assist others in doing so.
He has also updated his personal blog stating that he now is boycotting all Sony products, so I would guess he intends to never touch one again as a result of this injunction.
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So as long as he publishes anonymously, it's all good. =P
He has also updated his personal blog stating that he now is boycotting all Sony products
I stumbled across a well-reviewed product just today that I was thinking about buying, but then recoiled when I realized it was Sony-produced. No more for me. They're on my shit-list with Creative now.
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Passed on Sony
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Re: Passed on Sony
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Re: Passed on Sony
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Re: Passed on Sony
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I was at Fry's over the weekend...
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Clueless
Managers go to Management retreats and ask 2 questions.
1. How can we get more work for less money from employees.
2. Why is employee morale so low?
Whatever advantage they gain in the sort term, is outweighed that some more open and thus innovative platform will surpass them in the future.
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erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70
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Now Sony can demand the IP addresses of everyone that visits Techdirt!
Gotta get out of here... gotta lay low for a while... maybe change my name and flee to Vegas, disappear off the map for a bit... can't let Sony get me....
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PSX-Scene has documents
http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/settlement-george-hotz-case-84881/
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Looks like a win for GeoHot
I saw nothing on my quick read about him having to take back the things he published; he just cannot distribute them anymore.
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Re: Looks like a win for GeoHot
As for the actual settlement, apparently the details are confidential. Per geohot's blog, he cannot discuss them, but assures people that he has fought for their rights.
I guess time will tell, or a leak ;)
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Re: Looks like a win for GeoHot
I'm not sure I'd call that a "win" exactly...
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Geohot
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Re: Geohot
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Makes sense, but is still fubar!
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Re: Makes sense, but is still fubar!
This was true in the beginning, but I believe since even before the slim was released, Sony was making some profit on each console sold. Don't remember the exact numbers though.
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Makes sense, but is still fubar!
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Anonymous ....
It amuses me that Anonymous is a bunch of do gooding, evil hunting, ally to good, nightmare to scum bag corporate types.
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