Geohot Gives Remaining Legal Funds To EFF
from the not-gone-to-waste dept
When George Hotz (Geohot) settled the lawsuit Sony had filed against him for jailbreaking the PS3 in order to restore a feature that Sony had taken away (despite advertising it), many were upset. Part of the reason people were upset was that he had asked for donations, and insisted that he would fight Sony until the end. Those people wanted to know what would happen to the money they donated. Geohot has now said he's donating the remaining cash to the EFF, which hopefully will satisfy those who were upset over that aspect. As I said earlier, unless you've been subject to a lawsuit from a giant company, it's tough to sit there and criticize a guy for settling, rather than fighting to the end. The legal system is set up such that it's a stacked deck against the little guy, so as disappointing as it may be not to get a full ruling out of this, it's hard to fault Geohot.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, money, ps3
Companies: eff, sony
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That being said, I'm also a happy player of DCUO. Sony's not all bad, but I'm upset enough about PS3 not supporting the Other OS that I won't own one. I also won't own another VAIO but that's because I wasn't happy with the one I owned and all its hardware issues. That being said, my uncle purchased the same model and my little brother used it until it was about 9 years old and that isn't all that bad for an early P4 Desktop. (Totally useless, I know. Sorry.)
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Then perhaps those who were being begged upon should have taken the first step?
GeoHotz donated $10,000 to the EFF. Ten. Thousand.
If you think this is any amount of money to fight against a corporation like Sony, you are the fool.
GeoHotz didn't even have enough funding to start the first round, let alone the battle.
By the way: how much did you contribute?
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Its also hard to fault those who want their money back.
If the system its designed to smash the little guy, dont mess with the system! and if you do, dont ask money, its no use!
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Geohot is one guy. I'm sure when this started, he felt he was in the right. Since he lives in the land of the free, he figured he could fight this - even if it was David vs. Goliath. So, he asked people to help - because he was, in some ways, fighting THEIR fight as well.
Sometime between then and now, he came to understand just how big of a mountain he was trying to climb, he looked at the step stool donated to him, and Sony offered to settle on terms he could live with.
There is fighting the good fight, and then there is bankrupting yourself in a matter of months in a losing battle.
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As far as I'm concerned, that takes way more balls than I would ever have. I can't fault the guy at all.
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So say I got $100,000 to fight a lawsuit. I fight it and lose with $5,000 left over. The judgement against me is for $300,000 but I can only afford to pay $50,000 out of my own money. Can the law demand that I now turn over the remaining $5,000 donated money over to the plaintiff, or can I legally give it to some charitable organization of my choice first and pay the remaining non-donated $50,000 that I do have while figuring out some potential payment plan for the rest (or declaring bankruptcy). How does the law work here?
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Donation
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where's my refund, Sony?
It's like a car dealer coming back to me three years after I bought my car, taking the spare tire back, and telling me that I can't get another one.
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The end...really.
Well, the settlement is technically the end of the court battle...so I would say he kept his promise. =]
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the other thing is...
In effect Geohot got what he wanted because now dozens (if not HUNDREDS) of people can happily work on restoring other OS functionality and there is exactly zippo that Sony can do to stop it.......
Welcome to the Information Age Sony, you're kinda late......
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also
Its like a father cooking his kids a healthy breakfast, then getting annoyed when they actually dare to ENJOY it instead of complaining about the muesli....
Yay! for George Hotz for helping to expose Sonys TRUE feelings toward the rest of humanity......
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Death to the Brand!
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